Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 525 Editor's Choice: 1
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shooter
[Read the article: Republicans have become the credibility-free party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh brother, Democrats can't handle a talk show but they are ready to deal with actual bad guys? Eeeeeek.
They are dealing with the actual bad guys. They're not going to give them credit as being members of a real journalism organization worthy of attention.
Funny though, that you ignored my point that neither Bush nor Cheney ever appears on shows or venues that aren't obsequious towards them.
Also, I await your calls for the President to sit down with Ahmedinejad and Kim Jong-Il in person for negotiations. Or is he and McCain afraid to "deal with actual bad guys"?
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Actually, about Ahmedinejad
[Read the article: Republicans have become the credibility-free party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He travelled across the ocean to the heart of "enemy" territory and appeared at an especially liberal college campus where he was lambasted by the crowd for his beliefs.
Two things:
1) Liberals put their money where their mouths were and took him on. Free exchange of ideas, etc etc.
2) He's braver than Bush or Cheney, he actually appeared in front of a hostile crowd and fielded questions.
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AisAlogic:
[Read the article: Republicans have become the credibility-free party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The real question is, when will the Democrats drop their deeply discredited ideas and programs?
The most preposterous thing about this election campaign so far is the fact that Clinton and Obama claim to be presenting "new ideas" that represent "change" -- that they are somehow "progressive". The fact of the matter is they are simply pushing more of the same statist, socialist, welfare-state garbage that Roosevelt unleashed 60+ years ago. There isn't a damn thing new about any of their proposals -- and if enacted, they will fail as they have consistently failed not just here in America, but everywhere they've been tried.
Aside from the New Deal programs being the most popular domestic programs ever enacted by the US government, if you consider them a failure how do you account for the fact that the US went from being an isolationist backwater suffering the great depression in 1932, to a colossal superpower able to win WWII on two fronts and make up half of global GDP by 1945?
Also, I'd note that the fortunes of the Democrats in congress turned around when they fought off Bush's 2005 attempt to privitize Social security. Their popularity rose as a result. Whatever else, the New Deal did not hurt the party.
For instance:
"Universal health care" will fail here, it will result in shortages and waiting lists and LESS actual health care, just as it has in England and Canada -- just as Medicaid and Medicare have NOT made health care "affordable" for the poor or the elderly, as it was claimed they would -- just like the war on poverty spent trillions only to leave more people than ever in poverty -- just like Social Security has NOT guaranteed anyone a comfortable retirement, as the Social Security website pointedly notes -- etc, etc, ad nauseum.
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A couple years ago Canada had a contest to pick the "greatest Canadian." Guess who we picked? Not our first Prime Minister and not Wayne Gretzky: We picked Tommy Douglas, Premier of Saskatchewan who instituted Canada's first universal health car program, the one that became the template for the National program.
That's how much Canadians regard UHC to be a "failure."
UHC has been a success in every country it was tried in. Every one. We spend far less on health care than does the US and get better results. More people get treated, populations are healthier and people less stressed about life.
There are few things I will take to the streets for but maintaining UHC is one.
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Rx for America
[Read the article: Republicans have become the credibility-free party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1. More Democrats.
2. Better Democrats.
It seems banal, and maybe it is, but it really is all there is.
Parties respond to victory, not defeat. Defeat pushes them towards the center or even towards the other party.
Consider a couple historical examples: 1930, Democrats win 54 seats in the House and 8 in the senate. 1932, FDR runs as a moderate. Wins a huge landslide, including congress. He and the party moves left. 1934 and 1936 elections cement this and ever further goes the New deal.
1952, after 6 terms out of office, the Republicans are desperate enough to nominate someone who could easily have been a Democrat: Eisenhower. Ike wouldn't get the nomination for dog-catcher in today's republican party.
1980, the new era of Republican ascendance takes off. After 3 terms in a row, who do the Democrats nominate? A DLC southern governor who is the epitome of vichy compromise with Republicans. Bill Clinton is the most talented politician of our lifetimes, but a liberal ideologue he is not.
So if the Democrats get an even bigger victory in 2008, they'll start to act like it, if history is any guide.
More and better Democrats. If you don't like your choices in the general, make sure you're involved in the primary. Particularly at the congressional and state level. That odious Democratic senator you hate was once a mayor or State House leader. They ran for US Senate or House and there was a primary. Did you look into their records and realize they were accomodationists or Bush Dog traitors? Campaign for a candidate you actually like? If bad Democrats can't win primaries, they won't be in the Senate to vote for bad FISA bills or run for President.
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Anonymous, re: 40 year cycle
[Read the article: Republicans have become the credibility-free party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, this isn't a wise way to view this. History is not inevitable, it just looks that way in the past.
Also, cycles, where they exist, happen, but they also can stop or be stopped. Rome fell. Whole human societies have disappeared or been extinguished. Species go extinct.
It doesn't even have to be catastrophic, Spain, once master of the seas is now an unremarkable part of Europe of no significant global influence or power (No offence to spaniards of course, just saying Spain isn't the hub it once was).
So don't get hypotized by the apparent cycles of history. They work until they break and they break because not enough people saw what was going wrong and worked to fix it.