Is Conservatism America's Default Ideology?

[Ben]

Thom Hartmann talks about REPUBLICAN President Dwight Eisenhower who'd be waaaaay on the left by today's standards.
And, too, if one goes back even further to REPUBLICAN President Abraham Lincoln, well, you'll find the position of the Republican Party in the mid 19th. century was very left leaning by today's standards.
They were against wage labor. They saw wage labor and slavery as being identical. They were against industrialization. They saw it as an attack on their culture. I mean, the Republican Party has drifted so far to the right it's frightening. The Party (if they are even a political party anymore) merely serve the interests of the top 0.01 percent.
And, too, we're selling off our manufacturing sector at a rate of $4,000 every single second. (In terms of social and economic development America is starting to resemble a Third World nation.)

[Ben]

Adam Smith said: Merchants and Manufacturers (today: corporations -- which by the way are unconstitutional... but nobody seems to care) are going to serve their interests REGARDLESS of the "grievous" impact on others. Those others one could -- and should -- argue are workers, women, forests, wildlife, oceans etc., etc., etc.... But who cares, eh?
Adam Smith also pointed out that the nub or main point of government is to strictly serve corporate power. And core decisions are being made that are not in the best interests of the public, of the planet, of other species and, too, well, future generations.
But:
I mean, why would, say, ExxonMobil be concerned about global warming or pollution or cancer? Why would they? Why should they? Pollution isn't their concern. Again, why should it be?
Take, for instance, well, a chemical factory emitting waste as a by-product into nearby rivers and into the atmosphere. This creates negative externalities which impose higher social costson other firms and consumers. e.g. clean up costs and health costs.
(But) that's the sole function of a corporation: internalize profits and externalize costs.
The external cost of car companies... and oil, gas and coal companies is global warming and, well, the fate of the species. But that's none of their business. Their business is to maximize money. No matter the HARM to other species -- and to future generations.
And that lack of concern for future generations started over 150 years ago. And continues today. I mean, what'll the planet be like in 50 years, or 100 years, or 200 years???????????

[hippifried]

corporations -- which by the way are unconstitutional...

You're going to have to show me this one.

[dana295]

something i learn in civics 101

in the mid to late 1800's the republican party was the lefties yup in was til the earl 1900's that they changed thier name to demicratic party. and the dems of the 1800's became the republicans of today. hmm wierd huh ? the reason for this i never found out but it did happen. but then in the end i think we'll all wish we had listened to washington when he warned agianst a two party system instead of a no party system. see he thought we should vote our hearts and minds not for one party or the other.

[buttslinger]

The entire south was Democratic until Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act!

[robertlouis]

something i learn in civics 101

in the mid to late 1800's the republican party was the lefties yup in was til the earl 1900's that they changed thier name to demicratic party. and the dems of the 1800's became the republicans of today. hmm wierd huh ? the reason for this i never found out but it did happen. but then in the end i think we'll all wish we had listened to washington when he warned agianst a two party system instead of a no party system. see he thought we should vote our hearts and minds not for one party or the other.

That's not right Dana. The Republicans were formed in the 1850s in the prelude to the civil war, when (if you'll forgive me) American society was every bit as polarised as it appears to be now. As the Whigs they had been the primary opposition to the democrats more or less from the creation of party politics, but during Buchanan's hopeless presidency the rump that emerged as the Republicans began to take a united stand against the extension of slavery into new territories as they became states in their own right, with "Bleeding Kansas" the most contentious and violent example.

During the Civil War, the Republicans under Lincoln became of necessity associated with all things northern, which included the rapidly expanding capitalist manufacturers who became rich on the war and have bankrolled the party ever since. The war broke the spirit of the Democrats, but their adherence to a political balance containing slavery until the last possible moment ensured that for decades afterwards, the white south resolutely voted democrat every time. It wasn't till Nixon and then Reagan that the south began to vote Republican in large numbers.

But the Democrats did re-emerge in the 1890s and afterwards as more inclined towards the working man and organised labour, whereas the Republicans, as the party of big business, sided with the bosses.

That's pretty much how it has remained to the present day, but ever since 1856 the Democrats have been the Democrats and the Republicans have been the Republicans. No name changes.

[hippifried]

I think everybody should just make up history as they go along.

[robertlouis]

I think everybody should just make up history as they go along.

Is your real name Sarah Palin?

[Prospero]

Is your real name Sarah Palin?

Nope - it's OnMyKnees

[robertlouis]

Nope - it's OnMyKnees

Same thing. OK, same IQ at least.