When was the last time the Republicans had a good idea?

“As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.”

-HP Lovecraft

Sarah Palin. Ensured Obama a victory.

I heard an analysis of the Republicans that said that they are acting out of fear. A lot of them are blue collar workers who have either lost their jobs or are in fear of losing them. They have traditionally been supporters of corporations, which had provided them at one time with good paying assembly line work. They are overwhelmed by the loss of manufacturing and don’t seem to understand that what much of what little manufacturing work there is in the U.S. is either being done by robots (raising everyone’s “productivity”) or being done in foreign countries by illiterates

Republicans have had thousands of good ideas since Lincoln. The people you are discussing are Republicans only nominally; they are actually white Southern (or small-town) Reactionaries, singing their swan song.

Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are the main two that come to mind, both of whom had great ideas. Nixon, paradoxically, did some great things like opening up relations with communist China. But it sure seems like a long, long time….

Your phraseology sounds like you’re just out to do some bashing against anyone who would call themselves republican. The PEOPLE who make up the republican party, as well as the democratic, independent and any others have good and bad ideas often.

As for myself, I wish there were no parties, so candidates would have to show they were worth voting for instead of having a political machine behind them. I have known people who would vote for a three legged dog if they claimed to be one of their political party, and it sounds to me like you’re one of them

@DrBill So far, I’m not seeing any good ideas. Why associate yourself with a party whose only “idea” is to say No! to whatever idea the Democrats propose?

@Zuma didn’t the democrats do the exact same thing when the republicans were the majority? I must agree with @DrBill! They all have good and bad ideas!

Name one.

@Zuma

Ended Slavery
Ended WW I
Ended WW II
Ended Korean war
Ended Viet Nam

Maybe saying no is the right answer sometimes

I’m sure intelligent Republicans like Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt had some good ideas.

I understand why this question could be seen as hostile or combative or attacking Republicans, but I would like to know if the one Republican apologist who has answered so far REALLY wants to hang his hat on answering the question, “when was the LAST time Republicans had a good idea” by saying that it was ending a war 35 years ago that Democrats had been calling for an end to for 7 years. Just curious?

@dalepetrie

I’ve read every post here and cannot find the one anyone stated they were a Republican (or any other party) did I miss it somewhere?

@DrBill How exactly did Republicans end WWI or WWII? Next you’re going to tell us that Ronald Reagan single-handedly ended the Cold War, which is a theory that generates laughs and derision anywhere outside Republican local party headquarters.

The National Parks system was a great idea, though as I learned watching the new Ken Burns documentary (and the news for all of my lifetime), Republicans have been opposed to pretty much every conservation effort since the days of Roosevelt.

Auditing the Federal Reserve. Ron Paul (R-TX)

Ron Paul is sui generis. I wouldn’t say he represents classical Republicanism.

Bush’s immigration policy was really good; no trolling. But that was shot down by the Republicans so I guess it doesn’t count. Carry on, everyone.

@pdworkin He’s a Republican so he therefore represents their party. If he wanted to represent another party he would have joined another one.

Uh, OK. But when you ask him, he says he is a Libertarian.

They’ve kept my federal taxes low.

If only they had, @critter1982. Not every tax announces itself as it is paid.

So the republican congresses tax rate cuts, child credit increase, elimination of the death tax, and reduction in capital gains is not a step towards lower taxes because, “not every tax announces itself as it is paid?” Please explain!

You are living through it. The very policies you cite caused an economic meltdown that we all be paying for for years.

@pdworkin The Democratic and Republican parties are very large and consist of many groups of people of different political beliefs, though on the same side of the political spectrum. For example, the Democratic party is divided on the issue of free trade. Another example is that some Republicans are neocons and others (like Ron Paul) are not.

OK, @doggywuv, if I look like I need a political science lecture from you I guess I will stand here and listen. Thanks ever so.

@DrBill The Republicans…

Ended slavery. The Republican party of the 1860s bears no resemblance to the Republican Party today, save perhaps the name. Since the 1950s the Republicans have both blatantly and subtly used racism to win elections. They even had a name for it: the Southern Strategy

Ended World War I Actually, it was Woodrow Wilson , a Democrat, who was instrumental in ending WW I. Wilson, as you may recall proposed the 14-point peace plan that was eventually accepted as the basis of the peace at the Treaty of Versailles. It very likely would have created a lasting peace had it not been for France and Britain insisting on sticking punitive reparations to Germany.

Ended WW II Once again your grasp of history is faulty. FDR, a Democrat, fought and won WW II. The Republicans, many of whom were Nazi sympathizers, before and after the war, wanted the US to stay out of the war—which, if they had their way, they would very likely would have won. Prescott Bush (Dubya’s grandpappy) was one of Hitler’s early financial backers, profited from his association with the Nazis, and was actually indicted for trading with the Nazis. In fact, the Republican Party continues to flirt with fascism.

Ended the Korean War Nope. That was Truman, a Democrat.

Ended Viet Nam War We were defeated and had to evacuate our troops and allies by helicopters from rooftops! Not exactly what I would call a dignified end. Nixon, if you recall, escalated the war; he carpet bombed North Vietnam, and even extended the war secretly into Cambodia (such a peacemaker!) and was still eventually routed by the Viet Cong, a third world guerilla army, just before he was hounded from office by his over-reaching in Watergate.

@critter1982 Kept my federal taxes low. Yes, and you know what the Republican’s big Idea there was? Instead of tax and spend, they instituted borrow and spend! Great, your tax bill is lower; your children’s won’t be.

@Zuma strikes again. GA. I don’t know how you have the patience to educate the ineducable.

@doggywuv If you’re so sure that the Republicans have had some good ideas, name one. But, let’s be fair, pick one that has substantial GOP support, and not one which is the hobby horse of some lone maverick.

@all By the way, I’m still not seeing any good ideas.

@Zuma As written on Wikipedia, Eisenhower “oversaw the cease-fire of the Korean War, ... launched the Space Race, enlarged the Social Security program, and began the Interstate Highway System.”
Also from Wikipedia, Teddy Roosevelt “was one of the first Presidents to make conservation a national issue”
These Republicans were presidents so they couldn’t have been some obscure members of the party. I don’t know much about earlier Republicans though, so I can’t comment on what good ideas they may have had.

@pdworkin Sorry, I didn’t mean to have the impression of lecturing you, I only wanted to express that the Republican party is somewhat diverse because it’s big, so there are many members who are like Ron Paul.

Uh-oh, Eisenhower enlarged the Social Security system? Are you admitting that’s a good idea?

@pdworkin Actually I don’t know…

Maybe you need to take a political science course or two, and figure out what you believe.

Democrats = “We might not be any good, but at least we aren’t Republicans!”

In California, we have Meg Whitman running for Governor. She is exactly the kind of Republican I like… The kind that doesn’t vote.

@doggywuv The Korean cease fire was achieved under Harry Truman in 1953; Eisenhower (who was elected in 1954) simply made sure that it continued; not a new idea.

If you were alive back then you would know that the space race was initiated by the Soviets when they launched Sputnik in 1958. In the Cold War atmosphere of the 1950s, the prospect of the US falling behind the “Commies” was simply unthinkable, so he had no choice but to join the race in order to catch up. In contrast, it was JFK who greatly expanded the space program with his initiative to put a man on the moon. Much of the NASA and DARPA-led technology (e.g., computers) we enjoy today stems directly from that initiative.

The Interstate Highway System, which you would think was a no-brainer, was enacted over the objections of his own party who complained that it was just too big and expensive. You have to keep in mind, that it was passed by a Democratic Congress over the opposition of the Republicans, who thought it “too large” and “too expensive.” It only got their support when it was cast as the National Interstate Highway Defense System, pointing out the military benefits of having good roads throughout the country.

As for Eisenhower expanding Social Security, this too was done with the help of a Democratic Congress over the objections of his own party. In fact, Eisenhower was quoted as saying that “a few Texas millionaires want to abolish Social Security,” as Reagan, Bush I and Bush II have been trying to do ever since.

As for the Republicans and environmental conservation, they have been resolutely hostile to the environment since Nixon onward. It is the Republicans, after all, who are denying global warming, who rake in the dough from anti-environmentalist PACs and who put the likes of James Watt in charge of the Department of the Interior.

In any case, you are having to reach back over 60 years to find the last good idea that Republicans shared with the Democrats, even if they didn’t think of it themselves.

@pdworkin and @doggywuv : I guess that just goes to show no two politicians are alike, even in the same party. Actually, they all have the fact that you can’t trust any of them equally in common.

@DrBill – haven’t been on since this morning, but what I said was, and I quote,

“I would like to know if the one Republican apologist who has answered so far…”

You did not respond by answering my question, but instead by questioning me, by saying,

“I’ve read every post here and cannot find the one anyone stated they were a Republican…”

OK, in case it’s not obvious, I said “Republican apologist” (which is why I took the liberty of putting those words in bold just now, I didn’t realize when I first posted it that I would have to do so), not “Republican”.

So, you basically, as @Zuma pointed out, gave Republicans credit for many things for which they have earned no credit, #1, #2 – you chose not to answer my question and #3 – you distracted from the fact that I pointed out that what you said made no sense by obfuscating what I said.

So, to clarify….

I personally would really like to know from Republicans AND people who may not self-identify as Republicans, but who actually believe that Republicans do at times have good ideas, what some of those ideas are. I don’t tend to agree with Republican ideals, which I believe I know and understand, but in terms of ideas, I honestly can’t think of a good idea Republicans have come up with in my lifetime, but I know that as a LIBERAL I certainly have a blind spot. So, I think it’s a great question, though clearly I think it was phrased in a way that might not lend itself to Republicans and Conservatives coming by to offer a serious answer.

But because you, @DrBill actually seemed to be trying, what I wanted to know was this….the whole fact that we surrendered in Vietnam aside, given that it WAS a Republican in office when Vietnam ended, even if you set aside the fact that it was Democrats and Liberals (or as the powers that be called them at the time, damn dirty hippies) who never wanted to go into this war in the first place, and who built an entire CULTURE around trying to end it, even if you do erroneously credit the “idea” of ending Vietnam to Republicans, do you REALLY want to say that the LAST good idea Republicans had was THIS one which happened 35 YEARS ago?

Hopefully THAT was clear enough for you not to put words in my mouth.

OMG I’m at 6666. Nobody move.

@dalepetrie

Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me,

Put simply, all politicians have good ideas, or they would not have gotten elected, all politicians have bad ideas, proven shortly after their election.

It is a fact that every major war (police action) was started while a Democrat was in office, and ended while a Republican was in office. If you want to argue it was due to their predecessor’s action, then we will have to apply that theory to all the rest like improving the economy during Clinton was really Regain etc.

I will still chose my candidates by their own actions and not by party affiliation.
.

December 6, 1865 – Thirteenth Amendment

@DrBill – My apologies if my retort seemed a bit harsh, I simply do not tolerate having my words misconstrued, I mean what I say and I say what I mean. And for what it’s worth, I too choose my candidates by their own actions and not by party affiliation, and though I have so far only voted for Democrats for President, I voted for the winning Republican and Independent candidates for Governor in the first three elections in which I was able to vote.

Nonetheless, it just so happens that I still haven’t seen any actual good ideas attributed to Republicans from you or anyone else. And in my book “ending a war” is not a partisan idea, fighting one is. So, it would be fair to say that if Democrats were responsible for starting wars, it could have been “their” ideas that got us into the mess, and you might have a point. But as I’m sure @Zuma would point out if he had beat me to the punch on this one, you are wrong once again. Let’s look at the last few wars and police actions:

Iraq 2 – GW Bush

Afghanistan – GW Bush

Iraq 1 – GHW Bush

Vietnam – Eisenhower (OK, Vietnam started in 1959, and we didn’t start really escalating our involvement until Johnson, a Democrat was in office, I’ll give you that, but it was Nixon who really got the ball rolling on that one, it was Eisenhower who was in office when the conflict started. The closest you can REALLY come to pinning Vietnam on a Democrat is by saying that it was 1950 when the first military advisers arrived in Vietnam under Harry S. Truman, however it would be 9 years until the war started, when a Republican was in office).

Korea – OK, Truman again, this from his bio, “In June 1950, when the Communist government of North Korea attacked South Korea, Truman conferred promptly with his military advisers. There was, he wrote, “complete, almost unspoken acceptance on the part of everyone that whatever had to be done to meet this aggression had to be done. There was no suggestion from anyone that either the United Nations or the United States could back away from it.”” Personally, I think this was perhaps the last really justified war, save Afghanistan, and there it would seem to me that a Republican President who was doing what he SHOULD by going after people who actually attacked the US on US soil pretty much dropped the ball, allowing the person who attacked us to escape, AND diverting the efforts from Afghanistan to Iraq at the most crucial time in the conflict, I’d stake my LIFE on the fact that no Democrat would have done anything THAT ignorant.

WWII – Started while FDR (a Democrat) was in office, ended when Truman (a Democrat) was in office, no pinning this one on the Republicans, but defeating the Nazis seems like a pretty damn good idea to me.

WWI – Wilson (a Democrat) got us involved in this one, though it was 92 years ago, and that makes it a pretty far stretch to even compare today’s Dems and Republicans to what they were then, but even so, he DID keep the US out of that war for the first 3 years, and it wasn’t until a year before it was over that we got involved, and of course once we got involved under a Democratic president, it didn’t take but months for the balance of power to shift to the Allies. Indeed however, it was also the Democratic President who pushed for ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, which the Republican controlled Senate defeated by 7 votes.

Here’s what I’m thinking, maybe stop making false blanket statements, because there is a long line of people armed with actual facts on this site. If you have an actual legitimate good idea that Republicans have had in RECENT history, and I’ll be generous and say recent is the last 40 years, 2 generations, that seems a fair enough guidepost, then by all means, share it. But please don’t tell us up is down, black is white and left is right, because we know better.

Interstate health care competition, targeted assassinations of Al Qaeda leaders, the Patriot Act which is about to be renewed by the Obama administration.

@pdworkin: No I take issue with your idea that tax rate cuts, child credit increase, elimination of the death tax, and reduction in capital gains are policies that caused an economic meltdown that we all be paying for for years. In a corporate age of globally administered markets and prices, this is a pretty flimsy argument. Soon you’ll be singing high praises to the current administrations $10 trillion addition to our national debt by saying it was the republicans who initiated this economic downfall and our only choice was to spend our way out of it.

@critter1982 People can talk themselves into almost anything, even as the bricks are tumbling and the glass is shattering.

@pdworkin: excuse my ignorance but your comments seem to be extremely abstract to the point I’m not even sure what your talking about.

Republicans have good ideas? Seriously?~

@critter1982 You are excused for your ignorance.

@critter1982 Actually the opening up of health insurance to interstate competition is a good idea, the only trouble is, it assumes that health care companies are eager to rush in to compete. They are not, which is why we don’t have more than a couple of options in most states. The public option, on the other hand, is a much better idea because it provides real competition in each state, and it doesn’t depend on the voluntary actions of current providers.

“targeted assassinations of Al Qaeda leaders” Otherwise known as murder. You really think that is a good idea? After all, it rather legitimates the idea that assassination is a normal and desirable means of settling grievances. (One has to wonder what kind of moral universe you live in).

“The Patriot Act” So you think that spying on Americans, detaining people indefinitely without charges simply on the say-so of the government—the wholesale roll-back of civil, legal and human rights, and the elimination of several constitutional checks and balances of our democratic system, tilting power to an Imperial Presidency; and you think this is a good idea? Sorry, its fascism.

@Zuma Totalitarianism, not fascism.

I thought it was the birth of socialism

@doggywuv I said fascism and I meant fascism; click on the link to understand why. Its a subtle but significant difference, since totalitarianism comes in several “flavors” not all of which are fascist.

Why do you assume health care companies won’t be willing to compete nationally? I understand that there are different state standards regarding health care and this will certainly lengthen the time it takes for companies to compete in multiple states, but I’m not saying it’s going to happen overnight. Within a few years we can eliminate some of the monopolies health care companies have over their states. Companies compete internationally all the time where there are huge barriers, so it’s not like it won’t work.
You can’t shoot down good ideas simply because you think they might not work, especially when the cost to the government will be minimal compared to something like a public option. Sure I agree a public option isn’t a bad idea other than the fact that you have to figure out where the money is coming from, something the democrats have failed to do well.

Yes, I think targeted assassinations is a much better alternative to the town bombings where citizens were being killed. What’s funny is that the democratic Congress had huge issues with this but didn’t seem to care a whole lot about the town bombings that were occurring. I know this because they stopped the CIA targeted assassinations but didn’t do a damn thing about the town bombings.

Yes I think the Patriot Act is a good idea. If it seizes additional terrorist attacks on American soil I will more than willing give up some of my rights so that other American citizens can survive the night. Apparently other people including democrats believe it was a good idea as well, hence the reason it’s going to be renewed by a democratic president and Congress. The question didn’t ask what republican ideas did you think were good ideas but rather what were good ideas in general. IMO if a democratic President and Congress had the option to shoot a bad idea down, especially something coming from George Bush, they would have done it, however they are not.

Why do you assume health care companies won’t be willing to compete nationally?
because to compete they have to offer better products (read: more costly) and/or lower prices than the competition. Which in a corporation whos sole goal is to maximise profit is a no-go, especially when they have other options to maximise profit(read: building cartels with other insurance companies, meaning agreeing on prices and policies between them, assimilating smaller companies, denying coverage to high risk customers, drop coverage for ill customers, introduce only partial coverage for medical expenses, etc.)
competition is the mortal enemy of profit and if there is a way to avoid competition, they will.

Yeah but when it comes to competition or not competing at all, companies are going to choose competition, which will drive towards better products and/or lower prices as you pointed out. Denying high risk customers and dropping sick customers is a whole other issue, one that if necessary could and should be restricted by law.

competition is the mortal enemy of profit and if there is a way to avoid competition, they will.
This is the reason for interstate health care. As it currently stands, some states have very little competition driving up prices. If you open it up to more companies you create this potential for competition, and with tons of for profit health care companies already out there, I see no reason they wouldn’t want to capture a percentage of a market that has only one or two competitors.

@critter1982 If corporations so love competition, why is there so little of it in state markets? Because, corporations have to make a certain level of profit before Wall Street considers them to be “viable” or investment worthy. They kept on dropping out of markets until the lack of competition ensured sufficiently high levels of profit to make them attractive investments.

You have simply assumed that competition is the natural order of economic life. It isn’t. Competition lowers profits and corporations are in the business of maximizing profits; hence there are powerful incentives to reduce competition. In fact, one of the inherent instabilities of capitalism—and one which contributes heavily to the boom and bust cycles (another inherent instability) is the almost inexorable tendency of businesses to move toward oligopoly and monopoly.

Even Adam Smith recognized this problem, which is why some of the earliest economic laws on the books (even before central banking and the income tax) have to do with anti-trust. But, even though we have those laws, they are seldom enforced due to the power of corporations to buy off regulators and water down regulation. Here, the Republicans have been the virtual handmaiden of corporations throughout their history and they have made no secret about it.

Now, all of a sudden, they find it convenient to be in favor of competition, something that they are only in favor of when it has the effect of bidding down the cost of labor and people’s wages. Excuse me if this seems a bit cynical, but this looks a lot to me as though the Republicans are willing to say anything if it suits their cause at the moment.

There is an excellent book by Adams & Brock called The Bigness Complex which details the history of corporate collusion and anti-competitive practices culminating in our present long-standing situation where in every mature industry in America (oil, steel, aluminum, food, etc.) is dominated by a small handful of very large corporations.

Are you trying to say that murder is better than indiscriminate bombing, and that these are our only choices? No, you are leaving out the much larger array of soft power choices which actually frame this issue. What is at issue here is whether diplomacy, trade, co-optation through culture and history, and leading by moral example, etc. is a more effective and legitimate way to conduct foreign policy than the exclusive reliance on brute force hard power methods that have became the hallmark of the Bush II imperium.

When you see Cheney getting up to defend torture, preemptive invasions, military and economic coercion what you are really seeing is a defense of all the brute force “Dark Side” policies of his administration. Likewise, when you see conservatives cheering at Obama’s “failure” to bring home the Olympics, what you are really seeing is not simply an attempt to discredit Obama personally, but an attempt to discredit the whole idea of soft power as an instrument of foreign policy. This is also why you see neocons, like Michael Scheuer, getting on Glenn Beck’s show saying that what this country needs is a good terrorist attack—because such an attack would seem to discredit Obama’s attempt to get us back to relying on soft power as the basis of our foreign relations.

In fact, you could look at the Republican preference for brute force threading it’s way through all kinds of policy, from the war on drugs, to it’s approach to crime, to things like building a wall along the border, and “get tough” policies in general.

The Patriot Act is another case in point. Rather than approaching the problem of terrorism proactively, in an attempt to de-fuse the hostilities of would-be terrorists by 1) not doing things that thoroughly antagonize large groups of people, and 2) by addressing their legitimate grievances (or at least undercutting them), instead, the Patriot Act is creates a massive security apparatus that brings us to the brink of a police state. And it creates a massive federal boondoggle with all sorts of creepy, off-the-books, domestic surveillance contractors and entrepreneurs, who may very well go into the business of violating our privacy for profit—or in ways that subvert the democratic process. Choicepoint, for example, has already been used to rig elections in Florida and Venezuela

One would think that a bloated and largely unaccountable federal bureaucracy, marked by waste and lack of oversight would be the last thing that Republicans would think a “good idea,” especially when they go on and on about how they love their “freedoms.” One gets the sense that they mean “freedom” only in the abstract, but that anything that militarizes the state or makes it more police state-like inexplicably seems okay. Seriously, read this analysis. (This might even be worth debating in another thread.)

@Zuma The Bush Administration was totalitarian, but not fascist. Robert Paxton, a historian, defines fascism as “a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline” On Wikipedia it’s written that “Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.”
The Nazi Party was definitely fascist because it believed that some races were superior to others and that there is a constant conflict between races and nations, all of which struggle for dominance, and that they were of the superior race and that they should fight to eliminate inferior races and expand throughout the whole world; and because it wanted to restore purity, energy/aggresion, and eliminate racial/cultural diversity as well as most freedom in society.
The Bush Administration had totalitarianism and a want to expand power, in common with the Nazi Party, but it didn’t have fascism in common with it. It has no need to create purity in society and eliminate racial/cultural diversity, it just had goals for control.

@doggywuv I don’t mean to disparage Robert Paxton, but your quote from him hardly captures the essence, much less the whole, of what fascism is. Simply spending a few minutes at Wikipedia is insufficient to grasp of the enormity and subtlety of fascism. See, for example, Laurence Britt’s famous 14 points (which, since you don’t seem to read the links in my posts, I feel compelled to list out here):

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Here is an exhaustive point-by-point analysis of how the Bush Administration fulfills all 14 of Britt’s points. If you don’t read it, we’re done talking, because this is the basis of my assertion that “totalitarianism” is inadequate to describe what the Bush Administration got up to.

While Britt is highly regarded, his points are presented in no particular order of importance. So, there have been several attempts to rework these points in an attempt to find which points are essential and which are derivative. Some say the defining characteristic of fascism is in the two-tier nature of the society (where only the top tier have rights as citizens); others argue that it is corporatism (where the top tier consists of corporations and natural human beings are expendable fodder for the corporate state); still others regard the full-scale militarization and military mobilization of the entire society that is fascism’s defining characteristic. It may well be that the essence of fascism is a fully militarized corporate state in which people only have rights according to their rank within it.

Even so, such a state begs the question of how such a profoundly anti-humanist, anti-democratic sensibility could arise in the first place. Umberto Eco (who grew up in fascist Italy) offering elaborations on a slightly different set of 14 points in describing Ur-Fascism (or Eternally-recurring Fascism) as a recurring anti-democratic cultural phenomenon.

More recently (2007) Naomi Wolf reassembles these in 10 procedural steps, along with her analysis of how the Bush Administration has been lurching toward fascism (and not mere totalitarianism). Again, if you don’t read this, you are not getting the gist of my argument.

Just because you don’t see overt and extreme racism on the scale practiced by the Nazis doesn’t mean that you don’t have a general stifling of diversity or an undercurrent of racism that can build up to 1) unequal rights, 2) segregation 3) official apartheid, and eventually 4) genocide once the fascists have obtained undisputed power. Look at how Bush II dismantled the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, or how the Republican party is going after ACORN. What do you think these teabaggers are all about? These are white Christian Identity and white power folks who “want their country back.”

We don’t have true totalitarianism yet, but we do have incipient fascism in spades.

@Zuma said

“It seems to me that most of their ideas consist of opposition to Democratic initiatives”.

That’s a good definition of political conservatism and a good Republican idea.

A Conservative Idea isn’t tied to individual events or acts, it’s an overall mentality.

The OP answered his own question.

Dwight Eisenhower

@Zuma I don’t want my tax dollars going to an agency that would advise someone posing as a prostitute to defraud the state for her illegal business. How fascist of me.

LOL, ACORN is just good, old fashioned BUSTED. The employees doing damage control by claiming that they were in on the operation have me laughing one moment and puking the next.

Have a problem with the methods? Imagine if the situation was reversed and Liberals were exposing fraud in a ‘conservative’ agency.

The instigators would be considered heroes by the mainstream.

@proXXi Just as I don’t want my tax dollars going to grant legal immunity to rapists…

How do you justify defunding ACORN, but opposing the Franken bill?

@proXXi – have you ever hired anyone? How do you know when you hire someone that the person might not go off the reservation and do something you and/or your organization might not approve of? Fact is, these people who got this footage were not journalists. A journalist would start with a question such as whether or not ACORN is helping the right people. An activist, which is what THESE people were, set out with a pre-determined conclusion (ACORN is doing something wrong), and set out to find evidence to support their pre-determined conclusion. Then they fraudulently misrepresented themselves as something they were not with the purpose of entrapping people into incriminating themselves, and by association their entire organization. So they traveled, with concealed cameras in tow, and put forth an act at office after office after office all over the country. THEN when they came across two bad apples in an organization that employs thousands and helps millions who struggle with poverty, they took that footage, edited it so it looked as bad as they could possibly make it look, and then did not subject it to any sort of editorial scrutiny or fact checking or even attempting to establish whether this was a systematic failure of the organization vs. the work of a couple misguided individuals who abused the trust placed in them by this organization, and they self published this to a Conservative blog which had access to the opinion makers. That is not news. That is not fact based reporting. That is activism.

They had an ultimate purpose of harming ACORN, because ACORN was demonized in the election cycle. To get this straight, what ACORN does, and why Conservatives have ALWAYS hated ACORN is that it works to empower people who have no power in our society to give them a voice. And Conservatives do not WANT the powerless to have control, they do not WANT them to have a voice, because people who have been kicked in the teeth by unfettered capitalism unchecked by regulation, wherein government does not work for the people directly, but cedes the power to the corporate interests who will supposedly do a more efficient job of things, these people will by and large be liberal, because they understand that some times circumstances dictate that good, hardworking people need a hand up (not necessarily a handout). They know the more poor, homeless people vote, the less Conservatives will win elections, the less powerful they will become, and so they actively go after organizations which try to help people overcome bad circumstances.

Case in point, the last election…ACORN was registering hundreds of thousands of people to vote, and most of them would have likely been liberal just based on where they would do their registration drives. ACORN was required by law (laws supported by Conservatives) to turn in EVERY SINGLE REGISTRATION FORM IT COLLECTED, even it it was filled in by Mickey Mouse. Again, they pay people to get these registrations and some people were defrauding ACORN, their own employer, by filling out false information on these cards so they could get more money. Again, you hire a lot of people, some will turn out to be not what you thought they were, just a fact of life. So, in essence ACORN was being defrauded of their money whenever they got a false card. But they HAD to turn it in…what the DIDN’T have to do by law was to go through them and say, “OK, these ones are suspect,” but they DID. That’s the Secretary of State’s job, but basically because ACORN wants only good registrations to go through, they would isolate bad registration cards and label them, effectively SAVING the taxpayer money when the Government didn’t have to do that work.

But of course, that meant that some cards that said Mickey Mouse on them were sent to the government. And Conservatives, who again HATE ACORN and would MUCH rather see poor people just die off rather than change things to their benefit (because it would HAVE to be to the detriment of the already rich and powerful), they set out to destroy ACORN by putting out stories about ACORN and election fraud. Not once was ACORN found to have done anything wrong, but it made Conservatives hostile, and they wanted BLOOD. So a couple of them set out to destroy ACORN by pretty much trying to entrap literally hundreds of ACORN employees before they found two who were shitbags and deserved to be dragged out into the street and shot.

So YAY, Conservatives got the government to keep YOUR tax dollars from going to an organization that helps people make a better life for themselves, that shelters the homeless and keeps the poor from having their heat shut off in the winter. Boy, THAT’S something to be proud of, CONGRATULATIONS!

Thanks, @dalepetrie. I hadn’t the strength. I sometimes wonder where you find the energy to be so thorough.

chalk it up to a combination of passion and common sense.

@dalepetrie lurve to you! You got to answer before I did. I worked for ACORN in Dallas in the ‘80’s. I don’t think the direction of the organization has changed, but what they have been achieving is scaring the conservatives and some Republicans. If ACORN was not so successful in what they do, there would be no need for anyone who opposes them to try to smear.

@Yetanotheruser – lurve for having worked for such a noble organization.

@dalepetrie I really enjoyed it. It was a voter registration campaign in a lower-income part of town;some of the people I contacted were at first skeptical of this hippie-looking white guy coming to their door; but when I told them what I was doing and why, many of them were supportive. At least one went down to the ACORN office and filled out an application.

@proXXi You might have a point if ACORN was defrauding the government, but they didn’t and you don’t.

One of the things that has been overlooked in the ACORN thing is that they weren’t counseling the fake couple how to defraud the government, they were trying to help the couple “come clean” by reporting their illegal income for tax purposes. Last I checked, helping people find ways of paying the taxes they owe isn’t fraud.

The Republican’s bright idea backfired on them when they realized that it is unconstitutional for legislators to write a bill singling out a single person or organization for defunding or other special treatment, especially when they haven’t been found guilty of any crime. When the Democrats amended the bill to include all government contractors who actually have defrauded the government, the Republicans suddenly lost interest when they realized that the worst offenders were their ole buddies in Blackwater, Halliburton and pretty much every defense contractor. Now they are wishing they had just kept their mouths shut.

And, on top of everything, you now have 38 Republicans voting against the Franken Amendment, which would allow women who had been raped by the employees of federal contractors to sue those companies. So,in effect, you have the Republicans siding with rapists out of pure partisan orneriness. Talk about wanting to puke.

Any other great ideas?

@dalepetrie: Sounds an awful lot like the journalism done by Micheal Moore and Bill Maher. It’s amazing that its so easy for you to chalk up advice to continue underage brothels (5 unique accounts) to bad journalism and fraudulent misrepresentation. In my opinion that discredits you from ever being able to think bipartisan and on your own. I don’t agree with the 38 repub’s voting against the Franken Amendment but backing ACORN and defending it by saying their was fraudelent misrepresentation is a gnat’s ass away from siding with those 38 repub’s.

You can point out all the great things that the Nazi’s and the third Reich did for their country but they were still murderers!!

@critter1982 – I don’t disagree that neither Michael Moore nor Bill Maher is a journalist…they are both activist documentarians who set out to prove a pre-conceived idea. I don’t chalk up bad advice, even 5 unique accounts of it to bad journalism, I chalk up activism to being activism. There are some bad apples, I’m saying even if it was FIVE counts (and what does that mean, my understanding of the story was that it was two employees in Baltimore, maybe there were 3 more PEOPLE in the country, I don’t know for sure, but out of an organization which employs THOUSANDS of people, two activists who visted DOZENS of locations rooted out what I say is 2 and what you say is 5 people who gave bad advice. THOSE people should be punished. In my view YOU lose credibility if you say we should use a handful of examples of individual actions to create a guilt by association to take down an organization which by and large does very good things…that’s called throwing the baby out with the bathwater in my book, and it smacks of modern day McCarthyism.

@dalepetrie: It was 5 unique accounts, not 5 separate people. I’m not stating that 5 unique accounts is a paradigm of the company itself however I find it horrendous that someone would discount this occurrence by means of bad journalism and fraudulent misrepresentation. Additionally, I think that 5 unique occurences in separate locations deems it necessary to take some sort of investigation into the company itself. I don’t think these people represent the majority, however it would be apparent that Acorn may want to modify their hiring requirements or modify their interview process? Acorn does great things for the community I wouldn’t argue that, and I certainly didn’t argue that the whole organization should be taken under because of these instances, however again…...it’s repulsive that we even start to think about chalking this up to bad journalism or fraudelent misrepresentation.

LOL @Zuma, you keep telling yourself that.

Actually, by the way the original post is worded it’s opinion, not a question.

‘Republicans don’t have good ideas’ would have been much more intellectually honest.

Not that im crying to the Mods, I’d rather all posts stand as they are. I’m grown up enough to handle it.

@critter1982 – I think the confusion you may be having with what I said, because otherwise it seems we are on the same page is that I’m not saying or even implying that they fraudulently misrepresented their FINDINGS…they may have taken them slightly out of context and edited them to portray them in the most shocking manner possible. What they fraudulently misrepresented was WHO they actually WERE. These activist were not actually a pimp and a ho, but they went into these offices saying they were, that is fraudulently misrepresenting a material fact no matter how you look at it. If a police officer were to do that during an investigation, it would be thrown out as entrapment.

@proXXi WHAT?! You laugh dismissively, as if that were an argument. Why would “Republicans don’t have good ideas” have been a fairer, more “intellectually honest” question? That would have been a statement and not a question, and it would have begged the question by assuming facts not in evidence.

If you can’t think of a time when the Republicans had a good idea, it isn’t because the question is unfair, it’s because so many Republicans ideas have turned out, in hindsight, to have been bad ones. I can appreciate why you wouldn’t want me to call attention to that fact, but it is hardly intellectually dishonest to do so. In fact, your accusation is simply an attempt to shoot the messenger and changing the subject rather than give an intellectually defensible answer of your own. (This shoot the messenger. tactic, by the way, is now one of the recommended strategies for GOP hacks .)

Oh yes, you did bring up the Republican’s attempt to defund ACORN as an example of a Republican “good idea.” But that turns out to be a case study in hypocrisy. The reason Republicans want to defund ACORN is not because ACORN has done anything wrong (where are the indictments?), but because ACORN signs up poor people to vote and because they advocate for things like raising the minimum wage, which the Republican’s corporate sponsors don’t like.

When the Republican’s Defund ACORN Bill was broadened to go after government contractors actually convicted of defrauding the American taxpayer, the Republicans suddenly didn’t want anything to do with it. In fact, 30 Republicans voted to protect a big powerful defense contractor from being sued by a female employee who had been kidnapped, drugged and gang raped by several of taxpayer-funded employees.

In other words, they did so was for nakedly partisan reasons. So, let’s put the question another way: When was the last time the Republicans put the country before narrow party partisanship?

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billsearch.xpd?sponsor=400311

HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, and S 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act, would require a full audit of the Fed for the first time in its history and would provide answers to the American people about how our money is being spent;

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=26841

H.R. 2629, the Coercion is Not Health Care Act, stops government from taking even more of our money and railroading us into its health care scheme by preventing any individual or agency in the federal government from requiring anyone to purchase health insurance. H.R. 2629 also prohibits conditioning the receipt of any government benefit or participation in any government program on the purchase or maintenance of health insurance.

H.R. 1495, the Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act of 2009, allows all Americans to pay their health care bills through the method that suits them best by providing all Americans with a tax credit for 100% of health care expenses (fully refundable against both income and payroll taxes), allowing individuals to roll over unused amounts in cafeteria plans and Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA), providing a tax credit for premiums for a high-deductible insurance policy connected with a Health Savings Account (HSA) and allowing seniors to use funds in an HSA to pay for a medigap policy, as well as making all medical expenses tax deductible by repealing the 7.5% threshold for the deduction of medical expenses.

H.R. 1498, the Freedom from Unnecessary Litigation Act of 2009, addresses rising medical malpractice costs by providing a tax credit for negative outcomes insurance purchased prior to medical treatment and by preventing medical malpractice awards obtained through binding arbitration from being taxed.

As Dr. Paul said in his speech introducing H.R. 1498, “Relying on negative outcomes insurance instead of litigation will also reduce the costs imposed on physicians, other health care providers, and hospitals by malpractice litigation.”

H.R. 2630, the Protect Patients and Physicians Privacy Act, allows patients and physicians to opt-out of any government-mandated or -funded system of electronic health care records and repeals the federal law creating an “unique patient identifier.” It also denies the use of federal funds to advance the use of standard unique health identifiers in any federal, state, or private health care plan.

H.R. 3394, the Freedom of Health Speech Act, requires the FTC to actually prove health care claims are false before preventing those claims from being made, and H.R. 3395, the Health Freedom Act, ends the FDA’s attempts to censure truthful health claims.