[Vision2020] Mark Felt and Andreas Schou comments

[Phil Nisbet]

Andreas

Interesting analysis.

Thanks for posting the link.  The history I was pointing to was taken from 
the staff reports to the Church committee and they are one heck of a read.

Felt was part of a corrupt organization, but that organization was not the 
Nixon Administration.  The FBI of J Edgar Hoover was built like a secret 
police organization and kept files on everybody.  They had used their powers 
to dig up dirt and destroy people for years, regardless of who came to power 
in the USA.  I think its clear that Felt was acting as he had been trained 
through the years to act, in his and the FBI's best interests and not for 
the better interests of the country.  Thats why he could make the statements 
he did and break in to people's homes even post Watergate.

As for Nixon, he was a warped and corrupt man.  He was also an intellegent 
person with some positions that would be at home in our current national 
discourse.  In all though, I see no reason to attempt to burnish his 
reputation, since his politics are not something supportable by the 
principles of either the right or the left in our society.

Both Nixon and Felt committed acts that made us less free.  Nixon is dead 
and discredited.  Felt will soon be dead and I would hope discredited for 
the same reasons that Nixon was.  Making either of them a hero seems to me 
to be saying to our kids that we think that the ends justify the means and 
that breaking the law and playong dirty tricks on people we disagree with is 
fine.

On a further note, you stated;

">This is because "conservatism", as it's currently constituted, didn't
>really exist during the late 60s and early 1970s other than in the
>person of Barry Goldwater. Liberal dominance of the national discourse
>was so absolute that anyone to the right of Nixon was entirely
>unelectable. Then the Democrats got lazy and corrupt, had a run of bad
>luck, and began a decline that's only just beginning to halt itself
>today."

I am not sure that this was the case.  Conservative values were actually 
spread across party lines in those years and it was not uncommon to see 
conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans on the national stage.  The 
GOP has always had its own Progressive wing and it also has its own 
Libertarian wing.

As for Goldwater, I am not sure that he would be too happy about some of the 
people currently claiming to be part of his legacy.  Barry Goldwater was not 
a religioous conserative and in his later years was very alarmed at the 
trend in the GOP toward lack of tolerance.  He saw the differences between 
liberalism and conservatism as a divide between those who supported 
individual rights versus those who support rights held as group rights.  It 
is unfortunate that some who claim to currently be conservative are so 
opposed to the rights of the individual and so drawn to collectivist 
politics.  I see no differences between them and ztheir opposing numbers on 
the opposite side of the divide, save perhaps who they want the groups 
getting benefits to be.

Great discussion in any case and thanks for the informative post.

Phil Nisbet

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