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Originally Posted by host
So....tell me....what have we gained from a signifigant shift to the right, that began with "the contract", in 1994, and ends today, with these election results. <b>If a shift away from "the right", is shifting towards</b> a "liberal agenda", given the past achievments of "liberals"....of control of military spending "creep", and increases in non-military federal employment....along with respect for the constitution and a record of judicial appointments of "mainstream" judges who reflect the tenor of the times and the sentiments of a larger majority....what have we to fear....from "liberals", hobbled by the yoke of a newly racked up, $3000 billion deficit and the wasting effect of a military mired in two major eastern fronts, a newly empowered Iran, stronger due to the destruction of their former enemy regime in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, empowered by lack of any signifigant US energy conservation or alternative development.....and by the Bush administration dismantling of the UN north Korean nuclear inspection program that would have postponed the current bomb development, by at least a decade?.... <b>IMO....if that is a shift towards a "liberal agenda"....away from the failed "conservative agenda.......bring it on!</b>
Have I missed anything?
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No you're pretty close to dead on here. But I think we are allowing ourselves to talk in black & white neo-con terms. By defining liberal and conservative as the only terms we tie in all of the affirmative action, gun control, women's rights, environmental, death penalty, tax, wage, UN, etc issues with every political movement that occurs. This framing favors Republicanism (specifically conservativism) because it's the party-line liberal is far more rare than the party-line conservative. To put it differently, there are more people against everything than are for everything. This framing of the discussionis what helped boost the neo-cons into power in the first place.
I am a Clinton man, through and through. From that New Democratic perspective I am a believer in the third way. While everything you've said is correct I can't agree with presenting it the way that you do. Let's not define ourselves exclusively by how we aren't the 'contract'-ers. We can variously support some 'liberal' issues and not others. We can think (and state) that the Republicans had some good ideas even more good intentions. Most Americans believe that the difference between a Democrat and a Republican is negligible anyway and from an issues point of view they are largely correct. The difference is that Clinton attempted to make us the party of responsibility and accountability. And that leads me to say the first highly contraversial thing I've said in a while; the Republican party has been plagued by corruption and scandal for a long time (not saying the Dems are free from it but as a matter of degree I think it's distinguishable) and its largely in part to their business ties. Think K-street, think Haliberton, think tax cuts. While we are different parties in terms of what is more okay to stand for or not on social issues, by and large the difference isn't vast. That being said let's distinguish ourselves as the party of responsible government.
Wow that was a tangent, I'm honestly sure how I got there, but answer your original question, a 'liberal' agenda has been defined by neo-cons and it's been defined as pro-gay rights, anti-guns, pro-choice, anti-death penalty, pro-criminal rights, anti-tax cuts, tree-hugging, okay-with-drugs, Cindy Sheehans/Michael Moore supporters. Did <b>I</b> miss anything? Fact is that America is no more okay with all those issues lumped into one term (liberal) than they were 24 hours or 24 years ago. And by those terms America is not supporting liberalism in this election. But now I remember how I got on my tangent. We let them define us and only time and a strong effort to unbridle that generalization will change that. So what we have to do as Democrats is not be liberals on their terms. Don't claim it, don't say it, and certainly don't act like it ESPECIALLY now that we have some power. We won this cycle because we promised to do a job that wasn't getting done and we'll go far and be able to make some real changes if we exercise some restraint and fulfill our charge without over-stepping our grant.