Posted on 03/21/2002 8:05:45 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
I am puzzled, perplexed and sometimes annoyed by the frequent potshots taken at us liberals. Seems like it's open season on us all year long. Not just by the media minions but by their lower ranks as well.
Is it because liberal-haters are malicious, mean people? No, we don't think so. Many are fine, tax-paying, church-going people. Then why? I believe the reason is that they are ignorant of American history or have amnesia regarding it. They have forgotten that American liberals and radicals started the Revolutionary War.
Liberals first pointed out the evils of human slavery. We forget that the great liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt started many liberal programs we take for granted today, such as Social Security, now being robbed by George W. It was called communism by many back then. Medicare, another great liberal program that keeps us oldsters from bankruptcy, was called socialized medicine.
Just a few other liberal programs are workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, bank-deposit insurance up to $100,000 per account, the right of workers to organize and strike, the eight-hour instead of the 12-hour day, old age pensions, survivors' benefits of Social Security, lowering of stock margins from 90 percent to 50, protection of our ancient forests from the loggers so now we can see the giant redwoods, clean water and air act Bush is now eroding by decree, pure food and drug laws, expansion of national wild areas and monuments, voting-rights laws, health insurance and rights for the handicapped.
All these and more were pushed through by liberals and opposed by conservatives. They make America safer and better for all of us, not just the liberals who sponsored and fought for them.
Yes, even the birth-control pill, so widely used by conservative women and their daughters, came from the liberals. Now George W. is trying to deny it to the world's poorest women while his own upper class has easy access to whatever contraceptive they choose. Remember the campaign word "compassionate"?
Meanwhile, liberals pay taxes, obey the laws and support the government in crisis while fighting to save the liberal programs of our land being nibbled away, while being called nasty names for our trouble. Even most conservatives forget that the media is really owned by a few giant conservative corporations for whom the only thing is the bottom line for the top dogs.
Many conservatives who libel us would scream bloody murder if the liberal programs put in place years ago were dropped. They parrot the slogans of the giant media because it is open season on the left and center.
Meanwhile, the "compassionate" man in the White House erodes these programs by edict or failure to enforce the law. Now, more than ever, is the time for liberals to unite, no matter what people say about us
I feel as though I want to vommit right after reading that. You were right with your barf alert. As Daughter of the American Revolution. I know none of my relatives were liberals.
Liberals were not in charge of the War or any effort thus far that has produced freedom for any American. That is pure bunk. The War was started because the Torries and the British were comming after all of the guns and gun powder. Hardly a liberal cause ever in history.
No, just look at all the benefits to society from making alcohol illegal at the federal level, during Prohibition. Alcohol Prohibtion was such a monstrously stupid mistake that there was sufficient public support to pass a Constitutional Amendment to repeal it only a little more than a decade the Prohibition amendment was passed.
Conservatives like you are the political legacy of the Anti-Saloon league. It's a shame, however, that conservatives don't care enough about the Constitution to get a Constitutional amendment to make the drugs they oppose illegal at the federal level. At least the Anti-Saloon league, for all their stupidity, had the decency to actually follow The Law.
Worse, these same conservatives (like G.W. Bush) actually consider themselves to be moral people, as they violate The Law...even to the point of harming sick or dying people, as with Bush's opposition to allowing States to decide medical marijuana on their own. Some morality! Breaking The Law, and deliberately harming sick and dying people!
None of your relatives were conservatives, either, unless you're kin to Alexander Hamilton. Conservatives share equally in the blame for our federal government being a $2 TRILLION A YEAR unconstitutional monstrosity. (In fact, conservative G.W. Bush has proposed to increase that size by 9% in a single year.)
Paine, Jefferson, Madison, Washington...they were all libertarians. Not conservatives.
DARN. You beat me to it!! BUMP!
The founding fathers were NOT rabid conspiracy theorists who hate the government (they founded it, after all) want to abolish ALL taxes (as if that's possible) but still uphold the Constitution of the United States, at least as it was originally written, because the Constitution is the basis of our government (which they claim to hate).
Well, liberals ARE expert at changing history.
Here's another irony about author's commentary: he brings up OUR founding fathers, whom liberals now describe as "DEAD WHITE GUYS" whos PORTRAITS SHOULD BE REMOVED from the walls of this nation.
Most Libertarians are not "conspiracy theorists." Go to the Libertarian Party website:
...and find some "conspiracy theories."
And as far as "hating the government"...the founders of this country would UNQUESTIONABLY hate this CURRENT government. They committed armed rebellion against a government that was a tiny, tiny fraction of the size and tyranny of the current government.
Did you know that total federal spending in 1860 (the year before the Civil War) was something like $65 MILLION dollars? That works out to about $1.3 BILLION dollars, in today's terms. Current federal spending is over $2 TRILLION, or more than a factor of 1000 times the size of the federal governmnent before the Civil War.
The government that the Founders drew up had NO income taxes (income taxes for government at all levels is now approximately 40 percent of the national income). There was NO standing army...let alone a standing army with troops in 100 different countries. The federal government that the Founders created allowed the federal government to own NO land...outside of the 10 miles square of the District of Columbia, and federal forts. The current federal government own 30 PERCENT of all the land in the United States!
The only difference between Libertarians and the Founders is that we Libertarians sign a pledge to forswear violence as a means of political change. The Founders would have staged an armed rebellion a long time ago. There's no way they would have accepted the government (particularly the federal government) massively violating the Constitution, as it currently does.
but still uphold the Constitution of the United States, at least as it was originally written, because the Constitution is the basis of our government...
Yes, if the federal government followed the Constitution, many, if not most, Libertarians would be satisfied. We most certainly COULD do that (follow the Constitution) without ANY taxes on income (including earned income, capital gains, or corporate income) because this country DID do that for over 130 years after it was founded. The answer is to DRAMATICALLY cut federal spending, including complete elimination of ALL unconstitutional federal departments (Education, Energy, Interior, Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, and so on).
It took him a while, but he did finally get around to pointing out that Orange Man Bad, and thereby answered his own question.
Which side of the spectrum claims Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and Occupy Wall Street?
-PJ
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