Thursday, November 10, 2011

On Why Progressives Apparently Hate Herbert Hoover

Two reasons, basically.............1) An abject level of ignorance on their part as to what type of President that Mr. Hoover truly was; the fact that the dude rang up unprecedented peacetime deficits, initiated a plethora of high-ticket public-works projects (yeah, Rachel Maddow, it's called the HOOVER DAM - hello!), created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, passed/signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, and, AND, raised the top income tax rate from 25% to 63% - all of these things to fight the Great Depression, all of these things that principled progressives normally endorse (the fellow was a full-bore Keynesian, for Christ).............2) He has an R in front of his name.

13 comments:

Jerry Critter said...

Hoover has been accused of doing to little to late...unlike FDR.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Those accusations are largely based on the myth that Mr. Hoover was a laissez faire Capitalist. He wasn't. The dude was FDR way before FDR was FDR. In fact, Jerry, during the 1932 campaign, FDR accused Hoover of TOO MUCH spending, TOO MUCH governenmt control, etc..

Jerry Critter said...

FDR sounds like a republican. They complain about too much spending and too much government control and then when they get in control, what do they do?

Spend and increase government control.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I'd say that, yes, there's a fair amount of irony here.

Dervish Sanders said...

Herbert Hoover was just the third in a succession of Republican presidents that brought down the US economy (the other two being Harding and Coolidge). It was "too little to late" by the time we got to Hoover. They were all to blame... and this is where your abject level of ignorance figures in. I don't believe any Progressive exclusively blames Hoover.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Too little! Hoover did too little. LOL The dude rang up the largest peacetime deficits in American history, one frigging public works project after another. He instituted the most destructive trade agreement that anybody could possibly come up with. He raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans, not the 13% (from 35% to 39.6%) that Mr. Obama is proposing but 152%!!!!! My God, dude, open up a frigging history book (and, no, not one written by Thom Hartmann), for Christ!

Jerry Critter said...

We all could do a lot worse than opening a book by Thom Hartmann...Ayn Rand comes immediately to mind.

Les Carpenter said...

Ignorance is merely the perception held by one who is expert in ignorance WD. You should certainly know.

Mordechai said...

You should certainly know.

Spoken by an individual, with years of knowledge, who is expert in ignorance, from a first person perspective.

dmarks said...

Hartmann's one of those hack pundits, blindly partisan. with delusions of authorhood, like O'Reilly and Limbaugh and Coulter.

But yes you can do a LOT worse than him. Such as Ayn Rand, as Jerry mentioned.

Just read this garbage from Rand: "Now, I don't care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country."

(As bad as Karl Marx, who had similar rantings about Jews)

Jerry Critter said...

Interesting quote, dmarks. I suppose she would not agree with people getting citizenship by simply being born in the US either. Maybe she thinks you should buy citizenship. How about selling it on Ebay?

Jerry Critter said...

Yes, Hartmann is definitely a progressive partisan. But this is fine. It is what he does. He is not a "news reader". He offers opinion. What I like about him is that he regularly, several times on each show, has conservatives on to debate them. Rarely do other pundits on either side do this.

On Hartmann show, you do get to hear both sides.

dmarks said...

Jerry said: "I suppose she would not agree with people getting citizenship by simply being born in the US either"

Ron Paul, and apparently Michelle Bachman and other Republican candidates believe that a native-born American should be denied citizenship based on the supposed crimes of their parents. I use "supposed" because none of those who propose ignoring the 14th Amendment and stripping US citizens of their citizenship have even required that the parents go on trial to prove the crimes. The crimes that result in their children losing citizenship.

Good point you made. I suppose that Ayn Rand would consider herself a real American (though she immigrated) and would deport the American Indians as illegal aliens.

As for Hartmann, I see pundits on the other side have liberal debate them also. What Hartmann does is hardly unique at all. With Hartmann, other liberal pundits, and conservative pundits, you quite often DO hear "both sides"... as much of the other side as the pundit, who controls the show, is willing to allow.