"liberal bias"

[patriotvoice]

This is part of a larger email, which was a follow-up
conversation I had with someone who is politically very like
me, but, seemingly, strongly pro-Bush.

Comments and criticisms strongly encouraged:
--

I do think the media has a bias, and that bias is that of any
corporation: to increase profit. Despite the fact that they
should report the facts, with minimum spin, it's demonstrably
true that drama makes more than documentary. And so, media is
inclined to spin.

Furthermore, while endeavouring to profit, they want to reach
your senses faster, more easily. They want to sell you their
content, and they don't want you to have their competitors'
content.  They will "super size" your experience to
keep you hooked, and they will do whatever it takes to make
that happen.

Media reports to the dollar.


Now, I don't think this is at all the same as the media having
a "Democrat bias."  While Democrats are
traditionally labelled "liberal," I think this is a
confusion of terms. 
In fact, if I look at the most popular talk shows, they're all
"pro-Republican"  (Rush, Hannity, O'Reilley,
Coulter, etc.) just like the leadership of many of the media
outlets are pro-Republican.


My political alignment is "so far to the right, I'm on
the left." What that means is I believe in the
individual's responsibility, and the further up you go in the
food chain (community, county, state, region, federal) the
less direct impact the laws have and the smaller the actual
entity.  These are the "Republican" ideals of eg
Abraham
Lincoln.


So why do I vote mostly Democratic?  Because I have discovered
that Republicans today aren't what they used to be; in fact,
they are the ones who are pro-big government, pro-big
business, and "liberal" in the sense we described
above.


Here's fact: the Federal budget size from Coolidge to Clinton:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/data/budget.php

Up until Roosevelt (Democrat), the Federal government operated
in a relatively balanced fashion.  Roosevelt ran deficits but
generally kept the size of the government pretty stationary
until, low and behold, 1942 (obviously as a result of
7-Dec-1941).

Enter WWII. Massive deficits ran up, the Federal government
grew in size (the outlays column) to meet the demand of war.
This was the beginning of the US military-industrial complex.
After VE and VJ, Truman (Democrat) shrank the size of the
Federal government, halving it in his second term.

Enter Eisenhower (Republican) who suddenly increased Federal
spending. This was understandable, because we got the National
Highway System built, which really contributed to our
country's manufacturing boom. This was a good buy.

Kennedy (Democrat), wrought with the Cold War, built up the
Federal government and gave us NASA, which in turn has allowed
us to excel at communications, electronics, and the
bi-products of space travel (microwaves, teflon, etc.). This
was a good buy.


It's at this point that I feel "Republicans" stopped
being pro-small government and started, along with Democrats,
increasing without sufficient warrant the size of the Federal
government. 

Here's how the rest of history breaks down:

                       Increase
President  Party      ($ billion)  Years   Increase/Year
----------------------------------------------------------
Johnson    Democrat          60.2      5           12.04
Nixon      Republican        84.9      6           14.15
Ford       Republican       135.5      3           45.17
Carter     Democrat         181.7      4           45.43
Reagan     Republican       385.9      8           38.23
Bush       Republican       238.6      4           59.65
Clinton    Democrat         222.8      5           44.56


Now, break that down by party:


Party       Increase   Years        Increase/Year
Democrat       464.7      14                33.19
Republican     844.9      21                40.23


There you have it. The size of the Federal government is
absurd, and Republican administrations have done more to
increase that size than Democrats. 

The problem I have with Republican administrations is they
have traditionally performed slight of hand tricks: they spend
more, but distract you (the voter) by lowering your taxes. 
When the system starts to crack, Democrats come in and have to
tax you more.

So the popular perception that Democrats are "tax and
spend" is preposterous. Both are spenders, but at least
the Democrats have traditionally done it with some measure of
fiscal responsibility. 


I personally feel the whole system is bankrupt and is
imminently preparing to collapse in upon itself: the Federal
government is simply too large for it to be self-sustaining.


I can not vote for Bush because he has (necessarily or not)
involved us in a costly war, for which our great-grandchildren
will be paying. It's a colossal level of fiscal mismanagement,
at the very least; at the worst, its a colossal moral failure.

--
On edit:
Changed to use a fixed font to make the tables line up nicely.