<![CDATA[I'm elevating this exchange from the deep depths of the debate about the right-wing hit squad thread, because one of the cursing interlocutors has offered a family-safe argument about the nature of Republican pursuit of liberty around the world. It’s full of bizarre assumptions, but is a foundation for a constructive discussion….
Wes commented, after accusing liberals of being goose-stepping goons who hate freedom and I replied that liberals created the armory and legions of freedom who backed Hitler down:
Mitch,
You say.. “The goose-stepping in Germany started with guys who supported conformity to a national ideology and the wiping out of political opponents, not to mention a little thing called genocide. Fortunately, liberalism in the United States, which served as the armory of the world and the source of vast armies, was there to stop it.”Unfortunately, untrue, the Liberals in the US at that time, Joe Kennedy and his ilk, were the ones spouting isolationism, the ones who did NOT want the US to get involved in the “European conflict”, as it was called at the time, the exact same ones who, to this day are bemoaning the use of US forces who have/are liberated(ing) Afghanistan/Iraq, the same ones who were shouting the loudest when Pres Reagan faced down the USSR,in essence liberating Eastern Europe, the same ones who were against US forces going into Kuwait after Saddam invaded it. Also the self same Liberals of this day whom use sweet sounding terms such as ” the willingness to tolerate differences of opinion”, yet when differing opinions are presented, you do everything in your power to shut them down, i.e. the “Sinclair campaign” and others too numerous to mention.
What side was it in the recent election who was storming the offices of the opposition party, shooting off guns, beating people up, intimidating campaign workers, volunteers, et al, what side was it defacing private property, cars and homes where the owners of said property dared to place a sticker or campaign poster for the opposition? Oh yeah, that was your side, the self proclaimed party that has a “willingness to tolerate differences of opinion”.
Posted by: Wes at February 19, 2005 11:39 AM
Wes—Okay, let’s go over this one point at a time.
Joe Kennedy was one liberal, not all liberals. He was an idiot about Germany. That doesn’t make his son any less the great president he was, or his second son a powerful voice of truth in the 1968 campaign. Teddy…. eh.
If you recall during the 1976 vice presidential debate, Bob Dole, the Republican candidate, called the wars of the 20th century “all Democrat wars,” suggesting that the Republican party had stood for isolationism throughout the 1900s. Now, the Republicans picked Dole for their Presidential candidate in 1996, so we can safely assume that is a sign of their continuing desire not to be involved in overseas conflict. In fact, Dole criticized Clinton for his use of troops in Somalia during that campaign.
The reason President Roosevelt had to create the Lend-Lease program was Republican isolationism. During the 1930s, when Germany was building its arsenal, Republicans passsed several “Neutrality Acts” that prevented American involvement in attempts to back down Hitler. Republican senators resisted giving the ships and other materiel to the British to fight the Germans, so Roosevelt came up with Lend-Lease.
Wendell Wilkie, the 1940 Republican candidate for president led a long campaign to get his party to abandon isolationism.
Reagan “faced down the USSR”: No, he didn’t, Communism expired of its own internal disease during the tenure of Reagan and Bush I, but they didn’t face it down. Reagan gave a key speech that gave Eastern European activists hope, but he didn’t send them any material aide. In fact, let’s look at Afghanistan. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we pulled our athletes out of the Olympics.
The real facing down of Communism was a bi-partisan effort that included Reagan and Bush I, but also Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy (who did the most important facing down of the Soviets), Johnson (who made a tragic escalation of Vietnam thinking it would check Communism), Nixon (who was a master at non-military tactics for checking Communism) and Carter.
The problem with the war you are touting as a liberation is that it is a sham to cover the Bush Administration’s failure to do the real job in Afghanistan, being conducted on a stage—Iraq—that only positions our troops for a widening conflict.
Few liberals objected to the invasion of Afghanistan, because it clearly harbored the organization that conducted the 9/11 attacks, not to mention was run by a group of sadistic thugs. Problem is, we neither completely removed the thugs in Afghanistan—anyone who looks at a map of “government-controlled” areas in the country can see that we left the job unfinished—nor, oh, yeah, where the heck is Osama bin Laden?
The Sinclair campaign was a violation of the laws of election laws, simple as that. When Dan Rather used documents that he later admitted were forgeries, the right got his head a platter. But when a television network tried to use its market presence to force propaganda into American homes and people complained, you guys label them “enemies of freedom.” I’d like to see you provide a few other examples of shutting down the voice of citizens conducted by liberals, because I’d wager they all have to do with shutting down illegal activities, like cross-burning.
I don’t know where all this abuse happened during the 2004 election. You’d think it would be widely reported by bloggers, who could have covered every one of those incidents in detail, provided pictures and so forth. If bloggers had that information, it would certainly have been as prominent as the Eason Jordan affair. No, that’s mostly made up. Unfortunately, stories of Republicans abusing voter registration laws to cheat Democrats and third-party voters who tried to register out of their franchise are true.
But, Wes, let me put it this way: If you find someone who is attacking Republicans for their views, please demonstrate it to me and I will do everything I can to help you stop it. Everything I can. Period.
Posted by: Mitch Ratcliffe at February 19, 2005 12:53 PM
]]>