Oh my
Thanks to Jay, someone has said arguably the dumbest thing about the epic battle of liberals v. conservatives:
we liberals may be feeling pretty beat up lately, but if you listen closely it’s pretty clear that we’ve decisively won virtually the entire public debate with conservatives. The right wing likes to talk a lot of smack about how the country is going their way, but it’s really not true even after 20 years of the Reagan/Gingrich/Bush revolution.
Let’s review:
Iraq – Nope, still happened.
Gun control – Nope, I still have some guns and as of today 34 states have concealed carry laws.
Taxes – Nope, Americans like tax cuts.
Balanced budgets – well, that one is up in the air. Republicans talk about it but as soon as the snag all three branches, they forget about it. Never been a Liberal ideal but Clinton did do it. Oh, and Nope.
Restricting free trade – Nope.
Gay marriage – Nope, not yet.
Capital punishment – Nope.
Big government – well, they got this one but their guy didn’t do it.
Abortion – Ok, they get one on this list.
Welfare: I seem to recall some reform. Nope.
That’s just off the top of my head. There are probably more.
Of course, Republicans haven’t gained ground on privatizing stuff, the tax cuts they really want, vouchers, etc. That and they’ve abandoned some ideals recently (small government, balanced budget, immigration). It seems neither side is winning and that is good.
Like it or not, it’s hard for either side to change the status quo.
Note: The above are entirely meant to represent stereotypical liberal and conservative ideals; e.g., not every liberal is for gun control nor is every conservative pro-life. But the positions above are usually associated as mentioned.
January 8th, 2004 at 11:02 am
Take abortion off the list. Bush signed a partial birth abortion ban into law two months ago and will receive zero loss in political capital from it (heard a Dem candidate running to overturn the law?).
January 8th, 2004 at 11:26 am
I’ve seen a few liberals oppose PBA so i won’t rule it out completely, yet.
January 8th, 2004 at 1:15 pm
I’m not sure the liberals “won” on big government, so much as both sides lost. Conservatives may be categorically opposed to “big government,” but liberals are not categorically for it. Rather, they are for a more specific type of government, which may be as big as the current one, but does different things.
I would say that overwhelming “conservative” support for a federal ban on PBA is a sign that the liberals have won big on the Tenth Amendment.
January 8th, 2004 at 1:44 pm
Iraq is still a “to be determined” whether that’s a win or loss for either party.
Taxes: Not sure when, but sooner or later people will figure out that the GOP is mortgaging America’s future with tax cuts. That is, they’re “successful” because they cut taxes while increasing spending. Once you start substantially cutting my kid’s education and my local highway funding (or even Social Security benefits) to pay for Bill Gates’ tax cut, it becomes a considerably less popular idea.
Admittedly, Dems have not been as good as they should be about getting that point across, although a couple of the Move On ad contest entries address this nicely.
January 8th, 2004 at 1:48 pm
Aside from the specific critiques of your list(and believe me, they are legion š ), I think you are not reacting to what Kevin was saying. the point of his article is that whatever the results, the republicans have to couch their plans in liberal terms in order to get the public to go along with them. So pointing out that Republicans have then used the power such dissembling gained them to do other than what their language suggested doesn’t really have any bearing on what Kevin was saying.
January 8th, 2004 at 1:59 pm
Kevin, I agree to an extent. However, republicans changing their mind on an issue or failing to follow through with it is not a de facto win for liberals.
January 8th, 2004 at 2:44 pm
I think the point is that Americans vote more consertive than they actually are. If liberals could get them to actually vote on the issues rather than the rhetoric, the liberals would win more. Easier said than done, of course. That is, the GOP says one thing and does another. If they said what they were actually going to do, they would lose a lot of support.
Liberals have much to gain simply by pointing this out.
January 9th, 2004 at 6:12 am
Kevin,
When one goes into the discussion thinking that Republicans want to unzip their flies and piss on the people receiving Medicare & Social Security, it’ll sure look like a victory if there are moves for the government to ensure their solvency.
January 9th, 2004 at 2:53 pm
Big government is conservative rhetoric and quite frankly BS. Both sides are in favour of big government, they just disagree on which parts of the government should get larger. Conservatives want to be tough on crime (larger justice and incarceration costs), larger military, occupation of foreign countries, etc. Liberals want more social programs.
On gay marriage, I would say that the country is heading more in that direction than it was before. Some states have statutes recognizing some form of civil unions (Vermont, California, NJ just passed, Mass. passing soon).
Balanced budget’s are usually what the party not in power wants…(the GOP got pretty noisy on the topic while Clinton was in office, not as vocal before or since, and the liberals are complaining about balalnced budgets now.