My friend is totally NOT tongue in cheek about it. Trust me.
Also, I don’t see how someone could have a knowledge of history and NOT be a moderate? The founders were not extremists in either direction. Some were deeply religious, some were deists and skeptics and very anti-clerical. Some were federalists and some were more for states’ rights. If you look at the 1800’s, the same thing—some were federally-minded, some states-rights. Teddy Roosevelt was a perfect moderate. He loved his environment and would be anathemized by Rush and his crew today. He was a naturalist yet also a hunter. He negotiated ends to wars, didn’t nation-build. He was pro-immigration but with common-sense more conservative demands attached: “We must Americanize in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at relations between church and state. We welcome the German and the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains such…”
A person who reads history will see the importance of labor unions. Before unions we had the Oliver Twist model. Employers can force people to work ungodly hours or get FIRED! There were no such things as weekends for many. Unions changed that. Collective bargaining allowed the employee to have some buy-in and dignity in the process of salary and benefits. Before that, he was at the mercy of the employer. There was no unpaid leave or maternity leave or anything that is pro-family in reality. Thanks to the union movement, these things became part of the American fabric.
Are you familiar with great men like Upton Sinclair and the “muckrakers?” They uncovered disgusting and dangerous practices in things like the meat-packing industry that improved our quality of life and health immeasurably. Liberal cause? Yep. Good one? Yep. Have you ever read “The Jungle” by Sinclair? WOW
Ida Tarbell helped uncover the corrupt trust manipulations in big business and investments, etc. She helped pave the way for anti-trust legislation which we still need to shore up!
Guys like Mark Twain were very liberal and if anything anti-religious and skeptical. Republicans were liberal in that they fought for abolitionism and a stronger federal government with racial issues, etc.
Medicare and Social Security are “liberal” causes, protecting national parks is a liberal cause, Richard Nixon wisely created the Environmental Protection Agency, a hated body by the far Right.
So I would say this: Republicans we have to thank for protecting many constitutional liberties like the right to bare arms, freedom of speech, protecting the sanctity of life that was an understood by the fathers, trying to keep taxes from going through the ceiling, not letting government extend itself into every artery of existence to an absurd degree, protecting small business, keeping marriage traditional, etc. I would thank liberals for things like weekends, benefits, clean air, government bodies that save lives like the USDA, etc. I am ok with government. I don’t mind the FAA checking the plane I get on to make sure it’s safe so I don’t BLOW UP. I don’t mind the USDA checking farming and meat-packing and food industries to keep e coli and garbage out of my food. I am ok with the FBI rooting out terrorists. I’m ok with the national parks service, post office, and other government agencies that make my life better.
So I would say the history of America is not a conservative one or a purely liberal one—a moderate one.
At this point in history we are in a polarized “us or them!” silly and childish period in which we join teams and demonize. It’s absurd and tragic.
Most Conservatives are like me-when they say that they have to listen to what Rush says and get back with you they do it with tongue firmly in cheek. Believe it or not one can arrive at a conservative point of view without being brainwashed. In fact I can not understand how anyone with a knlwedge of History and the issues that face our Country would not be a conservative. Perhaps they are waiting for the NYT to tell them is OK?
