Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Truman was pro-labor, pro-union, and proved that it worked by instigating many of these policies via the Marshall Plan in Germany and Japan.
What would dropping bombs on the Middle East accomplish?
Hmmm. Check out Youngstown Tube and Sheet v. Sawyer. Truman wanted to break a strike by drafting the steel workers into the armed forces and ordering them back to work. The Supreme Court, in the decision I cited, told him he couldn't.
As for the last sentence in the extract I took from your post, I could not agree more. Truman resisted great pressure and did not use the atomic bomb in Korea. What a good call that was. If he had, the A-bomb would have become "just another weapon" and we'd all be living in a different, worse, and significantly more radioactive world.
Truman was in no way a moderate. By today's standards, he was a radical leftie. Remember that it was Truman who tried to nationalize the trucking industry. It was Truman who tried to bring a national, government-run health care system to the US. ("Communism!" cried the righties.) Truman was pro-labor, pro-union, and proved that it worked by instigating many of these policies via the Marshall Plan in Germany and Japan.
What would dropping bombs on the Middle East accomplish?
I think that is a very important distinction when trying to figure out where someone stands on the political spectrum. By today's standards, "center" is far more right than where it used to be. By today's standards, FDR would be considered a totally off-the-wall, unhinged leftist pinko Today's standards make Goldwater look moderate.
Politics is compromise. It's what allows a government to weather change. Government by immutable, unchangeable, uncompromising "values" is exactly what ran Lenin's brainchild into a sandbar. If the world were black & white, right & wrong as you propose, there would be no need for politics. A one party state would be just fine. In fact, parties wouldn't be necessary. One monarch with a clear grasp of the obvious would rule benevolently above us all. How would that work for you?
American political history is populated by moderates. D.D. Eisenhower, Geo. Washington, T. Roosevelt, to name a few.
And let's not forget greatest moderate of all, A. Lincoln. Too bad J. Davis and his cornpone Taliban had such radical slaveholding "values".
Need more?
What is your version of a moderate?
The Liberals would like a one party system just fine. They are for more government especially picking your pocket, Republicans are suppose to be for less government.
Truman was in no way a moderate. By today's standards, he was a radical leftie. Remember that it was Truman who tried to nationalize the trucking industry. It was Truman who tried to bring a national, government-run health care system to the US. ("Communism!" cried the righties.) Truman was pro-labor, pro-union, and proved that it worked by instigating many of these policies via the Marshall Plan in Germany and Japan.
What would dropping bombs on the Middle East accomplish?
Maybe he's a moderate in lefty standards.
More bombs would accomplish more than we are accomplishing now. It worked in the past, it's better than asking the terrorist for help. What is your opinion of that? Do you think we should sit down and ask for help from someone who thinks the Holocaust never existed?
The Liberals would like a one party system just fine. They are for more government especially picking your pocket, Republicans are suppose to be for less government.
A moderate is the antithesis of a radical. One who is able to negotiate, measure the inputs of others, and make sober decisions based on input from many sides. In other words, a statesman.
A radical, on the other hand, sees the world in stark black & white terms. Their vision of the world is the truth, and that's that. No room for compromise, no admission of being wrong, no time for the better wisdom of others. Radicals in politics come and go, but rarely linger.
But no matter their political bent, left or right, radicals are all the same. Whether it's Rush or the Femi*****, they sound so alike to me I'd like to tell them to go get a room.
Last edited by FistFightingHairdresser; 12-07-2006 at 07:18 PM..
Where is the "center" of a political spectrum? It's wherever you define it because there's no such thing as this spectrum or a center. It's an abstract concept that people use to locate themselves in an imaginary 1-dimensional world of memes.
Whoever owns the word "moderate" is usually who is in power. Conservatives have owned it for a while, redefining "liberal" to mean "bad", but now the word game will change a bit with recent electoral victories by moderate Democrats. Oops.... I just located them in imaginary 1-dimensional thought-space.
Anyone following this? No? OK, I'll go finish watching Constant Gardener. Had to take a break from it because it's so realistic it's like watching a docudrama. A very scary, depressing one.
Where is the "center" of a political spectrum? It's wherever you define it because there's no such thing as this spectrum or a center. It's an abstract concept that people use to locate themselves in an imaginary 1-dimensional world of memes.
Whoever owns the word "moderate" is usually who is in power. Conservatives have owned it for a while, redefining "liberal" to mean "bad", but now the word game will change a bit with recent electoral victories by moderate Democrats. Oops.... I just located them in imaginary 1-dimensional thought-space.
Anyone following this? No? OK, I'll go finish watching Constant Gardener. Had to take a break from it because it's so realistic it's like watching a docudrama. A very scary, depressing one.
More bombs would accomplish more than we are accomplishing now. It worked in the past, it's better than asking the terrorist for help. What is your opinion of that? Do you think we should sit down and ask for help from someone who thinks the Holocaust never existed?
More bombs... there you go. Why didn't anyone else think of that?
The fact of the matter is that a huge part of what created this whole mess is Bush's policy of only talking to his friends. You don't do that- all that accomplishes is creating an echo chamber, which is a skill the necons are very gifted at, but in reality it's not a very useful or beneficial skill. Thus, all the input he received on Iraq from inception to now has been basically a bunch of guys telling him what he wanted to hear, and all the input he's received has been wronger than wrong (not poorly implemented- just flat-out, plain-old wrong). And because all that advice and information was pathetically wrong, we are now in a position of weakness. So yeah- like it or not, we do have to talk to Iran and Syria, especially now that we are not in the position of strength where we can pick and choose agendas.
I think it should be every neocon cheerleader's obligation to spend a month in the foreign country of their choice, where access to the mainstream US media is completely cut off. The only lens to the world would be through the media of their "host" country, and its people. I think that would open a lot of people's eyes to what the rest of the world thinks of this country right now, and open people's eyes to the fact that we do not own this planet, and that other countries matter, too.
A moderate is the antithesis of a radical. One who is able to negotiate, measure the inputs of others, and make sober decisions based on input from many sides. In other words, a statesman.
A radical, on the other hand, sees the world in stark black & white terms. Their vision of the world is the truth, and that's that. No room for compromise, no admission of being wrong, no time for the better wisdom of others. Radicals in politics come and go, but rarely linger.
But no matter their political bent, left or right, radicals are all the same. Whether it's Rush or the Femi*****, they sound so alike to me I'd like to tell them to go get a room.
How would you decribe Ronald Reagan? Moderate or radical?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Today's standards make Goldwater look moderate.
