Quote:
Originally posted by punkworld
You're making quite a few significant mistakes here. Let me start by saying that after high school, text books are no longer absolute authorities. They're written by people, and people happen to be subjective beings which are very capable of making mistakes.
The US constitution was indeed founded on liberal principles, but those were largely _classical_ liberal principles (e.g. many ideas and even actual pieces of text from Locke were used), and classical liberalism is actually a lot like libertarianism (which you ignorantly claim goes against everything the US was founded on).
Neoliberalism may be fairly similar to classical liberalism, but the actual ideology only emerged in the '70s, so saying "the country sought consensus amongst Liberals or better known "neo-liberals" until the New Deal" is a somewhat odd statement.
An equally odd statement is the one about some of the backbones of Republican ideology being racism (historically false) and a class-driven society (severely misleading, because it insinuates government intervention).
Your description of libertarianism is more than just a bit biased, and it ignores the very basis of libertarian ideology - that a free, market-driven society will be extremely productive and efficient, and will leave no room for racism and struggle between social classes because those things are utterly unproductive.
Calling libertarians "reactionaries" is ridiculous for anyone who actually knows what reactionism is. The closest (influential) thing to libertarianism in Europe is actually commonly referred to as "liberalism".
Your comparisons between Bush and his neoconservatives and Hitler and his nazi's are utterly ridiculous. You supply no real arguments for it, and there is no reason whatsoever to draw a parallel between the two. Yes, Bush is fairly authoritarian, but so were thousands upon thousands of politians in history. What you are doing is much like saying "X has a moustache, Hitler had a moustache, X is largely comparable to Hitler".
If this came straight out of your text book for poli 101, you should burn your textbook for poli 101 and send a letter to your university's board requesting that the professor giving poli 101 be fired for incompetence.
And before you go off and call me a right-wing conservative Republican: I'm actually a social liberal, I think the neoconservative agenda Bush is pushing is very dangerous, and my views on politics are fairly Rawlsian (although perhaps a bit less naive).
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You are absolutely wrong on so many levels it is almost not even worth disputing.
You obviously have your VERY OWN ideas of American political history. I might also add that half of what you said just shows you in no way understood my arguments at all.
First of all trying to claim "neo-Liberalism" evolved in the 70's is the most false thing you said. As a matter of fact the mid to late 70's is when Liberals went back to the more original ideas of Liberalism that began the country. And I never said that "neo-Liberals" evolved with the creation of The New Deal. I said the COUNTRY by and large was liberal until it came about. Thus, The New Deal itself sparked fuel for debate.
The Constitution was considered by most scholars to be Conservative in nature, while the Declaration of Independence is based on traditional Liberalism and liberals and neo-liberals have been fighting for years to force the Constitution to conform to the same liberal principals as the Declaration of Independence (i.e. the struggle for civil rights, women's rights, and other such trials).
And writings from Locke were not used in the Constitution, he was quoted in The Declaration of Independence. Big difference in these two documents that any Political scholar should not be confusing. One being they were written almost 13 years apart.
Then your argument for Republicans is only half right and only for a few years in the original Republican party. Yes the Republican party was created against the ideals of slavery, and racism. However, this was short lived as now its in your face every single day that Republicans subscribe to very conservative ideas, (i.e. The New Right, and Neo-Cons). Republicans made this turn in 1980. Even before the 1980's Republicans had began adopting much more conservative view points. Before the New Deal their ideology would be considered more original Liberalism than the Neo-liberal ideology. Your comments show me you have absolutely no idea what the ideology truly is behind the The Right and the Neo-Cons. To understand that Republicans are conservative and to understand what the conservative ideology actually is, proves that I am correct in my review of that party in its current state.
My description of libertarianism is right on the money from its very inception. They believe in social Darwinism and little government. As historically noted the Republicans made a complete 180 degree turn from its original ideology and so have the Libertarians to an extent, but I made it clear that I was not referring to present day Libertarians, but to the historical base of their beliefs. And it is obvious that any ideas further to the right than Conservative are "REACTIONARY," as is the New Right conservatives, Neo-cons, and Nazis.
My comparisons about Hitler and Neo-Cons is 100% on the money, you just did not take the time to read it properly and understand it. Bush's Neo-cons, like Hitler's Nazis, believe they have a divine right, or right by God, to spread their political ideology by force to anyone who does not subscribe. I did not make any reference to Bush being a Nazi or subscribing to Nazi party beliefs. And again a true understanding of the ideology of Neo-Conservatives proves this to be a valid argument. The point of Bush being dangersouly authoritarian is again part of the New Rights movement. Yes thousands of leaders have been authoritarian, and some for the betterment of their country, however, to understand the reason behind the authoritarian movement within the New Right is to understand why it is dangerous to American values.
The rest of your argument was simply ignorant rhetoric.