Bring back Bob Horton!
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Third stringer
A reader sends along this column by one David Rafferty, Greenwich Time’s replacement for Bob Horton’s Sunday column.
“Columnist Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune once put it best: “It’s much harder to be a liberal than a conservative because it’s easier to give someone the finger than a helping hand.”
It certainly seems that way, especially since for the last 50 years or so, one major political party has pretty much given up on truth-based, positive messaging and plans for America, preferring instead to rely on negative appeals to fear and resentment. [Does Rafferty even watch CNN and the mainstream media? Scarier, do you suppose he believes what he sees there?]
They decided that governing was for suckers, secondary to maintaining power, and enriching themselves and their already wealthy patrons. [Wall Street and Silicon Valley contributions to Biden vs Trump: 80/20.] “Going negative” metastasized into demonizing their opponents, regardless of the content of their character. And one of the greatest unfortunate successes of this conservative political war on America has been the rebranding of the great American Liberal
From Nixon to Reagan, both Bushes and now Trump, “liberal” has been corrupted for generations of Americans as something wimpy and weak. [To describe is not to cause] Except liberalism in this country actually represents the best of America, and its time for good people to fight back and reclaim our proud Liberal Democracy.
In 1963, economist John Kenneth Galbraith stung the modern conservative movement as “... the search for a truly superior moral justification for selfishness.” To selfishness, conservatives piled on inflammatory accelerants such as race-baiting, class warfare and evangelical pandering, morphing the movement from its small government, fiscal responsibility roots into the golem of greed and faux social self-righteousness that exists today. Yet Liberal Democracy, with its foundational approach of wanting to make America better for everyone, was originally politically agnostic. For example, both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson saw social justice and a pro-active government as necessary to keep greed in check and provide equal opportunity for all. [Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was a racist, a staunch proponent of eugenics, needlessly brought the United States into WWI (800,000 American dead and wounded) and justified that act by proclaiming it was an example of “Progressivism” — the United States had “no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion.” That must have made the dead soldiers so very happy, knowing their deaths were meaningless and thrown away for noting. While he was at it, he enacted the Sedition Act of 1918, the grossest assault against our First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech until the current crackdown by Rafferty’s crowd.]
In World War II, it was liberals of all political persuasions [I think by “all political persuasions” he means communists, socialists and the Minnesota Farmer-Laborer Party, which amounts to just one seething hotbed of collectivism], in this country who fought fascists in Spain and joined the Royal Air Force in 1940, while conservatives were finding ways to work with Hitler. Liberals wanted to fight the growing fascist threat to America [In fact, liberals opposed U.S. intervention until Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and invaded the Soviet Union in June 1939 whereupon, literally overnight, American liberals received their orders from Moscow and demanded that we “open a second front now!”] and it wasn’t until Germany started striking at our economic interests by sinking ships that we finally rallied to the cause.
Liberal programs such as the New Deal, Great Society, and the Marshall Plan, supported on both sides of the political aisle, aspired to lift millions out of poverty and despair. [The New Deal is estimated to have extended the Great Depression from 3-6 years; the Marshall Plan helped Germans, which was nice, but did nothing for Rafferty’s wards; the trillions spent since the War on Poverty produced the breakdown of the black family, the ruination of public schools, public housing that provides rats, crime, no heat, and broken elevators, while friends of Democrats like the teachers’ unions and public employees have done very, very well.] Conservatives? They rallied around Joe McCarthy [and his top aide, RFK] and have forever tried to tear down anything resembling a “social safety net.”
Liberals were the driving force toward ending legal sexism and legal segregation [George Wallace, Bull Conner, Robert Byrd, Joe Biden] Conservative dogma requires that liberals be painted as weak, but does anybody consider Martin Luther King Jr. weak? Or Bobby Kennedy, [see previous paragraph re: McCarthyism — Bobby led the charge on behalf of FDR Democrat McCarthy] Gloria Steinem [advocated for the elimination of the nuclear family — how’d that work out in the Democrats’ slums?] or John Lewis? No they don’t, because liberals represent the best and most noble aspects of what this country should stand for. Liberals believe that all men and women are created equal [equal, how? Certainly, they aren’t equal in physical or mental ability; see, eg, David Rafferty, Greenwich Time, Oct. 11 2020. It could be argued, but not by Rafferty, that all men are equal before God; Liberals don’t believe in God, and dismiss the founding fathers who asserted this equality as demonic slaveholders who corrupted the entire subsequent history of the country they created] and should be entitled to equitable government services. That everyone should have access to quality health care, education, and a retirement with dignity. That the rule of law should be applied fairly and if necessary, punishments should be humane and fit the crime. That the national defense should be strong, and that our soldiers are treated well and not used for preemptive, unnecessary entanglements [see discussion of Progressive hero Woodrow Wilson, WWI, above]
Meanwhile, today’s “conservatives” are willing to fight to crush the majority of Americans on behalf of a select few They don’t care about your civil rights or your personal freedoms. [COVID lockdowns continuing into 8th month in Michigan, California, and New York] They deny science because it affects profits, and to hell with your right to clean water and air. They move your job offshore and blame someone else. [Joe Biden voted for NAFTA, opposed Trump’s negotiation of a replacement, and has supported China for decades] They offer nothing but thoughts and prayers if you get shot or sick. They’ll embrace a Christian theocracy that has nothing to do with love, forgiveness or tolerance. They have some nerve calling themselves the “real Americans.”
Modern conservatives have contributed nothing to what made America the shining city on a hill the rest of the world until recently respected and wanted to emulate. Liberals built that America, and now are going to have to fight to do it all over again. A fight that begins Election Day with national and local conservatives being kicked to the curb, starting America back on a road to salvation. One helping hand at a time.”
And so on. Rafferty’s chief complaint seems to center on his claim that conservatives are cheap, miserly people who refuse to help the poor while Rafferty himself is God’s own angel, or he would be, if there were a God (how many times does he denounce religion in this piece? I count three, but I’m not looking closely). In fact, charitable giving is far greater in “red” districts than “blue”, a truth the NYT reluctantly admitted back in 2018, but it then drew a distinction between individual charity and “collective giving” — defined as forced taxation. The latter, just like a collective farm, means the extorted contributions of citizens by a powerful government. “We’re more benevolent than you because we’re willing to take more money from you than you are willing to give. “Oh, the compassion!” Rafferty’s longing for collectivism is telling. As is his historical ignorance.
