Barack Obama believed to be a Muslim by one fifth of Americans

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

That's a little harsh - do you believe LBJ's true intention was to create a 'full scale war' in Vietnam from the beginning?

Sure he did. He started the carpet bombing in the North, escalated troop levels, and changed American Rules of Engagement. Bad, bad left-wingers.

Seriously, the left-right divide is ######ed.

Conservatives, like myself, find the high-tech wars of today to be absolutely horrifying.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Actually, the part I object to is calling LBJ "left wing."

"Great Society," anyone? Can't get more left than that.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by peter12

"Great Society," anyone? Can't get more left than that.

Well, as you'll agree, the term "liberal" in a classical sense is extremely broad, which makes the hatred of "liberals" among the right wing in the U.S. particularly risible, since their own ideology is a version of liberalism, a fact they don't recognize because their understanding of politics is approximately as sophisticated as that of the average 1960s "New Leftist." (and yes, by that I mean "hippie")

LBJ's "Great Society" was in many respects quite different from the "New Deal"--it felt different in part because of the rhetoric behind them. It's hard to imagine the avuncular FDR declaring "WAR" on "poverty."

But their goal was the same, and astute economic and political observers recognize this: to save capitalism at a time when its continuation as a stable system under modernity did not seem like a foregone conclusion. Let's not forget that behind the fake paranoia of McCarthyism was a very real anxiety about the very foundation of liberal-capitalist civilization. The notion of a "domino effect" in which the fall of capitalist regimes on the other side of the globe might threaten the American polity and way of life didn't seem as ridiculous then as it does now, given the events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, not to mention pretty significant parts of Asia.

When Kennedy commented that the "battle for freedom" would be staged on the "southern half of the globe," he was geographically out to lunch. But his clarification: Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East seems in his historical context to beg exactly this question: how could Liberal capitalism stake out a ground for itself in the global political culture, especially in places where massive asymmetry in the distribution of wealth was causing instability in previously friendly regimes.

So you tell me the answer: is it still left wing if the entire point of an entitlement program is to correct some kinds of asymmetry while preserving others? LBJ's vision was of a liberal capitalism that was stable in perpetuity, that didn't suffer from the massive, regime-changing upheaval that his age was witnessing around the world. FDR was the same: if he had been a communist (as some of his opponents insinuated) the New Deal would have looked like a Swedish-style universal entitlement program. Instead, it was a complex, cumbersome and heavily targeted system, with the goal of easing--not eliminating--asymmetrical wealth distribution in the U.S.

I'm partly--but not completely--being cute here, so that I can say this: the New Deal saved capitalism. The Great Society offered an extension of its influence, but did not change its basic mandate. They are programs designed to produce a stability in liberal capitalism that at the time did not seem inevitable.

Then came postmodernism.......

[FlamingLonghorn]

Originally Posted by Azure

Right wing = evil war mongers.
Left wing = enlightened peace loving people.

Our good friend Peter threw a little wrench into that argument as Lyndon Johnson was involved with the Vietnam fiasco.

Not to say that you actually believe what I just said, but a lot of people do.

I didn't even bring up war in any of my posts. If he wants to have a discussion about it I am game, but he will be surprised in what I believe. I respect the hell out of our boys who serve this country it hits closer to home than peter12 could ever realize, but I thank him for assuming that he knows my opinions.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Sowa

I didn't even bring up war in any of my posts. If he wants to have a discussion about it I am game, but he will be surprised in what I believe. I respect the hell out of our boys who serve this country it hits closer to home than peter12 could ever realize, but I thank him for assuming that he knows my opinions.

No, no. That wasn't my point at all. I was trying to put out, in a drive-by fashion, that the right vs. left thing, especially in the United States, is totally meaningless.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Well, as you'll agree, the term "liberal" in a classical sense is extremely broad, which makes the hatred of "liberals" among the right wing in the U.S. particularly risible, since their own ideology is a version of liberalism, a fact they don't recognize because their understanding of politics is approximately as sophisticated as that of the average 1960s "New Leftist." (and yes, by that I mean "hippie")

LBJ's "Great Society" was in many respects quite different from the "New Deal"--it felt different in part because of the rhetoric behind them. It's hard to imagine the avuncular FDR declaring "WAR" on "poverty."

But their goal was the same, and astute economic and political observers recognize this: to save capitalism at a time when its continuation as a stable system under modernity did not seem like a foregone conclusion. Let's not forget that behind the fake paranoia of McCarthyism was a very real anxiety about the very foundation of liberal-capitalist civilization. The notion of a "domino effect" in which the fall of capitalist regimes on the other side of the globe might threaten the American polity and way of life didn't seem as ridiculous then as it does now, given the events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, not to mention pretty significant parts of Asia.

When Kennedy commented that the "battle for freedom" would be staged on the "southern half of the globe," he was geographically out to lunch. But his clarification: Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East seems in his historical context to beg exactly this question: how could Liberal capitalism stake out a ground for itself in the global political culture, especially in places where massive asymmetry in the distribution of wealth was causing instability in previously friendly regimes.

So you tell me the answer: is it still left wing if the entire point of an entitlement program is to correct some kinds of asymmetry while preserving others? LBJ's vision was of a liberal capitalism that was stable in perpetuity, that didn't suffer from the massive, regime-changing upheaval that his age was witnessing around the world. FDR was the same: if he had been a communist (as some of his opponents insinuated) the New Deal would have looked like a Swedish-style universal entitlement program. Instead, it was a complex, cumbersome and heavily targeted system, with the goal of easing--not eliminating--asymmetrical wealth distribution in the U.S.

I'm partly--but not completely--being cute here, so that I can say this: the New Deal saved capitalism. The Great Society offered an extension of its influence, but did not change its basic mandate. They are programs designed to produce a stability in liberal capitalism that at the time did not seem inevitable.

Then came postmodernism.......

Haha, I'm not even going to touch the meat of this post but I will say that this fell into my earlier point. Politics, especially in the United States but also in the broaden Western World, is dominated by the axiom of right vs. left or by the labels of liberal vs. socialists. Within the liberal camp are really the classical liberals and some sort of Rawlsian liberal, but both share the basic assumptions regarding politics and human life. Philosophically, they just believe in very slightly different things.

What I find more interesting is the slowly ebbing and flickering light of Burkean inspired antiquarianism which is, of course, still very strong in Britain, but also has roots in America through the work of Russell Kirk to revive Burke's thinking. Now I don't think Burke was a philosopher per se, but he is, along with De Maistre and Tocqueville, one of the few non-Romantic skeptics of liberalism to come out of the modern age.

This is derived from the aristocratic or patrician way of life which is now totally defunct in America and thus, has very little sway in American political debates.

I don't know what my point is...

[Thor]

Originally Posted by peter12

I don't know what my point is...

You just summed up what Philosophy is...

[FlamingLonghorn]

Originally Posted by peter12

No, no. That wasn't my point at all. I was trying to put out, in a drive-by fashion, that the right vs. left thing, especially in the United States, is totally meaningless.

I agree with you than in mainstream politics, but the extremist fringe groups are who I am talking about. Although I guess it might be unfair to call them right wing instead of just racist/prejudice jackasses.

[FlamingLonghorn]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Nope, he was too incompetent to actually fight a war. After reading several books on the Vietnam war lately the only thing we can accuse that administration of is gross incompetence and stupidity.

I agree with you that LBJ's foreign policy left a lot to be desired, but he single handedly pushed the Civil Rights Act through when no one else could have. The legislature was so scared of LBJ they did what he wanted. That single achievement puts him above a ton of other presidents in my book.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by peter12

Haha, I'm not even going to touch the meat of this post but I will say that this fell into my earlier point. Politics, especially in the United States but also in the broaden Western World, is dominated by the axiom of right vs. left or by the labels of liberal vs. socialists. Within the liberal camp are really the classical liberals and some sort of Rawlsian liberal, but both share the basic assumptions regarding politics and human life. Philosophically, they just believe in very slightly different things.

What I find more interesting is the slowly ebbing and flickering light of Burkean inspired antiquarianism which is, of course, still very strong in Britain, but also has roots in America through the work of Russell Kirk to revive Burke's thinking. Now I don't think Burke was a philosopher per se, but he is, along with De Maistre and Tocqueville, one of the few non-Romantic skeptics of liberalism to come out of the modern age.

This is derived from the aristocratic or patrician way of life which is now totally defunct in America and thus, has very little sway in American political debates.

I don't know what my point is...

I think we basically agree, if we say this:
1. Right and left are meaningless in the U.S. It's an easy shorthand that isn't all that descriptive of their political tradition, which has actually oscillated between populism and anti-populism, which the astute reader will notice are not actually ideologies at all but styles of rhetoric.
2. All mainstream political thinkers in the U.S. are liberal. There are nut-jobs (Green-party hippies, 9/11 conspiracy theorists and tea-party types) who are still liberals but don't realize it--and they ratchet up their rhetoric to account for their profound feeling of disenchantment with the polity.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Sowa

I agree with you that LBJ's foreign policy left a lot to be desired, but he single handedly pushed the Civil Rights Act through when no one else could have. The legislature was so scared of LBJ they did what he wanted. That single achievement puts him above a ton of other presidents in my book.

Sure, I don't disagree with that, however I still think that his secretary of defense McNamara should have been charged with war crimes against his own country.

He sent hundreds if not thousands of American's to their deaths due to his decision to run the war from his office.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I think we basically agree, if we say this:
1. Right and left are meaningless in the U.S. It's an easy shorthand that isn't all that descriptive of their political tradition, which has actually oscillated between populism and anti-populism, which the astute reader will notice are not actually ideologies at all but styles of rhetoric.
2. All mainstream political thinkers in the U.S. are liberal. There are nut-jobs (Green-party hippies, 9/11 conspiracy theorists and tea-party types) who are still liberals but don't realize it--and they ratchet up their rhetoric to account for their profound feeling of disenchantment with the polity.

We can probably add a third in there and say that liberalism, regardless of its strain, is fundamentally about maintaining some sort of abstract capitalist ideology.

I should stop reading Eagleton.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by peter12

We can probably add a third in there and say that liberalism, regardless of its strain, is fundamentally about maintaining some sort of abstract capitalist ideology.

I should stop reading Eagleton.

You can't stop now; in for a penny, in for a pound.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

You can't stop now; in for a penny, in for a pound.

I think there's a huge difference between the market interactions that operate on a daily basis between billions of people every day and the abstract ideology we are sold as part of our daily devotions to the secular religion of liberalism.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by peter12

Sure he did. He started the carpet bombing in the North, escalated troop levels, and changed American Rules of Engagement.

You're being facetious again. Just post what you actually think.

So why didn't he start out by launching a full scale invasion and take almost the entirety of his presidency to ramp up the war? If he actually wanted to wipe the Vietcong off the face of the earth, he could have and should have done it in 63/64.

The whole thing reeked of foreign policy gone bad. The whole idea behind containment was flawed to begin with and the guy didn't see that by sending troops he was actually making the situation much worse to begin with.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by peter12

Sure he did. He started the carpet bombing in the North, escalated troop levels, and changed American Rules of Engagement. Bad, bad left-wingers.

Seriously, the left-right divide is ######ed.

Conservatives, like myself, find the high-tech wars of today to be absolutely horrifying.

Not to degrade this into a vietnam war discussion.

While he and McNamara did increase troop levels, they put a ineffectual bombing campaign into place because they refused to close the ports where Soviet and Chinese freighters were off loading supplies. They refused to go after supply depots, put assinine rules of engagement into place including a refusal to go after Northern SAM sites that would have saved the lives of aviators.

The thing that Killed the Americans in the Vietnam war was its own government who decided that Bureaucrats thousands of miles away from the war, who had no military experience were the ones that made the tactical decisions.

If the American's had put up the pressure bombed the crap out of the Vietnamese supply centers in and around Hanoi, mined the harbour's to prevent resupply, and gone after anti air defenses instead of dropping bombs on empty fields the American's could have blunted the Norths supply of men and equipment to the south. They could have put pressure on the Russians not to supply Vietnam, and they could have actually fought a proper war of occupation instead of the stupidest ground war ever created, where American's would win battles and territories only to give them back.

LBJ might have been a good domestic president, but frankly as a war time president he was an utter disaster.

If McNamara had been the Sec def in WW2, the American's probably would have lost the pacific.