The Rise of the New Right - Terrifying? Or Terrific?

[Big Fitz]

Please,

I'm a little fuzzy on the whole New/Neo/Old Right. Can you provide me a list of other New/Neo/Old Right members of this board? I seem to have forgotten what I am.

 

[Foxfyre]

Matthews has a good point. We saw, during the Bush years, a very decided push to create an imperial presidencey. We saw erosion of the rule of law (denial of basic rights, allowance of torture, erosion of the 4th Amendment). We saw procedural action replacing legislative action. We saw religious influences moving into the governmental sphere.

John Dean has written of the very real danger to our democratic form of government by the policies and beliefs of the New Right. All one needs to do is listen to what is said on this very board by members of the New Right, to see how truly dangerous these beliefs are. It is not something to make light of.

God love ya George. (Some of you might know that I have a serious case of like with George because he is so much fun to fight with, but neither his wife nor my hubby will let us date.)

You came real close to evoking Foxfyre's "W" Law there though. See here: http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/120997-foxfyres-law.html

Can you honestly say with a straight face though that there was more of an imperial presidency during the Bush administration than what we are seeing now? And are you going to say that it was only the Right who approved the Patriot Act? Who signed onto the War on Terror?

Sometimes removing one’s ideological prejudices and seeing things as they actually are can be useful in assessing the extreme exaggeration and dishonest presentation Matthews used in that program. I am guessing that you, Wry, and a number of others who are defending Matthews and nodding approvingly at his perspective also bristle at even mild criticism of Barack Obama.

And yet almost none of you are willing to discuss the actual issues being addressed by those groups that Matthews so diligently demonized.

But the beat goes on.

 

[MaggieMae]

Whatever Maggie. I talk about conservative policies. You change the discussion to evil evangelicals. I talk about prosperity. You change the discussion to trickle down. I talk about the economy and you change the discussion to deficits which may or may not have anything to do with the economy but do have everything to do with spending. You might have forgotten that it was the Democrats who were in control and eight out of eight years declared President Reagan's proposed budgets dead on arrival and rewrote what they wanted to spend.

As I said, I don't think many leftists are capable of either understanding or discussing conservative values. They usually only want to accuse, finger point, assign blame, and call that debate.

What is the purpose of discussing general theories? I can spout touchy-feely stuff all day, but this board is here to discuss ISSUES, as well as ideologies. If you only want to talk about the philosophical reasons why you're a conservative to woo someone over, if that someone were clueless, he or she would be very impressed. That's why it's a requirement to discuss what works and what doesn't work in the real world.

 

[MaggieMae]

Well done Big Fitz though those still looking for somebody to blame, villains to accuse, or windmills to tilt at won't get it. You see above that there are some still spouting the far left standard assigned hate jargon and are unable or unwilling to focus on the principles involved. The whole Chris Matthews spiel was to attack, diminish, marginalize, demonize those on the right and he isn't about to get into the values that the Tea Partiers, 9/12ers, tax protest groups etc. are actually promoting. Those are ignored and recharacterized as 'hate', 'unrestrained anger', 'militias', 'ignorant people clinging to their guns and Bibles', etc.

Even Maggie up there who is trying very much to be reasonable simply dismisses conservative values as unworkable rather than getting down to the nitty gritty of WHY they are unworkable. Because I doubt very much she knows. It has been my experience that nobody who is a leftist does know because they just aren't wired to thnk in any terms other than leftist, socialist, big government solution terms. And they have been trained and/or brainwashed to think poorly of those on the right.

I don't know how we get around that other than just keep making our case and hope it gets through the fog here and there.

I'll be happy to discuss why I don't think many (not all) conservative values don't work. Did lowering the tax rate provide an intended trickle-down effect? Nope. Did the 2004 evangelical movement which brought to the fore every wedge issue imaginable work? Nope. Did the "new conservative" push for unilateral military intervention in the middle east work? Nope.

Did lowering the tax rate provide an intended trickle-down effect? Nope.

1983-1999. Greatest run of increasing general wealth and jobs in the population in US post war history. Not only that more people got rich than at any other time, depleting the population, not because they got poor again, but because they got RICH! All thanks to Reagan's Tax Cuts.

The Bush tax cuts saved us from double digit unemployment back in 2001-2003. Why? Because people could afford to staff up and still consume and make a profit.

But every time you look at a tax INCREASE it is followed rapidly by increasing unemployment and decreasing wealth and growth in the middle class because those on the cusp of making it to being rich get their knees chopped out from under them.

JFK understood this too, and if it weren't for the collossal fuckup known as the Great Society and War on Poverty (which after 2 trillion spent on this, we still have the same percentages of poor people) wasted it all... plus the vietnam war.

So yes, it does work every time it's tried, it's just that it's not a sexy or easily understood effect.

Prove your points with numerical facts, please. The CONCEPT is there, but when the rich get greedy, the CONCEPT becomes non-existent.

 

[MaggieMae]

Maybe people were just finding something more interesting to do on the weekend than yammering here, Fitz.

I should amend my snarky comment up there about leftists though. Probably leftists aren't much if any worse than some conservatives in changing the subject when they can't defend the point they want to defend.

And we all get caught up in trying to defend a point of view long after it really isn't defensible. I'm as guilty of that as the next person. And it really sucks when you reach that point in the argument where you suddenly see that you're wrong.

But in this case, the thing is I have to believe that our 'new right' as personified in Tea Partiers, 9/12ers, Tax Protest groups, etc. must be on the right track or the Left would be attacking what they are saying instead of attacking them personally.

That tells me that what they are saying is pretty hard to argue with.

What they SAY doesn't translate into how they will DO IT, which is the problem. Just "saying" lower taxes, smaller government is a wonderful thing. But how is that supposed to happen in the prevailing atmosphere of demanding results RIGHT NOW?! It's that sort of thing that the Tea Party (and their offshots) never quite get around to "saying." In order to truly be effective, any new movement needs to move beyond the bumper sticker rhetoric.

 

[editec]

Hah!

It's the same old right as always.

 

[MaggieMae]

Matthews has a good point. We saw, during the Bush years, a very decided push to create an imperial presidencey. We saw erosion of the rule of law (denial of basic rights, allowance of torture, erosion of the 4th Amendment). We saw procedural action replacing legislative action. We saw religious influences moving into the governmental sphere.

John Dean has written of the very real danger to our democratic form of government by the policies and beliefs of the New Right. All one needs to do is listen to what is said on this very board by members of the New Right, to see how truly dangerous these beliefs are. It is not something to make light of.

God love ya George. (Some of you might know that I have a serious case of like with George because he is so much fun to fight with, but neither his wife nor my hubby will let us date.)

You came real close to evoking Foxfyre's "W" Law there though. See here: http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/120997-foxfyres-law.html

Can you honestly say with a straight face though that there was more of an imperial presidency during the Bush administration than what we are seeing now? And are you going to say that it was only the Right who approved the Patriot Act? Who signed onto the War on Terror?

Sometimes removing one’s ideological prejudices and seeing things as they actually are can be useful in assessing the extreme exaggeration and dishonest presentation Matthews used in that program. I am guessing that you, Wry, and a number of others who are defending Matthews and nodding approvingly at his perspective also bristle at even mild criticism of Barack Obama.

And yet almost none of you are willing to discuss the actual issues being addressed by those groups that Matthews so diligently demonized.

But the beat goes on.

Interesting that you have suddenly reversed yourself and decided to cite some ISSUE-RELATED items in order to promote your conservative values.

 

[Foxfyre]

Matthews has a good point. We saw, during the Bush years, a very decided push to create an imperial presidencey. We saw erosion of the rule of law (denial of basic rights, allowance of torture, erosion of the 4th Amendment). We saw procedural action replacing legislative action. We saw religious influences moving into the governmental sphere.

John Dean has written of the very real danger to our democratic form of government by the policies and beliefs of the New Right. All one needs to do is listen to what is said on this very board by members of the New Right, to see how truly dangerous these beliefs are. It is not something to make light of.

God love ya George. (Some of you might know that I have a serious case of like with George because he is so much fun to fight with, but neither his wife nor my hubby will let us date.)

You came real close to evoking Foxfyre's "W" Law there though. See here: http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/120997-foxfyres-law.html

Can you honestly say with a straight face though that there was more of an imperial presidency during the Bush administration than what we are seeing now? And are you going to say that it was only the Right who approved the Patriot Act? Who signed onto the War on Terror?

Sometimes removing one’s ideological prejudices and seeing things as they actually are can be useful in assessing the extreme exaggeration and dishonest presentation Matthews used in that program. I am guessing that you, Wry, and a number of others who are defending Matthews and nodding approvingly at his perspective also bristle at even mild criticism of Barack Obama.

And yet almost none of you are willing to discuss the actual issues being addressed by those groups that Matthews so diligently demonized.

But the beat goes on.

Interesting that you have suddenly reversed yourself and decided to cite some ISSUE-RELATED items in order to promote your conservative values.

Ah Maggie. Your contributions to this thread thus far:
1) Complain that the 'new right' can't implement their ideology.
2) Evoke Fox news and state that the 'new right' is 99% anger and 1% actual debate. Hyperbole much?
3) Accused me of spin and then mischaracterized the intent of the 'new right' and mischaracterized about who has pushed for what in the past.
4) When rebutted, called my position hypocritical with more mischaracterization.
5 ) Stated that the issues raised by the 'new right' are not an issue but are all ideologically based while Republican policies are mostly failed policies.
6) Complained that there is no point in discussing general theories
7) Stated the 'new right' can't implement such theories

And now you acknowledge that I am finally willing to discuss actual issues. That is funny.

I honestly thought that I had done that right along.

Okay let's take an issue.

The 'new right' is angry about healthcare legislation that:

1) A majority of Americans didn't want
2) Is based on legislation that none of the legislators had read or knew what was in it.
3) Is based on legislation that at least one legislator said was not understandable unless you have a bank of lawyers to interpret it; therefore why read it? (And yes, he voted for it.)
4) Is based on fuzzy costs scored by the CBO based on numbers furnished to them by the Administration and disputed by opponents of the legislation. We still don't know how much it will cost but conservative estimates say it will create huge deficits as far as the eye can see.
5) A majority of health professional didn't want.
6) The leadership said we would work out the details later. It was imperative to pass it now to save the country even though most won't go into effect until after the next elections. Not one could give a coherant explanation for how it would work.
7) The President doesn't have a clue how it will work.
8) Most small business doesn't want and have said that it will affect hiring and expansion in a negative way.
9) Many on the left are angry because it didn't go further than it did.

Now tell me that is better than a suggestion that smaller, more efficient, more effective government and a balanced budget are what we should be shooting for instead of more legislation like that healthcare bill?

 

[Big Fitz]

but when the rich get greedy

When are the rich NOT greedy in your mind?

Prove your points with numerical facts, please.

From bls.gov The unemployment rate from 1976.

My bad, I forgot about the quick recession in 1990 thanks to HW Bush violating his no new taxes promise and Desert Storm. But the reagan tax cuts in 1981 and 1983 chopped our unemployment from about 13% down to 5ish%. Then the little HW Bush hiccup and down we went till the Dot-Bomb collapsed the tech bubble in 2000.

 

[MaggieMae]

God love ya George. (Some of you might know that I have a serious case of like with George because he is so much fun to fight with, but neither his wife nor my hubby will let us date.)

You came real close to evoking Foxfyre's "W" Law there though. See here: http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/120997-foxfyres-law.html

Can you honestly say with a straight face though that there was more of an imperial presidency during the Bush administration than what we are seeing now? And are you going to say that it was only the Right who approved the Patriot Act? Who signed onto the War on Terror?

Sometimes removing one’s ideological prejudices and seeing things as they actually are can be useful in assessing the extreme exaggeration and dishonest presentation Matthews used in that program. I am guessing that you, Wry, and a number of others who are defending Matthews and nodding approvingly at his perspective also bristle at even mild criticism of Barack Obama.

And yet almost none of you are willing to discuss the actual issues being addressed by those groups that Matthews so diligently demonized.

But the beat goes on.

Interesting that you have suddenly reversed yourself and decided to cite some ISSUE-RELATED items in order to promote your conservative values.

Ah Maggie. Your contributions to this thread thus far:
1) Complain that the 'new right' can't implement their ideology.
2) Evoke Fox news and state that the 'new right' is 99% anger and 1% actual debate. Hyperbole much?
3) Accused me of spin and then mischaracterized the intent of the 'new right' and mischaracterized about who has pushed for what in the past.
4) When rebutted, called my position hypocritical with more mischaracterization.
5 ) Stated that the issues raised by the 'new right' are not an issue but are all ideologically based while Republican policies are mostly failed policies.
6) Complained that there is no point in discussing general theories
7) Stated the 'new right' can't implement such theories

And now you acknowledge that I am finally willing to discuss actual issues. That is funny.

I honestly thought that I had done that right along.

And if I was so off-key with all of the above, then it's intriguing why you never miss a chance to respond to what I say.


Okay let's take an issue.

The 'new right' is angry about healthcare legislation that:

1) A majority of Americans didn't want
Not true. When the subject was first getting attention, more than 60% of Americans did in fact want health care reform. Those numbers began dropping as the right wing media pundits took to their microphones and megaphones and hijacked any civil debate. Theirs was the viewpoint heard loudest by most Americans. If you check the polling right up until the date it was signed, those polls continue to indicate an almost even split, NOT a "majority" who did not want health care reform, even in the form it was passed.

2) Is based on legislation that none of the legislators had read or knew what was in it.
That's also not true. While they undoubtedly would have skipped over the page after page of legal mumbo jumbo that any bill is guilty of including, those lawmakers who were truly interested indeed read all the draft bills. And frankly, so did the loudmouths who opposed it. How else would they know, or embellish upon, specific points in those draft bills?

3) Is based on legislation that at least one legislator said was not understandable unless you have a bank of lawyers to interpret it; therefore why read it? (And yes, he voted for it.)
ONE Senator (there are 100) made that comment off the cuff ONE TIME, and yet it made news cycles day after day after day after day after day by, guess who.

4) Is based on fuzzy costs scored by the CBO based on numbers furnished to them by the Administration and disputed by opponents of the legislation. We still don't know how much it will cost but conservative estimates say it will create huge deficits as far as the eye can see.
The jury is still out on whether or not in the long term, the adjustments to existing health care programs, both in the public and private sectors will compensate for the cost of the new on reducing the deficit.

5) A majority of health professional didn't want.
Also NOT true. Not by a long shot. Doctors (including my own), nurses, hospital administrators ALL are hopeful that Medicare and Medicaid will be streamlined and that they won't have to deal with the mountains of paperwork currently produced by dealing with a multiple of private insurers, each with their own set of rules and guidelines.

6) The leadership said we would work out the details later. It was imperative to pass it now to save the country even though most won't go into effect until after the next elections. Not one could give a coherant explanation for how it would work.
Pay attention and read this, one of hundreds outlining the timeline:
Health Care Bill: Top 14 Provisions That Take Effect Immediately - alt.politics | Google Groups

7) The President doesn't have a clue how it will work.
That's really odd, because some parts are already working. Comments such as your #7 are what irritate me about your method of "debate." How could you possibly KNOW such a thing to the point that you think you can factually state that "the president is clueless"?

8) Most small business doesn't want and have said that it will affect hiring and expansion in a negative way.
Then they too have not studied the benefits carefully. I'm not going to ALWAYS do the homework here. You can find detailed information yourself. Briefly, the definition of a "small business" is one with 25 or fewer employees and average annual wages of less than $50,000. These are eligible for credits of up to 35% of nonelective contributions the businesses make on behalf of their employees for insurance premiums. Tax-exempt organizations get a 25% credit against payroll taxes. After 2013, the credit increases to 50% (and 35% for tax-exempt organizations).

9) Many on the left are angry because it didn't go further than it did.
That's true. Many wanted universal care, period.

Now tell me that is better than a suggestion that smaller, more efficient, more effective government and a balanced budget are what we should be shooting for instead of more legislation like that healthcare bill?

While I agree that health care reform should have been designed in parts, not as a whole which represented a gigantic policy and financial obligation, that does not negate the fact that SOMETHING had to be done because of the horrendous cost of private health insurance AND private health care if one did not have insurance. The status quo was not acceptable. Time will tell which parts of the program will be eliminated, improved upon, etc. For starters, Medicare Advantage will be cut by $143 billion, which was the amount SUBSIDIZED TO PRIVATE INSURERS to cover procedures not covered by basic Medicare. The conservatives should be happy about that.

 

[MaggieMae]

but when the rich get greedy

When are the rich NOT greedy in your mind?

Prove your points with numerical facts, please.

From bls.gov The unemployment rate from 1976.

My bad, I forgot about the quick recession in 1990 thanks to HW Bush violating his no new taxes promise and Desert Storm. But the reagan tax cuts in 1981 and 1983 chopped our unemployment from about 13% down to 5ish%. Then the little HW Bush hiccup and down we went till the Dot-Bomb collapsed the tech bubble in 2000.

While the argument is valid that Reagan's deregulation and tax cuts encouraged risk taking by freeing capital, another argument can be made that George W. Bush had projected that the same thing would happen, and it didn't. Could it be that by then those same corporations had discovered how to manipulate their own balance sheets because of less regulatory oversight?

The dotcom recession was just a hiccup also. There's no way that without Bush's tax cuts there would have been double-digit unemployment. That was a specific industry, not nationwide.

 

[Big Fitz]

While the argument is valid that Reagan's deregulation and tax cuts encouraged risk taking by freeing capital, another argument can be made that George W. Bush had projected that the same thing would happen, and it didn't.

Not entirely true. It trumped far stronger DOWNWARD pressure created by the popping of the tech bubble and the oil bubble from being far worse. But when the derivative market and housing bubble went kablooey... nothing short of addressing the fundamental problem (out of control spending) will stop it. That's what the Bush tax cuts did, prevented things from being far worse after 9/11 through 2006 when the housing bubble popped.

You need to take these forces into account too before you say it did nothing. If extra capital had not been injected into he economy, we would have folded with the creation of Medicaire Part D.

The dotcom recession was just a hiccup also

Well that hiccup ate my business and pushed me out of the tech industry. If it weren't for extra cash in businesses pocket, I would not have found work after searching 4 months in the busted tech sector.

Could it be that by then those same corporations had discovered how to manipulate their own balance sheets because of less regulatory oversight?

This is a problem with rampant government approved fraud known as derivatves. Till that market is reigned in, just like the stock market was in the late 1920's and 30's, you won't see it fixed either. It is theorized that the gambling on derivatives (which is precisely what it is... very sophisticated gambling) is worth many multiples of the world economy. How can this be? It can't. It is an illusion sold to us by con artists at the base levels of all the economies as everyone tried to make a quick buck and nobody was looking too closely at the books.

Now there's been a global margin call and every nation is going to have to find a way to get their books back to zero. The world will never be the same, and if we're not careful, it will become a totalitarian dark age if something is not done to keep the beacons of freedom and capitalism alive.

 

[MaggieMae]

While the argument is valid that Reagan's deregulation and tax cuts encouraged risk taking by freeing capital, another argument can be made that George W. Bush had projected that the same thing would happen, and it didn't.

Not entirely true. It trumped far stronger DOWNWARD pressure created by the popping of the tech bubble and the oil bubble from being far worse. But when the derivative market and housing bubble went kablooey... nothing short of addressing the fundamental problem (out of control spending) will stop it. That's what the Bush tax cuts did, prevented things from being far worse after 9/11 through 2006 when the housing bubble popped.

You need to take these forces into account too before you say it did nothing. If extra capital had not been injected into he economy, we would have folded with the creation of Medicaire Part D.

The dotcom recession was just a hiccup also

Well that hiccup ate my business and pushed me out of the tech industry. If it weren't for extra cash in businesses pocket, I would not have found work after searching 4 months in the busted tech sector.

Could it be that by then those same corporations had discovered how to manipulate their own balance sheets because of less regulatory oversight?

This is a problem with rampant government approved fraud known as derivatves. Till that market is reigned in, just like the stock market was in the late 1920's and 30's, you won't see it fixed either. It is theorized that the gambling on derivatives (which is precisely what it is... very sophisticated gambling) is worth many multiples of the world economy. How can this be? It can't. It is an illusion sold to us by con artists at the base levels of all the economies as everyone tried to make a quick buck and nobody was looking too closely at the books.

Now there's been a global margin call and every nation is going to have to find a way to get their books back to zero. The world will never be the same, and if we're not careful, it will become a totalitarian dark age if something is not done to keep the beacons of freedom and capitalism alive.

I can pretty much agree with everything you said, except that the tax cuts were in place before 911 (so that was an unknown factor at the time). Bush made it clear that he intended to return the surplus back to the taxpayers which he felt would stimulate the economy. Again, the concept is a good one but the private sector needs to make that happen.

Also, isn't it interesting that the finance reform bill includes elimination of the practice of gambling on derivatives proposed by a Democrat, for which she still receives a lot of flack, and a provision to audit the federal reserve for the first time ever was proposed by that Democrat cum Socialist Bernie Sanders?