Because, respectfully, the entire thought process displayed by your post seems to consist of "government = bad, therefore new deal = bad". It shows very little effort to understand what was actually happening, it boxes a huuuuuge range of possibilities into a simple black/white viewpoint, and it's a silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans.
As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them. No offense intended.
> silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans
I tried to downvote your post because of this line, but I ended up mis-clicking and upvoting, so I might as well explain myself.
I am not a Republican, I am an independent. This holier-and-smarter-than-thou attitude that seems to be mestastisizing needs to stop. Please argue your point with facts and reason, not with a "it sympathizes with viewpoint [X] and is therefore invalid." Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, and Conservatives are all guilty of this, but here on the West Coast (where the Hacker News audience predominantly resides) there is a sort of reflexive superiority complex which seems to have developed especially acutely in those on the left side of the political spectrum, in which there is little hesitation, even outside of overtly political forums, to announce that certain views are wrong simply Republicans subscribe to them as well... And of course we all know that Republicans are all about the blunt-force, black-and-white simple-minded thinking, as opposed to subtle, sophisticated, and nuance-loving Democrats.
Sorry, I'll cut my rant off early. I hope my point got across without offending anyone.
And of course we all know that Republicans are all about the blunt-force, black-and-white simple-minded thinking, as opposed to subtle, sophisticated, and nuance-loving Democrats.
Repudiate the Tea Party, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, et al., and we can talk.
His point, made through sarcasm, was that the perception of Republicans among thinking people is currently on the level of "recently-thawed Neanderthals." The modern-day GOP has justly earned this derision by pandering to the religious right.
It is well past time for the Big Tent to split, because I, for one, would like to be known as a conservative again.
I honestly hope that most "thinking people" look poorly upon fanatics of either party, but I hope you can concede that there are "thinking people" among both. The Democratic party just panders to different special-interest groups.
> As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them.
Why?
The last time I looked, nothing about history was subject to "nature". If all historians agreed that Hitler had 7 arms and flew, nothing bad would happen.
If, on the other hand, engineers decided to act as if steel was less dense than air at 1 bar, things would go wrong.
If a false understanding of history is applied in foreign relations, then there are situations where unnecessary wars can be created.
If a false understanding of history is applied to military strategy, wars can be needlessly lost.
There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding of history, you can have a big impact on what they do in the future.
That's true, but it doesn't generate feedback to bad historians.
For example, if a country gets into an unnecessary war because of bad history, the historians aren't penalized.
> There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding of history, you can have a big impact on what they do in the future.
Bingo, and it's not just govt that tries to influence history to influence the future.
Note that there's nothing in here that encourages accuracy.
As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them. No offense intended.