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Why Newt Matters
Here’s why: he doesn’t back down. From This Week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbVx9Xb7vkM
Published in General
And yes, he does not back down. ·
Can you describe a detail of the positive achievement that isn’t either the Welfare Reform whose details were shaped by the Bush 41 White House and Gov. Thompson and whose general thrust Clinton ran on in 1992, or “Republicans won an election”? There were reforms in federal criminal law that were nice, but I understood you to disagree with them.
I’d say the sequester was a bigger achievement than the Contract. The Contract saw an end to budget cutting (Bush passed tremendous cuts, Clinton’s first Congress passed sizable, but smaller, cuts, Newt’s Congress put an end to that), while the sequester appears to have been genuinely helpful. Alternatively, Republican advances in gun rights, labor laws, tax rates, overcoming Communism, and such seem like they’re non-trivial to me.
As good as he is (usually) at challenging questioners, I fear that, at his core, he’s still basically a “big government conservative.” ·33 minutes ago
He regularly talks about his favorite politicians being progressives (the Roosevelts come up particularly often), with the proviso that they want to do different things. Teddy Roosevelt never got excited about providing a $100 laptop for every child, for instance.
Perhaps the biggest curse the GOP faces is the tendency to decide that someone is a conservative because they attack conservatives with the charge of being insufficiently conservative. We do the same with libertarians; people regularly refer to the big government backing ex-governor of New Mexico as a “libertarian” and suggest that he might teach actual government cutters a lesson on the subject.
As good as he is (usually) at challenging questioners, I fear that, at his core, he’s still basically a “big government conservative.” ·33 minutes ago
He regularly talks about his favorite politicians being progressives (the Roosevelts come up particularly often), with the proviso that they want to do different things.
Blake #6 and every other post of his here is perfectly and compellingly correct, from a strictly political point of view.
Which is to say, from a point of view that is completely removed from the truth.
The truth, of course, has little to do with politics.
The War on Poverty was completely successful. Yes, there still are poor, because money isn’t wealth. You can give someone money, but you can’t give them wealth. 60% of lottery winners are financially back to where they started in an average of 5 years–wonder why?
There is no definition of poverty that can account for rampant obesity being one of its prevalent problems.
The war on poverty was completely successful. We need to stop claiming it was a failure. There is no substantive evidence of failure. Changing the official definition of poverty notwithstanding.
The war was so successful that we may not survive the success.
Don’t look at me like that.
You have to understand that the war was never focused on making people affluent. It was focused on eliminating poverty’s ill effects.
What the war did was wall people into concentration camps to feed/clothe them.
It worked.
Which should perhaps be the message.
It would have truth on its side.
But how many people grasp the fact that money isn’t wealth?
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The war on poverty was completely successful. We need to stop claiming it was a failure. Thereis no substantive evidence of failure. Changing the official definition of poverty notwithstanding.
…
You have to understand that the war was never focused on making people affluent. It was focused on eliminating poverty’s ill effects.
What the war did was wall people into concentration camps to feed/clothe them.
Sorry, this is just false. I think you’re trying to be cute here, saying that the program was “a success” because it achieved what its proponents really wanted — to create large pockets of dependent and loyal clients living off the dole. But that is the substantive evidence of failure you’re claiming doesn’t exist.
While it’s true that standards of living among “the poor” have risen, it’s silly to say war on poverty programs caused that. Technology did. Markets did. So things that were once luxuries are now available even to those trapped in Democrat-run urban areas.
Robert Reich doesn’t even try to argue that the war on poverty has been successful. Instead he tried to blame its failure on obstructionist Republicans. That’s telling.
The “war” was lost even before it started. A liberal scholar/politician Daniel P. Moynihan was among the first to see the destruction wrought on black families (within 3 years of the Johnson administration’s campaign). And now, since we have lost all our scruples and senses as a culture, the rot is infecting all the roots and branches, as Charles Murray has cataloged.
Again, as Blake and others have highlighted through the conversation, we must never even grant the premise that the welfare state does good. It doesn’t because it can’t. It is simply false assumptions and promises combined with ignorance and conceit. The only common ground we can have with these policies and their authors is possibly the nobility of intention. But we know better and should never join the game of deceiving anyone with clever policy mechanics.
There should be NO apologies. The conservative argument stands on the faultless logic that the good and moral cannot be legislated. We can always take care of our brothers and sisters, but could and should never pretend to legislate the size of their dinner.
I have never found myself wondering what Cokie was trying to say… She is a pretty boring thinker, no? ·4 hours ago
Well, she wrote a book called Founding Mothers, which sounds like pretty conventional feminist studies drivel! But still, I like to hear what the Left’s points are, even though I’m no Blake at refuting them!
While it’s true that standards of living among “the poor” have risen, it’s silly to say war on poverty programs caused that. Technology did. Markets did. So things that were once luxuries are now available even to those trapped in Democrat-run urban areas.Sorry, this is just false. I think you’re trying to be cute here, saying that the program was “a success” because it achieved what its proponentsreallywanted — to create large pockets of dependent and loyal clients living off the dole. But that isthe substantive evidence of failure you’re claiming doesn’t exist.
Attempting honesty. There’s nothing cute about it: it’s the stark reality.
As to technology and markets being responsible, I agree; but it’s better for a number of reasons to use the inclusive term “productivity.” Productivity has increased and increased and increased over the decades.
This is how the War on Poverty was won.
It’s worked so well that even the pigeons and the rats in our ghettos are overweight; Even our dogs and cats have clogged arteries.
The progressive idiots on the video are highly illustrative of the real problem here.
“The War on Poverty was initially successful…blah, blah, blah.” You and I know what they mean by that. Republicans fought and fiddled with it, they’ll claim, conservatives chained it down so that it couldn’t succeed.
Well no. It didn’t initially succeed. There’s exactly zero evidence for that.
The black family was demolished in a breathtaking flash. Six years after the Great Society was initiated, 70% of black children were being born out of wedlock. All manner of violent crime skyrocketed in the 1960s and threatened to bring down the American civil society in the 1970s. In retrospect it’s hard to imagine how America survived the ravages of that period, and perhaps in some ways it didn’t. Pruit-Igoe collapsed, Cabrini-Green became an earthly Temple to HaSatan.
But today it’s a different story. No, none of the initial damage from the War on Poverty has been healed or rebuilt. But there are no longer any adverse effects to poverty in the US. No one wants to be poor, of course, but if you’re going to be poor, there’s no better place to be than the United States.
The Democrats can’t admit this, obviously. So what they’ve done is continually redefine poverty. That’s how they can claim the War on Poverty hasn’t succeeded. They’ve also continually attempted to work around the edges to repair the damage they’ve done. A case in point is the story of the CRA and the Clinton Administration. This was in some ways a valiant attempt to reclaim the shores of America’s ghettos. It was a doomed effort, yes, just like their various other efforts. But it’s important to note the motives and effort.
Blake, I’m here to tell you, “the Democrats don’t care about the poor” is as big a lie as “Republicans don’t care about the poor.”
And my firm belief is that it’s the lies that are destroying my country. Not the motives. Not the policies.
The lies.
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Blake, I’m here to tell you, “the Democrats don’t care about the poor” is as big a lie as “Republicans don’t care about the poor.”
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Yes, of course it’s a lie — or at least a gross overgeneralization. I think Dems care about the poor just as much as we do.
But they still say it about us. And since we don’t say it about them, they win by default, without people being forced to examine policies and outcomes and decide who is telling the truth.
No casual voter ever says: “Hmmm, both sides claim the other guy doesn’t care about the poor. I wonder who is telling the truth?” Instead, because of performances like this from Newt, they say, “Both sides agree that Republicans don’t care about the poor. So I guess I’m voting Democrat.”
It isn’t good enough to argue that we really do care, we have to turn the tables and put them on the defensive. That’s the only effective way to fight the lie.
I just watched the clip again and, frankly, it’s even worse than I remembered. I’m sorry, but I just can’t understand why anyone thinks this is a good example of how to make our case — or of Newt’s moxie or ability.
Check the clock: He spends 25 seconds bewailing that poverty is awful and suggesting that those who build wealth are somehow responsible for poverty. He then spends another seven seconds bemoaning Republicans’ past “indifference” to the poor — a topic that he, himself, actually introduces without prompting. Finally, after all this bewailing and bemoaning, he finally gets around to the Democrats’ responsibility for this and manages to get in a grand total of four seconds before the entire chorus chimes in and shuts him up. Pitiful.
So, after a full minute of blather and outright lies from Reich, he finally gets in one zinger, which is only tangentially related to the point. This is how we win debates? Phooey.
I’m with Blake. This is pathetic. But, as Franco pointed out, it’ll get him invited back on the panel to play the same role next week, and apparently that’s what matters.
Democrats don’t care about the poor. Say it again. Democrats don’t care about the poor. Don’t be afraid to say it. Democrats don’t care about the poor. Look at the cities they run. Democrats don’t care about the poor. We’re trying to lift the poor out of poverty, but unfortunately the Democrats don’t care about the poor. Repeat it over and over until the public understands it to be true.
This needs to be the bumper sticker and campaign theme of every Conservative for the next 20 years.
Electronic records are turning out to be a disaster. The interface is clumsy and time consuming. For example, I am told that in some versions, one cannot enter data until a diagnosis is entered ! That means a new patient has to have a diagnosis even when you don’t yet know what is the matter. Furthermore, that diagnosis cannot be deleted later.
I was an advocate for electronic records as a time saver. No more. It adds 25% to physician workload, I am told by others. Thank God I’m retired. Newt was a font of ideas and some might be good ones but government is not good at choosing which ones are good and which should be discarded.
Yes, of course it’s a lie — or at least a gross overgeneralization. I think Dems care about the poor just as much as we do.
But they still say it about us.
If democracy can work at all, then Lincoln’s axiom has to be valid.
In a former life I was in advertising, even political advertising for a time, and I’m here to tell you that yes: all advertising is a lie. Just like a wonderbra and fake eyelashes are a lie.
But you know, Peter tells us what was demanded of him by his boss more than anything else were the facts. Facts, facts and more facts.
Reagan was the Great Communicator.
His arguments still ring true today because…well, they were based on the truth.
Too simple?
The truth, the REAL truth of the war on poverty would have stunned Reich and Roberts into silence. They wouldn’t expect the truth. They can’t handle the truth.
You’re afraid the truth would somehow indicate the progressives were right in some way.
The success of the war on poverty will damn the progressives for all eternity.