Liberal Forum

Conservatism lost it's party in Watergate. Nixon was the last American president that conservatives voted into office. Conservatism had already taken some hard blows. There was Vietnam, an unfortunate tendency toward jingo-patriotism, civil rights, rock music and an energetic counter culture which gave two **** about the Conservatives' moral high ground - which ten years earlier had made conservatives unassailable: masters of the social killing fields.

But the kicker was fed notes. That's what brought them down - our getting off metal (and Bretton Woods) and on fiat as a currency - and the inflation that move precipitated. See, when Mama had to get her *** out there and win bread just like daddy, she wanted to be spoken to like a big girl, from that moment on. I mean to say, she stopped twirling her locks when she had a suggestion as quick as a Missouri cop stops his car when he spots an unarmed black man.

Me, I was a scoffer and a sneerer - not a BIG job, but there was a big group doing it. Conservatism had always had the authority to look everyone in the eye and make them take stock of just what it was that they were up to at THAT minute of THAT day. It was an on-the-spot arbiter of what was and was not ****. Conservatism and authority were virtual synonyms. When you got pegged, you looked at the floor.

In the late 1980's, a stage comic who made jokes on Christians was walking a dangerous line. You could lose a crowd like THAT! But then you had Swaggart and you had Jim and Tammy Faye and you had Swaggart Redux and you had Tilton - all in short order. And overnight, comics that spoofed religion went from edgy risk takers to cheerleaders and panderers. Audiences simply hit a water mark - and as a single entity, audience members decided that church-going Christians were fair game for humorists.

Conservatism in America had hit that same wall twelve to fifteen years earlier, when virtually EVERYONE, all in a trice and with no formal agreement, just stopped believing and stopped looking down. The day came that I did not break the gaze first. I gave conservatism the crazy eye, and conservatism broke contact. I was just another brick in the wall.

All these years later, I miss conservatism - very much. The nation misses it. I'm sad that it's gone and would be happy to see its shadow at our door. When we helped daddy pack his bags, we were not cognizant of all the good stuff that was leaving with him, which WASN'T in those bags. The loss is everywhere observed, now - everywhere felt. The thing about conservatism was that it was where we kept our manhood - something you cannot put into bags - but that you cannot have without a certain pair of bags.

The on/off switch that would have prevented the shameful atrocities of abu ghraib was not in conservatism's bag - but I believe that switch hopped the same train that conservatism hopped when we stopped talking to it and stopped listening to it and started sneering at it, and defying it - and failing to imagine a single good thing to say about it. When we told conservatism to take a hike, there were no winners, and the biggest loser was anyone on this planet whose interests are served by America being a just and lawful nation.

I am not suggesting that conservatism can be expected, if it ever comes home, to restore those things single-handedly. But I CAN promise this: We won't restore this land to justice, to lawfuness or to prosperity WITHOUT conservatism in the partnership that does the heavy lifting.

Daddy, we miss you. Please come home.
 

Good OP. However, another thing to consider:

Credible conservatism went out with the Nixon era--but I personally believe TV to be the biggest culprit, for reasons I think should be obvious.

I don't think it's coming back. Quite the contrary--in fact it's an increasing problem not only at the federal level but also in local elections (thanks for that, too, SCOTUS).

jayjay » 13 Oct 2014 3:57 am » wrote:Good OP. However, another thing to consider:

Credible conservatism went out with the Nixon era--but I personally believe TV to be the biggest culprit, for reasons I think should be obvious.r

I don't think it's coming back. Quite the contrary--in fact it's an increasing problem not only at the federal level but also in local elections (thanks for that, too, SCOTUS).

Yes, our rejection of conservatism was cheered by the television - by the programming and especially by the commercials.I remember looking at M.A.S.H. as rather offensively ham-handed propaganda. Hawk Eye and BJ always got the clever lines and the moral lines - whereas Frank Burn and Hotlips Houlihan never had a sympathetic scene. Burns was a weak, sniveling, hypccritical fraud with an enormous sense of entitlement. As I gained experience of the world, I was astounded to find that the producers of M.A.S.H. were not so much striving to be propagandists as they were emulating documentarians, The Frank Burns character, which I had naively seen as a bad compendium of worse ideas was, in fact, a brilliant and extremely accurate character study of the average neoconservative.

Cannonpointer » 13 Oct 2014 4:35 am » wrote:
Yes, our rejection of conservatism was cheered by the television - by the programming and especially by the commercials.I remember looking at M.A.S.H. as rather offensively ham-handed propaganda. Hawk Eye and BJ always got the clever lines and the moral lines - whereas Frank Burn and Hotlips Houlihan never had a sympathetic scene. Burns was a weak, sniveling, hypccritical fraud with an enormous sense of entitlement. As I gained experience of the world, I was astounded to find that the producers of M.A.S.H. were not so much striving to be propagandists as they were emulating documentarians, The Frank Burns character, which I had naively seen as a bad compendium of worse ideas was, in fact, a brilliant and extremely accurate character study of the average neoconservative.

Of course, we have not simply seen an unbroken, level descent of The Conservative in popular entertainment. Burns himself was replaced with a Bostonian named Winchester, who seemed to hearken from a past era. He was silly, of course, but he was presented with comparative sympathy.

Cannonpointer » 13 Oct 2014 1:02 am » wrote:Conservatism lost it's party in Watergate. Nixon was the last American president that conservatives voted into officce.

Ignoring the fact that Nixon governed as a liberal, especially on economic policy.

Which is why he was a failure on domestic policy and why public sentiment allowed Dems to unethically drive him from office.

Daddy, we miss you. Please come home.

Oh, he'll be back in November, trust me.

jayjay » 13 Oct 2014 3:57 am » wrote:Credible conservatism went out with the Nixon era--but I personally believe TV to be the biggest culprit, for reasons I think should be obvious.

I don't think it's coming back. Quite the contrary--in fact it's an increasing problem not only at the federal level but also in local elections (thanks for that, too, SCOTUS).

Uh, not to bother you with actual reality, but conservatism has been sweeping across the country at the state level.

And Liberalism is going to get crushed in November.

Someone needs to tell the 38-40% of Americans that indentify as conservatives (almost twice as much as liberal) that their ideology is dead.

Nothing to see here folks, just the old meme of repeating a lie until it becomes the truth,

Most people don't understand true conservatism and true liberalism. The terms have been bastardized by hate politics. A true liberal is also conservative.

Annoyed Liberall » 13 Oct 2014 9:03 am » wrote:Most people don't understand true conservatism and true liberalism. The terms have been bastardized by hate politics. A true liberal is also conservative.

I understand that. We have discussed that. But the opening post does not convey that.

Annoyed Liberall » 13 Oct 2014 9:03 am » wrote:Most people don't understand true conservatism and true liberalism. The terms have been bastardized by hate politics. A true liberal is also conservative.

RichClem » 13 Oct 2014 9:18 am » wrote:

She is correct. Not by today's definition. But she is correct,

Annoyed Liberall » 13 Oct 2014 9:03 am » wrote:Most people don't understand true conservatism and true liberalism. The terms have been bastardized by hate politics. A true liberal is also conservative.

True modern liberals are defiantly conservative. As a matter of fact, I would say that old timey conservatives were absorbed into the almalmost extinct liberal movement...and I mean pre hippi liberal...these hippi mother **** are all big government slackers..

Huey » 13 Oct 2014 9:07 am » wrote:
I understand that. We have discussed that. But the opening post does not convey that.

That is because the opening poster is not very articulate, and usually makes posts with random punctuation and frequently misspelled words....making him unintelligible

RichClem » 13 Oct 2014 9:18 am » wrote:

I count you as one on those people who don't understand.

Huey » 13 Oct 2014 9:22 am » wrote: She is correct. Not by today's definition. But she is correct,

I have no idea what this part means.

A true liberal is also conservative.

The definition of lliberal is quite simple...live free, and mind your own business. Conservatism means the same thing...constitutionality...I feel the difference between the two originally centered around spending money.

bigsky » 13 Oct 2014 9:34 am » wrote:The definition of lliberal is quite simple...live free, and mind your own business. Conservatism means the same thing...constitutionality...I feel the difference between the two originally centered around spending money.

That is how I always thought of it.

One side of the political spectrum needed to separate itself from the other so we ended up with what we have today, the old time liberals latched onto the progressive movement and lost their identity as liberals,

Huey » 13 Oct 2014 9:38 am » wrote:
That is how I always thought of it.

One side of the political spectrum needed to separate itself from the other so we ended up with what we have today, the old time liberals latched onto the progressive movement and lost their identity as liberals,

Exactly, all the authority granted in the constitution is bipartison....spending is about the only place to divide constitutionally...well federalist paper constitutionality.

Huey » 13 Oct 2014 9:38 am » wrote: That is how I always thought of it.

One side of the political spectrum needed to separate itself from the other so we ended up with what we have today, the old time liberals latched onto the progressive movement and lost their identity as liberals,

Yup, and if liberals were reasonable and smart, they'd limit their agenda to the state level.

But they can't control their insatiable appetite to run others' lives, so they demand it be passed at the federal level.


And will pay the price, hopefully in spades.

RichClem » 13 Oct 2014 10:23 am » wrote:
Yup, and if liberals were reasonable and smart, they'd limit their agenda to the state level.

But they can't control their insatiable appetite to run others' lives, so they demand it be passed at the federal level.

And will pay the price, hopefully in spades.

Those are not the true liberals spin the context of the current discussion.