Cynical Nation

Ted Kennedy is one of the very best senators in the senate and you know it. Why do right-wingers hate him so much? Obviously because the Kennedy's have defeated the right wing ideology over and over again.

>Why do right-wingers hate him so much?

Because he's a fat, drunken, left-wing girl-killer, who only got where he is because of his (smarter) brothers. (Actually, it's mostly the "left-wing" thing. I personally don't have any quarrel with fat drunkards.)

LOL. Your hate shows Barry. Ted Kennedy is a great senator and I only wish many other democratic senators were like him.

Anyway, I have good news for you :-) Romney is leading in Florida now. See below.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/florida/election_2008_florida_republican_primary

Kennedy is indeed a "fat, drunken, girl-killer," but he's hardly a "good" or even effective Senator.

In fact, in recent years, he's compromised with Conservatives at EVERY turn and hasn't stood firm on even a single "Liberal issue."

That's Ted Kennedy's real record....and that's easy enough to look up.

Now it's "Bamalot???

JFK didn't "galvanize the American electorate"....not even the youth of America! That never happened! JFK won one of the closest Presidential races in history (you can look that up) and won, according to most historians, on the back of the "all important dead vote." (that can be easily looked up, as well)

As for his Presidency - The Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Cuban Missle Crisis...somehow even his Presidency has become mythologized as something it wasn't.

He was not a very effective, nor even all that popular a President.

He was, however, one hell of a tax cutter (Supply Sider) and a rabid anti-communist.

His brother Bobby was "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy's right-hand man, along with Roy Cohen.

I greatly respect the first two Kennedy's rabid anti-communism (anti-Liberalism)...that stance has been proven right by history.

Hell, Ronald Reagan was himself a Kennedy Democrat....and remained one throughout his life. As Reagan often said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me."

"Ronald Reagan was himself a Kennedy Democrat"

JMK,
Every time you post something, you keep departing further and further from reality. This statement is even further from reality like old remarkable ones of yours (i.e. that Hitler was a communist).

Ronald Reagan was the exact opposite of the Kennedy's. JFK and, especially, RFK were big-time liberal democrats. Ronald Reagan was a far-right winger who is essentially responsible for the almost catastrophic situation the country is in today. He is the one who started the destruction of the republican party (that was completed by GWB).

JFK was a great president. Ronald Reagan was one of the worst presidents in history. Not as bad as GWB, but not that far.

Beyond the Chappaquiddick and the boozing, etc., I think the general consensus among people on the Hill (Dems and Repubs alike, elected and staff) is that Kennedy is an extremely effective legislator.

Wow, BW, talk about "further from reality[!]"

I am quite old enough to remember the "Kennedy era" vividly and JMK nailed it exactly. JFK did not run as a liberal and did not govern as a liberal. JFK tax-cutting, anti-communist, pro-business interventionist if there ever was one.

RFK rather famously underwent a "transformation" to the left in 1967/68 after having been a notoriously "ruthless" anti-communist who was even skeptical of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during his tenure as Attorney General.

I don't think anyone here -- least of all JMK -- has ever said that National Socialist Adolf Hitler was a communist. Hitler often vociferously denounced the "twin evils" of Communism and Capitalism. It is, however, a plain statement of historical fact that he called his political organization the National Socialist German Workers Party -- Not exactly a paean to free-market ideals.

It is, however, gratifying to see you characterize the "destruction of the republican party" as an "almost catastrophic situation" -- or is that not what you intended to say in that paragraph?

fred said: "Beyond the Chappaquiddick and the boozing, etc., I think the general consensus among people on the Hill (Dems and Repubs alike, elected and staff) is that Kennedy is an extremely effective legislator."

And Hitler built the autobahns and did the initial concept drawings for the Volkswagen (the name was also his idea) Beetle.

I am curious, though, upon what are basing your statement of "general consensus[?]" Among the people on the Hill, with whom I have had contact, he is roundly despised for his antics and confrontational approach to legislating.

Where do get your information from BW??? It seems as though you make most of it up.

Listen to WF, like me, he recalls that era....we have no reason to lie to you.

JFK DID indeed cut tax rates drastically - that's a Supply Side policy.

JFK was very pro-business.

JFK was vehemently anti-communist/anti-socialist.

RFK worked with Senator Joe McCarthy's House Un-American Activities committee. Robert Kennedy and Roy Cohen were McCarthy's lead councils.

Reagan (a GREAT President, in the view of over 70% of Americans) was indeed a registered Democrat through the Kennedy years.

Reagan remained a tax cutting Supply Sider and a virulent anti-communist/anti-socialist...today, the Left-wing of the Democratic Party inanely insists that "socialism CAN work," that Keynesian policies ("more government social spending is good") and that anti-communism is "silly."

The Liberal (socialist) wing of the Democratic Party has been a disaster in every way. They've offered nothing positive to this country at all.

JFK & RFK were right to revile that ideology. Reagan? Ronald Reagan was just a more effective, politically savvy version of JFK.

Reagan saved the U.S. economy by abandoning the Keynesian principles that Carter, Nixon and LBJ all adhered to, and which resulted in STAGFLATION by the late 1970s.

Reagan replaced Volker with Greenspan at the Fed and that put the U.S. on a path toward (now going on)27 year+ wave of Supply Side prosperity.

Ted Kennedy is a disgrace to his two older and smarter brothers.

One of the worst Bills in recent memory was the McCain-Kennedy Bill. Since no one has, as yet challenged me on this, I'll continue to insist that "ILLEGAL immigration puts a persistent, downward pressure on ALL prevailing wage rates".....There's no need to "deport 15 million ILLEGALS," by merely fining "ILLICIT employers" we can dry up those illicit "magnet jobs," and over 90% of the ILLEGALS here, will self-deport.

Congress was flooded with thousands of calls by well-informed, caring Americans to derail that hideous McCain-Kennedy "SHAM-nesty" Bill.

Hitler was a SOCIALIST, BW, not a communist. Even Hitler, as mad as he was, KNEW that communism couldn't work, because human nature CAN'T be changed.

How do we know that Adolph Hitler was self-described socialist, who despised Capitalism (the greatest force for wealth creation the world has ever known)?

By his own words; "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Hitler (May 1, 1927)

There's no way to argue against Hitler's own words, is there?

Ok, JMK, please explain to us what is the difference between totalitarian socialism and communism. Just curious. We all agree that Hitler was a dictator. So what differentiates a socialist dictator from a communist? Please enlighten us.

It seems to be mostly a matter of degree, BW, but I DID use Hitler's own words to define him, as he defined himself!

Communists are people so naive, gullible and delusional, that they seem to believe that our basic competitive and individualistic human natures can be changed or "tamed" and we can all become happy, docile, ants, working for the good of he hive.

That is, perhaps, the most idiotic and destructive (anti-human) belief that has ever existed.

For starters, human nature serves a very vital and necessary purpose. It's what allows humans to probe, penetrate, compete and conquer...the earth...and often each other, in the process.

And YES, that's "good," in that it's what's allowed humankind to survive and actually thrive on this inhospitable planet for many thousands of years.

Socialists, like Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot believe in varying degrees of individual/private management (NOT real ownership, but management), and always under strict government control.

Hitler allowed the Krupp family to continue its mass manufacturing operations, but that industry was completely government controlled, down to the extent of whom Krupp could hire - the Nazi government supplied Krupp with slave labor from the concentration camps in the middle of the war.

Government can control business and industry via either excessive regulation, direct management &/or access to the market via special licensing, etc., without actually running those businesses itself.

Socialism recognies that government is not equipped to actually run the day-to-day operations of a business, while communism seeks to establish, not just government controlled businesses, but actual government-run businesses.

Friedrich Hayek proved why governments routinely fail to effectively run businesses in his work, The Road to Serfdom.

Some people erroneously state that there really is no difference between communism and socialsim, claiming "One (socialism) is evolutionary, the other revolutionary," but that's not really accurate.

Many people have noted that there is little distinction between socialism and Corporatism, but that too, is not all that accurate either.

Corporatism recognizes that private ownership of property/businesses is necessary, and does engage in some regulation, while trying to maintain a quasi-open market.

Socialism makes no such allowances. Socialism is predicated on the belief, as Hitler outlined that Capitalism is a "cruel and unusual" system that exploits the economically weak (poor), with its unfair salaries, and its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance. It seeks away around the system of private ownership that allows for, even makes inevitable, an extreme disparity in wealth over time, while also avoiding the fatal pitfalls of actual government-run businesses and it does this mostly through excessive regulation and other controls, coupled with the government's limiting access to the markets.

So there IS indeed a difference BW.

TODAY, there are really no truly socialist economies left in existence in the industrialized world. Western Europe, just as the U.S. and Japan, have Corporatist economies that are rooted in private ownership of property/businesses, with the government getting "it's cut," via taxes, various licensing and regulatory fees, fines, etc.

France and Germany are two of the most recent European nations to move away from the more Keynesian, high-tax, pro-welfare economies and toward more "Americanist" (Supply Side) policies.

You'd think, as we're moving into a new economy, an Information-based economy, that we'd also recognize that with the rest of the world moving toward where we are now, that it is incumbent upon us to move even further along toward freer markets, more open competition and greater individualism, rather than seeking to highlight an unworkable communalism that is no longer relevant.

As to the JFK-Ronald Reagan thing, I'm not being hyperbolic or argumentative BW, I'm merely stating the historical realities that (1) both JFK & RFK were rabid anti-communists and gleeful pro-Capitalists, (2) JFK cut across the board tax rates significantly, (3) that Ronald Reagan was a "JFK Democrat" and (4) that the Keynesian policies adopted after JFK's death and adhered to by LBJ, Nixon and Carter imploded in STAGFLATION (double digit interest, unemployment and inflation rates) by the late 1970s.

The "Carter economy" was indeed "the worst economy since the Great Depression."

It's important to know some historical context, because without it, we wind up continually trying to reinvent the wheel.

JMK,
Wow, we are learning a lot here from you. So, according to you Stalin and Pol Pot were NOT communists. Hmm...and I thought that Stalin was Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge were communists. Amazing.

Can you please then give some examples of communist leaders s thru history? Now that Stalin and Pol Pot are out. Just curious. Who was a communist according to you?

Here's another puzzler for you BW: Why was Stalin's country called (in English) The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?

I don't happen to agree with JMK's definitions of Communism and Socialism but Stalin was certainly no Communist. The official posture of the Soviet Union was that the country was on the road to Communism but had not, in fact, achieved Communism.

I would disagree with JMK on Pol Pot. Whatever the reality of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Pol Pot fancied himself a true Communist and tried to run a fully collectivized country.

The USSR wasn't really a communist economy BW, any more than Hitler's Germany was. Stalin's USSR were Soviet SOCIALISTS. Their "political Party" called itself "the Communist Party," but it did NOT eradicate private property, it, like Hitler's Germany, allowed some financiers (in the USSR, it was Armand Hammer) to run state sanctioned monopoly enterprises, because they knew that the state didn't run businesses effectively.

I DO agree with WF that Pol Pot WAS indeed a true communist. Pol Pot sought to eradicate currency, believing that individual striving for money/currency was the root of most social problems. Pol Pot was as naive, gullible and unrealistic as any communist.

But Hitler and Stalin were, in fact, "birds of a feather." They even had a non-aggression pact prior to WW II and BOTH always reviled the Capitalist West far more than they did each other.

Where do you disagree on this BW?

On the difference between communism and socialism?

That much seems unclear, even though you vaguely seem to disagree.

I presume that any historical research you might have done on the JFK era reinforced what WF & I asserted, otherwise I figure you'd have challenged that.

Again, with the rest of the industrialized world (Sweden, Russia, France, Germany, etc) moving toward more Supply Side policies, doesn't it make sense for us to look to even go further along that road to increased productivity and increased prosperity?

To me, it simply doesn't make any sense to argue in favor of more social programs (that result in keeping many people FROM work) and higher taxes (which also serve as a disincentive to work), when we have over a quarter century of Supply Side prosperity to show for our 1981 economic transformation.

It's not a matter of economic or income disparity (that's inevitable), it's really a matter of what system brings the MOST prosperity to the MOST people....and that seems, without question, Free Market Capitalism.

Although I am basically conservative, I also dislike extreme thinking that isn't trying to check out other viewpoints. If one ignores disagreeable facts, one cannot be prepared for them.

I have observed both Hillary and Obasma, and I shudder at the thought of Hillary Clinton climbing back into the White House. I consider her phony as a 3-dollar bill, opportunistic to the nth degree, and singularly untruthful, even for a politician. And much, much more. Simply, I cannot stand her, and find her offensive since the Genevive Flowers affair when her patisanship of her husband simply didnt ring true. Her obsession to be "First Lady" was evident even then.

Although I do not denigrate Obasma (compared to Hillary he walks on water) I feel that Republican pragmatism is necessary for us to survive with integrity.. and yes.. integrity is a state of mind hard come by for most of us. However, bottom line, integrity is a survival skill for all of us.

However, though I do not truly question Obasma's integrity, I do worry about his inexperience and impracticality.

Just cuz I am feminine does NOT mean I want to see a fembot in the White House.