And turn Fox off.

No matter what level of legitimate argument they make at any given time (pretty rare by now), you can be assured that within a few years they will turn it crazy and evil.

K&R

Thanks for this. I actually do remember a time when it was as you stated

Bookmarked to watch full video later

Wish every younger DUer saw it

Not buying your 'Reagan was really creamy goodness sauce and AIDS was not so bad' theory.
The men you name are among the founders of the conservative movement and libertarian movements in the US. Free Markets and State's rights, Christianity inseparable from Democracy, class and race based 'natural orders of social division' and all sorts of well spoken poison. It's dressed for Sunday, but it is still right wing garbage no matter how many syllables the speakers use.
Evans started pushing Ronald Reagan for President in 1975. These men were well spoken but they are also major elements in the making of the very conservative movement we see today. A strong argument could be made that much of what we see is a direct result of the work of these men, and that this result was the specific intention of their work.
Yes, comparing Buckley to Hannity does make Bill look really good. But comparing a sack of shit to Hannity makes the sack of shit look good.

I really think that to believe Republicans 'back in the day' were not right wing conservatives requires one to start out white, straight, male and probably Christian. Those of us who are not one or the other or a few of those things probably do not agree.
I understand that there is a push to revise the brutal history of the Republican Party in service to people who were members of that Party. I reject that push.
Anyone who is young enough to run for office and has voted Republican voted for racist, sexist, homophobic warriors who believed in a free market and a Christian America. That's the bottom line.

But if you can't see a difference between mainstream Republicans then and now, it's not a real reality.

The OP doesn't say they weren't Republican.

The Democratic party isn't the same either. Absolutely no way in god's green earth would George McGovern get the nomination now.

The fact that you state, "These men were well spoken but they are also major elements in the making of the very conservative movement we see today" shows you know there's a difference. The OP doesn't say that the party was good or nice, just not what it was then.

Back in 1973 you could still have a civil conversation with most in the Republican party. It may not have come to any kind of agreement but more likely than not, you wouldn't want to kill each other at the end of it either.

Hell, look at goldwater.

From what I read in the OP, he's just letting people who weren't around that the Republican party wasn't as absolutely abhorrent as it is now. Of course there were bad things. But don't forget, it's not like the democratic party jumped all over the aids pandemic either at first.

You have valid points but the OP is still true and thoughtful. "Threatening to shut down the government during every budget battle was not the norm. Defending torture was not the norm. Denying science was not the norm – but it is now."

Like Javits and Rockefeller.

the Stonewall riots, People's Park in Berkley, the 'Vietnamization' of the war in Vietnam, the trial of the Chicago 7, the shooting of Fred Hampton, Woodstock, My Lai massacre, the beginning of the Draft Lottery.

The year of that interview, 1970 saw the invasion of Cambodia, Kent State, Weathermen bombings, student protests across the country, Ronald Reagan becomes governor of California, John Kerry protests the war, Ruben Salazar is shot, women strike for equality, Palestinians highjack airliners....and some Republican 'thinkers' did some pontificating....

conversation with Republicans was a reality. 1973 was the year of the Watergate Hearings. And that was all very civil and showed us that Republicans were not criminals, liars, conspirators but really very moderate and civil, like G. Gordon Liddy and John Mitchell and HR Haldeman. Civil as it gets.
Deep throat, a CIA backed coup in Chile, Wounded Knee. Henry Kissinger becomes Sec of State. Kissinger. Agnew resigns, Robert Bork is acting AG. Bork. Ford is appointed VP. Nixon says, very civilly, "I am not a crook." Dick Cheney gets another appointment in the administration and will be Chief of Staff in two more years. In 1973, Don Rumsfeld left his positions in the WH to become Ambassador to NATO.

And yet I'm to believe that most Republicans were capable of civil conversation? I mean seriously folks. We are not talking about Bill Buckley but about Cheney, Rummy, Nixon, Agnew....

Everything you referenced is widely know. Nuance is important, in history as well as this post. But saying one true thing does not necessarily negate another true thing. I mentioned more than once - at least between the lines, this is not a black and white, good and evil dynamic. "Like most things, it’s a matter of degrees." and " I know that some, especially in the South were even worse than the conservatives of today."

I hated Rayguns and Nixon, the Vietnam War, police riots on anti-war and civil rights protesters, etc. Nowhere have I ever thought nor implied, 'Reagan was really creamy goodness sauce and AIDS was not so bad.' How the hell did you get that?

It is partly my fault because I was in a hurry and didn't have time to cover more events and explain myself further. (Writing something. But I will not take all the blame for the misunderstanding. It wasn't that hard to follow.) But I tried to make it clear. This was never meant to be an endorsement of conservative values or personages. It was simply to illustrate the fact that the intellectuals leaders of the conservatives, and hence the rank and file, have taken a giant step away from thought.

But with the reader. People see what they want to see. Like the obamabots trying to justify his words about torture.

Great post, 20score.

I still want to know if you and fourscore are related

history into something acceptable and sort of moderate and some of those posts have suggested that AIDS was not so bad. 36 million dead, they are not sure if it was really a bad thing.
Sorry if you are not among those fools.

(Death squads, etc.)

Glad we understand each other and nice to meet you.

Last edited Sun Dec 14, 2014, 11:32 AM - Edit history (1)

no commitment to human beings, no guiding principles except to grow their own wealth and power at the expense of everyone and everything they can exploit.

We are subject to incessant advertising that it has always been this way, but the truth is that they perverted the Republican Party before they perverted ours.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025910311#post17

,,,

We tend to equate Republicans and corporatists because the Republican Party was infiltrated by Wall Street first and has been working for corporate interests for a long time.

But the truth is that traditional Republicanism was corrupted by the corporate monsters just as much as the Democratic Party is being corrupted now. The corporatists lie to Republicans as much as they lie to us. Just as our corporate politicians lie to us about wanting to protect public education, social justice and the social safety nets, unions, and the environment, their politicians lie to them about wanting to stand for small government, limited government interference in private lives, and the defense of civil liberties. Yet no matter which party is elected, we get the same corporate monster agenda of larger, more oppressive and authoritarian government, assaults on and privatization of public services, and more warmongering.

Every poll shows that Republicans are just as angry about what is being done to this country as we are. We drown in corporate propaganda to make us hate and blame each other so we won't realize that that we are ALL victims and so we won't unite to demand our representation back. They want it to be more viscerally repulsive to us to ever think about uniting with a Republican on ANYTHING, even than to defend our Bill of Rights and our democratic representation. Even though we keep getting the same suicidal, predatory agenda under both parties, we are to circle the wagons when it's our guy in office.

I think being clear that corporatists are the enemy is important because we have got to break the con game of hyperpartisanship they use to keep us divided, and teach ALL Americans that we have a stake in getting corporate money out of government. The truth is that we can beat traditional Republicans at the ballot box. But right now, we don't even get the chance to do that. The system has been purchased by Wall street, and they aren't running traditional Republicans *or* traditional Democrats for office anymore. They are running corporatists on both sides.

We need to become the 99 percent to take our representation back. We don't have to agree on everything. Just that our representation has been stolen from ALL of us by corporate corruption of our government and elections. And that we demand corporate money and power out of government and the political system so we can have our representation back.

it's both sides of the Straussians (well, Pinochetists): they themselves may be soft-spoken, but the goal was always to create a media that was 95% sewer-geyser and 5% shit-geyser-apologist