I concede the point...

Ryan is correct, and I have been inconsistent in my opinions and views when it comes to the New Deal versus my position as a conservative. It is not possible to be a conservative and consider any portion of FDR's policies or programs a success.

I'm not a conservative. There, I said it. Can this be over now?

What happened to the Ryan that so hated the sarcasm and "too cute by half" posts when they weren't written by him? Why are you intentionally ignoring what I am writing or saying? Why is it no one else that has read what I have written has said to me that they DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING... yet I might as well be writing in Mandarin Chinese for all the good you are getting out of what I have said? Or are you doing this to intentionally piss me off?

I'll start again...

"... you didn't give me a cut off line! What percentage must unemployment hit, mortgages fail , etc, before you feel New Deal style policy justified? "

I'm sorry... I thought I did give where I thought the government should intervene when I said crisis was tearing the fabric of the nation apart. The kind of economic crisis that we are talking about when we talk about the Crash of 1929 and the ensuing free-fall that lasted for the NEXT 36 MONTHS constituted the worst fiscal disaster this nation had ever faced before, or has ever faced since... so YES, I think that the years of "conservative" policy followed by Hoover and his Administration are ample evidence that the CRISIS wasn't anywhere near over... and something needed to be done because the nation was coming apart at the seams. The government has an obligation to protect and defend the nation, its citizens and its interests at home and abroad... and the nation, the citizen and their interests were in danger from Oct 1929 until Jan 1933... when things finally started to get better. FDR was elected because he promised to fix what was broken... and, like it or not, the problem was FIXED ON HIS WATCH. The nation survived the worst economic disaster in our history... and the economic line graph goes UP from '33 until his death in '45. End of story... because this isn't something we can debate. It is fact, pure and simple.

"... doesnt it logically follow that if New Deal was capable of correcting such staggering numbers that such an agenda could easily fix piddly (in comparison) numbers we are experiencing now? "

This is when you really make yourself look like an ignoramus. FDR implemented the "Three R's" when he was inaugurated in '33: Relief, Recovery and Reform.

RELIEF: This was the famous (or infamous, in Ryan's eyes) soup kitchens and bread lines that so many people (like Ryan) associate with "New Deal" today... and this ENTIRE facet of "New Deal" was over and done with before FDR's first 100 days were done. FACT... again, not something we can debate, because it was OVER WITH by May of '33.

RECOVERY: This was made up almost entirely of temporary work projects or subsidy programs intended to pump much needed capital into the worst economy our nation had ever (or has ever) seen since its inception... and this is where all the "alphabet soup" programs came from: WPA, NRA, NIRA, CCC, FRA, etc. These are the programs that put 18 million people to work over the course of 7 years, and built and infrastructure into this nation that is still functioning today!!! The electricity that Ryan is using to power his computer RIGHT NOW is coming from a New Deal project that has operated at a profit for more than 65 years... non stop, 24/7, and still employs hundreds of people to this day.

Still, by the end of 1945, all New Deal work programs began by FDR were ended, and all funding cut off. The recovery facet of New Deal was OVER WITH by 1945... end of story.

REFORM: FDR promised to make sure that the Crash of '29 and the years of hardship and fear would never return to America again, and to make this happen, he signed into law things like the SEC, SSI, FDIC, and he expanded the role of the Federal Reserve in determining what the prime lending rate would be each quarter. He removed the US dollar from the gold standard, and federalized the gold reserves (ensuring that no private bank or lending company could try and corner the market in gold by stockpiling bullion). The banking industry was required to maintain a minimum amont of cash on hand so that no future "bank holidays" would need to be put in place by the Fed to stop a run on individual banks. Employers and employees were encouraged (and later required) to buy insurance against a time when employees might be out of work, and the unemployment insurance program was born just a few years after FDR's death.

THIS is the facet of New Deal that we continue to live with today... and perhaps not all of it is what we would like to see. No one here will argue that SSI doesn't need some major reform if it is going to continue to operate as it was intended, or that the SEC hasn't made mistakes or over/under regulated facets of the market exchange systems in this country over the last 75 years... but we've never had a crash like 1929, either. These were the programs that have prevented another Great Depression from occuring, and these are the programs that have provided security for American citizens for more than 3/4 of a century. This is what REMAINS of FDR's policies today.

Each and every one of these remaining programs, agencies or commissions has been under the microscope of the Supreme Court at least once (SSI was in front of the High Bench nor fewer than three times) and each and every time they were determined to be perfectly Constitutional in nature, design and execution.

This is what gets me, Ryan... I really don't think you have any idea what you mean when you say "New Deal was a failure" because I don't think you really grasp what New Deal was. You see it as some over-reaching power grab by a despotic pseudo-fascist in a wheelchair and leg braces with a huge D behind his name. I can name no less than 7 GOP Governors in 1932 who were DESPERATELY trying to get Federal aid and assistance from the Fed to their States that shouted and cried for FDR to run against Hoover in '32... what does THAT say for "conservative" faith in laissez faire politics at the dawn of New Deal?

"Explain something to me: 27% unemployment = New Deal good. 14% unemployment = New Deal bad. WTF?? Let's try again. 50% mortgage foreclosure = New Deal good. 10% mortgage foreclosure = New Deal bad. Nope, still don't get it. "

You take the ability to be obtuse to never before seen heights, my friend... honestly. As I said, when the nation itself is at risk, the government has an obligation to defend it... and New Deal was a response to an unprecedented economic crisis that was getting worse with each passing fiscal quarter for three consecutive years. We are no where that bad now, and what is broken now is not what was broken then. The regulations and stop-gaps that New Deal put in place (SEC, FDIC, Federal Reserve, etc) have kept the country from ruin because they were put in place or expanded in the New Deal... I don't need to reinvent the wheel if all the wheels on the cart are still spinning.

"So let me get this straight Titus - given you supported George W. Bush's 2001 invasion of Afghanistan (& the deficit spending to execute it), then you must support the 2008 bail outs, right? I mean he was the "same guy", right? "

Are you seriously asking me this question, or is this "Cute 101"?

The Bush Bailouts were just more than $787 billion right? Forget Obama's money... just Bush signed the $787 billion. No, I didn't think that was money well spent.

The entire war in Afghanistan has only cost, from 2001 till today, $329.3 billion!!!

Your agrument is so asinine I can't believe you made it! The Taliban's support of terror, specifically its support of bin Laden, constituted a clear and measurable threat to US security, and when they refused to comply with American demands (pefectly reasonable demands, I might add)... they paid the price. The cost of that was has overwhelmingly been in securing peace and stability in Afghanistan post-Taliban... not in defeating the Taliban. Do you mean to say that the failure of a fraction of America's financial institutions that had a decade-long history of bad management behind them constituted the same (or TWICE the) national risk that the Taliban's support of bin Laden constituted? Or, perhaps you are aren't saying that at all... but you're implying that I am? Please... paint me "wrong" all you want, but don't spend time trying to make me look that stupid.

FDR increases government spending by 104% over 5 years to combat and correct more than 3 years of the worst economic disaster in American history (successful or otherwise, that was what he was spending the money on), then spends twice that to win a world war. My analogy was to show that he was doing the same thing to combat both crisis events... and you take it to mean that since one is wrong, then ALL such efforts are wrong? Are you really that simple, or do you just think I am? Because in YOUR analogy, Bush spends TWICE what he spent in 8+ years of "hard corps" combat to keep failing American lending institutions from "going under"... with no guaranty that they are going to "stay afloat" past the TARP money anyway. Do YOU think that was money well spent? Neither do I... but not because he spent the money. You seem to think I advocate spending taxpayer's money for spending's sake, but I most certainly do not. I don't think FDR spent money for spending's sake, either... and unless you can show me that he DID follow that path, then why make the analogy in the first place?

"You could end all this by conceding that as a "conservative" you understand that a New Deal styled agenda is in fact NOT a sound economic recovery plan... "

As I initially said... you are right, and I concede the point.

I'm NOT a "conservative" as you define the word.