reagan-300x199This is a post I periodically re-post about once a year especially before elections.  It is the case against conservatism but if you hold a mirror to it, it’s also a case for progressivism   I try to add to the list to keep it current and ask people to add their thoughts.

The election a week away will decided the direction we go in as a country.  Are we going to continue to progress under President Obama and at least a Democratic Senate or are we going the reactionary and hate filled teabagger route.  Ironically outside the American bubble no democratic nation would ever vote for the current extreme brand of the GOP.  But in the case of the US many people think this election is white America’s last stand.

  • Conservatives wanted to stay loyal to England.
  • Conservatives wanted to make President a life-long appointment.
  • Conservatives fought against bringing in slave-free states without slave-holding states.
  • Conservatives fought for the 5/8 rule that counted slaves.
  • Conservatives fought for secession from the Union because they wanted to keep slaves.
  • Conservatives fought against woman’s suffrage movement.
  • Conservatives fought for prohibition.
  • Conservatives want to conserve everything but the environment, natural resources and energy.
  • Conservatives think science should be driven by ideological not that science should be used to make policy.
  • Conservatives wanted to keep us out of WWI and WWII and lied us into war in Iraq.
  • Conservatives created Jim Crow laws.
  • Conservatives terrorized African Americans by lynching thousands.
  • Conservatives fought against integration.
  • Conservatives put up “whites only” signs.
  • Conservatives fought against the civil rights act.
  • Conservatives wanted to stay in Vietnam but not serve in Vietnam like Romney.
  • Conservatives don’t believe in the separation of church and state.
  • Conservatives believe in torture and keeping Gitmo open.
  • Conservatives eliminated state-run asylums and put those with mental health problems out in the street.
  • Conservatives do not believe in organized labor and fight to break unions.
  • Conservatives brought you homelessness and huge deficits.
  • Conservatives back corporations and big business by giving them all the tax cuts and tax loopholes.
  • Conservatives eliminated most welfare for people but support corporate welfare.
  • Conservatives want to keep gay Americans 2nd class citizens by denying them the same rights the rest of us enjoy.
  • Conservatives deny Global Climate Change and fight ANY environmental legislation.
  • Conservatives fought against Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
  • Conservatives are still fighting against the ACA even after the SCOTUS deemed it constitutional.
  • Conservatives before 9/11 demoted the director of counter terrorism to a non-cabinet position.
  • Conservatives gave us the Patriot Act.
  • Conservatives only represent the interests of rich white men and corporations.
  • Conservatives think corporations are people but only want to represent real people who agree with them.
  • Conservatives want higher standards in schools but do not want to build new schools or pay teachers what they deserve.
  • Conservatives want to teach Intelligent Design in schools instead of the scientific theory of evolution.
  • Conservatives want to end Roe v. Wade even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.
  • Conservatives are so radical now they want to make contraception illegal with personhood bills.
  • Conservatives deregulating Wall Street was responsible for the worst financial crisis since 1929.
  • Conservatives believe we are a Christian nation want religion imposed into all aspects of your life.
  • Conservatives advocate going back to the Gold Standard which was responsible for making the Depression worse.
  • Conservatives want to privatize Social Security, voucherize Medicare and drastically cut Medicaid.
  • Conservatives put party ahead of country and tried to do anything they could to make Obama fail.
  • Conservatives fought against the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and would not confirm director.
  • Conservatives want to halt any recovery by slashing the budget while making the Bush tax cuts permanent.
  • Conservatives want to end the EPA, the Department of Education and other essential government agencies.
  • Conservatives want to increase military spending when one war has ended and the other is ending.
  • Conservatives presidents always create bigger budget deficits because they refuse to raise revenue.
  • Conservatives failed to cooperate on the grand bargain and caused America’s credit rating to drop.
  • Conservatives are against comprehensive immigration reform and favor unserious solutions like self deportation. 
  • Conservatives fought against ending DADT.
  • Conservatives fought against the START treaty when they use to be for it.
  • Conservatives defeated the DREAM act.
  • Conservatives are against same sex marriage.
  • Conservatives want to bomb Iran even before they create nuclear weapons.
  • Conservatives in the GOPTEA House at taxpayers’ expense are still defending DOMA in court.
  • Conservatives would have let two thirds of the American auto industry go bankrupt.
  • Conservatives want to privatize everything including FEMA.
  • Conservatives stifled the union movement and since then wage disparity has gone back to pre-Great Depression levels.

 

No wonder Romney dove to the center during the debates and afterward because he knows what a failure conservatives have been as well.  He knows America does not want to privatize Social Security, voucherize Medicare, gut Medicaid and overturn Roe v. Wade so he now sounds like a moderate Republican who will not touch the extremely popular programs given to us by the Democratic Party.  Romney even knows that Obamacare will work because he implemented an inferior form of it on the state level and it is still relatively successful.  So when you cast your vote think about how right wing Republicans will try to undo this progress and how Democrats will try to build on it.  Do not forget for a moment that the Reagan ‘greed is good’ reign of terror will continue if Romney somehow wins this election.  No Romney, conservatism isn’t working and it never did.

So before you vote think about this question.

What have Conservatives EVER done that benefited America?

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AdLibEXFANOFARIANAbitowithsimplelogicMurphTheSurf3 Recent comment authors
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MurphTheSurf3
Editor

Hey KQ- I have held that Conservativism had one brief period of enlightenment in U.S. History- during WWII through Ike’s 2nd term. FDR set out to recreate the American aristocracy. Patriotic Millionaires….And by the end of the war he had tied their fortunes to the nation’s fortune. Things soured a bit under Truman but it was Ike who took the next big step. The modernization of the GOP resulted in a Party that the current conservative GOP would disown.

WOULD EISENHOWER BE WELCOME IN TODAYS DEMOCRATIC PARTY?
YEP! He’d fit right in.

Ike was a supporter of unions, concerned about the impact of corporate power on policy, and worried about the military-industrial complex. He believed in investing in the country’s infrastructure. He believed in the social safety net.

(Former 5 Star General )Eisenhower warned in last address as President that: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, by the military–industrial complex which threatens to rob of us of our future if we are not vigilant”. And in first drafts of the address, IKE named it even more accurately calling it the “Congressional-Military-Industral Complex.” He ended the Korean War by settling for a truce, took a pass on both the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam, reduced the overall size of the military and supported the UN.

He paid down 38 percent of the debt he inherited when he came into office from the New Deal, WWII, the Marshall Plan and the Cold War Start Up. How? With income taxes of 80 to 90 percent bracket on the top income earners and a corporate tax level of 52% gauged to reward companies that invested in the U.S. AND economic policy that supported the development of industry, manufacturing, and the service sector. He also supported both the capital gains and inheritance taxes

He was responsible for some of the largest Infrastructure projects in American history (Interstate Highway System, intercoastal waterway, 24,000 miles of repaired railway track, the Gulf Coast levee system).And all of this was financed with gasoline taxes.

He sent federal troops to Little Rock Arkansas so that discrimination against black school children would be ended. Followed Truman in order the desegregation of more of the Armed Forces. He expanded the Social Security System to include virtually every worker in the country. He supported full equitable funding of public education, and the minimum wage.

He supported a series of regulations to oversee Wall Street, the banks and the investment sector citing the lessons learned in the Great Depression.

He made the Office of Health, Education and Welfare a cabinet level positon, and elevated the importance of the Sec. of Labor.

Take a look at the GOP platform from 1956.

It is shocking because it is so progressive which makes sense in that Bob LaFollette, Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey were all GOP as well. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25838

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

Kalima I am very grateful to your kind words. I’ve C/P the links you’ve posted here and shall keep them among my files.Cheers!

Kalima
Admin

My pleasure EXFANOFARIANA. If you need any help just shout, or leave us a message on our HELP DESK, on the right hand of your screen above the Recent Comments widget. http://planetpov.com/2009/12/24/help-desk/

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

I like to call them CANCERVATIVES…..

AdLib
Admin

Based on the recent extremist anti-woman statements of one Repub after another, maybe they should rename themselves Rapeublicans.

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

Couldn’t fit them better…..Love it…..

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

I am so grateful friends directed me at this blog.I’ve left HuPo due to the amount of trollies and ignorant mods who have invaded that site after the take over. After reading this post I immediately bookmarked it and shall be referring it to other friends/fans.What an amazing , priceless info/data you have collected here. KUDOS and keep the excellent job.

AdLib
Admin

Hi EXFANOFARIANA, welcome to The Planet, nice to have you here.

I’d suggest that HP is the Mitt Romney of the blogosphere. No principles, flipping and flopping for or against politicians based on what’s in the site’s best financial interests. Misleading headlines, exploiting the well-intentioned…it’s just too bad we don’t get to vote them out and elect another site as the major political blog.

PlanetPOV is a site for really exploring and discussing things that matter (no Celebrity Nip-Slip section here) with, if I may say, smart, thoughtful and well-informed people (not to mention witty). There’s no conformity of thought here, different views are welcome…but trolls aren’t and are zapped immediately. Those who prefer to mud wrestle with racists and other belligerent haters have HP to go to, here, it’s all about having a genuine community of people who are involved in and concerned about the world around them.

There’s no moderation here, you truly have freedom of expression at The Planet (and you can edit your published comments!). And, you can publish your own articles.

Our main and only real rule here is that all members are deserving of a modicum of respect, especially those with opposing views. In this hyper-partisan environment, too many have fallen into accepting that when someone disagrees with them, it is a personal attack requiring retribution. The folks who frequent The Planet recognize that we can be a hell of a lot better than that, we can hopefully agree more than we disagree but we can be reasonable and decent in any case and have conversations like the neighbors we basically are.

Thanks for the kind words and once again, welcome to The Planet.

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

Thank you so much for the warm welcome. I don’t believe I will be able to function normally until this election is over and President Obama gets another 4 years. Seriously! Besides some pretty personal losses I’ve had to deal this year, I had to take my butt back to Europe for a couple of weeks, in search for any amount of sanity I could muster.What a difference a continent makes. But things are not kosher there as well. Being a highly emotional lady – well sometimes I opt to let the Lady go whenever battling the trollies 🙂 – sometimes I find myself at a complete and utter lack of inspiration to even put together some reasonable sentences.Is there any other nation or culture on earth, and let’s limit this to reasonably developed ones, whereby issues associated with sex and conception occupy so much national attention and creates such unbelievably irrational chaos, distraction, and enmity? The narcissism, hypocrisy, and delusional nature of the average Joe in American culture is rarely so self-edifying as when these issues come up.America, a delusional culture?Wishing you all here a great weekend.

AdLib
Admin

Sorry to hear about the personal losses, EXFANOFARIANA.

I do give big props to Italy for sentencing Berlusconi to 4 years, no billionaire in the US would ever be convicted and sentenced to prison nowadays.

But politically and financially, there are a lot of issues throughout Europe too, whether it’s the UK, Greece, Spain, etc.

What Cameron and the Tories have been doing in the UK is just outrageous, much worse than what’s been happening here. In fact, the austerity that’s been going on in the EU and has led to a second recession has so far been avoided here in the US because those same policies of the Repubs have been blocked.

However, our “democratic” system is in worse shambles than any European nations. Having campaigns that last around 2 years for a 4 year job is insane. Spending billions of dollars…BILLIONS!…on the campaigns for a democratically elected office is truly insane. And the corrupt Supreme Court Five who forced Citizens United on us and empowered the wealthy and corporations to drown out the voices of the people and blackmail politicians is disgusting.

One thing we truly need is an elections reform agenda. Laws that prevent voter suppression, severely punish voter fraud, move campaigns towards financially limited and public financed campaigns (outlawing unlimited donations), truth in political advertising laws, etc.

We desperately need to repair our shredded democratic process. It would result in having much more of a representational government than we have right now (it is absurd that the Repub Congress can support and oppose issues that go directly against what the majority of the public wants, such as taxing the wealthy).

withsimplelogic
Member
withsimplelogic

“I just wanted you to know that this is officially my favorite article EVER” – said the confused Democrat who wonders why anyone still votes for conservatives.

bito
Member

Hello withsimplelogic, Let me join KQ in a warm welcome to the Planet. KQ has done an excellent job with his list that should remove any doubt why one shouldn’t vote GOP if they care about The country and it’s hard working people.
Every election cycle it seem that the R’s and the pudnuts do their damndest to tell us what is wrong with us, like Mitt and his 47% who just don’t care. BS, we do care, what we don’t like are your solutions and your self imposed inability to work for all Americans.

AdLib
Admin

Hey withsimplelogic, welcome to The Planet! Indeed, KQuark has compiled an irrefutable, fact-based and overwhelming list of reasons that supporting the GOP can only be the result of not caring about the consequences and being a lemming.

It is easier to rally and lead those who are blindly loyal and reverse-engineer reality to make it conform to “their team” being “the best”…but this isn’t a game and there are profound consequences to handing the reins of power to the greedy and power hungry.

MurphTheSurf3
Editor

What a list. I am up to my neck in alligators right now but I have set it aside to consider with care ASAP. You have a nimble mind and a wide ranging memory. Thanks for this. I am certainly going to copy and paste it into my archive.

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

HAHAHAHAHA! I was your fan at HP!

Kalima
Admin

Tremendous list K, an eye-opener for most people, and yet conservatives still vote for them expecting the same, looking for change, or foolishly believing the party has any family/moral values left. Talk about living your life with your head buried in the sand. That list is gross to any normal caring human being, and yet for some it’s ok because it doesn’t directly affect them.

I’m glad to finally see “Buyer’s Remorse” in the U.K., at last, very few voters support Cameron. If the GE was held today, Pink Cheeks and “Scrooge” Osborne would be flying out of the doors at 10 and 11 Downing Street.

KillgoreTrout
Member

I think modern day “conservatism,” is anything but. Today’s GOP isn’t anywhere close to being conservative, at least not in the older understanding of the word. They have become a group of radical, fundamentalist religious fanatics and far right power seekers. Their political idealism is far from being conservative. The GOP has moved far from the center, more moderate conservatism that existed in the 50s and 60s. I think they have collectively become victims of some sort of mental disorder caused by greed and the want of power in order to insure that their wealth remain in tact.

I think a true conservative rich man would not mind paying a little more in taxes to benefit America. I think a true conservative would be more for individual liberty, and stay out of people’s bedrooms and women’s reproductive organs. I think a true conservative would weigh heavily, the cost and consequences of starting wars. I think a true conservative would be more intelligent and operate from a point of reason, rather than knee-jerking out of fear and ignorance and religious fanaticism.

I think the ideal president is one who would use a conservative approach to problems that require a conservative approach, and a progressive approach to problems that require a progressive approach, especially in matters concerning the future of our country and it’s people. This would be, of course, dependent on genuine conservatism.

Clinging to ideas in a constantly changing world is simply unwise. Like the Tao recommends, be like a young sappling and bend with the wind, and not like some old, hardened tree that breaks in the wind.

Nirek
Member

KQ, what an excellent list!
Conservatives are also against FEMA, they think the states can fend for themselves. Imagine NJ trying to do everything to bring itself back to normal without the FEMA help or the Army Corps of Engineers.

Another thing “conservatives” are against is conservation of our environment, resources, energy, or middle class!

Feel free to use any and all my thoughts.

choicelady
Member

Well, once, a conservative Senator from Illinois championed my brothers’ Conscientious Objector status. Does that count?

Other than that, I’m at a loss to say.

I know conservatives who as individuals manifest the best of America – neighborliness, compassion, service, care. But so do progressives. So it’s not something unique to conservatives.

Other than that I’m at a loss to figure it out.

I know conservatives who are careful with public trusts and public money – but I know liberals who do the same.

Other than that, I’m at a loss to find something unique.

Guess there’s nothing on this sweet, green earth that Conservatives make better just by themselves.

Nothing.