Moving to the Right?

Over on facebook, an assertion was made that BOTH PARTIES have been moving to the right

the nation has moved to the right and so have the political parties. Look at someone like Richard Nixon ... and the policies he implemented. Don't forget that President Nixon signed the law that created the EPA and signed the Clean Air Act of 1970. He also worked to get SS benefits indexed for inflation. I can't imagine a contemporary Republican president doing the same. I can't imagine a contemporary Republican criticizing big business or warning of the "Military Industrial Complex" like Ike did.

*Sigh*

Never mind Obama/Pelosi/Reid being considered "right" in any way.

Since the American Standard of government restraint, of limited government is now considered "right" ....

The country (both parties) has been moving left since Woodrow Wilson, which is what led to Nixon drifting along with it. The "move" to the right is due to politicians overshooting the expectations of a center-right population and what's left of a culture of personal responsibility and respect for rule of law (the Constitution). Further, well meaning government organizations and programs did precisely what their critics said they would do and most Americans including myself, through wishful thinking, hoped they would not -- that is, over-reach, over-regulate, over-budget and foster ever-increasing raging appetites for funds and power.

The "right" has been trying to curb the overreach and maybe roll it back some, with very limited success -- since Reagan. But people get into office and promising to give more of Other People's Money that the politicians don't have to cough up and can blame the deficits on their successors and a population that either doesn't understand or doesn't care that this means debt gets passed on to future generations ... the equivalent of stealing ... push conservative politicians to "moderate" and compromise, which always means more spending and more regulation in the end.

The left talks of "taking food out of the mouths of children" and "pushing grandma over a cliff" (while it accuses the right of demagoguery) when the fact of the matter is that these aren't rights and they do cost money and money is spent wastefully and inappropriately when it doesn't come out of the pockets of the people spending it (but yet take the credit). Help is seen as a right rather than a gift and is treated as such, perpetuating cycles of the poverty and crime they are meant to abate -- and the answer is always more, more, more when the problems not only don't go away, but actually get worse. Nobody is allowed to question the premises. If you don't cough up more for the government to spend, you're heartless, greedy, racist ... all kinds of names. There's no POSSIBLE way you could be right that relative poverty will ALWAYS be with us and there are better ways -- most not involving government -- to address it.