Sorry. I lacked the wit to perceive the important subtlety. Yes. You are absolutely right, DJ. My apologies. ~S
I wonder when was the exact moment that the liberals of the prior generation (or would it be two ?) crossed over into the dark side of statist/totalitarianism. Nearly a half-century ago with JFK, that was really the last old-school classical liberal we saw with the Democrat party. Less statist in some ways (economically) than Nixon, an unapologetic anti-Communist Cold Warrior (although he was a bit too green for the job, Nixon had far more experience in that department), someone who still basically had a positive vision for America and was a reformer. Who knows, maybe it was with his assassination ? Somewhere in the 1963-1965 period was clearly the turning point. Ironic that the disciples of this man would not continue on with that same viewpoint, but moved more in the direction of the man who was his alleged assassin, a devout Castroite. It would’ve been as ludicrous had Hinckley been successful with his targeting of Reagan and us Conservatives becoming, say, disciples of Jodie Foster.
I was watching an episode of the original Star Trek from the mid to late ‘60s, created by a Kennedy New Frontier Democrat, Gene Roddenberry. This particular episode was about an alien race with two opposing viewpoints, the Yangs and the Kohms. Somehow, at one point, the Yangs had in their possessions documents relating to the founding of our country, but over a period of hundreds of years, the meanings had been perverted and distorted and only the highest member of the Yang tribe was allowed to even view the documents, such as the Declaration of Independence.
In any event, the episode, written by that liberal Democrat, contained a patriotic message, delivered with that Bill Shatner flare (a Canadian, no less ! Although Kirk was from rural Iowa), instructing them that those documents weren’t just meant for an elite group, but were meant for all — and cut to a final dramatic shot of Shatner looking at the old, tattered American flag off in the corner of the room. This by today’s standards would’ve been denounced by those “liberals” of 2008 as jingoistic, right-wing garbage, heaven forbid what hateful foreigners would say after being fed 40+ years of propaganda by an even more embittered international journalistic corps.
Nope, that Kennedy outlook is virtually gone in today’s Democrat party. His youngest brother embodies not the sentiment and ideals of old Jack, but the hatefulness and bitterness we saw in Lee Harvey Oswald and Castro and basically all those that see this country as something that needs to be brought down. America the Imperialist oppressor. That kind of sick, twisted ideology of “change” Obama wishes to bring to the country. Lord help us all.