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Old 12-19-2005, 03:51 AM
Andrew Fletcher Andrew Fletcher is offline
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Default my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

I'm mostly sharing this because I am really proud of it. If you're a big enough geek that you want the footnotes, send me a PM and I'll send you a word document.

Introduction
Controlling the presidency, congress, and the majority of state governments, the Republican Party currently has an immense amount of political power in the United States. It is widely acknowledged by political commentators on both the right and the left that the conservative movement has an unprecedented degree of influence in shaping both domestic and foreign policy. As mainstream as conservatism has become, it was not always this way. There was a time when conservatism was considered a subversive and extreme ideology that should remain on the fringes of American society. The story of how conservatives rose to such high levels of political power is closely intertwined with the Cold War. Conservative intellectuals and political activists fused anti-communism and anti-statism to create an aggressive ideology that claimed domestic liberalism was as dangerous as the Soviet Union. For conservatives, the Cold War became both an organizing tool and a justification to attack all forms of social democracy in the United States.

The Great Depression, World War II, and Conservative Failure
To understand the rise of Cold War conservatism, it is necessary to examine the history of right-wing politics before World War II. While the war had taken a devastating toll on Europe and Asia, the United States had emerged relatively intact. “America was the world’s number one economic power, and there was no number two.” Although thousands of Americans had died in the war, it was a time of optimism. It should be noted how drastically the economic situation had changed from less then ten years earlier. In 1936, Roosevelt deplored that “one third of the nation [was] ill-housed, ill-clad, [and] ill-nourished.” Roosevelt’s economic policies had reversed this grim reality, “drew millions to the Democratic Party…and created a new [liberal] consensus to which a majority subscribed.” Although the Great Depression and World War II had been terrible hardships, Americans were infused with a sense of hope about the future. For many, liberalism was synonymous with progress, internationalism, and opportunity.

In contrast, conservatism was associated with economic disaster, elitism, isolationism, and even Nazism. The ideological underpinnings of pre-war conservatism were deeply troubling to the majority of Americans. For example, conservatives were out of touch with the general public on fundamental economic issues. During the Great Depression, many right-wing business leaders were members of an organization called the American Liberty League. Formed in 1934, the Liberty League opposed Roosevelt’s economic reforms during the Great Depression.

While thousands of Americans were forced to stand in bread lines, the Liberty League and other conservatives were calling for cuts in social welfare. When Roosevelt achieved full employment during World War II, conservatives worried about protecting private profit. One of Roosevelt’s proudest domestic accomplishments was the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC). The FEPC ensured that workers were not exploited by private industries seeking to profit from the war effort. Conservatives attacked the FEPC as a barrier to free market capitalism. It was no wonder that the conservatives found themselves isolated after the Great Depression—they had ignored the economic conditions of the general public and defended ruthless robber barons.

Prominent members of the Liberty League and other anti-New Deal organizations included leaders from du Pont, J.P. Morgan and former presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith. Given the hardships that most Americans were facing during that time period, it is not surprising that the Liberty League did not gain many followers in the general population. An unregulated free-market had led to the Great Depression and Americans were not anxious to return to that era. Conservative economic policies were unlikely to inspire mass support in the glow of postwar prosperity.

Conservatives were also marginalized because of their positions on international issues before World War II. Many Americans had been rightly alarmed at the growing threat posed by Hitler and Nazism even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However, conservatives argued against intervention in European affairs. Sen. Robert Taft from Ohio, who made “critical contributions to the foundations of modern conservatism,” was outspoken in his opposition to the U.S. joining with the Allied Powers. Taft was supported by a myriad of popular organizations, such as the America First Committee. With over 800,000 members, America First was the largest organization opposed to American involvement in World War II.

Support for organizations like America First came from several political tendencies. Business leaders felt that as long as the ability of U.S. private industry to profit was not threatened, there was no reason to endanger American blood and treasure fighting the Nazis. The same groups that agitated against the New Deal opposed intervention. There was also a darker impulse in the American psyche that generated support for isolationism. “Fascism was the main form of mass-based right-wing populism in the United States during the 1930s.” Business leaders willingly made alliances with groups like the German-American Bud and other organizations with clearly fascist tendencies to oppose American intervention.

Histories of the period, particularly those written by conservatives, have portrayed groups like America First and other neo-Nazi tendencies as aberrations. However, conservative ideology during the Cold War and even the War on Terror clearly draws on ideas expressed by conservatives during the 1930s and 1940s. While they opposed American involvement in World War II, conservatives “favored unilateral, predatory U.S. expansion southward into Latin America and especially westward across the Pacific into Asia.” These conservatives were against going to war to stop fascism but believed in going to war for the interests of private industry. They were not simply isolationists. The intellectual justification would change, but there has always been a strain of conservatism eager to use military power in the service of business elites. America First and Sen. Taft represented this ideology.

Opposition to the necessary economic reforms of the New Deal and alliances with neo-Nazi organizations had left conservatives discredited and marginalized in postwar politics. To come back from the political wilderness, conservatives would need to develop new strategies for presenting their ideology to the American public. A small group of intellectuals and activists undertook the project of rebuilding conservatism and creating an electoral majority.

Justifying the Unjustifiable: Conservatives and the Early Post-War Era
Although it is widely acknowledged that Roosevelt was responsible for ending the Great Depression and played a key role in winning World War II, these basic facts are missing from most conservative histories of the era. Although few conservatives disputed the reality of early postwar prosperity, they did not believe it was due to economic reforms undertaken by President Roosevelt during the New Deal. For example, conservative economist Milton Friedman claimed that “government programs have hampered not helped” the rising living standards enjoyed by most Americans in the late 1940s and 1950s. According to Friedman, the measures associated with the New Deal “had effects very different and generally quite opposite from those intended.” Friedman echoed conservatives of the late 1920s and early 1930s who preferred “a laissez-faire form of capitalism and sharp restrictions on federal government power.” Eagar to unshackle the constraints put on private business during the New Deal, conservatives brazenly claimed that state intervention on behalf of social welfare was not responsible for the better living standards for American citizens.

The contemporary right might compare critics of the Iraq war with those who appeased Hitler, but conservatives in the immediate postwar era tried to claim U.S. involvement in World War II had been unnecessary. “Revisionists argued that, in defiance of public opinion and personal pledges, Roosevelt had deceitfully maneuvered the United States into war and then had conducted it disastrously.” Some conservative historians accused Roosevelt of knowing about Pearl Harbor before the attack. Libertarian godfather Russell Kirk wrote that the war to liberate Europe had been “a liberal, internationalist crusade, and the ‘peace’ a liberal creation, too.” According to the conservative narrative about World War II developed at the beginning of the Cold War, Roosevelt had committed “appeasement at Yalta” and should have just allowed Germany and the Soviet Union to destroy one another. In short, the war should not have ended. Conservatives opposed entering the war against fascism and then refused to accept that it had been successfully executed. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. These attacks on Roosevelt’s foreign policy would be eerily similar to the conservative assaults on liberals throughout the Cold War.

While conservatives were isolated politically in the immediate aftermath of World War II, it should be noted that they were not powerless. After all, groups like America First and the Liberty League had support from some of the largest corporations in the United States. Labor unions and other progressive organizations gained high levels of political power during the New Deal, but it is not as though business was unable to respond. Considering the left rhetoric from many political leaders at the time, Roosevelt struck a large number of compromises that kept the country together. Although he is often interpreted as left-wing, Roosevelt was fundamentally a centrist—partially pulled to the right by conservative pressure. The conservatives had built an infrastructure to attack the New Deal and other policies of the Roosevelt Administration. They used those political networks to build power during the Cold War. Rough estimations puts the current wealth of conservative foundations at over $1 billion dollars, which has been distributed to thousands of activist groups and intellectuals seeking to turn American politics to the right. There were thousands of right-wing activists and organizers, trained by the battles against the New Deal and World War II, who were eager to continue the struggle against liberalism.

Anti-Statism is the New Isolationism
As conservatives were rewriting military and economic history, the political mainstream was desperately trying to figure out how to deal with the emerging threat of communism and the Soviet Union. While conservatives had always theoretically hated communism and other ideologies that were anti-free market, many on the right were not actually interested in confronting the threat of the Soviet Union. The majority of the electorate was also not eager for another military conflict, but not for the same reasons as conservatives. During the Great Depression, over 100,000 unemployed people in New York City had applied for jobs in the Soviet Union. Given the major sacrifices made by Russians during World War II, it should not be surprising that many Americans were initially somewhat friendly towards communism. However, by the late 1940s, most mainstream political leaders and the general public began to see the aggressive expansionism of the Soviet Union as a threat.

Conservatives were obsessed with destroying the social welfare state built by Roosevelt. A book called The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich August von Hayek provided conservatives with a pseudo-intellectual justification for an assault on the New Deal. Hayek’s book, which was relatively short and easy to read, quickly became a conservative classic. The thesis was simple:

[ QUOTE ]
“Any attempt at economic ‘planning’ would ultimately change the social and moral values of the nation and led it down the road to ‘totalitarianism.’ Planning was an absolute. There was no middle ground between that and unconditional faith in the virtues of the free market. The latter was the only choice that in the long run was compatible with democracy.”

[/ QUOTE ]

Before examining how this idea relates to the Cold War, it is important to consider the validity of Hayek’s thesis in the aftermath of the Great Depression. A huge percentage of the population had been unemployed and ruthless business tycoons had been exploiting many of those who were working. As shown by the strength of organizations like the Communist Party and America First, political extremism threatened to pull the nation apart. “FDR, a member of America’s elite, had turned against his own class’s self-interest and implemented reform in order to save capitalism.” In contrast to the political and class compromises brokered by Roosevelt, Hayek sought an intellectual rebirth of right-wing ideological fanaticism that had been discredited by political events during the Great Depression.

Although he is mentioned glowingly in many intellectual histories written by conservatives, Hayek was “tactless, dogmatic, [and] an awkwardly uncompromising champion of the pure doctrine of laissez-faire.” In short, he was an extremist. The idea that any form of state economic planning is a step on the road to totalitarianism is clearly laughable. The regulations that govern liquor sales or any other type of common sense restrictions on commerce show the idiotic and intellectually indefensible nature of Hayek’s thesis. However, American conservatives cared little about the facts. Although the book had been quickly refuted by British scholars and politicians, The Road to Serfdom became one of the most popular nonfiction books to appear in the United States during that time. Its influence on a generation of conservative scholars and activists cannot be underestimated. Although some of the most influential American political magazines of the time declared that Hayek’s thesis had “little scholarly impact and was simply being used by reactionary businesses interests,” it was distributed by Reader’s Digest and other conservative political networks built during the New Deal. The book may have been rejected by political scholars but it was taken as gospel by many regular people—who had a lot more votes than college professors.

Liberals and Conservatives Respond to Communism
Conservatives tested their new intellectual ideas by attacking the Marshall Plan. Senator Joseph McCarthy became a right-wing folk hero by “denouncing the policy record of General George C. Marshall.” He was joined by Senator Taft who “was skeptical about the Truman Doctrine, in which the president committed Americans to helping countries fight communism, and he opposed the Marshall Plan.” Both Taft and McCarthy believed the United States did not have a reason to support the struggle against communism in other societies. If Republicans had controlled the presidency, it is likely that no nation would have confronted the Soviet Union. Thankfully, non-conservatives could see the threat posed by the Soviet Union and rose to the challenge. The Marshall Plan and other anti-communist efforts in the era immediate following World War II were designed to deal with the very real threat of foreign subversion. The case of Albert Hiss and other high-level communist infiltrators show the serious nature of the issue. Despite recent claims to the contrary, conservatives like McCarthy and Taft were initially unsupportive of such efforts and unworried about the threat of the Soviet Union.

The liberal response to communism centered on programs like the Marshall Plan and other initiatives designed to support anti-Soviet movements in other countries. This led to some contradictions in the stated goal of spreading democracy and the complexity of global politics. While the United States occasional was forced to support right-wing parties instead of those aligned with the Soviet Union, liberals felt they were justified in making moral compromises to stop the expansion of the Soviet Union. President Truman might have supported right-wing parties in Italy and Turkey, but he also “was capable of genuine eloquence when he spoke of the need for U.S. leadership in aid for the impoverished and undeveloped areas of the world.” As demonstrated by his willingness to commit troops to the conflict in Korea, Truman was not shy about backing up his opposition to communism with direct action.

Conservatives were concerned about communism, but not for the same reasons. They attacked Truman for his international policies and spread conspiracy theories designed to scare people into seeing communism and liberalism as the same thing. Like isolationism during World War II, frantic anti-communism found a popular base. An organization called the John Birch Society (JBS) warned that “western European civilization was being prematurely put at risk by a conspiracy promoting collectivism.” Although the JBS often made bizarre claims, like fluoridation of local water supplies was a communist conspiracy, the organization found a surprising amount of support in the late 1950s. With over 100,000 members in almost 75 chapters across, the JBS was a political force to be reckoned with. According to JBS propaganda, “many liberals and their allies [were] actually…secret traitors whose ultimate goal [was] to replace the nations of Western civilization with a one-world socialist government.” This type of irrational extremism led to the leader of the JBS, Robert Welch, to accuse both President Truman and President Eisenhower of being communist agents. It should be noted that there were dozens of organizations similar to JBS during this time period. These groups managed to convince thousands of people to oppose international policies designed to confront communism, but supported draconian measures at home to root out subversives.

The conservatives would later shift their position on the threat posed by international communism and the need for aggressive policies, but the liberals had no need to do so. Leading liberals both inside and outside of government had long been anti-communists. While conservatives were opposing the Marshall Plan and trying to undermine Truman, liberals like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and John Kenneth Galbraith were marginalizing former Vice President Henry Wallace. Wallace ran for president as a member of the Progressive Party, which was heavily influenced by the Communist Party, in 1948. American liberals “ridiculed the candidate’s naďve estimation of the Communist Party’s influence on the Progressive Party…and…lampooned Wallace’s ignorance about Soviet expansion during the early stages of the Cold War.” Liberals also attacked the Progressive Party for dividing the American left and enabling Republicans to take control of Congress.

However, it should also be noted that liberals did not blindly support anti-communism and proposals designed to combat domestic subversion. Liberals did not view communism as the only enemy. They were concerned generally with totalitarianism, which included all forms of government that had “nothing standing between a centralized state and isolated individual living in a mass society.” This included fascism, religious theocracy, nationalism, and other blindly extremist ideologies that promoted conformity. This nuance was missing from the theories offered by conservative intellectuals and would be used as a justification to attack liberalism throughout the Cold War.

The Solution to Communism is to Attack Liberalism
Conservatives, who had previously denied the threat of the Soviet Union, used that threat to attack liberalism and the social welfare state in the United States. By using Hayek’s anti-statist thesis, they conflated the difference between liberalism, social welfare, and communism. The American right tried to portray liberalism as being fundamentally as dangerous as communists who sought to overthrow the government. An “anti-leftist political discourse came to dominate the political debate in the 1947-1948 period in a manner [that] provided the right with a powerful weapon to influence policy formation.” Hayek’s claim that any obstacle to free markets was a forerunning to socialism was repeated nonstop by conservative political candidates seeking to return to power. The elections of 1948 proved disastrous for the left-wing, partially because Wallace and the Progressive Party split the left-wing vote, and Republicans retook control of the House of Representatives. While Democrats still controlled the executive branch, Republicans dominated the political agenda with anti-statist rhetoric.

Given the unwillingness of conservatives to support the Marshall plan and other anti-communist efforts, the accusations of treason leveled against liberals during the Cold War now seem somewhat ludicrous. Conservatives somehow convinced themselves that “fatuous liberalism was responsible for the appeasement of “Uncle Joe” Stalin.” This should be no surprise given the intellectual foundation that conservative ideology is built upon. After all, Hayek and the authors that came after him like Buckley and Friedman believed that any restrictions on the free market were the same as communism. Therefore, conservatives believed that it was impossible to advocate for national healthcare and also oppose the Soviet Union. In contrast, liberals believed in opposing totalitarianism which meant that compromises could be made to ensure domestic tranquility.

Liberals in the beginning of the Cold War had a sense of ironic detachment from anti-communism. They wanted to root out subversive individuals like Alger Hess and criticized people like Henry Wallace for foolishly underestimating the Soviet Union. However, liberals did not want to restrict the basic freedoms of ordinary people who were communists and were willing to exist in a pluralistic society with open competition among ideologies. Liberals intellectuals had faith the ability of individuals to make the correct decision when presented with all the information and choose freedom over tyranny. Because liberals had faith in the self-correcting nature of democratic societies, they believed that social welfare programs could improve living standards and not cause a nation to become communist.

Conclusion: Understanding Ideology and the Pitfalls of Compromise
This is the key difference between conservatives and liberals. Right-wing politics is guided by a very simplistic premise that has not changed since the neo-fascist days of World War II. Private enterprise is the source of all constructive developments in any society. The only positive role for the state is to protect the interests the private sector through coercive force. The military should only be used to ensure private profit. All social programs that seek to balance the distribution of resources are inherently evil and must be opposed. Ultimately, conservatives during the Cold War viewed the world in simplistic terms of good and evil. If communism was bad, then the good ideology of conservatism was the only thing that could stop it. Anything that questioned basic assumptions of conservatism was undermining the struggle against communism. The same logic has been applied to the War on Terror and other international conflicts. Ultimately, conservatives have very little faith in the basic goodness of human beings. Only a monolithic and coercive state can protect people from one another. According to the conservative narrative, one thing can explain all events in the world.

In contrast, liberals saw the world in complex shades of grey. This does not mean liberals eschewed morality or fundamental principals. Like conservatives, liberals viewed communism as evil and a grave threat. However, liberals during the Cold War were suspicious of any ideology that claimed an absolute monopoly on truth. Liberals were willing to consider all sides of an argument and then come to a reasoned decision about the appropriate response. To conservatives, the willingness to consider ideas other than their own carefully constructed narrative about state power and freedom was tantamount to treason.

The willingness of liberals to consider the ideas of others provided an opening for conservatives to completely seize control of the political debate. Liberals were forcibly isolated and unable to bring reason into any discussions about political, economic, or social issues. Instead of declaring the intellectual idiocy and extremism of conservatism, liberals sought to compromise with an ideology that did not believe in conciliation. Since liberals were willing to compromise and conservatives were not, the right-wing seized control of the political discourse and liberals were unable to communicate their basic ideas to the American public. Consequently, conservatives consolidated their control over the vast majority of federal, state, and local governments.
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Old 12-19-2005, 04:08 AM
sweetjazz sweetjazz is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

waxie, I only had a chance to skim the paper, but it looks like an impressive work. Congrats on the effort you put into this fine product.

Just one comment I thought I would make: I think the conservative criticism of Roosevelt's handling of WWII after the fact might be closely analogous to the liberal criticism of Bush's handling of the war in Afghanistan. (Those who still say that it was an unnecessary or illegal war. Some of whom went as far as to claim that Bush caused 9/11 in order to start a war with Afghanistan.) I don't know how much of a fringe view the criticism of WWII was (as the criticism of the war in Afghanistan is), but otherwise the analogy seems to me at first glance to be pretty good. (Of course the scope of the wars is also not comparable at all either.)

My point is that opposition to a largely popular war is often based more on irrational dislike of the person in power than an ideological view. (Since both conservatives and liberals objected to wars that were very similar in how they were started -- a domestic attack that was linked to a particular foreign government.)
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Old 12-19-2005, 04:18 AM
Jdanz Jdanz is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

i only read a little bit i don't have time for the whole thing now, but i'll say A) people on this board are going to disagree that Roosevelt's policy "cured" the depression and B) there was still massive (historically speaking) unemployment in the US before WWII.

I havne't really formed a cohesive opinion on Roosevelt's policy, however empirically speaking is seems as though any effect of his policy was negligable compared to the international market that sprung up during rearmament for american production.
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Old 12-19-2005, 04:41 AM
bobman0330 bobman0330 is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

I read the whole paper. Very interesting story, but I believe the paper would benefit from more objectivity. Your opinion of what today's revisionist historians have to say about FDR's policy is not important historically. What's important for you is what people then thought. Ditto your assessment of Hayek. The section heading of "Justifying the Unjustifiable" is a bit much too. Other than that, good read [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. Congrats on being done with it.
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Old 12-19-2005, 04:42 AM
sam h sam h is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

Hi Waxie,

Nice job. I just did a quick read. My one comment is that I think you have the periodization a bit wrong concerning when anti-statist ideas really started to gain currency in the Republican party and, relatedly, when the Republicans really became "conservatives."

Consider this quote from the literary critic Lionel Trilling in 1950: "Liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition... there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in circulation, [merely] irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas."

The Republican Party in the aftermath of WWII was also "liberal" to an important degree. They might have opposed some of FDR's initiatives, but the ideas of people like Hayek and the big ideological assault on the state's role in the economy was really launched a bit later, in the early 1960s. That is also when the Republican Party became slowly taken over by the "conservative movement," with the candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964 representing the watershed moment when the first real conservative emerged to carry the Republican flag.

But overall it is a very astute and well-written essay.

Sam
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Old 12-19-2005, 08:30 AM
BCPVP BCPVP is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

Read it all. It was interesting, but like bobman said, it should be more objective if it is to be anything but a drawn out op-ed in Mother Jones.
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Old 12-19-2005, 09:36 AM
Andrew Fletcher Andrew Fletcher is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

I agree with this to a point. There weren't a lot of people, save a few extreme lefitsts like Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who actually opposed the war in Afghanistan. The converstative strategy has been the same as the Cold War-- one nutty person opposes the war in Afghanistan and all of liberalism is suspect.

There have been criticisms of the conduct of the war, which I think might be justifiable given how badly the Bush Administration wages war.
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Old 12-19-2005, 10:22 AM
lehighguy lehighguy is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

Waxie, you still think everything is a conspiracy theory. You never question your own ideals. Everyone else is evil and your fighting for truth and goodness.

As you were doing research for this paper I could see all the signs. All you wanted to do was justify your own opinion, not really understand why liberalism is having a hard time.

If you want to think your movement is failing because of a bunch of fat white guys smoking cigars in some backroom, go ahead. It isn't just bad PR that has caused liberalisms fall, a lot of your ideas and policies are bad.
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Old 12-19-2005, 10:47 AM
Beer and Pizza Beer and Pizza is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

lehighguy,

You are spot on. As I mentioned in another thread, waxie has his opinions and knows he is absolutely right. He starts threads asking a question so that after some replies he can tell us the correct answer. His paper is more of the same certitude, unfortunately his certitude is not all that correct. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]
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Old 12-19-2005, 11:15 AM
lehighguy lehighguy is offline
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Default Re: my term paper on Conservatives and the Cold War (long)

Modern liberalism runs on the the premise that they are right about everything and they just aren't getting thier message out. They are getting thier message out, but it's the wrong message. As long as they think that they are fighting some mythical evil corporate fat cats they won't focus on changing the things wrong with thier movement, and they won't be successful.

Bush is a horrible president. Liberals think they are losing to him because of bad PR. I look at the situation and think that if they are losing to such a horrible guy, there must be serious problems with thier idealogy.
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