Some reasons why you should be a liberal rather than a conservative

[rudder]

Jesus did not favor the taxman. Jesus would not have sent out tax men to force people to pay into a inefficient and corrupt government. Jesus would expect people to give of their own free will.

A fictional character would expect nothing of anyone, as he doesn't exist. So, you are obviously wrong.

Good, so I am wrong... well tough shit for poor people. Survival of the fittest. I am somewhat intelligent, make decent money, and healthy so I will make it through life okay. If you are needy... go bug someone else. He who dies with the most toys wins.

 

[lothar]

On average, Republicans give more to private charities and oppose taxes more than liiberals - though as I said before, I don't recall seeing th numbers adjusted for wealth.

Wouldn't having the numbers adjusted for wealth make the disparity even worse?
Most Liberals are richer than Conservatives if you consider Gates, Buffett, and the entire Hollywood elite and yet they still manage to endup giving less(you said they do, not I)?

 

[Craig234]

We are a type of ape you dipshit.

Speak for yourself. The word ape is also commonly used to mean other than human = 'are you a man or an ape' would be such a question - but that requires understanding context. 'dipshit' - ya, you are ape.

 

[Craig234]

Wouldn't having the numbers adjusted for wealth make the disparity even worse?
Most Liberals are richer than Conservatives if you consider Gates, Buffett, and the entire Hollywood elite and yet they still manage to endup giving less(you said they do, not I)?

There are rich and poor in both parties (see the Republican Walton kids for counterparts to rich Dems).

I don't recall how the averages work out.

 

[ShawnD1]

Socially liberal includes wanting to address social ills, especially such as anti=poverty efforts, typically supporting government programs to try to improve a variety of things - not just libertarian permissiveness.

I'm not a pro at this but I think you might be confusing social liberalism with fiscal liberalism. Social liberalism usually refers to things that don't involve money. Gay rights, women rights, freedom of speech, gun laws, etc. Fiscal liberalism is the stuff that involves money. Public school, public child care, public health care, public mail.

You can mix and match them to get interesting results.
Social liberalism with fiscal conservatism = libertarian (Ron Paul)
Social liberalism with fiscal liberalism = social democracy (Sweden, Norway, France)
Social conservatism with fiscal conservatism = Iran (everything is illegal, money is not shared)
Social conservatism with fiscal liberalism = USSR (speaking out is illegal, everything is shared)

 

[Craig234]

I'm not a pro at this but I think you might be confusing social liberalism with fiscal liberalism. Social liberalism usually refers to things that don't involve money. Gay rights, women rights, freedom of speech, gun laws, etc. Fiscal liberalism is the stuff that involves money. Public school, public child care, public health care, public mail.

You can mix and match them to get interesting results.
Social liberalism with fiscal conservatism = libertarian (Ron Paul)
Social liberalism with fiscal liberalism = social democracy (Sweden, Norway, France)
Social conservatism with fiscal conservatism = Iran (everything is illegal, money is not shared)
Social conservatism with fiscal liberalism = USSR (speaking out is illegal, everything is shared)

Different people use the terms differently, obviously. I think one cause is when a general term is most often used with one partisan side, it can become viewed as being on that side by definition.

I view the word fiscal as being about money, not the political orientation of how they money is spent.

So what does 'fically liberal' mean? Good question with more than one answer I think, but perhaps the most popular definition would include a willingness to have more debt.

But it doesn't matter in my definition whether that's a liberal president going into debt to pay for help for the poor, or Bush spending on tax cuts for the rich or military and wars - both 'fiscally liberal'.

(Of course, the poster child for the Republicans' hated liberal help the poor big spender is LBJ who cut poverty by a third, who was the last president to *balance the budget* until Clinton later in his presidency.)

So how useful is the term 'fiscal liberal/conservative', in a period where IMO Kerynesian economics are looking good for the economy; add in self-described fiscal conservatives being the biggest borrowers...

and they seem pretty useless. Better to just stick to the specifics on debt and such. We already have too many bad borrowers getting elected by know-nothing voters who say 'I hate debt, and he says he does'.

I see no reason to change my positon on the term socially liberal meaning the Democratic version, not the libertarian one that simply means 'let the poor starve, but do anything they want while they do'.

 

[jhbball]

Why would you assume that just because I am conservative I am a greedy douche bag? Are you aware that study after study shows that conservatives are more generous than liberals?

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730&page=1

http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm

http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/charity-who-cares/

And I certainly don't need Jesus to tell me to give to others less fortunate.

I'm not speaking about you specifically, obviously. But the "keep your hands off my money" types, aka, the typical conservative on this board, fit that profile.

 

[blackangst1]

I'm not speaking about you specifically, obviously. But the "keep your hands off my money" types, aka, the typical conservative on this board, fit that profile.

That would be me Tax me fairly, and let me decide who, when, and where to give my money.

 

[bamacre]

You're misusing them as bad as anyone.

Socially liberal includes wanting to address social ills, especially such as anti=poverty efforts, typically supporting government programs to try to improve a variety of things - not just libertarian permissiveness.

IOf you say your social conscience has grown and you are all about the government helpingthe poor now with assistnace programs, I'll correct the statement.

That's your opinion, and I disagree heavily with it. There's nothing "liberal" about taking resources from someone by force and giving them to someone else. What is "liberal" is having the opportunity and ability to voluntarily offer your resources to others in need.

 

[sao123]

the whole ideaology of liberalism is built on a completely flawed premise that all men are equal. I can tell you for sure, all men are not equal, BECAUSE we live in a world of limited resources. If 2 men need a heart transplant, and only one is available, then one of them dies. Everyone cant have a tropical island beach front house, there just arent enough of them.

unfortunately, most non-conservative have not figured out that because we have limited resources, that all men can never be equal, and utopia will never exist, and therefore social status as a result of wealth, (or etc) will never be eliminated. But them liberals are willing to bankrupt the worlds coffers trying.

Liberals somehow got this distorted idea that making all men equal, by removing social status from our society is a good thing, and should be the basis for religion.
Jesus didnt come to free slaves, he didnt come to remove poverty. He came for one reason, salvation through his death. Equalization was never one of the teachings of jesus, and its very disturbing, not only that you would say these things, but that the entire roman catholic church seems to be centered on this very premise.

 

[bfdd]

I'd say anyone who thinks going to war is "awesome" raises the question not only whether they're closer to human or ape, but where they rank on the ape scale.

I didn't say war was cool, I said chimps are cool because they goto war. There's a big difference and yes Chimps are cool.

 

[nobodyknows]

I didn't say war was cool, I said chimps are cool because they goto war. There's a big difference and yes Chimps are cool.

Until they rip your face off.

 

[krunchykrome]

Your post makes me proud to be a republican.

 

[Craig234]

the whole ideaology of liberalism is built on a completely flawed premise that all men are equal. I can tell you for sure, all men are not equal, BECAUSE we live in a world of limited resources. If 2 men need a heart transplant, and only one is available, then one of them dies. Everyone cant have a tropical island beach front house, there just arent enough of them.

unfortunately, most non-conservative have not figured out that because we have limited resources, that all men can never be equal, and utopia will never exist, and therefore social status as a result of wealth, (or etc) will never be eliminated. But them liberals are willing to bankrupt the worlds coffers trying.

Liberals somehow got this distorted idea that making all men equal, by removing social status from our society is a good thing, and should be the basis for religion.
Jesus didnt come to free slaves, he didnt come to remove poverty. He came for one reason, salvation through his death. Equalization was never one of the teachings of jesus, and its very disturbing, not only that you would say these things, but that the entire roman catholic church seems to be centered on this very premise.

You have unwittingly hit on a fundamental difference between liberals, and right-wingers who have a bad misunderstanding of the whole 'equality of man' idea.

The problem is, in our 'liberal' society - relative to the societies common in humanity before the enlightenment period a few hundred years ago - many people take the improvements for granted and fail to understand how easy it is to have tyranny, the real oppression that happens to the 'average citizen' when the liberal 'people are equal' idea is not followed.

In their ignorance they clamor for 'inequality' in a misguided manner, not understanding the whole point of equality.

Let me pick one example of many about 'inequality' as it relates to this. Imagine on criminal matters that if you are in the wrong group, you can easily be charged with a capital offense, that the process for determining your guilt is a kangaroo court and you are quickly executed - while, and this is real history, the same laws in theory apply to everyone, but if a 'noble', who in practice is able to get away with pretty much anything against lesser groups, ever did find himself charged with such a crime, his options for a legal defense included simply supplying letters from other respected people - and the charges were dismissed.

That's 'inequality'. You can see the same inequality elsewhere - consider 'caste' systems, whether by that name or another (North American whites had a 'caste system' with slavery and racist laws for centuries).

Soon after the industrial revolution, there was an ideology that the 'working class', while not calling it a 'caste', SHOULD BE in 'sustinence' level poverty - living in shanties with the children working alongside the parents in 16 hour days six days a week with barely enough bad food to get by, no medical care and few rights,and that it was *immoral* to try to pay them more than that. They weren't full human beings to do well - that waqs for the upper class, the working class was for creating wealth like farm animals.

This is why some classics in literature - some abut the same idea before the industrial revolution, some after - are based on people who had another view documenting the inequalities in a critical light.

The poster like the one I quoted above show only how badly they misunderstand the whole point of 'people are equal' when they think they're somehow correcting the liberals when they say 'not everyone can have a beachfront house because beachfronts are limited'. That's not a miconception liberals have that needs to be corrected, it's a misconception right-wingers have about liberals. A straw man.

I'll make a main point about the liberal view:

There are excesses that occur when one small group collects too much power for itself, and gives itself remarkable wealth and rights and freedoms to treat the rest of society terribly with horrible poverty, tyranny, oppression - a treatment that not only frees up wealth for the top but also keeps the rest powerless to rise up and resist the tyranny. Indeed, throughout the world's history you see such societies.

There was a time that the basics everyone in the US takes for granted about 'individual rights' were radical.

For an example of the lberal idea, for a long time in the US, colleges were lagrely limited to the rich, and served to keep the classes more separated. If you were in the top class you could get to college and continue your family's top position. The liberal notion was, wouldn't our society be better with 'public education' and anyone qualified getting to go? A big part of the advancement of our economy, an event some think just magically happened after millenia of agricultural dominance, was from this sort of thing.

When the working class rose up against the oppressive factory situation and demanded better - leading to the better conditions and the rise of the middle class - it was an attack on class-based inequality.

It was not the right-wing's (and the 'right-wing' didn't really exist much until recent decades) version of liberals - demanding the same mansions and salary of the owner of the factory.

In the past, there was a civil war, where the government allowed the well-off to get out of service by paying $300 (tens of thousands of dollars today) - and the poor rioted in places like New York to protest.

That was another example of 'inequality' based on man-made 'class'.

'People are equal' isn't the nutty right-wing version some think liberals have of humanity all trying to squeeze into the few beachhouses.

It's about limiting the abuses of humanity by excessive power among the few at the top, when the abuses are not based on the limited beachfront property, but instead the desire for excessive dominance.

When the need to eat is the tool of terror used to control the population. It's about saying try to have more people able to do better, even when the rich have to not have quite as much. Our founding fathers rejected official government titles for the powerful (other than 'the honorable') for the reason of recognizing the equality of man - even while it recognized some mena would be richer, some would have positions of power.

But it opened the door for anyone to be President - not the family-based class-based preservation of power in the systems before it in Europe.

The spoiled people in America today who benefit from the 'people are equal' view don't understand the idea of mass poverty and excessive power for the few very well.

They have these simplistic misunderstandings of the phrase - about everyone having a beachfront mansion - while they don't understand the problems as power gets more concentrated.

Even today. many remnants of the odl issues are still in place, if under less clear rules - the rich still fare better in our criminal justice system, even if you can't find a law saying they shouls any longer. The poor still disproportionatrely fight the wars, even if you can't find any law saying they should, now it's just due to indirect economic factors. Instead of the marketing saying 'you can avoid service if you're rich', it says 'you can get college money if you serve' - something the poor need and the rich don't.

But most Americans are pretty happy with the improvements over the tyranny of the past, even if they don't understand the tyranny of the past. And it's from the 'people are equal' idea in large part.

People are equal means you don't say an entire race is excluded from something good simply as an abuse of power by the majority race. People are equal means the criminal justice system is based on law not power. People are equal means in a wide variety of areas that concentrated power is limited in how it can oppress others, and has to share opportunity - even while there is plenty of inequality for better reasons than abuse. People are equal doesn't deny the Bill Gates or the Warren Buffets to get rich and powerfulo and have that nice big house on the lake - but they can't own slaves, either.

 

[Moonbeam]

bamacre: I think there are a handful of major problems with this thread.

M: Your hands must be huge.

b: First and foremost, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are tossed around ignorantly too often. As someone who is very socially liberal and very fiscally conservative, I see a lot of misconceptions and half-truths in this thread.

M: This was not a thread where I put a priority on rationality or logic. This is a thread designed to vent frustration and expose the truth of the claims by the responses. Of course it was only a few threads long when that job was complete.

b: Also, the notion, especially within the OP, that fiscal conservatives are inherently "greedy" is preposterous. It assumes that only government can aid and assist people, which can easily be proven to be false.

M: No claim that I made implies that only the government can aid. I said much earlier that private charity is done better by conservatives and, regardless of motivation, the credit goes with the outcome. What I said is that the needs, both the result of the system, which must be changed by progressive legislation, and unfulfillable due to their extent, by private donations, can even more effectively be addressed by government due to the scale of potential.

 

[Craig234]

That's your opinion, and I disagree heavily with it. There's nothing "liberal" about taking resources from someone by force and giving them to someone else. What is "liberal" is having the opportunity and ability to voluntarily offer your resources to others in need.

Sorry, you can't steal the word "liberal" and define it to be libertarian. Liberal and Libertarian both begin with liber, but they're very different.

And don't respond with some pedantic argument about the vague archaic definition of liberal you might scrounge up - the word liberal has a modern meaning you can't prove doesn't exist.

On a side note, your ideology is showing - the fixation on the phrase "by force" I've pointed out before. SO that the simplest payment of a nickle sales tax on a candy bar becomes the height of Maoist tyranny in the deluded libertarian paranoia. It demans the question, since ALL taxes are collected "by force", are you opposed to *ALL TAXES OF ANY SORT* that are not voluntary? If not, you too support TAXES TAKEN BY FORCE - and need to admit the idiotic level of hyperbole the phrase is about.

Liberal does indeed mean things like saying "let's not just have a few elite private colleges, let's build public colleges" - and taxing to pay for them. It does indeed mean things like Medicare - and taxing for them.

Just stick to your own word, libertarian, and defend what you believe in, the freedom to do what you like, and don't try to misrepresent the word liberal.

 

[totalnoob]

I see you still haven't dispelled with the"fixed pie" myth craig. You still hold the nonsensical position that wealth is a static quantity, and that accumulation by one person somehow necessitates a loss by another. You fail to realize that unless fraud or force is involved, BOTH parties benefit from every voluntary transaction. Any wealth earned in this manner is profoundly moral and beneficial to society..even if that was not the intention of the parties involved. Your problem (along with most socialists) is that you don't understand the wealth creation process, and you also don't understand how anything can benefit society without a benevolent intent.

 

[Moonbeam]

Your post makes me proud to be a republican.

Much of my point has been that the reason it is better to be a liberal rather than a Republican is that there isn't really any reason to be proud to be a liberal. Being liberal is a blessing with its own reward. You actually feel better when your focus is on the betterment of others. Only people with a more advanced state of self hate need to feel pride to cover their feelings of worthlessness. You are a Republican because it strengthens your ego. You are on a team of like minded fools banded together and cemented in outrage at the world, like a bunch of stick throwing apes in a tree facing a leopard, for the endocrine high of belonging to something and feeling superior as a result.

All that is a waste of your life, a meaningless exercise in the acquisition of the useless. You have been forgiven. You have nothing to be ashamed of and need on egotistical pride. You can be proud just to be who you are, without identification with anything external. Hold your head up as a liberal and walk like a God. To be liberal is to be unattached to the external, to be inwardly free.

 

[Moonbeam]

I see you still haven't dispelled with the"fixed pie" myth craig. You still hold the nonsensical position that wealth is a static quantity, and that accumulation by one person somehow necessitates a loss by another. You fail to realize that unless fraud or force is involved, BOTH parties benefit from every voluntary transaction. Any wealth earned in this manner is profoundly moral and beneficial to society..even if that was not the intention of the parties involved. Your problem is that you don't understand the wealth creation process, and you also don't understand how anything can benefit society without a benevolent intent.

How rich are loving mothers? Wow well enumerated are our wise men and teachers. You have no idea of what value is so you are easily manipulated by visions of wealth. The human race has been stripped of its proper dignity and filled with a phony idea, that money and wealth are equal to personal worth. A sick humanity has now become the slave to the market, endlessly striving to make something of ourselves, and all the while Jesus is preached in the churches and nobody hears or understands what was meant by, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." Only advanced liberals can understand it.

 

[Craig234]

I see you still haven't dispelled with the"fixed pie" myth craig. You still hold the nonsensical position that wealth is a static quantity, and that accumulation by one person somehow necessitates a loss by another. Unless fraud or force is involved, both parties benefit from every voluntary transaction. Any wealth earned in this manner is profoundly moral and beneficial to society..even if that was not the intention of the parties involved. Your problem is that you don't understand the wealth creation process, and you don't understand how anything can benefit society without a benevolent intent.

You are wrong about my position, and show your own misconception about the wealth pie.

1. I've said many times, but have to keep repeating because people like you keep misrepresenting my position:

The wealth pie is NOT fixed. Different policies cause it to get bigger or smaller. However, at any moment, it IS one size, and has a certain distribution.

It's a Goldilocks situation: too LITTLE equality and too MUCH equality are both bad for the creation of wealth, there is a happy middle. Too many on the right only get the 'too much equality' problem.

With too high a concentration of wealth, the rich and powerful can use those resources to protect their position *at the expense of the growth of the pie and the rest of the nation.* It can REDUCE opportunity.

2. This isn't just some pie in the sky - pun intended - notion. For the last 30 years, virtually none of the pie's increase has gone to the bottom 80%, and not much has gone to the bottom 99%.

The idea of growing the pie is supposed to include everyone getting a slice - but while the pie has grown a lot the last 30 years, the vast majority of people who added to it are shut out of a slice.

We're already at the point of the concentrated wealth and power, at a level even exceeding the period at the previous peak just befor ethe great depression, is causing big problems and abuses.

It's you who doesn't understand the 'wealth creation process' when it comes to the effect of excessively concentrated wealth.

If you only look at the pie growing and say everythiing is great,and do't notice how only a few are getting all of the growth, you are missing an important point - and the problems that will lead to less pie growth.

Look at what's happening to our pie growth infrastructure, as our nation is gutted to add to the pie now, on borrowed money - how is the pie going to grow when we've hurt our country so badly?

The best time for the pie was the period from about 1940 to 1980 when the most liberal policies were in place, the pie grew, everyone shared, until Reagan began the reversal of those policies.

So you got both parts wrong - how to grow the pie (which needs to prevent excessive concentrations of wealth) and that it's not just the size, but the distribution.

You posted simplistic points to 'correct' my position, once again showing the problem isn't in my position but in the ill-informed right-wing positon as you misrepresent mine.

John Kennedy said a rising tide (a growing pie) lifts all boats, because when he said it, in the middle of 1940-1980, it did. It hasn't the last 30 years.

 

[Moonbeam]

Sorry, you can't steal the word "liberal" and define it to be libertarian. Liberal and Libertarian both begin with liber, but they're very different.

And don't respond with some pedantic argument about the vague archaic definition of liberal you might scrounge up - the word liberal has a modern meaning you can't prove doesn't exist.

On a side note, your ideology is showing - the fixation on the phrase "by force" I've pointed out before. SO that the simplest payment of a nickle sales tax on a candy bar becomes the height of Maoist tyranny in the deluded libertarian paranoia. It demans the question, since ALL taxes are collected "by force", are you opposed to *ALL TAXES OF ANY SORT* that are not voluntary? If not, you too support TAXES TAKEN BY FORCE - and need to admit the idiotic level of hyperbole the phrase is about.

Liberal does indeed mean things like saying "let's not just have a few elite private colleges, let's build public colleges" - and taxing to pay for them. It does indeed mean things like Medicare - and taxing for them.

Just stick to your own word, libertarian, and defend what you believe in, the freedom to do what you like, and don't try to misrepresent the word liberal.

When the burglars stole the Zen Master's rice bowl and mat from his small hut, he looked to the sky and said, too bad I couldn't give them that moon. Apparently he was a libertarian and had conspired with all the other 3 Zen Masters of the earth, to have a title written up proclaiming him the legal owner of that shinny orb and they were too ignorant to sigh their name.

 

[Sinsear]

How was this not locked from the get go?

 

[bamacre]

Sorry, you can't steal the word "liberal" and define it to be libertarian. Liberal and Libertarian both begin with liber, but they're very different.

Why not? You did, and you admit it in your post.

And I wasn't referring to myself as a classical liberal, nor was I implying that liberal equates to libertarianism. Progressives are anything but liberal, your ideology is the enemy of freedom.

 

[jhbball]

Why not? You did, and you admit it in your post.

And I wasn't referring to myself as a classical liberal, nor was I implying that liberal equates to libertarianism. Progressives are anything but liberal, your ideology is the enemy of freedom.

You're hilarious.

 

[Craig234]

Why not? You did, and you admit it in your post.

And I wasn't referring to myself as a classical liberal, nor was I implying that liberal equates to libertarianism. Progressives are anything but liberal, your ideology is the enemy of freedom.

No, I did not equate liberal and libertarian. I said the opposite.

I said not to make a pedantic argument about the word liberal; you chose to do so.

OK, from now on with you I deinf Lbertarian as "Nazi", Republican as "Maoist", and Economic as "aestehtic".

It's a waste of time when you are going to play word games and not deal with the actual definition of liberal.

Liberals and progressives - the terms are effectively synonymous - are FOR freedom.

Hate to tell you, the word freedom isn't limited to your narrow definition. Llibertarians point at families in 1900 slaving in factories 16 hours a day with members losing their lives to things like illness and say "that's freedom!" The concept of "economic freedom" insofar as recognizing that a certain amount of wealth is needed for manyh freedoms,a nd so that helping fight poverty so people have that level of wealth, is a progressive postion libertarians have no interest in - they just wrongly pretend their policies will help everyone do well, but never deal with the fact that that's hardly the case.

What *libertarian* principles are violated by that impoverished family in the factory in 1900? None. It's "freedom". But I can easily pount out vilations of PROGRESSIVE principles.