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I Am a Liberal Because...
- Thread starter Arbo
- Start date
poncho
Well-Known Member
Which liberalism are you refering too? The classical liberalism of years gone by or the perverted bleeding heart liberalism of today? Or, are you refering to neo-liberalism as practiced by those who benefit from capturing foreign markets by threats, sanctions and bombing sorties?
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Skandelon
<b>Moderator</b>
The type of "liberal" I just can't understand are the ones who:
1. ...will violently protest the choice of people to kill animals and will protect the eggs of rare owls or eagles at all cost, but with the same passion fight to allow women to kill their unborn babies under the guise of "choice."
2. ...preach against intolerance yet can't tolerate a 2 minute prayer at a graduation or other public event.
3. ...protest army recruiting efforts without which they wouldn't even have the freedom to protest.
4. ...think taking away guns from law abiding citizens will reduce gun violence. (If guns cause guns violence, I suppose they also believe matches cause arson?)
5. ...think they can grow an economy by bringing the top earners income down to supplement lower incomes, rather than promoting the growth of everyone's income.
6. ...think the same people who give us the bureaucratic nightmare called the IRS, the DPS, the EPA, etc, can manage our health care better than the private sector.
7. ...get offended by seeing the ten commandments posted on the wall in a court room, but can't understand how anyone might be offended by two men getting married and kissing in that same court room.
8. ...think that wealthy government bureaucrats will spend other people's money more efficiently than those who actually earned it.
Can someone please explain these people to me?
glfredrick
New Member
Sure... They are called "sinners." :wavey:
preacher4truth
Active Member
Thou hast just waxed elegant in what should be to others, glaringly obvious. Yep, lost sinners doing their job. :thumbsup:
I mean the type of liberal who believes the state can do a better job looking after us morally, socially, and economically than we can ourselves.
The type of liberal who is closer in his world view to Marx and Lenin than Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers.
The type of liberal who demands tolerance without himself being tolerant of those who disagree.
The type of liberal who does not believe the USA is exceptional.
The type of liberal who thinks wealth is evil and those who didn't earn it deserve a share.
Basically, I mean the type of liberal who is of the Obama, Reid, and Pelosi ilk.
Skandelon
<b>Moderator</b>
I think we were both thinking of the same type of Liberal. :laugh:
After rereading your earlier post, I would agree. :thumbs:
FR7 Baptist
Active Member
Why am I a liberal? Before I answer that I should preface this by saying I'm probably not the best person to answer this as some of my fellow Democrats think I'm a DINO because of my views on social issues. I'll give it my best shot.
I think a big problem of conservatism is that it ties one's success to one's effort to the extent that it excludes other factors. Of course, hard work and a good work effort are very important and should be promoted. I have no room for laziness. However, one of the goals of social democracy is to enable everyone to actualize their full potential while eliminating or at least minimizing the effects of capitalist exploitation.
Some examples of non-controllable factors which affect one's success are the socio-economic level of the family a person is born into, intelligence, and personality. While these are desirable, I see no merit in being born into a well-to-do family or having a high IQ. Both of those factors are correlated with a higher income.
What social democracy strives to do is reward a person's labor more than non-controllable factors and reward labor more than capital. A person doing manual labor works harder than I do at my call center job but gets paid less. The owners of companies exploit their workers by paying them less than the value they produce. In my ideal world, most business would be structured as worker-owned co-operatives which compete on the market to maximize the value of the business for all of the worker-owners.
Liberalism also provides people with more economic security. Since I work in the insurance industry, I take an insurance-like view of this. A person who makes more money one year may make less the next. Income isn't always constant. By having a progressive tax structure with a strong social safety net and single payer healthcare, you insure that everyone has some level of economic security.
I'm a liberal because of my fidelity to the Constitution and civil liberties. Only in a society with political freedom and constitutional governance can true economic freedom flourish.
I think a big problem of conservatism is that it ties one's success to one's effort to the extent that it excludes other factors. Of course, hard work and a good work effort are very important and should be promoted. I have no room for laziness. However, one of the goals of social democracy is to enable everyone to actualize their full potential while eliminating or at least minimizing the effects of capitalist exploitation.
Some examples of non-controllable factors which affect one's success are the socio-economic level of the family a person is born into, intelligence, and personality. While these are desirable, I see no merit in being born into a well-to-do family or having a high IQ. Both of those factors are correlated with a higher income.
What social democracy strives to do is reward a person's labor more than non-controllable factors and reward labor more than capital. A person doing manual labor works harder than I do at my call center job but gets paid less. The owners of companies exploit their workers by paying them less than the value they produce. In my ideal world, most business would be structured as worker-owned co-operatives which compete on the market to maximize the value of the business for all of the worker-owners.
Liberalism also provides people with more economic security. Since I work in the insurance industry, I take an insurance-like view of this. A person who makes more money one year may make less the next. Income isn't always constant. By having a progressive tax structure with a strong social safety net and single payer healthcare, you insure that everyone has some level of economic security.
I'm a liberal because of my fidelity to the Constitution and civil liberties. Only in a society with political freedom and constitutional governance can true economic freedom flourish.
poncho
Well-Known Member
Yeah, they hold to a grossly perverted form of liberalism.
Jefferson and the founding fathers were liberals. Very different from Obama, Reid and Pelosi.
If you have some extra time you might look this article (PDF) over it tries to explain how classical liberalism morphed into bleeding heart liberalism.
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poncho
Well-Known Member
Yeah, they hold to a grossly perverted form of liberalism.
Jefferson and the founding fathers were liberals. Very different from Obama, Reid and pelosi.
If you have some extra time you might look this article (PDF) over it tries to explain how classical liberalism morphed into bleeding heart liberalism. Be warned though, Big Sis and the DHS may consider this document to be radical right wing extremism! :tonofbricks:
Skandelon
<b>Moderator</b>
I see why they might call you a DINO. I don't think most conservatives would fully disagree with at least the principles of your points, though I know many might take issue on the methods for best achieving those principled goals.
You don't sound much like the liberal described in the posts above.:thumbsup:
Skandelon
<b>Moderator</b>
I did also mean to say just one thing about this point. I don't think conservatives (for the most part) exclude (or ignore) other factors, such as "socio-economic level of the family a person is born into, intelligence, and personality." It's that we don't believe it should be the role of the government to attempt to level out those factors through coercive means such as Affirmative Action and bureaucratic welfare programs. We think people are generous enough to voluntarily meet the needs of others less fortunate and do so in much more effective ways than a federal system is able (at least on a state level if not in and through the private sector).
I hope that helps you to move your name over along with you social views.
The Balkanization of America. Can you imagine the chaos and endless mini-wars. Hitler and Tojo would have loved such a situation. We would all either be speaking German or being forced to learn Russian.
poncho
Well-Known Member
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but it ain't working. We're not just being exploited by capitalists we're dominated by them. The banks and corporations own us lock stock and barrel! Including both parties in congress. Now that the democrats have lost a great deal of labor union contributions and about to lose more. or so it would seem they have to beg at Wall Street's doors the same as the Republicans have been doing for decades. He who controls the money controls the government, eventually.
The first step in freeing a man from bondage is to convince him he is in bondage. The majority of Americans, sad to say cannot feel the chains that bind them and will tell you they are free despite the fact that they have become wage and debt slaves to Smedley Butler's Big Boss Capitalism.
Using words like this Big Sis and the control freaks in DC might draw the conclusion you are a right wing extremist.
In what way? I mean, do you interpret the constitution from an individualist perspective or a collectivist one?
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I looked through the article, and it talks about stuff like "imply[ing] positive obligations on the part of others", while "Each individual's positive obligations are notoriously unclear", and that it all leads to the government as the solution.
This is the common criticism of liberal ideology, shared by both conservativism, and libertarianism, which if I understand correctly, your "Jeffersonian" philosophy would fit into.
Yet you also mention a lot about the control wielded by capitalists, banks and corporate globalism. This is what I admire so much about your observations, because others seem to think the problem with government is only "taxes for social programs for the lazy poor". At least, that's what has been focused on, when people really rally and complain about government.
The corporate powers are seen as "deserving" it, after all "a corporation is supposed to make a profit, and they pulled themselves up, etc". So that even when they crash and need to be bailed out (and use that money to continue with extravagant recreations), the president is blamed, not the corporations! And that they were "pushed" out of the country in the first place because our government overtaxed and overregulated them.
(But do we really think all these trillions in debt has gone to the poor? Or unions? Or any of the other scapegoats? The global realm seems to be the only possible answer). So your position seems more balanced.
Still, wouldn't this shift of power into the hands of private interest (albeit global) be apart of the principle of "individual responsibility"? They're just exercising their freedoms and taking care of themselves (that at least is what many seem to imply whenever it's questioned).
What would be the solution regarding this stuff, then? Obviously, a lot of people are unhappy with government, and I really don't see it accomplishing much either.
But if we would do away with government to the extent people want, then do you believe the private globalists would lose their power or something? (From their mingling with the governments being the problem).
Even if so, and you took government away from them, then wouldn't they use their power to create their own power structures to replace them? Like it would be just a matter of either creating their own governments, or buying out existing ones [what has occurred]. It seems the result would be the same.
This is the common criticism of liberal ideology, shared by both conservativism, and libertarianism, which if I understand correctly, your "Jeffersonian" philosophy would fit into.
Yet you also mention a lot about the control wielded by capitalists, banks and corporate globalism. This is what I admire so much about your observations, because others seem to think the problem with government is only "taxes for social programs for the lazy poor". At least, that's what has been focused on, when people really rally and complain about government.
The corporate powers are seen as "deserving" it, after all "a corporation is supposed to make a profit, and they pulled themselves up, etc". So that even when they crash and need to be bailed out (and use that money to continue with extravagant recreations), the president is blamed, not the corporations! And that they were "pushed" out of the country in the first place because our government overtaxed and overregulated them.
(But do we really think all these trillions in debt has gone to the poor? Or unions? Or any of the other scapegoats? The global realm seems to be the only possible answer). So your position seems more balanced.
Still, wouldn't this shift of power into the hands of private interest (albeit global) be apart of the principle of "individual responsibility"? They're just exercising their freedoms and taking care of themselves (that at least is what many seem to imply whenever it's questioned).
What would be the solution regarding this stuff, then? Obviously, a lot of people are unhappy with government, and I really don't see it accomplishing much either.
But if we would do away with government to the extent people want, then do you believe the private globalists would lose their power or something? (From their mingling with the governments being the problem).
Even if so, and you took government away from them, then wouldn't they use their power to create their own power structures to replace them? Like it would be just a matter of either creating their own governments, or buying out existing ones [what has occurred]. It seems the result would be the same.
glfredrick
New Member
I am fully convinced, that at the end of the day, no matter which system or party is in control, that those who cannot run fast enough to win the race, or who are strong enough to lift the burden, will be used and abused by those who are or can.
They will either be slaves to those who hold the power of corporations or slaves to those who hold the power of government.
We can make it seem as if there is not a race or a weight lifting contest by giving all the participants a trophy, but that doesn't prove anything, and at the end of the day, all the participants go back to what they call home knowing that they were bested by someone else (or that they were, for that day, king of the hill).
Scripturally, we find that there are different classes of people, slaves and free, Jew and Gentile, man and woman, child and adult, believer and non-believer. The teaching in Scripture significantly notes that no matter what one's station in life, love for each other ought to be the rule of the day. Loving relationship, not life station, is the criteria of God. Slaves can continue to be slaves, free men, free, but mutual respect should be offered.
It is the lack of biblical response because of our innate sin that is actually the problem, not that there are divisions between us that are driven by the particular station in life that we inherit or work to earn. Some things can be changed, some not, but in any regard, the political system or the economic situation only shifts the power that a few will always hold over others from one set of hands to another (and not always even that, it is surprising that the money flows from the same people into politics, which works to keep the same class of people under their thumb).
The answer then, is not so much worry about this or that political system, but whether or not we fear Christ more than man, and whether we will all work as hard as we can with the gifts He gives to further the ends of God, i.e., to bring as many into loving relationship with Him and with each other as is possible. And then, as we work, whether slave or master, we work as unto the Lord and we respect those with authority over us, as we are respected by those who lead us. Very simple plan that we will ALL adopt once in eternity!
They will either be slaves to those who hold the power of corporations or slaves to those who hold the power of government.
We can make it seem as if there is not a race or a weight lifting contest by giving all the participants a trophy, but that doesn't prove anything, and at the end of the day, all the participants go back to what they call home knowing that they were bested by someone else (or that they were, for that day, king of the hill).
Scripturally, we find that there are different classes of people, slaves and free, Jew and Gentile, man and woman, child and adult, believer and non-believer. The teaching in Scripture significantly notes that no matter what one's station in life, love for each other ought to be the rule of the day. Loving relationship, not life station, is the criteria of God. Slaves can continue to be slaves, free men, free, but mutual respect should be offered.
It is the lack of biblical response because of our innate sin that is actually the problem, not that there are divisions between us that are driven by the particular station in life that we inherit or work to earn. Some things can be changed, some not, but in any regard, the political system or the economic situation only shifts the power that a few will always hold over others from one set of hands to another (and not always even that, it is surprising that the money flows from the same people into politics, which works to keep the same class of people under their thumb).
The answer then, is not so much worry about this or that political system, but whether or not we fear Christ more than man, and whether we will all work as hard as we can with the gifts He gives to further the ends of God, i.e., to bring as many into loving relationship with Him and with each other as is possible. And then, as we work, whether slave or master, we work as unto the Lord and we respect those with authority over us, as we are respected by those who lead us. Very simple plan that we will ALL adopt once in eternity!
