Sell Us the Lord....
Well, politics and religion-what a mix! For you Carter fans, or those just interested in the discussion, check out the lyrics of my fore-mentioned favorite all-time song writer, John Stewart. A Kennedy democrat, he wrote this song after Jimmy Carter was elected: http://www.californiabloodlines.com/displayprint.lasso?-KeyValue=87&-Token.Action=
posted by Rob | 1:09 PM
6 Comments:
See I have this very good memory of history and generally can come to terms with presidents for their benefits and mistakes. I hold Jimmy Carter in high regard for his altruism and honest. Both of which degraded his ability to be a politician. His intelligence did show through in his policies. I reject your short shrift execution of his presidency.
Richard Nixon did some incredible things, like Russian Detente, an Open China policy, the EPA.
Ronald Reagan can be credited with a very important new policy re-direction, that is, changing the tone of the liberal welfare system towards a more realistic work-fare system. While Reagan mostly cut funding in social programs, Clinton and the Republican congress encoded work-fare into policy.
SO what about Jimmy?? Often people point to Jimmy Carter as a poor president because he handled the economy poorly. Let's take a look. What was the difficulty of the economy of his administration? Increasing Federal deficit from the democratic congress which was causing economic stagnation. Increasing gas prices and general inflation. Thus the economy was termed 'stag-flation'. Perhaps we are headed for identical conditions!!
Inflation had been a worry for almost a decade.
Richard Nixon installed 'price controls' on the entire nation. Not good for a free-market society, but worth a try. However, his Federal Chairman appointee wanted to stimulate the economy by providing cheap money through a low prime lending rate. Cheap money generally means inflation eventually. Many people bought new houses during 1968-1972. (Again this sounds familiar ... stagflation here we come.)
Gerald Ford had the 'WIN' button for his 1976 campaign against Jimmy Carter. Remember what it stood for?? "Whip Inflation Now!" Gerald Ford was a wonderful moderate Republican. The conservatives of his party (Reagan supporters) did not like the liberal republican Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President. Gerald Ford probably would have been a very good president with similar middle of the road policies as Jimmy Carter. Carter was a right-leaning Democrat and Ford was a moderate Republican. Both had trouble with the extremes of their parties.
Part of the inflation problem was higher oil prices. The OPEC organization decided to make oil an economic weapon in retaliation for US support of Israel during the Yom Kipper War of 1973. Arab opinion was galvinized against the US-Israel alliance. OPEC succeeded in causing an oil crisis in 1973 and in 1979.
So Jimmy Carter became president with an inflation economy, a large Vietnam War driven federal deficit, and a continuing oil crisis.
What did he do? Everything a political moderate would do.
First, he tried to bring the Federal deficit spending into balance with a fiscally conservative budget that was the first reversal of deficit spending in about 20 years. However, he also increased military spending for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War.
Second, he supported the development of new energy technologies and conservation to reduce dependence on foreign oil. He turned the White House thermostats down and put on a sweater to demonstrate to America that he would do the wise thing too.
Third, he appointed Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve Board who claimed that he could bring inflation down, but with the very unpopular medicine of tight control of money (high prime lending rate).
My judgment of this policies??
Fiscal conservative: Carter was responsible with the federal budget and with wise defense spending. He promised to balance the federal budget by the end of his second term. He probably would have. The Federal Budget soared under Reagan due to tax cuts and spending increases (sounds familiar again.)
Energy conservation: Reagan had removed solar energy funding removed as well as the white house solar panels imediately upon entering his term. Hmm. Sounds like Bechtel Oil executives were his main advisors (sounds familiar.) Even after Reagan's removal of conservation as policy oil futures plummetted in the 1980's. Oil demand and prices went down for the first time in the century!! The oil industry put large advertisements in national newspapers that they supported solar energy but it wouldn't be ready for 20 years ... some things never change. Jimmy Carter's conservation worked fabulously.
Economic appointment: Fed Chairman Paul Volcker single-handedly put the brakes on inflation by raising the prime lending rate and brought the economy (and inflation) to a screeching halt in the early 1980's. Inflation has not been a problem since because Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan continued Volcker's inflation control policies.
I give Jimmy Carter high marks on these policies. Just a final note, his Camp David Accord peace agreement be Israel and Egypt is still the only peace agreement holding in the middle east. All others have failed.
I am now a critic of Jimmy Carter's stand on abortion. He is a bit more liberal than I would like. He is against abortion and would personally recommend against abortion. He would support community policies that would help mother's make the decision to keep their baby. However, he does support abortion as a right of the woman. He is liberal in this one area. Otherwise He can be placed as a conservative democrat.
Just a few respones to recent comments:
Bush DID go to Harvard and got a MBA, after he went to Yale, so Vince and I are both right. He is labeled an idiot by the leftist media who are prejudiced against anyone with a Southern Accent (accept former KKK member Robert Byrd and Carter, of course, both liberals)
It is interesting that Carter only won election through the electoral college and was trounced when he ran again. Vince's analysis is interesting, but let's get out of the trees and see the forest-the country rejected him and his policies big time.
The Nobel Peace Prize IS a big liberal joke in modern times.
Carter's human rights policies were never applied evenly and are joke in the UN today
I agree with Vince's comments about a President's entire record-I would never be a one-issue voter. But why don't you apply the same reasoning to Bush? He has done some great things and is far more in line with Christian priorities than a liberal Carter.
Finally, if you want to see Carter's true leanings, check out his new book "Our Endangered Values". It is very clear how left he is on everything from the bible to foreign policy.
P.S. I have always wondered how people like Rush, Hannity, Falwell, etc. are labeled rightists or far rightests, when poll after poll shows half the country agrees with them on most issues. Doesn't that make them centrists?
PSS The Mormon church does teach worthy males will be Gods with their own planets to create and populate. That sounds an awful lot like God the Father to me and is nothing close to any other church's teaching
Wow, Rob. Nobel Prize is a liberal prize to be despised. Hmm. Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama, Elie Wiesel, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., and even Henry Kissinger. All despicable liberals along with Jimmy Carter.
You would have a hard time placing anyone to the right of Hannity, Falwell, and Rush. Extreme rightists. Ann Coulter, Hannity, and Rush are particularly acidic rightists. Their corrosive speech does not enlighten, it only polarizes. Falwell is just a rightist. Remember during the Reagan administration when he said that the Apartheid System in South Africa wasn't that bad and he opposed the release of Nelson Mandela?
Here is a conservative writer I do admire: George Will. He is brilliant human and a Reagan-era conservative. If he disagrees with you, he will do so on the issues and generally win the argument hands down. He will not bury you with hate speech. His writing is incredibly intelligent. I need to look up words constantly when I read his column. He was even given a Pulitzer Prize (opps, is that a "liberal joke" prize, too?).
William F. Buckley, Jr. is another wonderful conservative columnist. He must be a million years old by now.
Hey, even the super conservative Pat Buchanan and the moderately conservative Cal Thomas write with kindness and generosity towards their opponents.
Hannity, Coulter, and Rush are hateful propagandists. No one should be listening to such unadulterated hate-speech. Please, be wise in what goes into your mind.
I have plainly got to stop. I don't like my writing here and I cannot go back and edit.
We are both drawing 'x's and calling it the middle.
Sorry,
Vince
Vince,
I think you should read with understanding of what Rob said, your reply reads as a pure reactionary response.
Nobel Prize: The committee essentically noted that awarding the prize to Jimmy Carter was a statement against the current U.S. Administration. i.e. It wasn't that Carter did anything special, but the committee wanted a way to make a statement about "Bush". Rob also said it was a Joke in modern times, not *all* time...be careful to read with understanding.
Rush and Hannity: You really have it in for these two. Hannity isn't the smartest kid on the block and he is obnoxious, but he absolutely, 100% does not spew hate speech. Rush...the reason he is so popular is that he speaks to what MANY, MANY people think, but haven't had the chance to hear for previous decades. He also, absolutely, 100% does not spew hate speech. During non-election cycles liberals paint them as "entertainers" and try to laugh it off, then during election cycles they are painted as "hate speech" and every attempt is made to regulate them, get them off the radio because of how "dangerous" they are. These two do not agree with liberal thought and theology, but that doesn't in any way make them hate mongers.
You use inflamitory terms much too quickly, like "Bush is an idiot", "Hate Speech" and the like. Bush, as Rob noted, went to both Harvard and Yale, earned an MBA and flew jets, and if you recall, when the grades were provided during the elections, his grades were better than both Kerry and Gore (none of them were spectacular, all quite average in fact)...these are not the accomplishments of an "idiot". You may not like his politics and he isn't a great speaker by any stretch of the imagination, but to use that kind of terminology is only inflamitory because it rings hollow without understanding; yes, I do remember your attempt to apologize for this, but I don't accept it, you still think "Bush is an idiot" and I'm sure you say it in private to your close confidants.
Terminology like "Hate Speech" almost immediately turns people off, especially me. When I think of hate speech I think of racists (from all races), neo-nazi's, gay bashers, and etc. That someone has a different political ideology from me does not make what they say is hate speech. What I love about this country is that we have the ability to listen to what we want...thank goodness for radio degregulation, I now have the choice to listen to what I want. In some way, your true colors shine through when you say no one should be listening to "such unadulterated hate-speech". Thank you very much I live in a country where I can choose what I want to see, listen and do and not in the Christian utopia you would dictate for me.
An unsolicited observation/comment: I honestly don't understand why you continue to associate closely with the Christian group you do. Perhaps it is mostly for social reasons, it clearly isn't because of common theology as best I can tell. Maybe you have made friends and find it difficult to consider moving to a different, liberal, church body for fear of the social reaction. From what I can tell by your writings on Rob's blog and your own blog, it appears you are quite unhappy with the thinking of those most closely associated with you. I'd encourage you to consider move on from that group and find a new social group that more closely matches your idealogy and world view. It seems to me it would be the intellectually honest thing for you to do and might provide a newfound happiness in you and your family's life. Those around you are convinced in their own mind, you are convinced as well, it would be a mistake to think you are going to "convert" your conservative friends, what you'll mostly do is to alienate yourself from them.
Josh
Josh,
You are right. I have no understanding of the conservative Christian mind set. My statements are over the top. I do think hannity, rush, and coulter are over the top in the opposite direction. Hate speech was ill-defined as I was using it. More correctly, the speech these opinionists use is abusive toward the decent people with whom they disagree. It is one thing to disagree and make historical and scientific arguments. It is another to simply label and denigrate. ("They are godless liberals, they hate america, so don't listen to them.") There are those on the left that do likewise. My "Bush is an idiot" is an excellent example, of which I must repent.
You might notice I did give Republican Presidents their due as I try to see their good efforts. I respect intelligent arguments of conservatives that are respectful of their opponents. I blast (perhaps excessively) those opinionists that practice denigration of opponents. It is the completeness of their painting in black that raises my ire.
I can also identify things I dislike with Carter policies, too. His "Human Rights Only" Foreign Policy was too naive. His push of Rhodesia away from British colonialism towards democracy, but it has resulted in the sad dictatorship of Zimbabwe. Some countries do not have the history of 'rule-by-law' where democracy can thrive. Please recognize that Carter did some things right and he is a decent person.
Josh. forgive my abusiveness. This exchange has depressed me greatly. I don't understand why I remain within a conservative church either, except that God reached down to earth to save me from my selfish life.
I would definitely benefit from being the conservative voice in a more moderate Christian congregation. Then I would be usefully sharing about God's goodness. As it is I struggle greatly with the science by faith and the far right politics embraced by conservative evangelicals. As far as I can tell, my altruism toward the environment, human rights, and economics is a liberal extreme. Alas. I will visit a few other churches in town.
I bow out.
Rob. If you have the ability to delete comments, please delete mine. Some blog sites allow it. I am embarrassed by my excess.
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