Posted on 05/20/2008 9:31:32 PM PDT by RWR8189
How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?
Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.
This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.
This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I do miss the days when we could be fairly sure that whichever parties’ candidate was elected, America would be defended. People can blast Joe all they want, but he is one of the few Dem reps that would.
And we all saw what his reward for standing up for America was.
Getting booted out of his own party.
These Communists are not your father’s Democrats.
Obama does not even deserve to walk in the shadow of Reagan, or for that matter, JFK.
What a great read! Thanks for posting it.
I wonder who applied the label of Independent Democratic to Joe. The 'crats will take his vote when they can get it, but ain't gunna give him spit in return.
How else would you describe him? He’s definitely independent, and he has pledged to vote with the Dems for leadership roles.
“a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders”
Well, Joe, if you can’t understand how an amoral self-serving victimology-baiting pro-infanticide power hungry socialist dominated democr@p party can fail to make the right “moral judgments,” then you aren’t nearly as smart as I thought you were.
Good article by Senator Lieberman...He wonders why today’s Democrats have turned away from the strong, principaled leadership of yesterday’s Democrats..
In part,this is a result of the dumbing down of America..Many do not know American History, nor the past struggles of generations past, and they have been brought up in an era of ‘me-too’ ‘feel good’ Constitutionally protected freedom. As a result, they have been led down a primrose path of pacifism, radical rebellion against all ‘authority’ and isolationism...In doing so, they have left the middle course of American politics which believes in a strong America, able to sustain itself and still provide aid and assistance to countries in distress..
It is a time of shame and humiliation for a once decent party that cared for the poor and the working class and provided many benefits to generations of Americans...Hopefully the majority of Americans will choose not to follow that devious and twisted path of shame in November and will vote for a strong America by voting Republican...
This needs to be repeated over and over again until it sink into as many voters minds a possible.........
“If a president ever embraced our worst enemies in this way, he would strengthen them and undermine our most steadfast allies.”
How honorable was it to change several of his “long standing moral” positions to run as Gore’s VP? Some regarding the most basic life and death principles such as abortion.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
This one was good, too.
A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned “no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.” This is a lesson that today’s Democratic Party leaders need to relearn.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I like Joe Leiberman as a person and principled American. I disagree on one area and that is global warming legislation that he co-writes and supports. Other then that, a true Patriot.
Oh, yeah, his New Deal failed to end the depression too. He was an incompetent economic czar, despite all the attempts to paint him otherwise.
I have issues with Truman and Kennedy too, but there are precious few who are in FDR's category of evil egotism and totalitarian enablement. If you like the USSR, he's your man. He loved them, clearly.
After being screwed by a bunch of pirates like the dem party, I durned sure wouldn’t invite the label. Nor would I vote, caucus, do lunch nor go to the bathroom with them. I have a different attitude about loyalty than Joe appears to have, though. See ya.
“People can blast Joe all they want, but he is one of the few Dem reps that would.”
yes, he’s grown on me also. Compared to the dangerous, traitorous, strategic egocentrists we’re facing this election year, JL is, imho, an honest Mensch.
BTW, the above description of the dem. party as it used to be? With the exception of FDR, the others (jfk, truman) would most certaily be considered Conservative in today’s
world.
As much as I admire the Senator, I do recall being disgusted by his abandoning of his principles when running with Gore.
“And we all saw what his reward for standing up for America was.
Getting booted out of his own party.”
And he accepted it with class. Yes, your statement above illustrates one more plus in his favor :-)
Truman a conservative?!? He advocated national health insurance and wanted to end all right to work laws. He tried to keep on coercive wage and price controls long after the war was over. Unlike even FDR, he was the first president to go to war without consulting Congress.
Then again, you might actually be right. All of those actions are entirely consistent with today's version of big government conservatism, especially as represented by statists like McCain and Bush.
You lost me right there, Joe. If you still think Bubba and Algore were anything but criminals and fellow travelers of the lefties you are writing about then you still don't get it.
So it sounds like you like the idea of him being the VP for McCain?
Much peril there...
Does anyone have any info on Leibermans position when it was Rhawandans getting their extremities axed off?
Good read, thanks for posting.
Obama the Muslim militant should be running for some office over in Kenya, certainly not here in the USA.
Ditto that. Good sketch of FDR. He created the perception that judicial activism was legitimate too. The most unAmerican President we’ve ever had.
Thanks for posting this. Have to admire a man who puts his country first.
The main problem with today's socialist-minded Democratic Party isn't the Party but the people. The people unthinkingly created this Party like Dr. Frankenstein created his monster. The reason that the people did so is because ignorance of the Constitution and its history is epidemic. Widespread constitutional ignorance is evidenced by the following links.
http://tinyurl.com/npt6tAnd not only have the people given these scoundrels too much power, but the consequences of widespread constitutional ignorance persist. Because of their ignorance, the people are impotent to stop these crooks from partying the taxpayer's dollars down the toilet and from walking all over their personal freedoms, particularly their religious freedoms.
http://tinyurl.com/hehr8
Today's problems with our messed up federal government got started in the days of FDR. While FDR's intentions for the people might have been good, FDR's approach to rescuing the people from their woes has ultimately wound up in disaster. More specifically, constitutional flunky FDR's crony justice supporters were naively willing to politically repeal the 10th A. protected powers of the states in order to give the green light to FDR's constitutionally unauthorized New Deal spending programs.
Indeed, Jefferson noted the tendency of the federal government to seize power in times of trouble.
"The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:423This post (<-click), while addressing taxes, provides more details as to how FDR unthinkingly robbed the states of their 10th A. protected powers in order to start his New Deal federal spending programs.
And this post (<-click) exposes how corrupt justices then began using FDR's politically correct license to ignore the 10th A. to unlawfully stifle traditional family values, including the USSC's scandalous legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade. Note that the post first references two non-abortion cases in order to show Roe v. Wade in a different, troubling perspective.
In fact, consider that the states have the constitutional power (10th A.) to authorize public schools to lead non-mandatory (14th A.) classroom discussions on the pros and cons of evolution, creationism and ID, as examples, regardless that atheists, separatists, pagan-minded judges and the MSM are misleading the people to think that doing such things in public schools is unconstitutional.
The people need to reconnect with the Founder's division of federal and state government powers. The people then need to wise up to the major problems that, since the days of FDR's dirty politics, Congress has not only been operating outside the restraints of the federal Constitution, particularly where constitutionally unauthorized federal spending is concerned, but the USSC has wrongly been ignoring the 10th A. protected power of the states to address religious issues.
The bottom line is that the people need to get in the faces of judges, demanding that judges uphold their oaths to defend the 10th A. protected powers of the states to address religious issues - or get off the bench. The people also need to get in the faces of members of Congress, demanding a stop to constitutionally unauthorized federal spending while appropriately lowering federal taxes - or get out of DC.
Lincoln put it this way.
"We the People are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." --Abraham Lincoln, Political debates between Lincoln and Douglas, 1858.
I agree, and almost unheard of in the Democrat party.
This is a totally disgusting statement. We had no national interest in Serbia. We were lied to about the so-called genocide of Kosovars. Clintoon allowed Madeline Halfbright to convince him that using NATO, a strictly defensive military alliance by treaty, as an offensive force to invade a sovereign country to settle an internal dispute in favor of an outside element of agitators that our own State Dept. had not long before officially declared a terrorist organisation. All that without seeking UN approval and in fact in defiance of a UN resolution.
It set the precedent of using NATO as an unaccountable multi-national force to settle internal disputes in sovereign countries. We may see them here, manned by German, French and British troops, minus U.S. forces, to defend the poor oppressed Atzlan minority from retaliation for their terrorist acts and to defend the independence of their country.
Joe, your multi-culturalist side is showing through.
By contrast, in 2000, Gov. George W. Bush promised a "humble foreign policy" and criticized our peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.
This junk is just delusional. Algore and the Dems were going to be strong on defense and prosecute a vigorous WOT? Our use of NATO to kill Serbian Christians and protect Albanian Muslim terrorists was a sign of Democrats becoming strong on defense? Even if the ethnic cleansing had been true, and it wasn't, how does that action constitute defense? When did Serbians attack Americans or American interests?
Exactly my thoughts about FDR, I’m glad it’s not just me. I felt unpatriotic for not hailing this man who undemocratically wedged the thin tip of socialism into American government, all so he could pander to the working class for votes and stay in office for a record four terms. What a way we have come from men like Washington who saw it as a reluctant duty to serve as President, “serve” being the operative word. That was why he was reluctant. FDR is no hero in my book.
Well, can’t argue with you on that....
Lieberman had a great chance of leaving the Dims and getting a leadership role with the Pubbies a few years back and he balked at the offer. At the end of the day, regardless of his ‘defend America and Isreal’ speeches, he remains a Cult member, plain and simple.
FDR also advanced rule by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats - a dictatorship. I simply can’t put forward a worse president than the fascist FDR.
If FDR had been around in 1776, the founders would have considered him a royalist Tory and hanged him.
"President Clinton and his advisers slowly but surely came to recognize that American intervention, and only American intervention, could stop Slobodan Milosevic and his campaign of ethnic slaughter, Democratic attitudes about the use of military force in pursuit of our values and our security began to change. "
My values do not include bombing people who have done me no wrong simply because they want their property back.
(Or because I need to shift attention away from my own transgressions.)
"President Clinton and his advisers slowly but surely came to recognize that American intervention, and only American intervention, could stop Slobodan Milosevic and his campaign of ethnic slaughter, Democratic attitudes about the use of military force in pursuit of our values and our security began to change. "
My values do not include bombing people who have done me no wrong simply because they want their property back.
(Or because I need to shift attention away from my own transgressions.)
It’s not so plain and not so simple.
Worth repeating.
BTTT!
Ditto.
"only American intervention..."
Riiiiight. It was Europe in the 1990's. They can police their own backyard.
Maybe, but on the other hand, here in 2008, we might collectively gain as it could put a dent in the destructive partisanship that’s causing national problems to lie unaddressed.
I recently read “Common Ground” by Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas, there was a lot to agree with in that book.
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