Posted on 07/23/2003 10:03:09 AM PDT by justshutupandtakeit
In Back to Basics for the Republican Party author Michael Zak (FR's distinguished patriot, Grand Old Partisian) undertakes the heroic and herculean task of clearing the name of the Republican Party from the thicket of lies, distortions and misrepresentations which has been cultivated by the Democrat/media alliance. Since any partisian argument in today's America must begin with the refutation of chronic and consistent lies told about the GOP, Zak's book provides the necessary ammunition to do just that.
This well-written, interesting and enjoyable tour of GOP history can be of use to any patriot who wants to know the truth about the histories of the two major parties. It traces the origins of the GOP to the proto-Republican, Alexander Hamilton, and the Federalists and that of the Democrat Party to its ancestors Jefferson, Clinton and Burr. A brief survery of Federalist and Whig antecedents and policies is sketched to give historic context to events. Since the GOP was created and grew in opposition to the policies and failures of the Democrat Party to extend the benefits of the Constitution to all Americans, that party's history is also examined.
And a sorry history it is. A story of treachery, short-sightedness, racism and economic ignorance unfolds as we see the Democrats consistently for 170+ years fight against allowing the Blacks a chance to achieve full freedom and economic success. Opposition to that fight has defined the best of the GOP's actions. Every advance in Civil Rights for Blacks has come from GOP initiatives and against Democrat opposition. Every setback for Blacks achieving constitutional protection has come from Democrat intitiatives and against GOP opposition. Racists have led the Democrats during most of their history, in sharp contrast to Republicans. All the evils visited against Black are of Democrat design. Democrats created and maintained the KKK, the Jim Crow laws, the Black Codes, it was Democrats lynching Blacks, beating Blacks, exploiting Blacks and perpetrating murderous riots which killed Blacks in
Zak rescues the reputation of the party from the slanders thrown against it during the Civil War and Reconstruction, many of which are popular around FR. He also clearly shows the mistaken disavowal of GOP principles which brought the modern party to its lowest state and allowed the demagogues of Democrats to paint the party as "racist." This was because of the disastrous turn to States' Rights which grew from the Goldwater campaign. It was the final straw in the process which transformed the share of the Black vote from 90-95% GOP to 90% democrat. A modern tragedy of immense proportions.
This is a book which should be studied carefully by Republicans in order to counter the barrage of Lies trumpeted daily by the RAT/media. While it is a work of a partisian, Back to Basics does not hesitate to point to GOP mistakes, failures and incompetence in carrying out its mission nor does it neglect to give Democrats credit when credit is due for actions which are productive of good for our nation as a whole. Unfortunately, those are far too few.
In order to effectively plan for the future we must be fully aware of the past, Zak helps us achieve that awareness.
Dissenters are welcome to flap their gums about any subject they wish where do you come up with the idea I would put them in concentration camps or kill them? Except from your fevered mind?
I would suggest that you reread my posts. I do not believe that I suggested anything about concentration camps! (Although such an institution certainly reflects a dogmatic intolerance for dissent.) The concept of the concentration camp, introduced by Great Britain in the Boer War, and employed by the National Socialists in Germany during World War II--and really by the Communists under other names, throughout their reign in Russia--is not the particular Nazi manifestation to which I referred in my comment on the similarity of your views to that of the Nazis.
Long before they started sytematically removing people in large blocks, they turned the German Federation of States with rich and differing cultural traditions--just as had the American States--into a single monolithic Reich. Anyone who dissented from that "accomplishment" was pilloried with invective, much as you pillory Conservatives with invective.
There is usually a period when a targetted group is isolated by such tactics, before anyone seeks to turn the invective into something more than ostracism--although the Bolsheviks got right down to out and out slaughter, on a scale not seen among European peoples in almost 300 years.
But, the bottom line is, that I have not suggested that you would go that far. I do not know or even suspect that you would. On the other hand, no one would have suspected that the millions of Germans, cheering Hitler's consolidation of Government in Germany in 1934, would want to take part in the adventures in brutality that followed September, 1939.
The fact is, no one can predict for certain where a movement, driven by hatred for dissent, will end up. The examples are legion, throughout history. But you dare to evoke the claim that the Constitution of these United States sought to establish just such a National monolith, as Hitler gave Germany--and that is utter and complete nonsense.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
I have no problem discussing mistakes or failures in his programs or ideas
Apparently, you do. Whenever someone even suggests that he might have been wrong, you denounce them as a traitor and an imbecile unable to understand the 'subtle complex ways of the mighty-friggin-H-man' who you can't stop adoring long enough to see that even Madison viewed H's leadership as an elected monarchy. Me rave on? Please.
Not some warmed over Jeffersonian lies.
i.e. to "understand the subtle complexity of his thought" one must accept that everything he said was Gospel while Jefferson spewed forth only lies and deceit. Right, step off the looney-meter before you break the thing.
You have never read of "infant industry protection?"
Yes, I have. Unfortunately, you said that protectionism applied to infant industry was "not protectionism" somehow. A clearly false statement. A capitalist can agree that protectionism may be used to foster competition, but would likely not subscribe to a theory that "some protectionism isn't protectionism" as you stated previously. Want me to read more? I will. Maybe you should learn how to write in the meantime.
Perhaps you are unaware that H's program and call for government intervention was specifically to repair an economy deliberately distorted by the Crown's colonial policies which did not allow the growth of industry. He had no wish for government intervention after that distortion was corrected.
Does your crystal ball also indicate when those protections would be lifted? I can help you out here: Never. Your acceptance of government intervention as the best method for 'correcting that distortion' is another matter which would normally be the subject of a worthwhile debate, were you able to carry one.
Since H's program lead directly to the dynamic and explosive growth of the modern American economy I would suggest that your 1+1=5 analogy is entirely inappropriate.
Laughable assertion on your part. As much evidence could be produced linking Washington chopping down the cherry tree to the development of the atom bomb, but what would you care, so long as you spew uncontested?
Stick to my comments and don't try and saddle me with your caricatures and false statements.
Your comments... Okay. I can stick with material like "monarchs aren't monarchs" and "protectionism isn't protectionism" and so on and so forth. I especially loved your "How much is the grand canyon worth" line. I laughed so hard that the people in offices nearby came over to join in. "Yes honey, we can't afford the house payment, but the love of our children is priceless so we're really not in debt."
Unfortunately, what I'm really trying to address is your root problem which is a belief that big government is the answer, and also attempting to refute your contention that love of big gov't is somehow conservative.
From now on, I'll stay with replies like "protectionism, takeit, is... alas... always still protectionism."
The ascent of opinionated hot-heads, both North and South, prior to the War, was initiated by Northern Abolitionist attacks on Southern society and Southern rights. That some responded to these, in kind, does not change the fact that the Ante-Bellum South as a whole, was less driven by hatred than any other region. Southern leadership was primarily Jeffersonian, and was thus very understanding of intellectual eccentricity, etc.. (And please do not illustrate your own motivations with any more slurs against Jefferson! Show some respect to the author of the Declaration of Independence, and father of religious toleration in America; you "enemy" of the hate-driven.)
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
You just cannot accept the fact that many Northerners shared the general philosphic views of the South! Pierce (Nathaniel Hawthorne's college roommate) and Buchanan were simply two statesmen, who believed in a limited Federal Government, and in a self-reliant population, that did not look to Government for crutches, nor accept the idea of Big Government in their faces. The tendency of modern "Liberal" historians to demean their stature is similar to the same ilk's tendency to demean Calvin Coolidge's stature. None of the three sought to work major changes, because their inclinations and beliefs were for the status quo.
Had it not been for the economic upheaval, shortly after Buchanan took office, it is probable that a Conservative coalition (actually, as much a classic "Liberal" coalition, in 19th Century terms) would have continued to dominate American politics for some time to come.
William Flax
all of the major civil rights legislation of the 1960s was passed by a bipartisan coalition of republicans and northern democrats. support of civil rights by the democratic party leadership and by presidents kennedy and johnson essestially cost the democratic party its entire southern base (which is apparent from surverying the electoral maps post-johnson - only southern democrats carter and clinton have done even moderately well in the south). "the solid south" now votes solidly republican.
i'm not attributing that shift to a party realignment on that one issue alone - but it has played a part, sadly and to the gop's discredit.
Considering that it is itself a severe truncation of a complex economic theory that effectively neglects the majority of that theory, and considering that you have not demonstrated any misunderstanding of mercantilism except for your own, I think not.
None of the things you list as "anti-capitalist" are so.
Capitalism, in its pure and defined form, is directly opposed to managerial government intervention within the economy. That is a fact of economic definition whether you like it or not. Taking something that is not capitalist and calling it capitalist does not make it so. And since everything I listed as anti-capitalist is an act of managerial government intervention within the economy, they cannot be capitalist by definition.
Taxes certainly aren't.
Excessive taxes that are collected for purposes other than the basic functions of a capitalist state, i.e. defending the shores and keeping the courts open, indisputably are. They are managerial interventions into the economy on two levels: First they remove excessive ammounts of wealth from the private sector so as to distort and divert what that wealth would have been employed to in the absence of excessive taxation. Secondly they are used to finance government expenditures and/or transfer payments that intervene into the economy by their own right.
Nor are tariffs
Revenue tariffs? generally no as long as they are low, reasonable, and not spent on further managerial economic intervention. Protectionist tariffs? Yes. They are anti-capitalist by definition as they directly seek to manage the economy in a different way than would happen in their absence and indirectly manage it by redistributing wealth via the consumer surplus to selected beneficiary producers.
having been used by EVERY capitalist country.
Capitalist-leaning countries do not define a system of economic capitalism and thus are not evidence, in their employment of policy, of what capitalism is. If the opposite were so, capitalism could be said to include a massive welfare state since the US and many european countries that call themselves capitalist by name all have massive welfare states. Not that you would object to such an absurdity...
Certainly centralized monetary policies aren't since they have been and are used by EVERY capitalist country.
Same fallacy as above. Try again.
Clearly internal improvements aren't since they have been used by EVERY capitalist country.
Same fallacy as above. Try again.
Here is a short definition of capitalism which might clear up your confusion
You post without need considering that, once again, short definitions cannot even hope to accomodate the intricacies of an economic theory that consumes volumes of text in even its most simple form and in light of the fact that, once again, the only confusion about capitalism that has been demonstrated on this thread to date originates from your own keyboard.
Hamilton's policies (in sharp contrast to his enemies) were proposed to Maximize those economic activities for his fellow Americans.
He may have claimed that and you may claim it to your heart's content, but that does not make it so. Take protectionist tariffs for example. You or Alex or the AFL-CIO may claim that they "mazimize economic activities for Americans" or some other such nonsense, but regardless of what you may think or believe, it is a mathematical certainty that they do not by way of the inescapable dead weight losses that accompany protectionist policies. In simpler terms for someone of your simple mindset, that means that protectionist tariffs operate at a net loss for the general welfare of a nation when compared to the alternative, free trade.
Now he is a direct "heir" to mercantilists?
Well, he advocated an economic agenda with heavy mercantilist elements. So yes.
You might note in your attempt to slander Hamilton with Keynes you ignore what Keynes actually said while accepting what those who use his name say he said.
Don't tell me - you're a keynesian too! Gee, fake-it. When it comes to idolizing left wing wackos you're batting 1.000!
I doubt you have actually read Keynes great work, The General Theory of employment,interest and money or you would realize that Keynes never proposed the policies that his successors employ in his name.
Evidently you know very little of Keynes yourself, or you would know that he spent much of his lifetime advising governments and advocating the very same policies that his followers still push to this day. Much of that work is descriptive without much controversy.
...and the remainder is the foundation for the very same modern left wing anti-capitalist bullsh*t that people like you endorse, praise, and advocate while simultaneously trying to pass it off as "capitalism" by calling it that.
People like Keynes and Roosevelt were desperate to save the capitalist system which in both their countries were under great pressure from the Socialists and Communists because of the inability to comprehend and deal with the economic collapse.
Nonsense. Roosevelt and Keynes simply sought, and in part achieved, a different means to the same end. Heck, Roosevelt himself threw off the few capitalists and conservatives that could help him and surrounded himself with marxists, socialists, communists, and other left wing freaks of the highest order.
"You might note in your attempt to slander Hamilton with Keynes you ignore what Keynes actually said while accepting what those who use his name say he said. I doubt you have actually read Keynes great work, The General Theory of employment,interest and money or you would realize that Keynes never proposed the policies that his successors employ in his name. Much of that work is descriptive without much controversy. Other parts have stimulated enormous quantities of economic theorizing for the benefit of Economics. People like Keynes and Roosevelt were desperate to save the capitalist system which in both their countries were under great pressure from the Socialists and Communists because of the inability to comprehend and deal with the economic collapse." - justshutupandtakeit
But certainly you agree that the Fugitive Slave Law was constitutional?
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