A New Kind of Liberal
I've had my little skirmishes with Erik over Bush. My stand is that I try to be fair in my political assessment of him. What I mean by that is when liberals like Erik repeatedly bash the president for seemingly anything that goes wrong with this country, I tend to pick on certain ones where I feel Erik is being unfair. Such has been the case concerning Bush's appointment of John Roberts as Supreme Court Justice and the handling of relief for hurricane Katrina. In doing so, I have been called a "Bush supporter", a right wing nut, and a few other things I don't care to mention. So let me put out a few things I want to say instead of just reacting to what Erik or other liberals say.
Bush is a liberal. There, I've said it and I mean it. Bush's speech yesterday, Sept. 15, 2005 that detailed his massive recovery effort of the Katrina disaster shows clearly that the president is taking a liberal stand. If Bush was a conservative, he would not be throwing tons of federal tax dollars (taxpayer money) at this. I'm not talking about FEMA and the task of providing food and health services to residents who have lost their homes, I'm talking about the actual re-building of the city of New Orleans, Biloxi, and other gulf coast hit areas. To true conservatives, this clearly is up to businesses to cooperate with local governments (state, county, and city). This is not a federal matter. I shudder at how much this is going to cost taxpayers and what's worse, this sets a terrible precedant. Now every time disasters, large and small happen, as they inevitably do, we will look past our local governments (someone tell me why we even have local and state governments) and look to the feds who will mismanage it horribly because that is what they do.
In adopting liberal policies like this and others ("No Child Left Behind" for one), Bush is expanding the power of the federal government way beyond what the constitution allows. In decades past, we had democrat presidents who did this too but we would then get a republican to turn things back. Now, we can't even rely on the republicans because they are now a liberal party as well. This is not a good thing.
There is something that I think many people missed in Bush's speech. In admitting responsibility to slow response of FEMA, Bush basically empowered himself and future presidents even more. We can thank the liberal left for this because they took the Katrina disaster as an opportunity to blast him. If these critics think they got a victory in Bush's acknowledgement of blame, they are mistaken. Bush will now aggressively revamp and re-mold FEMA in a way that he sees fit. Again, this isn't a good thing and is precisely why we need to limit power of the president and keep organizations like FEMA as a separate entity.
Just to summarize, a conservative supports a small, limited federal government and more direct power to local governments. A liberal believes in a large, powerful federal government. By these definitions, Bush is a liberal.
11 comments:
You obviously didn't notice that your name in the post links to your site.
Thank you and I gave you a full post on my site. I will put in a hyperlink to your site when I get home from work
Erik stated in his blog that I am wrong here. I notice that he didn't say why. It's okay to disagree with me but I feel it's disrespectful when I go through the trouble to explain my arguments and someone just says I'm wrong without any counter-argument.
Which post so I can correct it?
Bush is liberal you are wrong on that he is the most conservative sick freak out there. Take a look at his record and there is no doubt about it.l
After all I don't know of a liberal who would have created a department of homeland security. I don't know of a liberal who would erode our constitution I don't know a liberal who would take away our civil rights. So Bush is a conservative like it or not
Tell me what Bill Clinton did to increase government??
It's also by the way unconstitutional to illegally start a war as Bush has done. Roe V Wade is important for a woman's right to chose, I'd be for eliminating income taxes but how would we pave our roads and things that our tax dollars buy??
if Roe V Wade was returned to the states there would be a lot more adult deaths due to back alley abortions because I would think of at least 30 states that would ban abortions.
Erik said...
"Tell me what Bill Clinton did to increase government??"
From AP 4-13-01:
"Bush proposed cuts in 10 of the government's 25 major agencies. The deepest are at the departments of Agriculture and Transportation.
Many programs put in place by former President Clinton were targeted, including a 17 percent cut in his program to put 100,000 new police officers on city streets. Part of the savings would be redirected to beefing up security at the nation's schools. Bush also proposed deep cuts in environmental and energy-conservation funds as well as in programs to assist Russian nuclear scientists find civilian work and tax credits to boost economic development in poor neighborhoods, to support ship building, energy conservation at American companies and subsidies for American exports"
This is not to mention Clinton's "Patient's Bill of Rights". Remember, we are not debating on the value of the programs. I'm just stating that Clinton, indeed, had proposed numerous programs (many, by the way, were shot down by Congress). I'll admit though, that Clinton was relatively conservative for a Democrat, arguably, more conservative than Bush.
As far as your commments about it being unconstitutional for a president to declare war, I completely agree. Of course, don't forget, Clinton did the same thing (Kosovo).
As far as Roe v. Wade, its a law I can live with. I think your estimate of 30 states outlawing abortion is high.
I never said it was unconstitutional to declare war. I said the Iraq war was unconstitutional. There is a difference. And Clinton and Kosovo (which I disagreed with) was under the United Nations not the U.S.
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