Now that you've dained to read my entire post ...

We can get to the crux of the matter. And I beseech you, PLEASE, focus like a laser beam on this in your response. I am not, in this particular thread, interested in whether FDR was a "good" or "bad" president, nor do I wish to recount our statistical arguments. I want you to address what I see as a fundamental conflict in your personal ideology. Which is this: how can one be a "Conservative New Dealer?"

Now, you are undoubtedly going to justify it in a fashion similar to the following:

When fully one quarter of every able-bodied man (or working woman) is unemployed, and more than 50% of all home and farm mortgages have failed completely, there is a need for the government to step in and do something to stop the "bleed" and possibly to prevent the bleed from happening again... I believe this firmly, and I feel it is all the justification needed for what was done in the years between 1933 and 1940. When that same interventionist attitude is carried into the future, where no such economic hardship has ever happened again, I begin to question the rationale of those applying the same formulas and theories. This very clearly explains why I have a problem with the agendas put forward by Obama, Reid and Pelosi since 2006. In short, we haven't seen another Great Depression... so why try and fix what isn't broken?

Well that's all fine & dandy, and some 2nd year debate student might not know what to do with such staggering numbers. But "justification" is NOT what I'm interested in. I'm asking if New Deal "worked." There is a difference between justification and whether it worked. The core of our argument has always been my contention that New Deal failed, and your contention that it did not. So my question is: if it worked, as you conted, then why not employ New Deal style policy of a government managed economy; high tariffs; price controls; high taxes; alphabet soup federal programs; and a litany of public works projects on regular 5 year intervals so as to keep the economy humming along, crisis or no? I mean if it works, it works, right? And please, don't do the thing where you say "some aspects worked and some didn't", because once you peel away all those that did not work it really ceases to be New Deal. And regardless, our beef is whether over all it failed or succeeded as a sound economic agenda. And if it succeeded, why not advocate a similar implementation under every administration, crisis or not?

Now, if your contending it works ONLY as a response to a "crisis", then why not implement one now? Are we not bleeding? Nevada climbed to over 14% unemployment recently, the highest in the Nation. Foreclosures are off the charts. I can tell you, we're gushing blood. If New Deal was not a failure, then lets giddy up, get one going now on a state level at the very least, if it "works." Right?

Furthermore, if you're saying that the current crisis (in the top 2 since WWII) does not meet the threshold for justification of a New Deal style policy, then you tell me - where's the cut off line? When is "bad" bad enough for government to step in on the level of a New Deal? At what point does "Conservative ideology" fail to measure up, must be abandoned, and government need intercede? And remember, this insistence that government need step in to "stop the bleeding" is exactly the same argument used by the Bush and Obama administrations as a justification of the bailouts, which you opposed. Or is it a matter of "I know it when I see it"? (which of course effectively ends any rationale discussion on the matter).

My point being - I don't believe it rationale to say you're a New Dealer when it comes to the years 1933-1940, but NOT outside those years ... THEN you're a conservative. Because it's not a matter of other administrations being justified, or the wisdom in trying to fix what's not broken. It's whether New Deal worked, overall. And if it worked why not advocate a similar plan in the years since, or during Carter's mailaise, or at the very least during our current blood letting?