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That's because over time, liberals win. That's because the victories of liberals/progressives have moved the country to the left since 1960. The battles that the conservatives were fighting at the time have mostly been lost. As will most of the battles conservatives are fighting today be lost.
That's what progress does. It rolls over those who lie in its path.
how very nice for you....how has it all turned out btw?
I have always admitted to being a liberal...and I've seen this "how come you don't admit to being a Liberal" schtick come and go about 5 times in the last 5 years. Guess it's time again.
Of course, you do realize that in today's political landscape, JFK would be a Republican, and would be pilloried by the left.
What an absurd statement. What about the New Frontier reflects modern Republicanism to you? A sampling of his policies:
Economy
[...]
- The Kennedy Administration pushed an economic stimulus program through congress in an effort to kick-start the American economy following an economic downturn. On February the 2nd 1961, Kennedy sent a comprehensive Economic Message to Congress which had been in preparation for several weeks The legislative proposals put forward in this message included[9]:
(1.) The addition of a temporary thirteen-week supplement to jobless benefits,
(2.) The extension of aid to the children of unemployed workers,
(3.) The redevelopment of distressed areas,
(4.) An increase in Social Security payments and the encouragement of earlier retirement,
(5.) An increase in the minimum wage and an extension in coverage,
(6.) The provision of emergency relief to feed grain farmers, and
(7.) The financing of a comprehensive home-building and slum clearance program[10].
The following month, the first of these seven measures became law, and the remaining six measures had been signed by the end of June. Altogether, the economic stimulus program provided an estimated 420,000 construction jobs under a new Housing Act, $175 million in higher wages for those below the new minimum, over $400 million in aid to over 1,000 distressed counties, over $200 million in extra welfare payments to 750,000 children and their parents, and nearly $800 million in extended unemployment benefits for nearly three million unemployed Americans[11].
Labor
[...]
- Amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1961 greatly expanded the FLSA's scope in the retail trade sector and increased the minimum wage for previously covered workers to $1.15 an hour effective September 1961 and to $1.25 an hour in September 1963. The minimum for workers newly subject to the Act was set at $1.00 an hour effective September 1961, $1.15 an hour in September 1964, and $1.25 an hour in September 1965. Retail and service establishments were allowed to employ full-time students at wages of no more than 15 percent below the minimum with proper certification from the Department of Labor. The amendments extended coverage to employees of retail trade enterprises with sales exceeding $1 million annually, although individual establishments within those covered enterprises were exempt if their annual sales fell below $250,000. The concept of enterprise coverage was introduced by the 1961 amendments. Those amendments extended coverage in the retail trade industry from an established 250,000 workers to 2.2 million.
- An Executive Order was issued (1962) which provided federal employees with collective bargaining rights[19].
- Executive Order 10988 became effective in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1962), which provided for official recognition of employee organizations and a formal means of employee participation in matters affecting employment conditions[20].
Education
- The Higher Education Act of 1963 authorized several times more college aid within a five-year period than had been appropriated under the Land Grant College in a century, and provided better college libraries, ten to twenty new graduate centers, several new technical institutes, classrooms for several hundred thousand students, and twenty-five to thirty new community colleges a year. A separate education bill enacted that same year provided similar assistance to dental and medical schools[22].
- Scholarships and student loans were broadened under existing laws by Kennedy, and new means of specialised aid to education were invented or expanded by the president, including an increase in funds for libraries and school lunches, the provision of funds to teach the deaf, the handicapped, the retarded, and the exceptional child, the authorisation of literacy training under Manpower Development, the allocation of President funds to stop dropouts, a quadrupling of vocational education, and working together with schools on delinquency. Altogether, these measures attacked serious educational problems and freed up local funds for use on general construction and salaries[23].
Welfare
[...]
- Unemployment and welfare benefits were expanded[27].
- In 1961, Social Security benefits were increased by 20% and provision for early retirement was introduced, enabling workers to retire at the age of sixty-two while receiving partial benefits[28].
- The Social Security Amendments of 1961 permitted male workers to elect early retirement age 62, increased minimum benefits, liberalized the benefit payments to aged widow, widower, or surviving dependent parent, and also liberalized eligibility requirements and the retirement test[29].
- The 1962 amendments to the Social Security Act authorized the federal government to reimburse states for the provision of social services[30].
- The School Lunch Act was amended for authority to begin providing free meals in poverty-stricken areas[31].
- A pilot food stamp program was launched (1961), covering six areas in the United States. In 1962, the program was extended to eighteen areas, feeding 240,000 people[32].
- Various school lunch and school milk programs were extended, enabling 700,000 more children to enjoy a hot school lunch and eighty-five thousand more schools, child care centers, and camps to receive fresh milk[33].
- Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) replaced the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) program, as coverage was extended to adults caring for dependent children[34].
- A major revision of the public welfare laws was carried out, with a $300 million modernisation which emphasised rehabilitation instead of relief[35].
- A temporary antirecession supplement to unemployment compensation was introduced[36].
- Food distribution to needy Americans was increased[37]. In January 1961, the first executive order issued by Kennedy mandated that the Department of Agriculture increase the quantity and variety of foods donated for needy households. This executive order represented a shift in the Commodity Distribution Programs primary purpose, from surplus disposal to that of providing nutritious foods to low-income households[38].
- Social Security benefits were extended to an additional five million Americans[39].
Housing
[...]
- The most comprehensive housing and urban renewal program in American history up until that point was carried out, including the first major provisions for middle-income housing, protection of urban open spaces, public mass transit, and private low-income housing[43].
- Omnibus Housing Bill 1961. In March 1961 Kennedy sent Congress a special message, proposing an ambitious and complex housing program to spur the economy, revitalize cities, and provide affordable housing for middle- and low-income families. The bill proposed spending $3.19 billion and placed major emphasis on improving the existing housing supply, instead of on new housing starts, and creating a cabinet-level Department of Housing and Urban Affairs to oversee the programs.
Unemployment
- To help the unemployed, Kennedy broadened the distribution of surplus food, created a pilot Food Stamp program for poor Americans, directed that preference be given to distressed areas in defense contracts, and expanded the services of U.S. Employment Offices[47].
- The first accelerated public works program for areas of unemployment since the New Deal was launched[48].
- The first full-scale modernization and expansion of the vocational education laws since 1946 were carried out[49].
- The Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 authorized a three-year program aimed at retraining workers displaced by new technology. The bill did not exclude employed workers from benefiting and it authorized a training allowance for unemployed participants. Even though 200,000 people were recruited, there was minimal impact, comparatively. The Area Redevelopment Act, a $394 million spending package passed in 1961, followed a strategy of investing in the private sector to stimulate new job creation. It specifically targeted businesses in urban and rural depressed areas and authorized $4.5 million annually over four years for vocational training programs. The 1963 amendments to the National Defense Education Act included $731 million in appropriations to states and localities maintaining vocational training programs.[50]
Medical
[...]
- In 1963 Kennedy, who had a mentally ill sister named Rosemary, submitted the nation's first Presidential special message to Congress on mental health issues. Congress quickly passed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (P.L. 88-164), beginning a new era in Federal support for mental health services. The National Institute of Mental Health assumed responsibility for monitoring community mental health centers programs.[51] This measure was a great success as there was a sixfold increase in people using Mental Health facilities.
- A Medical Health Bill for the Aged (later known as Medicare) was proposed, but Congress failed to enact it.
- Community Health Services and Facilities Act (1961) increased the amount of funds available for nursing home construction and extended the research and demonstration grant program to other medical facilities[52].
- The Health Services for Agricultural Migratory Workers Act (1962) established a program of federal grants for family clinics and other health services for migrant workers and their families[53].
- The first major amendments to the food and drug safety laws since 1938 were carried out[54]. The Drug Amendments of 1962 amended the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (1938) by strengthening the provisions related to the regulation of therapeutic drugs. The Act required evidence that new drugs proposed for marketing were both safe and effective, and required improved manufacturing processes and procedures[55].
- The Vaccination Assistance Act (1962) provided for the vaccination of millions of children against a number of diseases[56].
Environment
- The Clean Air Act (1963) expanded the powers of the federal government in preventing and controlling air pollution.
- The first major additions to the National Park System since 1946 were made, which included the preservation of wilderness areas and a fund for future acquisitions[61].
- The water pollution prevention program was doubled[62].
Crime
- The first significant package of anticrime bills since 1934 were passed[63].
- The Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act was signed into law September 22, 1961. The program aimed to prevent youth from committing delinquent acts. In 1963, 288 mobsters were brought to trial by a team that was headed by Kennedy's brother, Robert.
I have always admitted to being a liberal...and I've seen this "how come you don't admit to being a Liberal" schtick come and go about 5 times in the last 5 years. Guess it's time again.
Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination
John F Kennedy September 14, 1960
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
But first, I would like to say what I understand the word "Liberal" to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a "Liberal," and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.
In short, having set forth my view -- I hope for all time -- two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo:
I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.
I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility.
Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority. Today, along with our children and grandchildren, we do not feel minor. We feel proud of our origins and we are not second to any group in our sense of national purpose. For many years New York represented the new frontier to all those who came from the ends of the earth to find new opportunity and new freedom, generations of men and women who fled from the despotism of the czars, the horrors of the Nazis, the tyranny of hunger, who came here to the new frontier in the State of New York. These men and women, a living cross section of American history, indeed, a cross section of the entire world's history of pain and hope, made of this city not only a new world of opportunity, but a new world of the spirit as well.
Tonight we salute Governor and Senator Herbert Lehman as a symbol of that spirit, and as a reminder that the fight for full constitutional rights for all Americans is a fight that must be carried on in 1961.
Many of these same immigrant families produced the pioneers and builders of the American labor movement. They are the men who sweated in our shops, who struggled to create a union, and who were driven by longing for education for their children and for the children's development. They went to night schools; they built their own future, their union's future, and their country's future, brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now in their children's time, suburb by suburb.
...
Of course, you do realize that in today's political landscape, JFK would be a Republican, and would be pilloried by the left.
That's because over time, liberals win. That's because the victories of liberals/progressives have moved the country to the left since 1960. The battles that the conservatives were fighting at the time have mostly been lost. As will most of the battles conservatives are fighting today be lost.
That's what progress does. It rolls over those who lie in its path.
What about a muscular foreign policy and tax cuts of Kennedy, and the environmental policies of Nixon, or would you think he was a liberal?
Be serious.
The greatest revolutionary changes of the 20th century were all the result of liberals.
Gandhi, Mandela, Walesa, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Havel just to name a few.
I'll see that and raise you Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, and Pope John Paul II
Welesa already made the list. He's a liberal labor organizer.
Now, you see, you just shot yourself in the foot...
Walesa is anti-Communist, so, by definition, not a liberal.
And the strategy of trying to coalesce around various heros who are not liberal by careful analysis, you show the weakness of your argument.
And this might interest you:
"Today, in Chicago, anti-Communist hero Lech Walesa is headlining a Tea Party Rally. The Rally is in support of Republican Candidate for Governor Adam Andrzejewski. 20+ years ago an American President helped Lech take back his country. Today Lech returns the favor and helps us take back ours."
Friday Free-For-All: Walesa Edition - Big Government
Care to retract?
I'll see that and raise you Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, and Pope John Paul II
Welesa already made the list. He's a liberal labor organizer.
Now, you see, you just shot yourself in the foot...
Walesa is anti-Communist, so, by definition, not a liberal.
What about a muscular foreign policy
and tax cuts of Kennedy
What about a muscular foreign policy
What a nebulous phrase. Does LBJ's escalation of Vietnam pin him as a Republican, Great Society be damned? Does Obama's escalation in Afghanistan mark him as a Republican? Yes, Kennedy supported defense spending. Yet Kennedy--he of the Peace Corps and the American University speech--is noted most for avoiding a war in 1962, not starting one.
and tax cuts of Kennedy
Periodically the tax code undergoes simplifications (in fact there's a bipartisan attempt to simplify the tax cut circulating even today). During Kennedy's term there were 24 different marginal rates with the top going as far as 90%. Obviously a simplification and cut was a good idea. Jimmy Carter did the same thing in 1977--was he a Republican?
The reality is that Kennedy was not only a Democrat, he was a proud liberal. And his policies reflect that.
Of course, you do realize that in today's political landscape, JFK would be a Republican, and would be pilloried by the left.
That's because over time, liberals win. That's because the victories of liberals/progressives have moved the country to the left since 1960. The battles that the conservatives were fighting at the time have mostly been lost. As will most of the battles conservatives are fighting today be lost.
That's what progress does. It rolls over those who lie in its path.
The pendulum swings both ways. Progressives win by taking not giving,that is gonna come back and bite you in the ass. Ideal is not lost. Principle is not lost. Value for value is not lost. Justice and fair play are not lost. Collectivism is more like Hell than Heaven Sparky. Get off your lazy ass and earn your own bread. It beats the unholy need to subjugate others.
What about a muscular foreign policy
What a nebulous phrase. Does LBJ's escalation of Vietnam pin him as a Republican, Great Society be damned? Does Obama's escalation in Afghanistan mark him as a Republican? Yes, Kennedy supported defense spending. Yet Kennedy--he of the Peace Corps and the American University speech--is noted most for avoiding a war in 1962, not starting one.
and tax cuts of Kennedy
Periodically the tax code undergoes simplifications (in fact there's a bipartisan attempt to simplify the tax cut circulating even today). During Kennedy's term there were 24 different marginal rates with the top going as far as 90%. Obviously a simplification and cut was a good idea. Jimmy Carter did the same thing in 1977--was he a Republican?
The reality is that Kennedy was not only a Democrat, he was a proud liberal. And his policies reflect that.
Funny that Republicans are going back in time to "capture" liberal heroes as their own.
That's probably because when their bat shit crazy policies see the light of day..it gets exposed for the insanity it truly is..
What about a muscular foreign policy
What a nebulous phrase. Does LBJ's escalation of Vietnam pin him as a Republican, Great Society be damned? Does Obama's escalation in Afghanistan mark him as a Republican? Yes, Kennedy supported defense spending. Yet Kennedy--he of the Peace Corps and the American University speech--is noted most for avoiding a war in 1962, not starting one.
and tax cuts of Kennedy
Periodically the tax code undergoes simplifications (in fact there's a bipartisan attempt to simplify the tax cut circulating even today). During Kennedy's term there were 24 different marginal rates with the top going as far as 90%. Obviously a simplification and cut was a good idea. Jimmy Carter did the same thing in 1977--was he a Republican?
The reality is that Kennedy was not only a Democrat, he was a proud liberal. And his policies reflect that.
Funny that Republicans are going back in time to "capture" liberal heroes as their own.
That's probably because when their bat shit crazy policies see the light of day..it gets exposed for the insanity it truly is..
I think the reality is, there really aren't that many liberals. They are a true minority, albeit a very noisy minority...
I am definitely liberal!
lib·er·al
   /ˈlɪbərəl, ˈlɪbrəl/ Show Spelled[lib-er-uhl, lib-ruhl] Show IPA
adjective
1.
favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
That's because over time, liberals win. That's because the victories of liberals/progressives have moved the country to the left since 1960. The battles that the conservatives were fighting at the time have mostly been lost. As will most of the battles conservatives are fighting today be lost.
That's what progress does. It rolls over those who lie in its path.
The pendulum swings both ways. Progressives win by taking not giving,that is gonna come back and bite you in the ass. Ideal is not lost. Principle is not lost. Value for value is not lost. Justice and fair play are not lost. Collectivism is more like Hell than Heaven Sparky. Get off your lazy ass and earn your own bread. It beats the unholy need to subjugate others.
Subjugate is what you want to talk about? Liberals won women the right to vote. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals are winning gays the right to serve in the military, and the right to marry. Liberals won women the right to a legal abortion. And liberals won you so many things you now take for granted that you can't even remember to whom you owe the thanks.
