Three Shoot Downs

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-11-2020, 05:34 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Some day, you are going to have to decide whether you are a Democrat/ liberal first or an American first, I've noticed that Democrats are pretty quick to turn against and politicize while Republican presidents  are in office. That's a bad habit that Democrats better address internally before slitting their own throats and losing a significant portion of  country that it can no longer turn to and rely upon and call upon for help/support during  serious times of need. It's really up to Democrats to decide whether they want to become aristocratic or remain Democratic like we are  at this point. It's funny, as the liberals speak, I tend to see what the liberals are speaking about and afraid of occurring in America or America eventually becoming like a banana republic or fascist state,

I have been wondering about the difference.  Let us first say there is a distinction between the Republican Establishment and the rank and file base.  I am talking about the establishment here.

A big difference is that there are Republicans that get locked up.  The Republicans chant about it.  They daydream about locking up liberals.  Yet, it is they that wind up committing crimes and being locked up.  Nixon's third rate burglary.  Bush 43 and company lying about causes of war.  Trump and company abusing power and trying to cover it up...

The base common denominator is that Democrats tend to believe in big government, while Republicans often don't.  If you don't believe in government, what sort of people are you inviting into government?  They do no fit JFK's line.  "Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country."  They make no attempt to return value to the people.  The Establishment Republicans get people who want to get close to power so they can abuse it for the sake of themselves and their friends.  

Now this does not imply that the base and some politicians linked to them might honestly believe in small government and small taxes.  Still, you have to balance it against solving real problems.  Some things require the government to step up.  You cannot go absurdly and for too long in either direction.  That is why the progressive time ended with the Great Society, and could very well be why another such progressive time will come again.  

Eventually.

Now the tension between small and big governments is a natural one.  There are abuses in either approach.  It just seems the Republicans do not believe and a few end up behind bars as a result.  The establishment at least has alienated their Tea Party base, and wound up bound tightly to Trump as a result.  They seem ready to ride his lies to their doom.

This does not mean that the Republican base isn't ahead of the Democrats in rejecting those too tightly milking the government, in hanging with the elites.

America was great... during the tax and spend liberal years.  The desire for small government was in part an attempt to shut down the tie between minorities and government.  LBJ tried to buy the black vote, and got instead the Southern Strategy and a decades long check on the progressives.  It is ironic that the War on Poverty was ended, and the generations that followed got aquatinted with poverty.  Related, perhaps?

It should be possible to return to the tax and spend pattern of yesteryear while honoring the limits on the size of government and taxes.  Unfortunately, the pushes in various directions have become toxic.  The conflict between the progressive movement to solve problems and the conservative desire to limit size of government have reached the point where no one seems to be listening to their opposites.  It is more fun to demonize, to indulge in bad characterization and lies.  Trump's lies and a reaction value of truth telling, of valuing fact, may indeed ironically make America great again.  To the degree that extremists hang onto a habit of demonizing their opposites, it will not happen.