So what do you think the Republican Party you miss stood for?

Wes

Prudence.


Please explain when that was. From what I have seen the republicans have
been nothing but a representative of wealth since the day Lincoln was
shot.

Wealth and prudence are hardly contradictory. And the period of greatest
circumspection for the Republican Party probably was from around 1954 to
1980. If Nixon wasn't such a weird nut, we'd remember him more for
moderate
good sense than for being a weirdo and a criminal. Goldwater was an
important directive force for the party but he hardly was prudent or
circumspect -- but then, he didn't win, either. He lost a lot of the
moderate and liberal Republicans.

You'd like to think wealth and prudence go together but I think in reality
there is no connection between the two. Mike Tyson was very wealthy but
hardly prudent and the same thing can be said for many with wealth. And I
still think that representing wealth really has nothing to do with prudence.
The monied class is an interest group and the republicans are the political
arm of that group. As for Nixon, you can call him prudent but anyone that
starts covert wars, bugs political enemies, commits felonies while
president, and is clinically paranoid is hardly my idea of a prudent man. I
do thank him to this day for putting in the draft lottery though. 8-)


Before Nixon's Southern Strategy, both parties had substantial liberal,
conservative, and moderate wings. George Romney was a moderate, as was Ev
Dirksen. Rockefeller and the New England Republicans were fairly liberal.
And as you know, Southern Democrats until that time were mostly very
conservative -- authoritarian/reactionary, actually. In areas of the
country
dominated by one party or the other, there generally was a mixture of
conservatives and liberals within that party, within a given area.

I'll go along with that. There did used to be more variety of thought in
both parties. Now it's ideologues or nothing.


Reagan went off the deep end with his deficit spending. It made sense
while
we were recovering from the recession in the early '80s but it made no
sense
at all after recovery was underway. But he completed the conservative
takeover of the Republican Party that was begun by Goldwater and
maneuvered
by Nixon to win the South. As it happened, he re-defined conservatism in
the
process, partly by ignoring deficit spending for the sake of tax cuts, and
prudence went off the table when he did.

It made sense to the republican Kool-Aid drinkers. Starve the beast of funds
was the plan for the government but as always, running along side with
everything else they did was the bond between wealth/business and the
republican party. It was interest not prudence that they were all about.


They have always supported unregulated free markets and we have the
panics
and crashes galore to show how imprudent that policy is.

It's not true that they always supported unregulated free markets.

Come on, do I have to get out the Chamber of Commerce manifesto from 1929 to
show you that the overarching desire of the republicans was free market
capitalism along with low or better still, no taxes? Nothing has changed to
this day. I've heard the mantra of deregulating free markets for half a
century. They finally did it in 2001 to our dismay.



Individual responsibility, economic liberty, yes. But there were plenty of
Republicans who favored regulation and saw no conflict between prudent
regulation and economic liberty, because it was still accepted then that
markets are a great force but one that also had the potential for
self-destruction. People still remembered the Depression.

As always there are a few lone wolves who buck the party. But the direction
has always been the same. Get rid of regulation. It's what kills business.
That and taxes. They never give up. Just listen to everyone on MSNBC for a
day. All Larry Kudlow talks about is lowering taxes on business. This is
what they live for. Funny thing is they got what they asked for when they
elected Bush. Even funnier is how they can't put two and two together and
figure out getting what they wanted is what got us in this financial mess.
There's a few who get it though but they get short shrift and are labeled
"socialist".


You're conflating conservatives with Republicans. Most conservatives have
been Republicans but until the populist sweep completed by Reagan, there
was
a substantial percentage of Republicans who were not very conservative.

Non conservative republicans don't exist anymore. It's like the chicken or
the egg. Which came first republicans or conservatives. In the past being a
republican meant you were conservative. The only difference was how
conservative. It's only now that some people like to say they are
conservatives but aren't republicans. Except all those people vote for
nothing but republicans. They are like Sean Hannity. They say they are
conservative but all they hang around with are republicans. They try to get
republicans elected. All their friends are republicans. They contribute to
the republican party. But they are conservatives. Yeah, right.


The brutal facts
never seem to change their idolization of free markets. Today's mess is
just
another example of the same thing. 1920, 2009, their philosophy never
varies
so if they were ever prudent it had to have been done covertly.
Otherwise
I
would have noticed it.

Hawke

You would have noticed it if you'd paid better attention to American
political history, too. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress


You still never showed me when republicans did anything but promote the
interests of wealth, and I can't see where that was ever truly prudent.
You're just wishing it was true because you were one of them for so long you
didn't want to see the way the group really was. It's like being an honest
man in a group of liars. You don't want to think they are completely
different from you. But if you are really prudent you wouldn't be a
republican. Ready to quit them once and for all? I'll support you in your
weakened state.

Hawke