Posted by
Sully on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 7:37:26 PM
There is an extremely wide-ranging parallel that can be drawn between our current situation both domestically and internationally today and the circumstances we found ourselves in in 1976:
- Coming off eight years of an unpopular Republican administration
- Memory of an unpopular war.
- Oil crisis.
- Market correction leading into a recession.
- Unemployment and inflation on the rise.
- Not well respected abroad.
Right now the conversation has boiled down to "four more years of Bush or change".
We need to change the conversation to "Reagan or Carter". Now, granted, McCain is no Reagan - but he has the same core beliefs. And maybe Obama is no Carter - but he has the same core beliefs.
If you look at all of the issues we are facing today, they are eerily similar to 1976. The Liberals and Carter did everything from 1977-1981 that Obama wants to do now. How well did that work out:
- Oil crisis - We didn't drill - what if we had?
- Economy - we raised taxes and tried to redistribute wealth - what if we had cut taxes to generate jobs?
- Iran - Carter tried to talk sense into them - How did that go? Remember the Hostages.
Also, don't forget the Community Re-Investment Act., passed in 1977, which was the first step on to the slippery slope of risky lending practices which led to the financial crisis we face today.
Today the economy is not the worst we've had since the great depression, it's the
worst we've had since the Carter years. What needs to be explained is that our economy sits at the same place it did in 1976 - it's what Carter did that made it extremely worse.
Every four years Conservatives need to re-educate (i.e. remind) the public on the fact that Liberal policies sound good but fail miserably in the real world; Conservative policies sometimes sound heartless, but in the real world they work for everyone. This re-education has to take place because history is taught by Liberal professors and the news is disseminated by Liberal "journalists". When the public is truthfully re-educated, Republicans win. When they're not, Democrats win. As long as history is written and reported on by Liberals, we are doomed to repeat the same Liberal-minded mistakes every 30- 40 years.
It's time for a history lesson. The public doesn't remember how bad things were in '80 and '81. They need to be reminded of that and informed that in 1976 we made a bad choice. How much better would things have been if the Republicans had nominated Reagan and the country elected him in 1976.
"
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchhill
If we elect Obama, get ready for the return of the "
Misery Index," highest in history in June 1980. It was at its lowest since 1953 in October 2006 and has since risen to half of its June 1980 high, after the Democrats gained control of both houses. If you're too young to remember the Misery Index, go
here or Google it.