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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:23 pm Post subject: TR and the Two Candidates |
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One-hundred and fifty years after his birth, to the day, Theodore Roosevelt still plays an outsized role in our politics. The man who his daughter described as wanting to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral" would be pleased.
Both McCain and Obama cite TR as an inspiration, but for very different reasons.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/tr_and_the_two_candidates.html
As I mentioned the other day, I've been reading up on Teddy, so this opinion piece seemed interesting to me. Whatever happened to the progressive conservatives? That's one policy option the Republicans have available if they can disentangle themselves from the religious right. They would also have to let go of the Nixon/Reagan Southern Strategy as well. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Obama is a progressive conservative. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, he is and if you want to take that angle, so was FDR.  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| That is certainly how the New Left read FDR, or worse. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Yes, he is and if you want to take that angle, so was FDR. |
How the *beep* was FDR conservative? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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When he intervened in banking and finance, he turned to bankers and financiers to advise his govt, and he "made the world safe for capitalism," as critics have alleged, rather than fully and forever nationalizing them as he should have done. Same with the rest of big business at the expense of labor. Same with farms.
He created the military-industrial complex. He failed to liberate women. The list goes on. Here is how one feminist historian talks about a socially-conservative FDR, New Deal, and the Second World War looked at home, sounds like the usual "nightmare" that they construct when characterizing American history...
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| Despite the wartime labor shortage, women were often assigned to gender-segregated tasks, received lower wages than men for the same work, and found few support services such as daycare for children. In a few cases, social workers discovered babies sleeping in cars outside defense plants because their working mothers had nowhere else to leave them. Business and political leaders offered various rationalizations for denying women equal pay and access to daycare. Women were encouraged to think of factory work as a temporary expedient, to keep their sights on the home, and to be prepared to resume the roles of housewife and mother when the war ended... |
How could a liberal rescue capitalism when he could have won supremacy over it once-and-for-all?
Last edited by Gopher on Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:35 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
When he intervened in banking and finance, he turned to bankers and financiers to advise his govt, and he "made the world safe for capitalism," as critics have alleged, rather than fully and forever nationalizing them as he should have done. Same with the rest of big business at the expense of labor. Same with farms.
He created the military-industrial complex. The list goes on.
How could a liberal rescue capitalism when he could have won supremacy over it once-and-for-all? |
Are liberals anti-capitalist?
No, FDR isn't conservative simply because he wasn't Communist.
The man radically and fundamentally changed the relationship between the relationship between the Federal gov't and the States. The Constitutional shift he pushed was incredible. There's nothing conservative about it.
Whereas I don't see Obama radically altering the Constitution, based on his statements he has made as a former professor of Constitutional law. FDR was more like Bush: he thought it was a damned piece of paper. Neither FDR or Bush are conservatives. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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Just reporting how some critique FDR from the position that he was a conservative, socially and otherwise. Not my position at all. Check out A. Badger's New Deal: the Depression Years for a nicely-argued, systematic defense against that nonsense.
In any case, give them time, Kuros. They will sooner or later treat B. Obama's govt the same.
Last edited by Gopher on Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:40 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Just reporting how some critique FDR from the position that he was a conservative, socially and otherwise. Not my position at all. Check out A. Badger's New Deal: the Depression Years for a nicely-argued, systematic defense against that nonsense. |
I figured that wasn't your opinion. I wanted to swat it down anyway. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Ha. Then you will enjoy Badger as much as I. He comprehensively and systematically destroys that position, issue by issue. Surprisingly, he is British, defending an American president he admires, standing against the American left, whom he clearly considers unreasonable on this issue. |
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