Just let ’em ramble, they’ll spin enough rope to hang themselves.
Do you ever wonder what are the fondest dreams of tea partiers (tea baggers) and the rash, radical right?
Here, they confess, in “Post-Constitutional America”:
The idea of raising a governing majority to actually roll back the New Deal is quixotic fantasy. Even in the most fiscally conservative moment in recent history, the idea of simply removing all the social democratic infrastructure of the New Deal is not even being broached by GOP politicians. Not even Sen. Rand Paul proposes it.
They shouldn’t take Quixote’s name in vain like that.
Seriously, what is left of the New Deal? For a few examples,
- There is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which saved countless banks in the past two decades.
- There is the Securities and Exchange Commission and the rules on honesty in trading in securities. Only a fool would wish a repeal to those.
- Vestiges of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration remain, keeping small farmers from going broke and losing the family’s inheritance and heritage to speculators in the prices of commodities — not that it doesn’t work some evil these days supporting big corporations (but over at What’s Wrong With the World, they prefer the latter, one might think)
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Social Security
Why would anyone want to roll back those programs?
Outright rejection of the “progressive agenda,” the pro-democracy, pro-American, human-rights friendly political movement of the late 19th and 20th century, is one of the uglier manifestations of conservative politics of the past decade, and especially of the past year. When confronted with the things they actually propose, those who make the proposals usually sputter that they don’t mean to do that, that they have been misunderstood.
The misunderstanding is in thinking that positive improvements in our laws are, somehow, deserving of roll back. Why shouldn’t we bring back Jim Crow? Why shouldn’t we bring back child labor, unclean food, unclean water, tainted meat and non-working, damaging pharmaceuticals? They don’t know?
Have logic and common sense suddenly died?
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Unfortunately, when it comes to accuracy (and to be frank, basic argumentative analysis and logic) you aren’t doing a very good job. But since you acknowledge that you are “striving”, let me encourage you to keep it […]
LikeLike
Nick K,
I’m sorry — when I said “previous post” I meant my post on the more recent blog post in which Ed challenges his readers to attack or defend the New Deal.
LikeLike
Nick K,
A lot to respond to in your last couple of comments but I’ll try and get to everything, starting with your numbers:
1) Sure the recession hurt all the states’ revenues (I would be a fool to deny that) — but those states that are governed conservatively (i.e. wisely!) have smaller, leaner governments and so they find it easier to adjust during recessions, unlike a state like California which has such a bloated public sector that when a recession hits, their government is unwilling to make common-sense sacrifices.
2) I never said what you claim I said although I do tend to disagree with your sweeping statement. I would argue that you can cut a deficit by both cutting spending and cutting tax rates if those tax rates are too high or punish wealth creation (e.g. I think U.S. corporate tax rates are way too high and should be lowered to make us competitive with the rest of the developed world). As for the Bush years I would certainly agree with you that Bush spend too much domestically although not nearly at the levels Obama has been spending. As for the war in Iraq, we’ll have to agree to disagree although there are plenty of conservatives who I respect and admire who agree with you and think that war was unnecessary, so I certainly wouldn’t dismiss your position out of hand.
3) Do you have a link concerning the fire protection cuts or some sort of study that proves Texas fire protection is under-funded? Remember, a disaster that the Feds have to step in to help out for (e.g. Mississippi flooding) is something I’m certainly not opposed to in principle.
4) Source please?
5) Is the nation’s tornado warning system inadequate? Does it need more funding?
Finally, with respect to the rich — you do realize that the rich already pay plenty of taxes, don’t you?
Now, as for racial/ethnic group differences — again, you and I will have to agree to disagree. I believe the facts of life support the reality of such differences (which are averages – not absolutes) and I guess you don’t. But I also believe we are all created in the image of God and as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” Now what he means there is that there can be no distinction in our love for all of humanity because Christ loved us all — so I love my fellow white, black, and and Hispanic American citizens equally in this sense. There is nothing racist in my mind acknowledging the truth of biological facts (you guys seems to love biology) and our different racial/ethnic genetic inheritence. There is a vast scientific literature on IQ and behavior differences and if you don’t want to acknowledge the fact that Hispanics in this country are doing poorly in comparison to whites I guess you only want to acknowledge facts when they are comfortable to your worldview.
Check out my previous post which sort of touches on the 10th Amendment — I just think originalism is a common-sense approach to judicial interpretation and one that forces us to take the Constitution and what it means seriously. Any other approach boils down to “anything Congress wants to do is constitutional” or “if five out of nine judges don’t like law X, it is unconstitutional and who cares what the document says” which doesn’t seem that serious to me.
LikeLike
Fake, I asked you a question earlier and you never answered it.
Why should we follow your interpretation of the 10th amendment?
LikeLike
Oh and by the way, blaming the entirety of an ethnic group and then acting as if that group is inherently inferior…is racism.
You can sit there and in your moral vapidity deny it all you want, Fake, but you and that guy who runs that blog you so love…are as racist as a Grand Dragon of the KKK.
As for what I said about 2020, I admit I was just having fun there. Considering how your side fear mongers and hatemongers against Latinos and other minorities I happen to like the idea that in less then ten years half of the conservative power base will simply disappear because suddenly the demographics changed. And its not like your party has given any minority group reason to vote for it.
So have fun gloating all you want, Fake, but in less then ten years your precious conservatives…will barely be a blip on the radar politically.
Oh and by the way..you have yet to display any ability that shows you know what you’re talking about. If you knew what you were talking about…you wouldn’t have resorted to racism.
8 years of the George W Bush presidency and no net jobs were created and the conservatives destroyed the budget surplus we had and created a massive budget deficit. Your precious conservatives are not even responsible much less intelligent.
LikeLike
Sorry, Fake, its you suffering from an attack of the crazies.
1: Your claim that Texas’ financial problems were caused by the recession but your failure to apply that same logic to California.
2: Your apparent belief that you can cut taxes and cut spending and get out of a deficit. Not to mention the fact that you wholesale ignore the fact that it was your conservatives who nearly bankrupted this country with its tax cuts and its unpaid for wars..one of which was run incompetently and the other should never have been started.
3: Exactly how are conservatives being intelligent in Texas when they’re proposing to massively cut spending on fire protection services while at the same time running screaming to the Feds begging for money to fight wildfires there?
4: Exactly how are conservatives being intelligent in Texas when they’re proposing, via the Texas Board of Education, to remove Thomas Jefferson from being taught while attempting to teach that John Calvin, a man who never stepped foot in the United States, was important to the founding of the United States?
5: And exactly how are conservatives being intelligent when they’re proposing cutting funding to, among other things, the nation’s tornado warning system? Or did you happen to not notice what happened in Alabama a while back?
And finally…exactly how is it intelligent to demand that everyone make sacrifices to fix the finanical mess your party got this country in…but demand no sacrifices from the rich? After all..they’re the ones most responsible for getting us into this mess…next to your party.
As for the NAES..well congratulations..Texas’ scores are just above middle of the road. $50 says that in ten years those scores will be near the bottom.
LikeLike
[…] So, I questioned their judgment that the New Deal was unconstitutional, bad, and unjustified. No nibbles on the invite to make a case they might be right, so I noted the thread earlier. […]
LikeLike
Comments on Iowahawk’s education comparisons, here:
https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/no-race-isnt-the-cause-of-our-economic-and-education-woes/
LikeLike
You two are fun ;-)
If you want to compare Texas scores with California scores yourself, just check out the NAES website. Lots of good information there — that’s where “Iowahawk” pulled his data.
As for your various other bizarre non-sequiturs and other strange responses to me — I’m not sure how to reply (because I don’t know how to talk to crazy people). According to the Voegeli article, Texas is building roads like crazy — do you have any evidence to the contrary?
In fact, I suggest you try and do more research and attempt to get familiar with more facts before engaging in an argument about public policy with someone who knows what they are talking about. I’d still love to have you stop by my blog sometime and leave a crazy comment or two over there ;-)
LikeLike
And tell us, Fake, where do you think Texas’ economy will be without new roads or kids in college? What do you think is going to happen with less firemen and police?
Your side wants to pretend that there are no costs and consequences to cutting government spending. Your side also wants to pretend that the private sector will pick up the slack.
Both thoughts are foolish beyond belief.
LikeLike
Well, only if we say the recession in Texas started in 2005 with the massive tax cuts passed by Perry and the Republicans then, yes. It was indeed the start of the recession — for Texas.
And they have cut spending, throwing firefighters, cops and teachers under the bus, putting off building new roads, tossing 65,000 kids out of college, etc., etc.
Most of the serious problem kicked down the road, just like the last three times it’s been brought up. Perry may run a $50 billion deficit in two years. (Funny if not so tragic dept.: Rick Perry put in a request for a disaster declaration due to the 100,000+ acres of Texas that burned, but FEMA and Obama turned him down so far. The same day they asked Obama for a few hundred million more, they were cutting the wildfire fighting budget by a massive amount, claiming they had plenty of money. Out of which face do you think they were lying?)
With cuts like these, who needs bin Laden?
LikeLike
Fake writes:
By the way, Texas’ budget deficit is due to declining revenues from the recession — but thanks to smart lawmakers, they will deal with their deficit by cutting spending. Problem solved. I wish we had conservative lawmakers controlling the state legislature here in Illinois.
Yeah except for Texas will continue to cut taxes as well which only digs the hole deeper. Oh and apply what you said about what caused Texas deficit to California since you want to try that explanation.
What? You forgot that cutting taxes is a form of spending? Forgetting that it was cutting taxes, in part, which got us into this mess in the first place?
And on immigration reform since your party suggests no solutions to that again..we should listen to you why?
Let me give you a clue at what your and the right wings real problem with hispanics is.
It’s this: 2020. The significance of that? That’s the year that hispanics become the majority in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Which means its the year that your party loses half the south.
But thank you for showing your latent racism. And what you were doing was racist. That is what grouping all of an ethnic group together, making a generalization and acting as if they’re inferior to you is.
Sorry, you don’t cure a deficit by cutting spending and taxes. And your party loses its claim to “everyone must sacrifice” when your party only asks the poor and the middle class to sacrifice and lets the rich get off without making any sacrifice whatsoever.
And considering that Texas’ education standards board is made up of a bunch of right wing idealogues who think education is something used to brainwash kids into nonsense right wing thinking…yeah don’t crow about the quality of the schools there. Sorry, no state can claim to have good schools when that state attempts to argue that John Calvin is more important to the United States then Thomas Jefferson.
Oh and next time when you try to provide evidence…try unbiased source please. A right wing blog…doesn’t count.
If conservatives were so good at the economy..it wouldn’t have spent from 2001-2008 doing a slow crash with it finally crashing in 2008.
LikeLike
Reagan made a terrible mistake with amnesty (he probably assumed that folks were acting in good faith when they said they would crack down on illegals). Now conservatives don’t trust folks who talk about “comprehensive reform” — including Bush who was rightfully slapped down on immigration reform.
By the way, Texas’ budget deficit is due to declining revenues from the recession — but thanks to smart lawmakers, they will deal with their deficit by cutting spending. Problem solved. I wish we had conservative lawmakers controlling the state legislature here in Illinois.
LikeLike
Ed,
You say, “I can’t think of any area that Texas leads California, except preventable illnesses and poverty.”
Well, I don’t know about preventable illnesses, but you are right about poverty — Texas does have a higher poverty rate than California. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing depends on the reason the rates differ — for example, if California’s rate is lower because of transfer payments that contribute to a underclass culture of dependancy, then I don’t consider California’s lower poverty rate (15.4% vs. 17.3% according to 2009 Census data) something to crow about.
Meanwhile, as the article I linked to already suggested, Texas does lead California in all sorts of measures — Texas has lower unemployment, better schools, more job and population growth, etc.
Sure, Texas isn’t perfect — no state with a high Hispanic population is going to do all that great (there is nothing racist about pointing about the genetic/cultural differences between racial groups), but Texas is managing much better with conservative policies than California is managing with liberal policies. Any evidence to the contrary?
LikeLike
Oh and just in case you didn’t know…Texas is facing a $27 billion dollar budget deficit. Hm…I seem to recall the Republican party has been controlling Texas for..well..at least the last decade for damn sure.
Have fun choking.
LikeLike
Oh and you may want to bother to remember that the conservative god…Ronald Reagan gave illegals amnesty. Curious how you all seem to think its such a bad idea now when you didn’t then.
But then of course that was also the same time period that Saddam Hussein was killing his people and your side didnt give a damn about that then either.
Your side sticks to its interpretation of the 10th amendment only when its convenient. So you have no right to expect the rest of us to obey your interpretation of it.
But hey, feel free to get some more of your friends over at that blog of yours to come here as well. This former Republican is so fed up with his former party right now that I have no problem with kicking Republican’s asses from pillar to post.
Let me know when you’ll be signing a legal document stipulating that you and your friends will not be accepting Social Security or Medicare when you get to that age. After all…you believe in your interpretation of the 10th amendment so much right? Lets see you put your money where your mouth is and live by it. Lets see..what was that quote about what a constitutional delegate from Georgia said back in 1787…ah yes…”“If we list a set of rights, some fools in the future are going to claim that people are entitled to only those rights enumerated and no others,”
I’ll amend it to say “If we list a set of powers, some fools in the future are going to claim that the government is entitled to only those powers and no others,”
You know…like how your precious conservatives tried arguing that it wasn’t up to the federal government to ban segregation and the Jim Crow laws..that if the states wanted to enforce such laws that was their right.
Because I have yet to see how a group of people who think the federal government can become too powerful fail to recognize that 1: the states can become too powerful and act outside of their bounds just as easy and 2: that some US corporations are becoming too powerful and acting contrary to the common good as well.
But then your side no longer believes in democracy. It’s become the party of fascists and corporatists. For the rich, by the rich, of the rich and to hell with everyone else.
LikeLike
Last time I checked, Texas was having a whole lot of budget problems too. And are you forgetting that California’s last governor was Republican? Minnesota is also facing budget trouble and oops..its last governor was Republican and the Republicans controlled half the legislature.
SOrry, your comparison between California and Texas falls flat on its face. And at least California’s leaders havent flirted with outright treason like Texas’.
But the point still remains..you and your party can claim you follow a strict interpretation of the tenth amendment all you want…but not even you or your party actually follow it. In other words on that subject you and your party are blatant hypocrites and con artists. We should let you have power why? The last time you did you guys ran the country off the cliff. George W Bush, conservative pleni potentiary, blew the budget surplus we had with tax cut after tax cut that he didnt pay for and with two wars he didnt pay for and with Medicare D..which he didn’t pay for and also he created no new net jobs in his 8 years…the first time that’s happened in at least this 80 years. Your party nearly bankrupted the country.
So why in God’s name should we trust you now?
Oh and do bother to remember that the reason Texas has such low taxes and all that jazz..is because Minnesota and the rest of us liberal states subsidize it.
Lets see, Texas gets:
Since 2001, FEMA has spent $3.5 billion in aid. Other agencies sent Texas another billion dollars just for Hurricane Ike in 2008.
NASA contributes $2.6 billion dollars to Texas economy
Fort Hood by itself contributes another 6 billion dollars.
The US military in total contributes $10 billion dollars to Texas. Per year.
Then theres the billion dollars that Texas gets because of Pell Grants in 2006-2007. And lets not forget the money spent there by the Post Office, and various other government departments. Rough figure being about half a trillion dollars. Plus the money we spent trying to secure Texas’ southern border.
Point being, Fake, that Texas is one of the biggest welfare queens/whore there is.
Oh and as for your little racist crack at immigrants…tell me..when George W Bush wanted to pursue immigration reform a few years ago…why was it your party that killed the idea?
And considering Texas ranks far behind in education level, health level, and any other meaningful level on how well people are living behind my state or California or any other more liberal state…lets just say Texas is a good state if you’re looking to die.
LikeLike
Now that Texas is following California’s stupid lead in cutting government, Texas will fall behind California in any area it may beneficially lead California.
Offhand, I can’t think of any area that Texas leads California, except preventable illnesses and poverty, neither to the benefit of Texas
California obviously had the better model.
Right?
LikeLike
Ed and Nick K,
You are confusing me with a libertarian — I’m a proud conservative and I’m quite confortable with using limited government power for conservative ends (unlike libertarians who freak out at almost all uses of government power).
Anyway, I have no issue with food and drug safety laws as they would obviously fall under the commerce clause of the Constitution (“To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”). I just don’t see what enumerated power under Section 8 gives Congress the authority to create Social Security.
As for corporations being treated like people — that is a good question and many conservatives think that it was a legal fiction that was equally unconstitional and should end. I don’t know enough about the issue to have an informed opinion one way or another.
As for conservative versus liberal governance, just look at the difference between California and Texas and tell me which state will continue to do better (assuming we don’t amnesty the illegals already in the country, dragging down both Texas and California).
LikeLike
[…] post from three years ago by a discussion at What’s Wrong With the World (commented on earlier at the Bathtub, here), in which the principal protagonists appear to me to be wholly ignorant of the New Deal, the […]
LikeLike
My strongest connection to Montana is having worked for Sen. Mike Mansfield, but there is no way I could consent to this. Montana is too beautiful to sacrifice in such a fashion.
How about Orange County, California?
LikeLike
I can make the case that they were part of the New Deal, thank you, Nick, especially in the case of environmental protections like flood control and erosion control.
One of my key complaints here is that these critics of “the New Deal” don’t have a grasp on what it is they criticize, the history of the programs, the Constitutional law history, nor the history of the times that created the exigencies which demanded the New Deal programs. My own inadequate knowledge at least recognizes what the New Deal did.
LikeLike
You’d do well to consider why it’s necessary in a modern world, with large corporations and massive interstate and international commerce, to have a government that can check the power of a large corporation like the Copper Trust, or the Northern Railroad Trust. You worry about imagined abuses of government power, but pay little to no heed to the very real abuses of people that prompted the federal legislation in the first place.
LikeLike
So, you think the New Deal didn’t include the Safe Food and Drug Act of 1938?
I’d love to see your defense of why it’s unconstitutional for the federal government to regulate pharmaceuticals. Tell us why it’s a good idea to have unsafe drugs, and then make your case for why it’s unconstitutional. Be my guest. At a minimum, tell us why the New Deal’s work on safe drugs is unconstitutional, while Teddy Roosevelt’s work was not (hint: This might be your only nearly-rational refuge on the safe food and drug issue). (Further hint, in two words: Diethylene glycol.)
There are four great problems I see with Fake Herzog’s analysis:
By all means, don’t sputter. Defend away.
LikeLike
Oh I forgot one thing.
Exactly how does your side reconcile its supposed position on the 10th amendment with the fact that your party keeps on trying to get the government to stick its nose up women’s vaginas and tell them what to do with it?
Oh and considering the fact there are republicans who have indeed proposed bringing back child labor and blocking the government from protecting the environment…your claim that isnt what at least some on your side want is hogwash. There is a Republican proposal in my state that would make it a law saying that towns and townships in my state don’t have to obey environmental laws when it comes to clean water.
As for the child labor bit, have fun swallowing: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/17/gop-senator-calls-federal-laws-child-labor-unconstitutional/
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/31/gop-loves-child-labor/
Have there been bad government programs? Yeah. But that isn’t reason to sit there and pretend every one of them is bad.
Oh and in case you’re wondering why Ed conflated them..here’s why. Because while it wasn’t part of the New Deal per se..the ban on child labor and environmental protections is a distinctly progressive accomplishment.
But tell you what…I’ll suggest a compromise. You and your fellow tenthers can have the state of Montana. You can run it exactly as you wish. Just don’t mind us putting up a fence to keep you in there when you jokers figure out what a hellhole your claimed position would create. Oh and in case you think it wouldn’t be a hellhole…I suggest you study Somalia. Because thats a good example of the crap that happens when there’s a nonfunctioning central government.
Oh and one last thing. If the Founding Fathers wanted a weak central government and the states to do the majority of the governing….they would have kept the articles of confederation. They didnt. You might want to buy a clue from that.
LikeLike
US Constitution, Article 1 section 10:
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
Hm..I seem to recall some conservative halfwit proposing that some state form its own standing army….
Since your side is not willing to live by its own supposed standards don’t ask the rest of us.
LikeLike
Fake writes:
Even if they are “good” programs, but unconstitutional, this is a problem from the perspective of conservative governance (we like the idea of respecting the Constitution and the restrictions it places on the people when they want to use the power of the state,
And…who exactly appointed you the sole deciders of what is and isnt constitutional? If you dont like social security because you think its unconstitutional then fine…dont accept social security. But go to hell if you think you should get to decide to take it away from my dad who busted his ass 60+ years working.
Oh and please don’t talk about respecting the US Constitution when it was your party that got it in its jolly head that the government should have the right to tap my phones without a warrant just because it utters the word “terrorist.” Then there is your sides convenient forgetting of the first 5 words of the 2nd amendment. And oh yes…the conservatives in my state thinking the state of Minnesota has the right to print its own currency.
And tell me…where in the US Constitution does it say that corporations are entitled to the same rights as people? And where in the 14th amendment does it say that everyone is entitled to the same rights…except for homosexuals? And where in the US Constitution is it said that you need a government ID to vote?
Your side only sticks to the constitution when its convenient.
At any point if you want to abide by your interpretation of the 10th amendment go right ahead…we’re not stopping you. Just kindly refrain from insisting that the rest of us do so. That means of course you’ll be giving up medicare, social security, medicaid, and the protections of the, among others; FBI, CIA, NSA, CDC, FAA, SEC, FEC, the secret service, the US marshalls, the US Air Force, US Army, US Marines, US Navy, and the coast guard. And oh yes…stay off the highway system too please.
Sorry, I have better things to do then live in your libertarian hellhole.
LikeLike
Ed,
First of all, I’m glad you stumbled across “What’s Wrong with the World” (W4) — it is one of my favorite blogs. I hope you take the time to stop by my place and post a comment or two.
Meanwhile, this is a strange post. Let’s assume, for a moment, that every one of those programs you list are good public policy — part of the purpose of that post at W4 and the debate within the comments is to argue whether or not those programs are constitutional. Even if they are “good” programs, but unconstitutional, this is a problem from the perspective of conservative governance (we like the idea of respecting the Constitution and the restrictions it places on the people when they want to use the power of the state, because inevitably, there will be bad programs proposed and then that check on the state’s power will help us all).
This is also a strange post because you go from talking about the New Deal, which is what we were talking about over at W4, to suddenly shifting your rhetoric at the end to talk about Jim Crow (which the New Deal had nothing to do with) and then you mention “child labor, unclean food, unclean water, tainted meat and non-working, damaging pharmaceuticals” — again, as far as I know the New Deal didn’t address these issues at all (at least according to the link you helpfully provided). So why conflate the issues?
Finally, I assure you that the conservatives over at W4 won’t “sputter” or argue they’ve been “misunderstood” — they are quite willing to take and defend unpopular positions. So am I.
LikeLike