Posted on 02/16/2009 5:12:51 AM PST by bogeybob
The Senior Senator from Maine.
My sis, the social worker, and a flaming pink lib, often asks me "Why is there so much corruption in the government?"
"What do you think it might be?"
"Money. There's too much money in politics."
"Where is the money coming from?"
"Rich people. And corporations." Note: no mention of liberal pressure groups, like NARAL, Sierra Club, etc.
"Why do you suppose they spend so much money on lobbying and the like?"
"To protect themselves from the people."
"No, darlin'. Not quite. It's to protect themselves from the government!"
"What do you mean?"
"If government has the power to destroy your business, aren't you kind of obligated to protect yourself and your business from the threat?"
"Hmmmmmph!" Never a direct response. "Still, what can be done to reduce all the corruption?"
"Easy. Reduce the size of government. When government ceases to be an existential threat to one's wealth or one's business, it won't be necessary to buy influence. Or pay extortion."
Change of subject...
Romney 1.0 was a fascinating possibility. A Republican Governor from one of the most Democratic states in the country is doing something right to appeal to Center Right Republicans as well as Independents. Romney 2.0 that pandered to the Agents of Intolerance should be recalled. While Mormons are under 2% of the population in CA, they played a disproportionate role in Prop8. The fallout from that remains to be seen. In addition, Meg Whitman, one of the three GOP candidates for Governor is a political protegee of Romney. Supposedly, she has a tie to the Mormon Church although she is not a Mormon. Again the fallout from Prop8 is still going on so it is impossible to guess the political ramifications. A real shame that Romney 1.0 can't be brought back.
I suggest you take a look through a history book with pictures of ‘Hoovervilles’. Read up on the bonus march and dust bowl. My Mother was sent to the orphanage for a couple of years when her parents could no longer provide for her and her sister... My Dad’s Father left the family in 1933 and my Dad saw him twice in his entire life. This is what Hoover thought...the greater society would take care of each others...family, charity etc...It did not work and millions out and out starved...Most people view the depression as a Walton rerun...it wasn’t.
And that also reads like a Wikipedia entry, those big bad Republicans vs. those wonderful compassionate Democrats. Wonderful compassionate Democrats who have been carrying out the Marxist plan to upend our country for most of the past century. Well, they did it. Congrats to them.
Why do you suppose Roosevelt was elected four times...I have read all the books and looked at the legislation enacted by both Roosevelt and Hoover...Hoover believed in helping corporations, banks etc...he believed the markets would correct, but they didn’t.
Yup. My grandmother was a flaming Socialist New Dealer supporter, unhinged rabid hatred and demogoguery of Republicans and Conservatives, most of her “facts” didn’t pass the smell test. She was a public school teacher.
You can look at what Hoover did...check out the steps he took...this is impervious to bias...check it out.
Isn’t the Democrat party good enough for them ? The GOP doesn’t need to be its twin by elevating more Socialist scum like Slick Willard and his nitwit sycophants like Meg Whitless.
Your Grandmother lived through the depression I assume, we did not. Thus, you should consider her opinion as an eye witness. What is wrong with being a teacher...I taught Science and Calculus for a number of years.
interesting what if. I think the Messiah college worshipers would have sat out the election. Hillary would have still carried the youth, but they would not have flocked to the polls in great numbers. NV, CO, VA, IN, and NC would be won by McCain. The election would be fought in OH and FL. McCain would not have picked Palin as Veep. Instead, Pawlenty would have been his running mate. With the financial crisis, Hillary would have won OH by double digits and clinched the White House. That's my take on the scenerio.
I don’t look at history though partisan eyes...I see the tragedy in Hoover, the man. He was a great philanthropist you know. His policies just didn’t work...Roosevelt’s policies didn’t always work either...but he kept people going during the bad times and saved us from fascism and communism unlike Europe. Sometimes that’s all you can do- get through one day at a time during such times.
1932. Bad economy, people blamed the incumbent, Hoover.
1936 FDR had bought off enough groups that even though the Depression within the Depression had started he had the groups and the GOP was in general disarray from its prior shellacking.
1940 Nation gears up for the war, starts supplying the Allies, war is on the horizon (Wilikie had a shot had it been an earlier election)
1944 mid-war, dicey time to change trains
1948 Truman, close call win - good strategy and negative campaign on his part.
Of course one could argue that the GOP was still somewhat in disarray in 1940 that they went with so recent a former Democrat as Wilkie.
Or I could offer a simpler explanation: At a time when America wanted a dictator, it got the closest to one that we have produced to date.
Absolutely untrue. If you insist on this nonsense, cite a source.
Impervious to bias ? Nothing online or in a book is “impervious to bias.” You seem to be in denial about the damage FDR did, in the short and long term. We’re also still waiting on the documentation about the 14 million dead thanks to Hoover. That’s the kind of ludicrous nonsense my grandmother used to spew. Congrats to FDR and his Socialists for creating a welfare state that grows with each passing year and the breeding of dependence and diminishment of personal initiative and personal responsibility. Yup, fantastic, and turning Black people into slaves again and wards of the Democrat party. Bravo. I mean how can you go wrong with this guy ?
My grandmother lived through it and believed in MASSIVE government intervention and other abhorrant social values I’ll not repeat here. She knew my positions (for which she helped shape — in OPPOSITION) and used to berate President Reagan in the ugliest of terms. She relied on emotion and FALSEHOODS, which I used to refute regularly, on arguing politics. She harbored such a pathological hatred for Republicans that she denied the party affiliation of her own cousin, who was the most famous Mayor in the history of St. Louis and who ran for the U.S. Senate in 1932 (and got more votes than Hoover did in a state he carried in ‘28).
Just like with any profession, you have good and you have bad. I had a lot of teachers more interested in hammering away ideology and lies into childrens heads. Democrats = Good, Republicans = Evil. These people had no business teaching children, and that included my grandmother. Teaching lies and hatred as such IS evil. It’s brainwashing, and comes right out of the Communist manifesto’s plan of action with turning generation after generation away from what our Founding Fathers created. The coronation of the False Messiah is their crowning achievement.
Then Jefferson turned right around and used them to defeat the Barbary Pirates.
True, the odds were against us, but that begs the question of what “da yout” would have done. I think Hillary would not have come close to half what Obama got in the 18-24 range.
As I said, the only thing I give credit for is Roosevelt’s war policies (but he even had to bring in old-school Republicans), but one wonders how much more efficiently the GOP could’ve waged war once underway. But his capitulation to Stalin at Yalta was where his “good leadership” in that regard halted for good. FDR stayed longer than he ever should’ve. But knowing what I know now, I’d still have voted Republican in every one of those elections, even for subpar candidates. If Dewey had been elected in ‘44, we’d have been better off (and with his Conservative GOP VP, Bricker, an able-bodied successor for Dewey).
Truman, btw, came from a corrupt political machine my cousin opposed in the same state, and it was appalling that Truman, and not my cousin, did not land in the Senate after the excellent job he did in running St. Louis for 12 years, one of its last great Republican leaders. He was a contemporary of FDR and Truman’s.
5.56mm
My Grandmother came from a big GOP family, she voted Dem in every election in the 30’s and 40’s her fear...the economy would decline and her family would be on the verge of starvation as in in 32 and 33. She voted for Eisenhower the war hero because she trusted him. It was a matter of trust. By allowing people to literally starve, Hoover destroyed the trust of the American people in Republicans...for 20 years. He wasn’t a bad man...but was no the man who could handle the depression...hopefully we are not seeing a repeat. It feels like 1932.
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