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Just Clichés - one per post

(902 posts)

Started 1 year ago by HotForWords
Latest reply from Greatest Potential

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Venomrock67
Member

"Loose lips, Sink ships"

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Boys will be boys except in Idaho, where Boise continues to be Boise.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

It ain't nothin' that hasn't been done before.

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

T'sall good.

Posted 6 months ago #
leoNard
Member

I agree....Herbert Hoover, "Rugged Individualism Speech" (October 22, 1928)
Herbert Hoover closed his campaign for the presidency in 1928 with this speech. It expresses the philosophy not only of Hoover, but of the Republican party during the 1920s. As you read, think about what sort of role Hoover sees for the federal government in the economic affairs of the nation. Why does Hoover favor such a role for the government? Also, think about in what sense Hooverís response to the Great Depression might be seen as an extension of the philosophy he articulates here.

I intend... to discuss some of those more fundamental principles upon which I believe the government of the United States should be conducted....

During one hundred and fifty years we have builded up a form of self government and a social system which is peculiarly our own. It differs essentially from all others in the world. It is the American system.... It is founded upon the conception that only through ordered liberty, freedom and equal opportunity to the individual will his initiative and enterprise spur on the march of progress. And in our insistence upon equality of opportunity has our system advanced beyond all the world.

During [World War I] we necessarily turned to the government to solve every difficult economic problem. The government having absorbed every energy of our people for war, there was no other solution. For the preservation of the state the Federal Government became a centralized despotism which undertook unprecedented responsibilities, assumed autocratic powers, and took over the business of citizens. To a large degree, we regimented our whole people temporally into a socialistic state. However justified in war time, if continued in peace-time it would destroy not only our American system but with it our progress and freedom as well.

When the war closed, the most vital of issues both in our own country and around the world was whether government should continue their wartime ownership and operation of many [instruments] of production and distribution. We were challenged with a... choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically opposed doctrines doctrines of paternalism and state socialism. The acceptance of these ideas would have meant the destruction of self-government through centralization... [and] the undermining of the individual initiative and enterprise through which our people have grown to unparalleled greatness.

The Republican Party [in the years after the war] resolutely turned its face away from these ideas and war practices.... When the Republican Party came into full power it went at once resolutely back to our fundamental conception of the state and the rights and responsibility of the individual. Thereby it restored confidence and hope in the American people, it freed and stimulated enterprise, it restored the government to a position as an umpire instead of a player in the economic game. For these reasons the American people have gone forward in progress....

There is [in this election]... submitted to the American people a question of fundamental principle. That is: shall we depart from the principles of our American political and economic system, upon which we have advanced beyond all the rest of the world....

I would like to state to you the effect that... [an interference] of government in business would have upon our system of self-government and our economic system. That effect would reach to the daily life of every man and woman. It would impair the very basis of liberty and freedom....

Let us first see the effect on self-government. When the Federal Government undertakes to go into commercial business it must at once set up the organization and administration of that business, and it immediately finds itself in a labyrinth.... Commercial business requires a concentration of responsibility. Our government to succeed in business would need to become in effect a despotism. There at once begins the destruction of self-government....

It is a false liberalism that interprets itself into the government operation of commercial business. Every step of bureaucratizing of the business of our country poisons the very roots of liberalism that is political equality, free speech, free assembly, free press and equality of opportunity. It is not the road to more liberty, but to less liberty. Liberalism should not be striving to spread bureaucracy but striving to set bounds to it....

Liberalism is a force truly of the spirit, a force proceeding from the deep realization that economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved. [An expansion of the governmentís role in the business world] would cramp and cripple the mental and spiritual energies of our people. It would extinguish equality and opportunity. It would dry up the spirit of liberty and progress... For a hundred and fifty years liberalism has found its true spirit in the American system, not in the European systems.

I do not wish to be misunderstood.... I am defining general policy.... I have already stated that where the government is engaged in public works for purposes of flood control, of navigation, of irrigation, of scientific research or national defense... it will at times necessarily produce power or commodities as a by-product.

Nor do I wish to be misinterpreted as believing that the United States is a free-for-all and devil-take-the-hindmost. The very essence of equality of opportunity and of American individualism is that there shall be no domination by any group or [monopoly] in this republic.... It is no system of laissez faire....

I have witnessed not only at home but abroad the many failures of government in business. I have seen its tyrannies, its injustices, its destructions of self-government, its undermining of the very instincts which carry our people forward to progress. I have witnessed the lack of advance, the lowered standards of living, the depressed spirits of people working under such a system....

And what has been the result of the American system? Our country has become the land of opportunity to those born without inheritance, not merely because of the wealth of its resources and industry but because of this freedom of initiative and enterprise. Russia has natural resources equal to ours.... But she has not had the blessings of one hundred and fifty years of our form of government and our social system.

By adherence to the principles of decentralized self-government, ordered liberty, equal opportunity, and freedom to the individual, our American experiment in human welfare has yielded a degree of well-being unparalleled in the world. It has come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of fear of want, than humanity has ever reached before. Progress of the past seven years is proof of it....

The greatness of America has grown out of a political and social system and a method of [a lack of governmental] control of economic forces distinctly its own our American system which has carried this great experiment in human welfare farther than ever before in history.... And I again repeat that the departure from our American system... will jeopardize the very liberty and freedom of our people, and will destroy equality of opportunity not only to ourselves, but to our children....

[Back to the Unit Ten Summary]

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

Hoover failed to live up to his speech. After the depression hit, Hoover raised taxes with the Revenue Act of 1932, started the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), all of which were continued and expanded under Roosevelt. To be fair, economists did not understand depressions as well as they do nowadays. To some extent, during depressions and recessions, govt. is wise to increase spending, to help keep the financial system from imploding and to increase jobs. In the present downturn, it remains to be seen if Congress, who holds the purse strings, knows how to increase jobs. Another way to increase jobs is to innact specific tax beneifits to favor hiring. So far, Congress has not done so. The critical mistake made by both Hoover and Roosevelt was to try to balance the budgets by raising taxes. Congress raised tariffs with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930, which some think was the single worst blunder by government during the Great Depression. We, in the U.S., are lucky to benefit from some of the things learned during the Great Depressions such as unemployment insurance, and the federal guarantee of bank deposits. I support the current movement in Congress to extend the period of unemployment benefits.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder.

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

The way I heard it was:

"I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy."

Nonetheless, a great spoonerism, no matter how you SLICE it. Nice work, Muggins.

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

Spoonerism? Hmmm. Here's the old stoner's Spoonerism: Drain bramage.

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

Wassup?

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Uh, that's Dane Bramage. You got a proGlem with that?

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Well, okay then. Pass the dutchy on the left hand side.

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

I'd be happy to pass a dutchy if I knew what it meant.

Posted 6 months ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

Entropy Breaking the straight line into a curve ball

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

"No proglem."

-Jerry Burt Braun, may he rest in peace.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Testicular fortitude

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

There's no "there" there.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

"Look. Here comes abZorba the Grease."

-Gordy Hall, may he rest in peace.

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

You got that camera guy?

I saw a Billy Mays...may he rest in peace the fat old coke freak...do an official Zorbeez commercial on my tv set last night and they dubbed in, "you got that camera guy" in Billy's real voice, as he was about to soak up nasty cola from a aquare foot of carpet. (There's yer mildew). No kidding, and since the phrase has been officially used for both Zorbeez and Shamwow (not sold in stores), Me sez it's attained cliche status. (Just pay shipping and handling. Here's how to order...)

(...and if you call right now we'll triple the offer ! )

Posted 6 months ago #
muggins
Member

It's a dog rocket.

Phrase used in cigar reviews.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

A lady's fragrance must never precede her entrance.

-Miss Manners

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Don't throw the baby out with the bath-water.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Life is what you make it.

Posted 6 months ago #
Dalek
Member

To comment or not to comment, that is the question.

-William Shakespeare "sort of"

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Keep the shiny side up.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Worry is like interest paid on a debt that never comes due.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Lefty, loosey. Righty, tighty.

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Cash on the barrelhead

Posted 6 months ago #
pennsyltucky9
Member

Change is the only constant; everything else changes.

Posted 6 months ago #

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