Who where, are the true Liberals and Party of the people
Published on February 3, 2004 By zergimmi In Republican
I find it interesting when reading blogs and articles in the media in general portraying the Republican Party as the extreme right and the Democrates being the caring Liberal party of the left.

If we look at history the above perception is in fact very incorrect, however it does seem that the Republican party somewhere ov the last 60 to 70 years moved away from a position of overtly being the liberal party of concience for middle America and the Paternal Intellegencier, to a more conservative centre of politics. Whilist I am not stating that the Republican Party where not a bunch of raving communists parading around in red suites, they were the party that introduced many if not most of the more socially aware policies of the American Administration, take for instance Slavery.

I suppose my real question is why the shift from one party to another, after all it was during the reign of the Democrates that most of the communist witch hunt occured in the US, and yet they are the party of choice of the Left, apparently. I find it interesting that right up to the vietnam war the Democrates where still pretty much the supporters of some very racial attitudes in the US, mainly due to their strong voter support from the south.

Whilist I could honestly say that I am firmly rooted on the left side of centre in my ideology personally, that does not mean I would neccessarily align myself with any party, also as I am not a US citizen I really don't have a preferred choice of party. What I would say is that the US has experienced some periods of good governence from both sides, and some pretty horrendeous from the same, take for instance the rule of LBJ, if he is left I'll walk to TIMBUCKTU backwards and nude, this is a man who really pushed the US very much to the right of politics and certainly had no feelings for the liberal left, and interestingly when Nixon came to power while having a rather checkered time in office, to put it lightly, did do many things that if you believe the media, could only be done by a Democrate, eg; opening the door to the US for the US.

The reality is most people are essentially good, and most of us are willing to help others and are prepared to vote for a government that will do this, we have various reasons for voting intentions, from only voting for a particular party to voting for the person. However I do believe that people need to remember that the US has many good policies to remember the Republicans for, and when we talk about great US citizens such as Lincon, we need to remember taht he was a Republican.

Coming from a country where our conservative party is probably less conservative, and is actually known as the Australian Liberal party, I often find it hard to understand the politics of the US, although I do find that over the last few decades the Republican party has moved away from the centre of politics , or at least this is the perception you get when one watchs from the outside, towards the centre right, however it is often harder to say where the Democrates are, one just has to watch the current round of Democratic Primaries. I quite often think that many in your congress would better show the policies and ideologies of the two parties that the Presidential side of politics, quite possibly due to the fact that the views of the President are those refelcted by the media.

What is interesting is that politics in Australia and Britian have followed asimilar patch, in so far as who is right and who is left and who is centre.

Although I do think that the Tory Party of the UK is a lot more obviously right, and the Labour party centre Left, than say the US partiy differences.

I am not making any real conclusions here, other than that I am interested in why so many feel that conservative governments are all evil, while the left is the white knight, when we know this is not the case.
Comments
on Feb 03, 2004
Being cynical I'll give my 2 cents on this.

The Republican party hasn't changed nearly as much as the Democrats were. The Democrats bet the farm on slavery in the 1860s -- they wanted to protect it. They lost. So then they became the party of white power. Woodrow Wilson was incredibly racist for instance and undid many executive branch reforms brought in by Teddy Roosevelt and Taft. But ultimately, overt racism was a loser of an issue.

The change began with the election of Franklin Roosevelt. He was earnestly trying to save the Republic but was also a shrewd politician. He was the first President to recognize the true power of the recently passed amendment allowing income tax. He began teaching the masses, particularly the lower classes that democracy could be a tool in which they used the power of the ballot to confiscate the wealth generated by the upper classes.

He was much more subtle and I believe more honorable in his intentions than later politicians would become. In those days (1930s to 1945) you could work hard and still be in poverty as millions of Americans of that era could attest to. So the earliest programs were about taking some wealth from the highest echelons of income earners and providing some benefits and services for those who were honestly trying to make their way in the world. Hence the term "New Deal".

Later Democrats recognized even greater opportunity by looking at the trends. Those who ended up being dependent on government help were overwhelmingly supporting them. By pushing through programs that "assisted" the less fortuntae, they could create more and more dependents that would increasingly serve as their base.

And so here we are today with 90% of African Americans supporting the political party that literally fought to the death to enslave them. Siding against the party that was largely formed (The Republican party came about on the eve of the civil war as an alliance of abolutionists and other segments) to free them from bondage.

Democrats switched their strategy of white power to control of the less fortunate through the growing percentages of government dependents. Slaves of the government. So I suppose, depending on how one looks at it, the Democrats haven't changed so much after all. They are still about keeping large segments of the population down in slavery. It's just that now they use much more flowery language to attain it.
on Feb 04, 2004
Interesting comments, Brad thanks for filling in the gaps, what are you cynical about, I really am intrigued as to how the change happened, and why the Republicans not so much changed , as they allowed themselves to be percieved in a way that maybe does not reflect the nature of the rank and file membership, that and the fact that I am sure they could come up with better leaders than the current one. Then again the Democrates at this stage may end up with not much better. It's interesting but both parties seem to prey more on different vunerabilities of the general populace than the real issues at hand, to get to the Whitehouse, and are then hamstrung by the perceptions, they create.

Not that it is any different in Australia, or many other countries. We as you may be aware are in election mode as well, and I must say a pretty boring election campaign, thus far,.

The usual promises, better health, better schools, I support middle Australia more than you, hard to call at this stage, however Mr Howard is pushing it uphil, having to campaign as well as rebuke the media on the issue of WMDs, which even if he does articulate to the general populace his reasons, will have his work cut out, just to many fronts to fight on, not to mention the media is starting to turn on him, my bet is he will hold on but only just, mainly due to the narrow appeal of the opposition, meaning they have a strong following, but is generally contained in seats that are considered safe, which means they may gain more votes, but this will not translate to votes, I still don't think Australians believe they can run an economy, me included, plus they still have very us and them attitudes, like taking away state funding for private education, which means that those who can afford it still can and those that are struggling will loose out, as fees rise, not to mention the increased numbers turning to public education, thus spending dosen't reduce and service dosen't improve, sadly this is the current thinking of the Labor Party, and yes it is the extrem left that is pushing the policy, which is in my opinion one of envy, not care, they woould be better to leave the status quo as is and maybe improve the public system for those who need it.

A previous Labor Leader fell on his sword for similar reason at the last election, his idea was to introduce a lurury tax, great idea, however this had the effect had it been enacted of making lurury good more expensive, and out of the reach of the average person, this time they are doing it to education, what these people need to learn is how to balance policies, and remove envy, and possibly ignor the far left. This is a simplificatton of the overall picture, but you get the picture, the looney left are just as bad as the loony right, however if sanity prevails, it is usually those closer to the centre that prevail, it remains to be seen which way Rupert and his mates now push the media I suppose, ins't democracy grand, and aren't the people many times their own worst enemy, focus on spin and miss the truth, even when you know you are being duped.

Yes I am a bit off the subject, but I do find it incredible the way people shift in ideas of political parties,sometimes without any change from the ideology of the parties, just perceptions, or polictical enviroments, a good example, is the Liberal Party in Australia, it is more a coalition of conservative right and centre with centre left, then you have the Labor Part, a coalition of union movements, both left, centre and right, socialists, left and right wing factions and a few marxists, and yet we call the Liberals the right and the Labor party the left, this is the same party which was split in two in the late 50's and early sixties, when the influence of the left was getting too strong, and we ended up with the Democratic Labor Party and the Australian Labor party, the we had the split in the Liberal party resulting in the Australian Democrates, all a bit weird and confusing if you think about it, and the really funny thing is the Labor party spend just as much time fighting with each other as they do with the Liberal Party, a Liberal party which is generally considered to be conservative, or as they call it, wet (Left) and drys (right), the wets being centre left and the drys centre right, the rest are in the National Party. Not to mention the really loony right party One Nation, run by a former fish and chip shop owner. And you think your system is complex Brad. One thing that is interesting is that the Labor party was origionally started by Shearers (people who shear sheep) as a polictiacl front in the great shearers strike of the late 19th and early 20th centurys, from her the blue print for both the Australian and British Labor (Labour in Britian), certainly a bit more humble that the roots of the Socialist parties of Europe. I really have got off the point sought of, but I think this makes sense, if it dosen't you can always have a laugh at the Australian Political System, or your own if you like.
on Feb 04, 2004
Unfortunately Brad's analysis is slightly skewed. For a slight skew in the other direction see my response to his post in "Republicans freed the slaves...."
on Oct 17, 2004
your site is not very intesting to read
on Oct 17, 2004
your site is not very intesting to read