FDR defines "conservative"

[kpete]

Extreme Rightists and extreme Leftists ought not to be taken out by us and shot against the wall, for they sharpen the argument, and make us realize the value of the democratic middle course—especially if that middle course, in order to keep up with the times, is, and I quote what I have said before, "just a little bit left of center."

I am reminded of four definitions:

A Radical is a man with both feet firmly planted— in the air.

A Conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.

A Reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command—of his head.

MORE:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15828

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. Excellent.

Outstanding, in fact.

[Initech]

2. FDR obviously never met the modern Ayn Rand worshipping republicans.

Who easily fit my definition of "someone who completely lacks empathy."

"Oh you're working three jobs to make ends meet? How come you're not working a fourth or fifth?"

"The poor don't deserve a higher minimum wage because the rich are the makers and you deserve the crumbs you get."

"You have ten pizzas on the table? You're lucky you even get one slice! So stop complaining and get back to work!"

[FlatStanley]

3. FDR met the modern Republican. It was Hoover and his ilk.

If only Democrats would reacquaint themselves with the classic Democrat.

[BlindTiresias]

13. Not so much

The current cohort of right wingers are much worse.

[FlatStanley]

14. So are the current cohorts of DLC/DCCC/Third Way types

[merrily]

16. Less "gentlemanly," yes, but not much worse economically or politicaly.

That is a fiction that is convenient for some to disseminate today, even to believe.

However, Republicans fought economic reforms during the Great Depression and the federal government then was not thought to have much power under the commerce clause, which is not much of an issue anymore. FDR had to fight tooth and nail on many fronts, Republicans in Congress, Republicans on the SCOTUS, the then prevailing iinterpretation of the Constitution, conservative Democrats, and even not so conservative Democrats, and that's even before you get to the Great Depression, the threat of Hitler and the man's paralysis and cancer. The man was a phenom and we have not seen anything close since.

[BlindTiresias]

17. I'm not so sure

Hoppe and Rothbard are much worse than historical conservatism and they have a surprising amount of pull now that more "moderate" (lol) people like Hayek are considered not right wing enough.

[merrily]

18. Not sure that FDR was a phenom whose like we have not seen since?

Hoover's bullshit solution to the crash of 1929 combined with the Dust Bowl was that private individuals shouldl help each other-if they chose and if they had anything to spare, of course. Not very different from Poppy Bush's "thousand points of light."

The Supreme Court was overturning every bill that Congress and FDR managed to pass via "the New Deal coalition." A war in Europe was looming and the right wing was isolationist as well as stingy and greedy.

[BlindTiresias]

24. Ok?

I'm familiar with the era, but my point was that the nature of the rightwing today versus the 30's is that the right wing is -more- dominant today and is far more insidious in its influence. In the 30's we had huge coalitions of socialists, communists, unionists, liberal progressives and the like which made thing like the New Deal possible and exerted enough pressure for the progressive elite to take notice and make come concessions. Is there an FDR today? No. Is there any meaningful resistance today? No. Is the ideology of the right wing, newly invigorated by the Austrian school ascendant and all but the solitary ideology of western government? Yes, it pretty much is, to the point where the majority of the so-called progressive party of the United States follow a variant of that ideology that just wants more social issue concessions and has entirely ignored economic reform.

So yeah, I would say things are quite a bit worse.

[merrily]

31. Ah, I see. Right wing ideas are more pervasive today, w/o enough resistance. I agree with that.

Is there an FDR today? No.

Again, my view on that may depend upon things that I will probably post another time, but not today. For now, I will say that I think FDR was a phenom. I don't know if I think he was a purely altruistic phenom.

[merrily]

19. ETA: What was different about the right then: They had more of their way.

Until Teddy, who left the Republican Party for the Progressive Party, and FDR, the federal Government's role was seen as limited, including by the SCOTUS, even as to the interstate commerce clause.

Civil rights was not an issue for them. Jim Crow was alive and flourishing in any state that had adopted it and Wilson was notoriously racist, as were the Southern Democrats. (and FDR did not want to rock that boat, fearing it might sink and take the entire Democratic Party under with it). Women had gotten the vote, so that was not a point of contention any longer either.

Choice was not an issue. This was long before Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade. States had strict laws about contraception and abortion and no one was challenging them in court.

The first case involving prayer in public places had not come to the SCOTUS. Prohibition was on its way to repeal, and was repealed within months of FDR's inauguration.

So, the cultural issues that ignite today's right were not issues then--for all the wrong reasons (women's suffrage and repeal being notable exceptions to my "wrong reasons" comment). All the forces of dissent, from liberals, from DINOs, from Southern Democrats and all other variations of the right, were brought to bear on FDR's attempts to fix the economy and fight Hitler.

[BlindTiresias]

23. ??

In economic terms the right wing is so dominant that the left has ceased to exist on the American political spectrum, how is that right wingers not getting their way? I will concede in some narrow social issues sense you are correct, but that is honestly not the major part of what the left-right spectrum consists of.

[merrily]

32. ??

I will concede in some narrow social issues sense you are correct, but that is honestly not the major part of what the left-right spectrum consists of.

No one said the right left spectrum consisted of social issues. What the post to which you are replying with that comment did say was that the right then had its way then on the social issues that fire up today's right.

[merrily]

4. In reality, he inherited a Supreme Court that made Rand look liberal

And, at points had a Republican Congress that rolled back the things he tried to do. Sadly, he did not use the veto enough.

[hifiguy]

5. No, he knew about the 1%ers of his day.

They were the ones behind the plot Smedley Butler exposed - there have always been rapacious greedheads. FDR just wasn't afraid of them in the least.

[merrily]

7. FDR was a 1% of his day. Joe Kennedy, too.,

[hifiguy]

8. True, but TR an FDR were raised with a sense of

what we would now call noblesse oblige and came to fervently believe in it as correct and necessary. The Kennedys were raised with a sense of obligation to make the world a better place. Old Joe made all the money the family would need for generations and expected his sons - as was the case in those days - to do something more than sit on their asses and count their money. The measure of a good life was what was done for others.

That idea is as dead as Dillinger among the vast majority of today's wealthy.

[merrily]

15. I was responding to your point about FDR knowing the 1% of his day.

I don't know how FDR or Joe Kennedy were raised or what their measure of a good life was. I do know that Rose was most responsible for raising her kids.

[BlindTiresias]

25. Uh, yes...

Except we have no more people like that in the elite. The ideology they possess is very, very different from what existed in the early part of the 20th century, and there is about zero real resistance from the left to change their minds.

[hifiguy]

26. The left, such as it is anymore

was screamed down by the cheerleading for Ronnie Raygun. Then the media jumped into the cheerleading camp as well thanks to Clinton's telecom deregulation. It's like trying to bail the Pacific Ocean with a pail and shovel.

[BlindTiresias]

29. Well

It doesn't help that Americans ended up being a surprisingly servile people overall.

[merrily]

28. Again, I made a very limited response to a specific comment by hifiguy.

And, it was limited in this instance very deliberately on my part. I just didn't feel like getting into a big discussion about it. So, when you say "no more people like that," and "the ideology they possess," you and I may or may not be in agreement as to what kind of people they were or what ideology they possessed then. But, I still don't feel like getting into it. Nothing to do with you or with hifiguy. Just a combination of my mood and my time constraints.

[sabrina 1]

20. But he was not raised to think he was better than everyone else, or that the working class didn't

matter. He used his position to help this country. And there are some among the 1% who want to help this country also. But sadly it is the others, those who want to turn America's work force into 'cheap labor', destroy all social programs and privatize EVERYTHING.

FDR is so different from those who are controlling things today, he may as well have been from another planet.

[merrily]

22. Please see Reply 15.

[hifiguy]

27. Read Ted Kennedy's autiobiography

or any serious history of the Kennedy family. They were raised with the expectation that they owed the country something significant for their family's good fortune.

[merrily]

30. Please see Reply 28.

[Initech]

9. I wonder why all of our current leaders are so afraid of them?

[hifiguy]

10. They, including the POTUS, are not AFRAID of them.

They are OWNED by them. FDR wasn't.

[sabrina 1]

21. True, they ARE owned.

[merrily]

6. The most electible Presidential candidate in US history.

[Unknown Beatle]

11. Asshole!

Bush was and is out of touch with reality.

[mopinko]

12. hmm. radicals

lots of those around here.