You lie when you say you are not religious. You have your faith (in the free market, in the individual), your creed (recited several times in your post above), your prophets (Sowell, Friedman, et al), and your scriptures (their published theories). In any case, what you are doing is akin to me telling someone i won’t discuss gay rights with them until they read Judith Butler, because anyone who has not read Judith Butler is obviously in no position to claim any knowledge of, or insight into, the issue of gay rights. i mean, obviously it’s fine if you don’t want to participate in the discussion anymore, but don’t try to portray as ignorant of economics anyone who hasn’t read Thomas Sowell. Have you read Paul Krugman? How about Tim Harford? Why not recommend them? Further, why not recite THEIR ideas, if you are so sick of reciting Sowell’s? A book is not proof that socialism doesn’t work and that the free market is a panacea, even if it is over a thousand pages and written by someone with degrees from two elite, liberal US Universities (which apparently are the laughing stock of the rest of the world, according to you, so i’m not sure why you even mention them).
My words were read a(n) economics book. The suggestion was Thomas Sowell. Any book that goes over the information would be useful though. I have not read Krugman, nor Harford. I’ve read Pikity though and gilder and friedman (and others). I didn’t specifically call on them either. This is because I have read a bunch of them and found consistently that Sowell is the best at explaining things without needing a second language (econ-ese maybe). Again, because the book was written for high school kids in a basic economics class.
I try not to believe in things, I try to understand. If there is no difference between understanding and faith, then I still have more to learn on what faith is. Last I checked it had more to do with pure belief. I must also have faith in basic math, and the english language… Oh, and then my ex is right, my religion is role-playing games. As according to this I have “faith” in role-playing games. I understand how they work, I hang out with friends practicing my “religion” weekly and my prophets are Gygax, Bulmahn, Cook and my priest my local DM… I even have little icons in the form of dice…
Oh, and sport players are religious in their personal sport, anyone with a degree in anything has a degree in their faith, all schools are religious schools… Personally, I would suggest faith is an active choice. Not something picked up purely through study.
I think the saying goes, when everyone is super no one is. Does the same apply to religion?
i have, and frankly, i found the implication that i haven’t to be pretty presumptuous, to say the least. Which is why i reacted as i did.
Yet it proves that socialism doesn’t work? Despite the fact that it does, in fact, work pretty well in many ways? A demonstrably false conclusion is what you want taught in high school, as a proven economic fact? It is at best a conclusion taken on faith, at worst a lie. It is not a fact. You talk about how poor things like infrastructure and education are in the US as if our systems aren’t actually among the best in the world. Then you try to use the failure of free market healthcare HERE to explain away the success of govt managed healthcare programs elsewhere.
Your faith is not in your knowledge of economics, your faith is in your proposed solutions to economic problems. Deregulate, cut taxes, slice off the arms and limbs of the govt, starve the public sphere to a state of perpetual near-death and then claim that as evidence that everything should be privatized, and in the end everybody will be richer and freer. Given things said in this and other threads, that’s what you and Uccisore would consider a progressive style agenda, only using conservative views of how the world should look. What you advocate requires something well beyond a simple understanding of economics, it’s a faith, complete with it’s own theology - just like environmentalism, or Marxism, or whatever other progressive style concern you want to cite.
Lol, nothing like that. If you want to talk about the NSA, we can.
Er…what other morality would conservatives be defending? It’s not as though you can defend the idea of morals in general. And to be clear, ‘anti-gay-rights’ isn’t a virtue. You need to try a little harder to see what conservatives are actually saying there, not just parse it in the way that makes them look bad. Conservatives aren’t defending a set of values that conservatives came up with when they decided to form The Conservative Club. They’re defending the ways of life, moral views included, that the society in which they live has used to thrive for ages, and resisting efforts to change them by theorizers.
Are you? What I see everywhere is liberals declaring that moral and immoral are matters of opinion, and that what really matters are pragmatic solutions to problems- such as inequality and environmental issues. Sure, we can acknowledge that concern for inequality and the environment are ultimately grounded in values, but the left avoids that kind of talk as much as they can, and generally balks that something should be prohibited because one group or another considers it immoral. I mean, didn't you just handwave conservative's interest in virtue away as being[i] merely[/i] conservative virtues? Also, look at the libertarians. Libertarians have a mild moral argument when they talk about taxation being theft I suppose, but by and large they believe that the social machine leads to greater success and happiness when people are left alone as much as possible to pursue what they want, in the way they want.
Except that conservatives donate more to charity than liberals do, and pretty much always have. This is another one of those "Google it for yourself" moments, so go find out I'm right if you like before we continue. You'll find a bunch of studies and a score of editorials talking about conservatives giving more to charity, and a handful of sources trying to reinterpret the data to show they are 'about equal'. What you won't find is anybody, anywhere, affirming what you just said- that liberals are more likely to be directly reaching out to others with desire to help. What liberals do is propose bureaucracies that [i]force other people[/i] to provide for the disadvantaged and less fortunate. What's the morality in that? The fact remains, when you find somebody ACTUALLY giving their money to the poor, actually working in a soup kitchen, actually doing these things, the odds point to them being a conservative.
“I think people with more money than me should be forced to give this amount of wealth to that disenfranchised group”. Does saying those words or writing a book defending them really give me a moral claim? It has all the moral force of changing your facebook status.
Now, sure, if you want to talk about how it seems, then how it seems is that liberals want to feed the world and help everybody, and conservatives only care about themselves. But consider what the data actually shows, and who it is that has been making sure it seems that way to you.
Keep in mind that you haven't met the bulk of liberals and have no first hand knowledge whatsoever of what they exhibit. So show me some data, or re-evaluate why you take this assumption on the basis of something other than data.
Well, one problem with socialism is that it wasn’t created to alleviate poverty in the first place, so there’s no reason to expect it to work most efficiently towards that end. The primary outrage that socialism seeks to fix is NOT that the poor have little, it’s that the rich have a lot. If socialists were concerned with what the poor have, then they would be evaluating things in terms of quality of life, not dollars and cents, and they’d have no choice but to admit that in the United States, there is basically no problem left for them to fix, and that capitalism with a mild social safety net was sufficient.
Socialism is very good at divesting the rich of what they have- it simply gives the state the power to take it from them, problem solved. How the rich having less translates to the poor ending up with more (in the long run) is where it gets dicey, and the reason it gets dicey there is because that’s not what the system was focused on. If it seems like socialism is focused on alleviating poverty, that’s because it uses the resentment of the poor as a tool to serve it’s primary end of divesting the rich of their wealth- so plenty of poverty-talk will be found. What you won’t find is a socialist telling a poor person what they can do for themselves to cease being poor in the present system. The socialist has no interest in that. The socialist has an interest in convincing the poor person that they will come out on top after the revolution, and thus conscripting them. Once again, if you find a person educating the poor on what they can do to lift themselves out of poverty, odds are you have found a conservative.
Well, because the data already shows that’s what happens. We have a wide variety of socialist states, and a wide variety of capitalist states, and we can draw conclusions about how the poor do in each.
Hayek was quick to point out that the free market is not an end in itself- the free market is good because it fosters freedom, wealth, and innovations. There are things that can happen within that free market that don't work to those ends. That's why Hayek supported anti-trust laws, for example.
To me, the idea that the government can provide something to the poor isn't a 'form of socialism'. It has nothing to do with defining history in terms of class struggle, it has nothing to do with stripping the means of production away from private individuals, it has nothing to do with venture capitalists being villains, or the profit motive being exploitation by definition. I think Eric sees socialism as inherent to welfare programs more than I do, but then he's evaluating socialism in terms of economics, and I'm looking at it in terms of political theory.
So, while I don't think I'm conceding much of anything to the socialist, I do admit I'm not a laissez-faire capitalist either.
I agree with all of the above- if your goal is to prove to people on the other side that you have a strong moral character, then denouncing the extremists in your own camp is certainly a good way to give the impression that you are being objective. Politicians use that angle all the time, and it seems to work. Is that all you mean to say?
And by the same token, if you denounce all the extremists in your camp [i]and then[/i] the situation comes where you need their help to combat the evil loggers, that help may never come. As long as we're talking strategy, it's a multi-layered game. If I convince a Democrat to distance himself from the extremists in his voting bloc at the wrong moment, I win. If the Democrat can[i] associate[/i] me with the extremists in my voting bloc at the wrong moment, I lose. And vice versa.
Thank God I’m not in politics. I strive to have moral and intellectual integrity, and trust that what is demonstrated to the world will sort itself out.
I don’t think that was me. 
Not in the absence of a crisis, no. If we were being attacked by aliens, or faced a horrible famine or whatever, then yeah, we'd have this common objective of what's best for everyone. But in the absence of a crisis, I don't really know what that objective would be. To make the U.S. more wealthy? I see no evidence the left wants that. To keep things the way they are? I see no evidence the left wants that either. To further the cause of equal rights for disenfranchised groups? That's not coming from the right. Sure- both sides will say that their agenda is 'what's best for everyone'. But then, so will the extremists for the most part...
They are certainly able to reason their differences out in the sense that sometimes liberals become conservatives and sometimes conservatives become liberals. But anything more than that and it sounds like you’re asking me to agree that some moderate position halfway between is in fact the correct one. I think I’ve made it clear that that’s not what I think.
Indeed. “I hate purity. I hate goodness. I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.”
That’s Winston Smith, in 1984. Why did he say that awful thing? He said it because those were the only words he had- ‘virtue’, ‘goodness’, ‘corrupt’ and every other word were all defined by the Party as meaning nothing more or less than loyalty to the party. All he meant was that he resented the parties ideals- but he has no ability to say that. So, the State had put him in a position where he had to make himself sound like Darth Vader in order to express simple dissent.
So, yes, the word for a person who doesn’t agree that homosexual relationships have the moral equivalence to heterosexual relationships makes them sound like a deranged neurotic, and you use that word because it’s the word you’ve been given to use. But don’t think that isn’t somebody’s design.
One of the reasons The Party in 1984 was so obsessed with controlling the language is because if you dictate the literal meaning of words, you still get to exploit the connotative meaning. So here you are, asking me to choose between these people being uncomfortable, or being full of hatred and bigotry. Why do I have to choose one of those? Well, because that's what the word you're stuck with is suggestive of.
How about this- there's a whole lot of conservatives that think homosexual acts do not have moral equivalence to heterosexual acts. Some are probably uncomfortable with it, some probably aren't, some are full of hate, some aren't, some think in terms of superiority/inferiority, some don't, but at the root none of these emotive responses make any difference, because it's ultimately a political position like any other, held by human beings like any other. We tend to call attention to the emotive content (real or imagined) of a person's political claims when we want to treat those claims in some non-rational way.
In the general population, yes. When I see academic conservatives discuss homosexuality, religion comes up less than half the time- and yes they still condemn it.
[quote=“Uccisore”
I’m on board with you here.[/quote]
Cool. I’m making the same point about homosexuality as I am about race and gender. How many conservatives are racist, sexist, or bigoted against gays really depends on who’s definition of the terms you’re using. From my perspective, I’m so used to seeing these terms used as clubs for the left to bludgeon ideas they don’t like that I really don’t evaluate conservatives in that way because they are dead terms to me. If they aren’t advocating violence, “Is this bigoted” isn’t a question I raise to myself when evaluating their ideas.
For my own part, I consider homosexuality to one sexual fetish among others. It is fundamentally no different to me than people who like to pee on each other, or dress up in costumes, or spank/whip each other, people who are into feet, chubby chasers or whatever. I don’t see why they need to be bothered by anybody else, but I also don’t see why saying “lol, gross” when exposed to one is cause for sensitivity training, job loss, or hate crime legislation. I think the idea that individuals and institutions are doing something evil when they try to enforce sexual mores in civil society is going to come back to bite us in the ass, hard.
So some will call me a bigot because I equate gay sex with piss play and chubby chasing, some will call me accepting because I think piss-players, chubby chasers, and fags should be left alone to do what they do in private, and I couldn’t care less because the measuring stick of “Are your views tolerant enough” has no worth to me.
I don't know what the significance of 'reverse racism' is. What I mean is that the hobby of thinking the race you belong to deserves more than the others, is better than the others, and should work towards it's own gain at the expense of others is primarily a leftist phenomenon and always has been.
[/quote]
Or that the left shit on whites more than any other race?
[/quote]
La Raza and the Black Panthers are leftist groups that shit on whites, sure. But there are leftist groups that shit on Jews, too, and back when eugenics programs to advance the white race and weed out the ‘dumb negroes’ was the hot topic, that was a progressive movement too. Racial hygiene got it’s start as a lefty thing.
Eric, I don’t know if you’re going to respond to this (which is fine), but I’m going to respond to you nonetheless…
This is somewhat cryptic but I think I get it.
This is somewhat cryptic but I think I get it.
[size=50](sorry, bad joke 
)[/size]
It just feels like it works. The only kind of proof I can offer you is to invite you to come live in Canada for a few years. My experience is that life works here. I don’t feel “unfree”. I suppose I could dig up a few articles through google as another form of proof, but I’m in no rush to do that (so you’ll have to wait), and besides, I could probably find them despite that the truth may be that socialism doesn’t work. You’d probably dismiss them as some kind of liberal propaganda with made-up statistics and fraudulent claims. You probably wouldn’t be wrong with many of them. This is the whole reason why I griped earlier about the contamination of the information pool, and why I put far more weight on immediate experience (like what life is like in Canada) than on a pattern of pixels on my computer screen.
Yet I don’t hear you advocating for the privatization of roads and education. I can see how it would be done, however. You could have a private corporation that builds roads and charges a fee to anyone who wants to use them. If that’s a pain in the ass, its customers could setup accounts with them and pay a monthly bill, like we do with utilities or internet service, which allows them to use all the roads the company builds and maintains. According to you, that would be better; so why do you say we need it to be a “base level amount” that the government flips the bill for (with our tax dollars, admittedly)?
How 'bout law enforcement? A burglar breaks into your home. You catch him in the act. You call 911. The police come. They apprehend the thief. Then they flip you a bill for $5000. Is that a better system? Are the poor better off not being able to afford basic protection from crime?
Come on, we’re a little more discerning than that; if a man comes in with a heart attack, we’re not going to put him in line behind the man with back pains. The system does run on a bit of common sense, you know.
I actually have to prove that? What kind of magical world do you live in where cancer gets cured all by itself?
If you’re referring to your predicted charitable aid that springs up in a purely capitalist market, I guess I don’t know how I’m going to prove that to you (I’m not even sure it won’t happen), but it seems like a long-shot pipe dream to me.
Tell you what. This is obviously a burden-of-proof dispute we’re having. The burden falls on whoever’s shoulders wants to convince the other of some point. I’ll forgo trying to convince you that social medical care can alleviate the suffering of the poor who otherwise would not be able to afford it. If you want me to be convinced socialism is suppressing some immense wellspring of charitable efforts good Christians are just so eager to bestow onto the sick and the poor, the burden falls on you.
For the same reason we turn over roads, law enforcement, education, etc. to them in the first place. These are not luxuries that only the rich should be able to get; they are basic necessities that everyone needs. I think health is too.
Genetically modified foods? Sure! If that helps. I’m not sure what fracking has to do with increasing the food supply. Is it used to make more fertile soil?
Right, you’re so altruistic in your world policing.
I read up to here:
…and then stopped reading. Just another example of why nothing you find on the internet can be trusted, and why it’s useless to post links on internet forums. If a world renowned organization like the WHO can’t be trusted, why should I trust this Scott W. Atlas whom I’ve never heard of? Why should I trust anything?!?! We find whatever supports our already settled upon positions and then we link others to it as though it counted as incontestable proof. It’s a game and that’s all it will ever be. This is why I’ll always trust my first-hand experience with things (like what it’s like living in the Canadian system) well before I trust what someone whom I’ve never heard of tells me.
I may pick up Sowell’s book sometimes in the fall (that’s not a promise though). It’ll take me all Winter to read it, but if it’s really 1000+ pages, it may take me several years to finish it (which means I won’t finish it at all). So I certainly will not do my homework before my next post. If that frustrates you, then maybe it’s just as well that you take a break from this thread because all I’m going to do is continue to ask questions and push for reasoned explanations. I guess that makes you angry.
Ucci, I’ll respond to you later.
Ucci, first off I want to thank you for being civil.
I do… but later.
Fair enough, but my point was that I don’t think conservatives have any more of a claim to “morality” than liberals do. Each one thinks that what they’re doing is morally right. This came up as a correction you made to my assessment that conservatives stood for freedom whereas liberals stood for equality. You said it was more like morality vs. equality. I question this since you could say of any group (not just liberals or conservatives) that what they stand for is morality.
So liberals have disavowed the label “morality”, you’re saying (I question how true this is of liberals overall or whether it is more aptly said of a certain strain of liberals; do think Liz would say she isn’t speaking for what she thinks is morally right?). But in any case, I think it’s more useful to question what one group thinks is morally right and state what they stand for in those terms rather than say, flat out, that they stand for morality (for example, conservatives think that minimizing the roll of government in public life is the right thing to do, so what they stand for is the minimization of government in public life). Even if they don’t want the label “morality”, I think in some sense liberals have to believe they’re the good guys, that they’re fighting for the right things. So figure out what they think is the right thing to do, and you’ll have what they stand for.
Just a sec…
Ok, I’m back.
key words: “who donates more conservatives or liberals”
forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2 … f-charity/ ← Study from three universities (so it’s liberally biased, right?) showing that who donates more readily–Republicans or Democrats–depends on the way you phrase the cause of the donation (ex. “supporting working American families following traditions and supporting their communities.” gets more Rep. donations vs. “ensuring the protection of a home to every individual” gets more Dem.).
latimes.com/business/hiltzik … story.html ← direct quote: “The bottom line, according to the MIT study, was that ‘liberals are no more or less generous than conservatives once we adjust for differences in church attendance and income.’”
science20.com/adaptive_compl … servatives ← Michael White questions the stats showing conservatives to be the more frequent charitable donors. He urges us to ask 1) whether this is from more frequent Church going, 2) whether conservatives are richer, and 3) whether it has more to do with conservatives more often being urban-dwellers where there is usually more opportunities to volunteer for a worthy cause (<-- that really is reaching for straws in my opinion).
beliefnet.com/columnists/cas … o-cha.html ← The very study the above link urges us to question. From the site: “In his book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservativism (Basic Books, 2006), Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks’ research for every income group, ‘from poor to middle class to rich.’”
newsmax.com/ThomasSowell/Con … id/451295/ ← Thomas Sowell’s own blog! Reiterates much of what was said above: a 2006 study (probably the same one mentioned above) showing that conservatives donate more money than liberals to charitable causes.
So pretty much the pattern you predicted: a study is done, statistics are publicized, apologists explain it away.
I agree. But keep in mind that just because a liberal pushes for socialist bureaucracies doesn’t mean he/she doesn’t also donate. I can see an argument being made that “I can only donate so much, but much more must be spent on the poor in order to alleviate their suffering by any significant amount. If I can get government to do it, that will have way more of an impact that my few measly dollars going toward some charity.” But if all they’re doing is whining and complaining about the greedy rich hording all the money from the poor, without getting off their asses to do something about it themselves, then there is no moral integrity in that.
I hope you’re right.
Well, I think it seems that way based on what the liberal philosophy is–I would expect certain behavior out of people who believe in those sorts of things–and also a possible misunderstanding of what you and I mean by “liberal” (more on that below). I’m glad there’s at least one other person besides me who understands that at the end of the day, it’s the data, or empiracle experience, that has the final say (now if I could only get untangled from this nightmare of information contamination that I seem to have got stuck in–then I could actually find the data and get some answers I can rest on).
I take this assumption mainly on how liberals present themselves. That and that’s how I find myself fitting into liberalism. I don’t know if you read how my background leads me to be more sympathetic towards liberals:
The key points here are that, starting with my interest in morality, and leading through an interest in the philosophy of freedom (though this is freedom of mind, not political freedom), it has lead me to share with liberals the view that people are human first and American/Canadian/Scottish/Indian/etc. second. All of these together–morality, freedom, humanism–have fostered within me a heartfelt compassion for the suffering of others (and I have practiced it). This was one of my reasons for identifying with liberals, and this probably underlies the assumption that other self-proclaimed liberals are the same.
That and my Canadian background makes me want to question why socialism is so bad. Recall that my experience living in a socialist country isn’t so horrible, so I fail to see why it’s such a bad idea and why liberals are so wrong to propose it.
In sum, I’ve been carrying this image of liberals as people who feel compassion for the less fortunate and believe that implementing socialist programs are a viable way of alleviating their suffering. With an imagine like that, it’s hard to believe liberals aren’t exemplars of morality.
Well, this could be one reason for our misunderstanding. The sense in which Canada is socialist is not in the sense that it wants to rob from the rich and give to the poor (except maybe in the sense of taking tax dollars, but everyone pays taxes), but to establish that safety net only. This also hints at the kinds of “liberals” I had in mind (as described above) and the kind you seem to have. If you’re talking about the “liberals” who are basically just grumpy at the rich and powerful for not sharing some of their riches and power with them, then that’s different from what I had in mind. And I know the type–the whiners and complainers, the cynics, the hippies who think all CEOs and politicians are evil, right? I can see both why they would be disliked by a great many–not just conservatives and capitalists–and also why they would not be suitable examplars of moral people (if anything, they want others to serve them rather than to serve others).
I would urge you to reconsider how you came to this image of liberals, though. I have little doubt that these are the kinds of liberals you’re used to engaging with, but I get the feeling you’ve been jaded. It doesn’t seem realistic to me that all liberals are of this sort. I don’t see why, for example, a liberal who believes that racism in the work force should be fought would have to also believe that we ought to rob from the rich in order to feed the poor, or why a liberal who wants to try certain socialist programs would necessarily disavow morality because it’s all relative. Unless they’re all part of a Borg network, I would think the very loose connection between these ideas and values means that you’re going to get liberals of all kinds, some who believe what you say liberals believe, but many who don’t. I may be wrong, but I think you’re remembering the worst of the liberals you’ve encountered and those memories stick out in your mind as examples of the typical liberal.
Good!
Okay, then we agree.
Well… it became what I meant to say. It started with this:
^^ I Think what I meant to say here is that I’m offering a cognitive tool, an attitude, that I think would be a good way for groups to deal with their extremists (assuming they think their extremists are doing more damage to their group than good). But I guess sometimes certain groups don’t feel like the extremists among them are a problem. In that case, it becomes a question of your own moral integrity (if you call yourself a moderate), which I didn’t feel like touching, or you could use it to present a positive public image for yourself. In any case, it was a take-it-or-leave-it offer.
Yes, I get it. We could go back and forth like this all day, but I think we both get the point the other is making.
I’m asking if you think there’s any hope that the differences between conservatives and liberals can be resolved through reason and mutually beneficial arrangements. Sounds like no. Add to this that I now understand what you mean by “liberal” to be somewhat different from what I understood, and these liberals–who only seem bitter at the rich and powerful–not only seem to be at odds with the conservatives’ most fundamental principles and values, but at the American way of life itself.
My guess is that the intent was to link the prejudice against gays with fear–and it’s a very common tactic–to link aggression and hatred with fear; it makes the offender seem less threatening, and its a way of cutting the offender down to size.
My aim here is to dispell the racist, sexist, gay-hating stereotype that’s stuck to conservatism–I simply don’t believe this stereotype accurately portrays the bulk of conservatives any more than I believe the anti-morality, wealth-hating stereotype of the angry liberal accurately portrays the bulk of liberals. I was hoping you could confirm this. You seemed to have no problem dispelling the racism and sexism myth but became troubled when it came to homophobia (<-- I’m just going to use that term if you don’t mind), so I dug a little deeper.
I also brought up religion because I can see how homophobia might be rooted in the more intense religiosity of the conservative, although I did question why sexism wouldn’t also be so rooted… until I realized: unlike being a female, homosexuality is considered a sin. The sense in which the Bible is considered sexist is that it puts women in their place, but just being gay is a sin according to the Bible.
Are you sure you don’t mean “class”?
Lets try videos to explain better, this covers what we are talking about, and is much funnier.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0-oVMAhq6s[/youtube]
I don’t know that it is the Michael Moore… but the question/answer is amazing. (This is also why I fell in love with economics. It isn’t simple and it is all about thinking.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdyKAIhLdNs[/youtube]
Ah, Friedman. Gotta love what he did to Argentina. None of this in secret, teach their secret police how to torture effectively. Just destroy the economy. I think right now they are still trying to save Argentina from bankruptcy. If you pull back the camera you can see Friendman’s ghost at the top of the slide. He was so excited. No democracy to get in the way of his ‘reforms’.
So, when almost every other human being talks about Milton Friedman’s connection to a South American country, it’s to point out that his ideas rescued Chile from socialist bullshit and turned it into the hub of South American wealth and one of the freest markets on Earth. In fact, it’s comparatively hard to find any reference to Friedman having anything to do with Argentina at all. It’s weird that you’d go right to Argentina, without even a nod to Chile. Well, maybe ‘weird’ isn’t the word.
I disagree, but even so, that wasn't my point. My point was that libertarians are concerned with how the left is ruining things economically and in terms of freedoms, and conservatives are concerned with how the left is ruining things in terms of virtue. Do leftists make moral statements in defense of their actions? Sometimes. So does Skeletor. I don't see what the significance is.
Maybe, but only one constantly disavows the existence of such a thing as ‘morally right’ in the name of their cause. It would be consistent with my views of the left to agree that they deny the existence of moral truth at the same time as they make claims to having it, so I won’t belabor the point.
I’m not going to comment on a particular person, but what I think of most leftists is that they will claim that morals are subjective and that there is no absolute right or wrong when it suits their argument, and will claim that what they want to do in society is grounded in absolute moral obligations when THAT suits their argument. It’s just a particular cognitive dissonance that tends to crop up among them.
What you won’t find is any data supporting the stereotype that liberals are the giving ones more concerned with helping the poor, and that conservatives are stingy and uncharitable. Even the apologists trying to explain the data away are claiming that liberals and conservatives are equally generous.
Sure. But what we’re talking about here is the (common) perception that you expressed that liberals are the ones that care about helping the poor. In terms of actually helping the poor, either conservatives do it more or they are tied, take your pick. What sets liberals apart is their willingness to pass laws about what other people have to do with their money.
That’s understandable given your background.
Wait, stop right there. We can’t evaluate whether or not the socialists are out to rob from the rich and give to the poor if you’re going to say “Other than through taxation, I mean”. How else are they going to do it?
A safety net is a thing, not an ideology. Conservatives, Socialists, even Libertarians might want some sort of safety net for the poor in the right context, and given the right arguments. I still maintain that something like unemployment insurance isn't a triumph of socialism. Maybe if you could show me that self-ascribed socialists were the ones who brought that about in your country, and people voted for these things in open support of socialism, that would be one thing. I didn't have the impression that socialism was much more popular up there than it is down here, at least in name.
And Marx and Foucalt and Rawls and Marcuse and pretty much every other big name that forms the academic foundations for the left’s ideas on social justice. It’s more prevalent than you think, and it’s not a simple matter of dislike. What’s important here is that even if some particular leftist doesn’t feel emotional resentment towards the rich, he may be unknowingly advocating policies that were birthed from that resentment, and will thus not be effective at achieving what he thinks they will.
So you don’t think leftists see leftist politicians and wealthy leftists as moral exemplars, then? I have never heard anything but praise for Steve Jobs from the left.
I came to this image of liberals by going into tremendous financial debt getting a degree in their political and philosophical theories. There’s a reason why I’m able to back up everything I claim with data- I’m not basing my views of liberalism on what the cashier at Whole Foods says.
What difference does that make? I'll grant that there's tons of leftists out there that do and believe whatever you want to claim that they do and believe, if you'll agree with me that they aren't vocal or influential enough to factor into the equation of the effects the left has on society.
Or why a person who believes the world is only 6,000 years old would necessarily believe that it was created by an Omnipotent being, or why a person who believes the 2nd Amendment ought to be protected would be a fan of small Government. The beliefs don't have any logically necessary connection, but nevertheless, the facts of history that brought these ideas to the fore connect them. Sure, there's an alternate universe in which something very much like socialism is created by a Christian monk who grounds it on an absolutist moral framework. But the universe in which we live is the one where we got Marx. So yes, if somebody advocates socialist programs, there's a very good reason to assume they are a moral relativist, for the exact same reason that if somebody advocates that evolution is false, they are a Christian.
Sure. In the end there are people that believe all kinds of crazy shit. Take any combination of positions on any number of issues, and there is somebody who believes that combination. So you aren't wrong. But progressivISM is an ideology that claims certain things for certain reasons, and those claims can be criticized. The existence of this or that person who claims to be a leftist but supports gun rights or lowering taxes doesn't impact those criticisms.
I guess I'm not really sure what that means. When you say their differences can be resolved, do you mean that all the liberals become conservatives, or all the conservatives become liberals, or that all of both will become some new thing? Yeah, that could happen. Do you mean that they could come to some consensus about how things ought to be run, while maintaining their ideological differences? I'd argue that that already [i]has[/i] happened, which is why partisanship is expressed through debates and not civil wars.
Let me give you an example that happened here on these forums. Left vs Right, the argument is over gun ownership rights in the U.S. The conservative wants to leave things as they are- where 'as they are' means a mixture of some gun ownership rights, and laws passed by leftists in the past that restrict it. The leftist wants to pass some more laws to further restrict gun ownership. If the liberal gets what he wants and there are more restrictions, then 10 years from now a new group of leftists will push for some new restrictions. If the conservative gets what he wants, then 10 years from now a new group of leftists will push for the same restrictions that were defeated this time.
So where’s your ‘mutually beneficial arrangement’ or resolution in that scenario? Why isn’t the way everything is now- and not just gun rights, but EVERYTHING- already the resolution? There’s some stuff in society that is the way the left wants it, and some other stuff that is the way the right wants it. SO let’s all agree to never change anything ever again, and there- both sides win, and are at peace with each other.
Well, clearly that won’t happen. Some people want to change some things, and that’s never going to stop being the case. That’s why, to me, there’s never going to be a ‘resolution’ to our ‘differences’. Nobody gave a shit about gay rights 40 years ago. 40 years from now the left and the right (or whomever) will be arguing over some super duper important shit that nobody cares about now.
Maybe an example would be helpful- can you think of an historical example of the type of resolution you’re asking about, so I can decide whether or not it’s possible between conservatives and liberals?
All I would add to that is that the liberals I have a problem with are the ones that are closer to the real historical roots of the ideology.
My points about racism, sexism, and homophobia are the same point. Conservatism is absolutely chock full of ideas that the left would use those terms to describe. You seem to be with me that sexism and racism are words that are used as weapons out of proportion to reality, and that just because someone tries to tactically discredit a position by calling it racist or sexist doesn’t mean they really are that way in any useful sense. You seem to be hung up on agreeing that homophobia is just the same. The reason why I distinguish homophobia as a word from sexism and racism is that “sexism” and “racism” are words that describe real things, but those words are abused for political ends. “Homophobia”, by contrast, was invented from the start as a political weapon, and is used like “racism” and “sexism” are, without having the benefit of a politically neutral application. It was simply decided that an effective tactic in advancing gay rights would be to describe people who didn’t support those rights as being mentally ill.
SO- there are lots and lots of conservatives who don’t support gay marriage, and who don’t think homosexual acts are morally equivalent to heterosexual acts. People who think this way are much more likely to be conservative than they are to be liberal. You’re just going to have to decide for yourself if such attitudes constitute this “homophobia” thing or not, and whether or not I’ve confirmed or disconfirmed the stereotype.
No, I meant to say race, but it’s true of class as well.
latimes.com/business/hiltzik … story.html
Cites a more recent study (2013) done at MIT that debunks the study the conservative media have been gloating over since 2010.
The important point here is not that one side gives more than the other (which supposedly isn’t true), but that one’s political inclinations and affiliations really don’t have much if anything to do with how much they give to charity.
So who is more caring or concerned about others? We can look at the studies, which unsurprisingly provide conflicting information and statistics, which both sides will cherry pick from and spin as they like (what has been done in this thread for example). Or we can go on what people actually think and write and say and believe …
Yeah, why point out the dark side of a historical figure’s legacy when it’s so much easier just to venerate and worship without regard for the things they did wrong? Especially when said figure is an American icon whose ideas support your own?
The problem with this theory is that i, and i’m sure most other run-of-the-mill liberal Americans, don’t have heroes of political thought - i have artistic heroes, literary heroes, etc. - but i haven’t read most of the leftist thinkers you cite - i’ve never read more than a paragraph or two of Marx when he gets cited by someone else, i don’t know a thing about Rawls, and Foucalt, as far as i have read him, was far more concerned with issues of stigma and power than with anything to do with economics or capitalism. Point being: My politics are a result far more of my personal lived experience and have little to do with the roots of liberal ideology. Fact is, i don’t bother trying to be an ideological purist, and i’m sure the majority of liberals nowadays are the same, ideological purity is more of a conservative endeavor than a liberal one. Do i dislike rich people? Not on principle. Most of my family is relatively wealthy and i don’t dislike them for it. And i’m not jealous of people in 50,000 dollar cars or million dollar houses, because i don’t want those things, though i admit i do find the excess to be mildly disgusting, so yeah, there’s some disgust there, if that’s what you mean by “resentment”.
No, that was a great joke.
You do see the problem with this, right?
Humans survive in any environment. I bet if you asked many of the higher level North Koreans they might say much of the same things.
Many roads, more so every year in Colorado, follow this exact policy. But, the public roads suck, more of the money goes to bureaucracy than to building and maintaining the roads. Further, we haven’t seen any innovation (with the exception of the solar panel roads, maybe) in the road technology. We might have seen much, much more or even the solar panel roads much sooner, etc if they had been privatized. But, mostly we leave it to the government because it is not that difficult to do… And they still fuck it up pretty badly… The difference between roads and medicine is huge, and we need the innovation in medicine more than we need it in roads. Because, peoples lives and lifestyle are so dependent on it. A bad road sucks, but far less die.
Only a fool rely’s on the law enforcement for protection. That is what guns are for… (I am also very pro gun.) Law enforcement can show up after, to take the bad guys to jail, but not much more. Ever been robbed?
And, yes, private security companies are far better at their job than local law enforcement, and they get paid a lot more, because they are better.
So, in our current reality, the poor are worse off because they have to rely on basic protection than the rich.
Yet England just had a huge contriversy over the weight times. There is a reason that when rich people in other countries, including Canada, get sick they come to the US. It is because we have the best health care system on the planet, we just pay for it. But we could lower our standards so that everyone can suffer equally.
You must prove that in your system people fair better than if they seek their own medical care. By transferring medical care into the hands of government, you are not making everyone better, you are transferring the power from those with money to those with connections in that government. Much like a cow, connections are far harder to divide and spend in different places.
Yet it happens every day.
Sweet, though note, I never said Christians alone. This one is that people give to religions more than any other place. Turns out 95.4% of households give to charity.… Should I go on?
But we are not giving health, health is something that has more to do with individual lifestyles, family history and luck. What we are giving is resources to make up for peoples, individual lifestyles, family history and luck. Either in the form of mandated insurance, or, because this is the ultimate goal of Obamacare, health care… But insurance is not healthcare, and neither are health.
Fracking is a drilling method. It lowers the costs of drilling significantly… Some environmentalists are freaking out about it, it’s a Hollywood “issue.”
Yes. Think of it this way. When/If we make the same decisions Canada does, meaning a single payer system and possibly a price ceiling on medicines. It is going to mean, no new medicines, unless there is another resource rich country we can dump the costs on. People are going to suffer.
That means you missed the more important next paragraph:
It’s not only that it is wrong, it is that it was intentionally set up wrong.
I’ve had this thing quoted at me, by a Canadian. He was dating my best friend so I laughed and walked away, so as to not have to insult him… Which was what popped into my head.
That is not what makes me angry, I am not angry. I am frustrated. More with myself than anyone else. I am failing to explain this stuff, as shown by my having to make the same points over and over. To you, to Liz. I don’t expect to convince UPF, but you two seem reasonable. I take that as meaning I don’t understand it well enough. Which as much time as I’ve spent on this, is frustrating…
This is why I’ve posted the video’s, to let someone else “talk” instead.
Ucci, from here on in, please do not consider me a liberal. I do not fit into your narrowly defined pigeonhole. That being said, I do not want to be thrown into the conservative pot either. Seems I have so much more to learn about this mess known as the conservative vs. liberal debate for me to even begin understanding where I stand. It was a mistake for me to even suggest I had left-leaning sentiments (though it couldn’t be helped at the time) and I should have stood on my neutral/centered ground that I original took all along.
Ucci, this was your distinction. You said that capitalism with a limited safety net was acceptable and didn’t count as the kind of Robin-Hood-like socialism that the liberals you hate want to establish. What I’m saying is that when you hear a Canadian talking about the “socialism” of his country, he’s usually talking about just that. If you have a way for us, or Americans, to maintain that safety net without taxation (which the poor are required to pay just as much as the rich), let me hear it. I don’t know anyone here in Canada who wants to put a cap on how much wealth the rich can amass (for an example of how else we can do it)–that has never been a part of our system and no one’s trying to make it so. If there happens to be a few Canadian liberals/socialist who like that the rich are being taxed (despite that the poor are also), it certainly isn’t because of them that it is so (and they don’t represent what most Canadians see in the kind of socialism, if that’s the appropriate word, we have here).
Then I don’t get what a “liberal” is to you. Is a liberal just a Marxist/socialist? In that case, definitely don’t call me a liberal. This is particularly confusing because there are so many other values and ideologies that seem to come along with liberalism (or liberals) that don’t hinge on Marxism: gay marriage rights, women’s rights, anti-discrimination in the work place, anti-gun laws, etc. If you’re going to take an idea like gay marriage rights and link that with Marxism, you’re going to have to jump through quite a few hoops to convince me the link is valid.
A hard thing to understand, is that, lowering taxes often increases tax income. This is what happened to Reagan in the 80’s. He lowered taxes and increased tax income…
Yeah, you guys, no need to involve an actual liberal in the conversation.
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