George Bush is a Liberal

1. Spent more then any previous president
2. Immigration bill
3. Lies in office (very clintonish)
4. Increases national debt
5. More social programs then any previous president

I could go on and on but the liberals would get mad because they are suppose to hate him.

 

Bush sucks!

 

Wow with such deep thought out logic like this I might as well stay out of here, way to deep and intense for little old me..

and CR we agree on something!!!!!!...

 

If only Bush were half as good as Clinton....

 

Clinton was a much better conservative then Bush is that is for sure.

Clinton- Balanced Budget
Reduced Government Spending
Reduced social welfare programs


I only have 2 beefs with Clinton he should have just owned up and said if you were married to Hillary you would have your interns giving you bjs as well.
2. Reduced intel from Human and Electronic to only electronic in effect crippling our intel agencies.

 

Sometimes I think Bush is really a socialist.

The only world leader he is close buds with is the Socialist prime minister of the UK. He's always communing with nature on his ranch instead of entertaining corporate bigwigs in Washington or New York. He got rid of the Taliban who wanted to control women and ban drugs and brought in the northern alliance who all about equality for women and poppies. He wants to return countries in the Middle East from the rule of monarchies to the people. He likes China, and looks uncomfortable around billionaires.

 

Well, this improves the foundation on my theory that Bush was a Chinese spy ->http://jedha.blogspot.com/2005/11/bush-visited-china-and-was-replaced.html

 

even republicans dont like bush, lol

 

Republicans like Bush just not George Bush. Also GWB isnt a socialist because everything he does is done to benifit big business.

 

All you have to do is look at Bush 41. He was not a big conservative either. He had issues with many of Regan's principles.

I think we should hold the next major election by making all politicians play the game Deal or No Deal.

 

I love when Bush is on TV.

http://www.lookatentertainment.com/v/v-774.htm

I'm pretty sure he's the funniest president we've ever had.

 

It's scares me... if the people that elected him are as stupid as him... we're in a lot of trouble

 

The Economist published what I believe to the the best analysis of rifts within the conservative movement and within the Republican Party.

These few paragraphs explain very clearly why George W. Bush isn't most Republican's favorite Republican.

The Conservative Movement: A Hammer Blow

Small-government conservatives v big-government conservatives
Mr Bush has embraced all sorts of big-government programmes (from super-charging the Department of Education to creating the huge new Medicare drug entitlement) while trying to keep small-government conservatives on side with tax cuts. But this was a formula for fiscal disaster. It also failed to placate purists who believe that the federal government has no business running schools or pushing pills to pensioners.

Conservatives of faith v conservatives of doubt
Doubters don't think that the federal government should interfere in people's private lives. They don't want Washington, DC, meddling in states' rights to legalise euthanasia or medical marijuana. Conservatives of faith believe that the federal government should encourage civic virtue. Under Mr Bush they have had the upper hand. The Justice Department has been aggressive in imposing its views on the states. The poster child of the conservative movement on Capitol Hill at the moment is Senator Rick Santorum, a staunch advocate of family values.

Insurgent conservatives v establishment conservatives
The conservative movement, rooted in the South and west, has been deeply hostile to Washington, DC. But electoral success has created a Washington-based Republican establishment, which spends its time doling out goodies to its buddies and expanding federal power. Mr Bush has managed this relationship by presenting himself as an anti-Washington Washingtonian: the son of a president who prefers to spend his time in Texas. The insurgent wing seems increasingly unconvinced.

Business conservatives v religious conservatives
The latter are waiting keenly to see whom Mr Bush appoints next to the Supreme Court. Business conservatives are worried that religious people have already got too much. Mr Bush's stance on stem-cell research will cost America its competitive edge in biotechnology. Add to this their concerns about Mr Bush's reckless fiscal policy and you have the making of a business revolt. Robert Novak, a conservative pundit, recently described a cacophony of Bush-bashing at a plutocratic get-together in Aspen.

Neo-conservatives v traditional conservatives
The former have an expansive vision of America's role in the world—a vision that has come to include not just nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq but also the transformation of the Middle East. But traditionalists balk at the hubris of this vision. How can conservatives who believe that government power is fallible rally to the idea of transforming an entire region?

 

I'd go a bit further back - Although I think he had a thing for Marie Antoinette which may have ultimately clouded his letter to a pal, one of my favorites is Reflections on the French Revolution, Edmund Burke.

Best example I know of, of the worldview of traditional conservativism. Perhaps the only bridge of Burke's views with the views of the Economist's "Conservatives of Faith" that Will posts is the idea of a national elite which, by its social status and noblesse oblige, holds the key to the "Virtue of the Nation." But not Robespierre's virtue, rather the virtues of duty and obligation which, by accretion and inertia, are held up as the pillars of the society and the democratic ideal. And a gentle hand which guides the democracy, not the interventionist hand from left or right - not Robespierre's Virtue by the Terror, not Bush's Faith Based Initiative. (However, it must be said that Burke would also take issue with the "nouveau riche" which forms the base of the "conservatives of business" in modern America, as having no real sense of moral obligation. Here, Will, is probably touching on the idea of "gemeinschaft," "community," I spoke of in the other thread).

I can argue all day long, honorably, with thinking holders of conservative thought. Thinkers are thinkers - I'd rather vie with a thinking conservative than a religious liberal (liberalism as dogma). I don't think either word - "conservative" or "liberal" - is prima facie evidence of stupidity or baneful character.

I am, however, wholly disgusted by the view that the Christian Right, seemingly, has been able to bring to the center stage in America.

 

northpointaiki:

That takes us off into the discussion of how the meanings of the words "liberal" and conservative" have almost completely switched places in the last century.

The modern neo-conservative, for example, seeks to implement audacious new systems in the world. That's not a meaning one traditionally associates with the word "conservative."

The changes on the "liberal" side are much more vast. Historically, liberals stood for the freedom of people to live and compete by their own rules. The modern bearers of the title of "liberal" hold almost exactly the opposite views. They promote state control of both ideas and economies. I cannot imagine anything less "liberal", by a historical definition.

This is the point where I usually recommend that readers make themselves familiar with Friedrich Hayek's Why I am Not a Conservative.

I, like Mr. Hayek, am not a conservative. I am a liberal -- by the proper historical definition. The modern definitions are far too muddied to be of any real use in effective communications.

For the record, here is how I stack up against GWB:

Small-government conservative
Conservative of doubt
Insurgent conservative
Business conservative
Neo-conservative

 

Will, true enough.

20+ years ago (god), in the grad program at Berkeley, my interest was primarily in 2 things. Nationalism - whether there is, indeed, a "movement" to history whose zenith, in our time, was the nation-state of the 19th Century and Wilsonian dream of self-determined polities; that, and regimes, and regime changes.

My real area of intense historical interest on the latter score was the rise of industrialization, the rise of the Liberal movement (whose definition you rightly point out), and the relation of "Liberal," in its proper historic context, to other things - the burgeoning, newly mobilized working class, to the state, to its recognition of itself as a political force. You might find the work of one of my professors of interest: Liberalism, Fascism or Social Democracy, by Greg Luebbert. Prof. Luebbert was both my undergraduate honors and grad advisor and died, way too young. A bright thinker in regimes, social structures and coalition theory.

Will, apt, and spot on. We have found a common ground.

 

I have always found nationalism to be distasteful. I am quite comfortable with patriotism, but only if it fulfills a greater purpose. For example, I am very pro-U.S. because the U.S. is very pro liberty. If the U.S. suddenly became anti-liberty, then I would be forced to suddenly become anti-U.S. This, to me, is the disctinction between patriotism and nationalism. Nationalism would support a particular nation even if everything but the name of the nation changed.

What are your thoughts on Osama bin Laden's stance that his movement transcends nation states and makes them obsolete?

Osama has been very successful in proving through action that nation states can be quite irrelevant. What has not happened has been a corresponding intellectual awakening in the West.

It is as if Osama threw this horrible truth right in our face, and yet we are not yet willing or able to accept it intellectually and emotionally.

 

I think that there are things that made "nationalism" as it was defined by the 19th century european powers, the natural outgrowth of industrialization. As such, I think it was almost inescapable that we would have the view you mention - "nation, come hell or highwater," above any rational consideration (such as Miltonian utility).

Since then, whether the post WWII marxist variations or, as you point out, pan-islamic movements, returning to the idea of "nation-state" as a natural, evolutionary process is misguided, at best, at least on the model of nationalist ferment, 1789-1945.

You raise an interesting question. Bin Laden, indeed, pan-islamic movements, fly in the face of nationality and nation-states as they have been classically defined.

Even among the 19th century Liberal thinkers and leaders, they always stopped short of taking their theory to its extreme - they defined and codified Liberalism, but defined it within the boundaries of one's nation state, by some, defined as the organization large enough to sustain an industrial democracy. This is not true Liberalism - freedom of movement without borders, economic, political or otherwise.

They were not alone. On the other side of the spectrum, even Marx, Hegel and their later theorists usually defined it as "social struggle within the nation first," hence the weird paradox that something as internationalist as marxism should be the keynote of post-war independence and "sovereign national establishment."

Not to answer, but to look at your question re: Bin Laden. I am interested in whether there is such a thing as "movement" to history. I would love to solve the riddle constantly dancing between historians and social scientists...is history a movement, analyzable, more, with predictive variables, or is it just a case of contingent circumstances...within the world of that question, does Bin Laden's pan-islamicism differ, in any appeciable way, from the Soviet experiment of several "nationalities" under the banner of one supposed socialist political economy? Even England, in its time, a mixture of Norse, Saxon, French...yet still, "England."

Sorry, not trying to be paint myself as abstruse, nor intentionally obfuscatory...a rare night fully off and a few guinesses into the night. This area is one I'm deeply interested in, but not yet firmly seated...

 

The follow-up question is whether truly integrated and free global trade creates another natural evolutionary step which undoes all of the influence of industrialization and makes nation states less relevant once again.

This was a popular theory in the first years of the last century. Two world wars really killed popular belief in that theory. BUT! Perhaps the theory was simply premature. Perhaps these market forces really will work that magic when they become powerful enough.

I find that in-group/out-group ethics trumps most other considerations.

I believe that this was simply pragmatism on the part of the socialists. Foreign ideas are much easier to defeat politically and militarily than domestic ideas. They were selling their ideas as home-grown. They were the ones who invented the domino theory, we merely won the game.

I believe that "movements" operate much like waves in the ocean. No single molecule of water is particularly important or powerful. However, when you add them together, you can get a lot of useful work or you can get a tsunami.

Similarly, few or no specific people or historical events are particularly meaningful. If these events operate in a random fashion in multiple directions, there is no visible movement -- even though there is quite a bit of action and agitation. However, if these people and events act in an additive fashion, you can get a lot of useful work done or you can get a world war.

The real question for me is how much these "movements" can be artificially created. It seems to me that the potential energy for a historical movement must be created in massive amounts to touch multitudes of people. However, the conversion of that potential energy into kinetic energy often seems to be the work of a small group of individuals acting in a purposeful manner.

I tend to discount big-picture theories of history such as promulgated by Hegel. Humans just aren't that smart.

Hmmmm...

England can still be a "state", even if it stretches the definition of "nation-state". The USSR was a state, but completely violated the definiton of "nation-state."

Perhaps a more useful analysis would discount the "nation" part and focus only on the "state" part.

Mmmmm... no beer for me... I want to be 40lbs lighter by October for hunting season. But hey, there is always vodka -- diet alcohol!

 

Guinness is not good for you.

Some further thoughts.

The irony is that this is what caused the nation state to arise in the first place. Take Germany, for example. Yes, Bismarck and his Wars of Unification brought the unified Reich under one banner. But the sense of Nation, of "Germanness" was propelled forward decades earlier by the creation of the Nationalverein and other supra-principality infrastructure which aided communication and commerce on a "national" scale. Bayerische, Prussian, Hamburger all came to know each other not as personal subjects of the local prince, but as fellow Germans; such sense of "nationness" being aided by the intelligentsia which found its national stage during the first half of the 1800's. And I agree with you, this is the follow up question - would the very thing which broke the back of allegiance to principalities, villages, regions, turning the allegiance to the nation-state, would this type of economic and commercial movement across sub-national entities ultimately break the back of the nation-state itself, when it becomes truly global?

I'd agree, for the most part. I don't think actors are all that instrinsically important. We look at history and impute value after the fact; we reason teleologically. "It was Hitler's evil genius which brought Nazism to power." We fail to see the propitious circumstances that make the rise of a movement like nazism or fascism almost inevitable. In a way, Voltaire's view of God: "if he didn't exist, it would be necessary for man to invent him."

In this way, I do think there is a developmental strain to history, but we generally confuse the cause for the effect; we confuse independent and dependent variables. In the case of interwar fascism, (quite broadly - and taken from Prof. Luebbert, whose work I mention above), it coopted the labour movement into a corporatist political economy which broke the Liberal structure of market-driven wage settlements; it was a political coalition of the rural peasantry with the urban middle class. This coalition set the stage for a Hitler, a Franco, a Mussolini; it made them possible. It was born far earlier, in the case of Germany, when the thunder of the burgeoning labor movement was stolen by one authoritarian Junker, Otto von Bismarck, who gave the German people what the socialists earlier sought and promised: universal suffrage, the welfare state and other social niceties.

But to say that no actor is all that important is not to say that it is wholly random. I think quite the opposite, as the above history illustrates. I think that if one digs a bit, one will find that it is all "additive," to use your expression. I like your analogy to waves. I think, however, that if history is a series of waves, that these waves are punctuational in nature. Much like the theory of punctuational evolution, it is not the slow, steady accretion of "molecules of water" but long periods of gradual motion, followed by relatively brief periods of intensive, explosive surges: The Reformation, the National Revolution as ushered in by 1789, the industrial revolution all caught the fancy of national intelligentsia and their ideas found a fecund earth ready to hear what they had to say, in quite a dramatic fashion - take the national revolutions of 1848-50, for instance.

I think therein is the rub. What defines the "nation?" You say that England, in the above example, stretches the definition of "nation state." I presume you say this because of the multi-ethnic nature of England's early medieval history. But I think every "nation" part of nation state is formed, in this way, generally artificially. Every definition of "nation," typically, that can be found in a given nation state will fall afoul of the definition of "nation" as it is defined in other nation states. I think Benedict Anderson says it well and succinctly: the nation is an imagined political community.

Language for instance. Modern France, at its birth, is often used as a great example of a homogenous linguistic culture (excluding Alsace) giving rise to a singular, national, definition. However, at the time of the French revolution, there are estimates that less than half of the people living within the declared "national boundary of France" spoke French. In other words, the national elite of the Third Estate led the charge and declared French to be the national tongue, while a good many citoyen spoke another "mother tongue" at home.

I came across this this morning - I'll give a stab at translating French (forgive any lousy translation):

"a nation is essentially when individuals have many things in common, and also when they have forgotten many things...every French citizen needs to forget St. Bartholomew [The St. Bartholomew Day Massacre, 1572), the massacres of the middle of the 13th Century. There is not more than 10 families in France that are able to supply proof of a Frankish origin."**

-Ernst Renan, in a lecture made ("Qu'est-ce qu'une nation," "what is a nation?") in 1882, at the Sorbonne. I think it is important to note that this was made in 1882, during the height of 19th Century nationalism. An admission of artificiality even under the most intensely "national" of times.


Every definition of nation - whether by ethnicity, language, religion, shared history or otherwise - will usually betray itself as an artificial construct when inspected closely in any given nation-state.

But to say that the nation-state is some artificial construct - to say "nation" is really merely how a national elite, or the state itself, constructs the notion of nationhood* is not to automatically say the nation state as an institution is irrelevant, or on its way out (though from your/my first paragraph above, a good deal may be pointing this way). It is this question which interests me in the future.

Interesting thoughts, Will.

After last night, no beer for me as well...

*again, here, so many confuse cause for effect - throughout Europe, in many instances, the state itself created the nation, not the other way around.

**So many modern nations have gone to some presumed primordial myth for the "naturalness" of their birth - here, "the ancient French people" - and none of them, to my knowledge, have any reality in actual history.