From the Summer of Love to the Summer of Recovery- The Failure of American Liberalism

First let me say that I am a LIBERAL to the core. Maybe could even be called a progressive, but liberal to me is not a dirty word so let’s go with that.

Lately, I have been giving a lot of thought to a very perplexing paradox in America.

Let me give an example..

Billy Bob wakes up in the morning, thinks to himself that it is going to be a great day. Billy starts the coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because a liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

Billy is trying to keep his blood pressure down so he reaches for his daily medication. The medications are safe to take because a liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. It’s nice that Billy only has to pay just $10 for his medications because he is on his employer’s medical plan fought for by liberal union workers.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Billy’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Billy reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Billy dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Billy has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal fought and died for these working standards in the Union battles of yesterday. If Billy is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Now it’s lunchtime and Billy needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Billy’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Billy’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the system before the Great Depression.

Billy has the benefit to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some liberal decided that Billy and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Finally Billy gets off work, having put in just 8 hours because of some liberal. He plans to drive to his father’s this evening at his farm home in the country. His car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his Father’s third generation farmhouse that he grew up in as a boy that was financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.

The house didn’t have electricity until some liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Billy wouldn’t have to.

Now Billy is finished with the visit and gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show. While he is driving home, he nods his head in agreement while some big mouth radio host keeps saying that the bad liberals are destroying America and how only patriotic conservatives are the one thing standing between the good ole USA and the demise of all things American.  And there it is, the great American paradox.

From the Nuclear Test Ban to the seat belts and airbags in your car to the clean water and air you breath, you need to thank liberals fighting tooth and nail against conservative forces for those protections and benefits.

Back when you had the Barry Goldwaters or the William F Buckleys, you may not have agreed with their politics but you better damn well be smart and informed when debating them because they WERE intelligent. They had the capability of making mince meat out of stupid statements or wild claims. Now we have the stupidity of the Sarah Palins and the Jan Brewers? They are just coasting along and STILL they are staying in power.

How has liberalism failed to keep the contest between ideas and allowed conservatives to tie up elections with dogmatic slogans and side issues? How can the conservatives consistently get voters to rally around ideas that are actually detrimental to themselves or ignore major issues with minor concerns.

Why does it always seem to be a fight to maintain just the status quo of accomplishments by liberals and then allowing them to be so easily set back by conservatives? 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

The presidency of Jimmy Carter was defined not by his actions but by the conjecture and spin of Ronald Reagan’s campaign even to this day. Weakening of America because of the Iranian hostages? Some have speculated that the Reagan’s campaign had cut a deal to have them held because of the benefits of Reagan getting elected.

The 1988 presidential election between the candidacy of George H.W. Bush and  Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis was decided by support of a furlough program that paroled Willie Horton, a black man, that tapped into the crime fears and prejudices of the American people.

What happened to John Kerry is so infamous that a new term, “Swiftboating”, was derived from it.

Clinton’s presidency for a large majority is not defined by a surplus in the budget, economic well being, or anything like that. His presidency for some comes down to a blue dress and a blow job.

Obama inherited conditions when he took office that no president should have to face. Economic collapse and 2 wars. But in spite of that, there is a political movement that still demands proof of his birth certificate and has songs about him being a communist or makes claims about his religion.

That is the failure of Liberalism in America today. Until they can come up with a way to make politics be about the policies and ideas for the future of America, showing people the progress made because of changes that LIBERALS fought for, and not about red herring issues created by the conservatives, allowing the conservatives to create the game plan and always putting liberals on the defensive, they are in danger of losing it all.

That would be the failure of liberals. A failure not only for this generation, but for all the people before them that have fought and died for what they believed in.

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