Proclaiming Liberalism, and What It Now Means
 

Proclaiming Liberalism, and What It Now Means

Liberalism is so broad that it is very difficult to agree on.

"but liberal intellectuals and writers are doing some soul-searching of their own. " Oxymoron, but anyway, the biggest problem with liberal base is that they never had one. There are very few things that they agree on, other than that they hate Bush.

That might be because we value individual freedoms. It's very hard to get hippies to march, much less goose step.;)

As for conservatives, there's a reason that terms like jingoism and 'dittohead' seem to apply to many members of the 'base'.

The best example of fractionalized liberal base can be seen at any of the WTO protests. It is like a county fair. No one agrees on anything and they all think that their issues are the most important. Although I do not support these issues, issues such as terrorism, gay marriage, immigration, religion seem to unify the conservatives. Just an observation. Terms like "jingoism" and "dittohead"( Rush L's boys and girls) {hardley representative} are as convient to the liberal left as much as the stuff the conservative right spews forth. Partisan Wars: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2354/

Self described conservatives keep telling me their priority is smaller government and fiscal responsibility. Guess that makes Bush a liberal.

No, that makes Bush an authorative capitalist, it isn't just left and right. There are 2 axis (economic and authority) so there are four broad categories that you can fall under. Some add a third axi but is rarely used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

Here are some graphs:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 (Bush would be upper right)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:W...tical-Quiz.svg

Not in this country, it's conservative or liberal and everyone will be plugged into one or the other... or be deported.

In this country, yes.

That doesn't make Bush a liberal though, it just makes him an outcast.

You would be hard pressed to make the President of the US an "outcast", even with ratings lower than mine.

Can I say I hope neo-conservatives become outcasts?

He's an outcast in the same way that a kid being sent to his room full of video games is being punished. Sure he's being shunned, but he still gets to do pretty much what he wanted to do in the first place.

The one idea the neocons have put out that absolutely no one can argue with is that democracies prosper best in the company of other democracies, and prosper ultimately in a world entirely full of democracies. Anybody characterizing this as fascism is either a liar or a liar's dupe.

Note that the article linked to above comments that domestic security depended on promotion of democracy abroad. Gee, that's just what the neocons say.

The people who object to such a fulfillment, of course, have base and sinister motives, owing to a lack of democratic sympathies. If they had the sympathies they should -- merely as human beings, say I -- they wouldn't be kicking up such a fuss about neocons.

So:

Long as you don't mind me telling you that on that score you're full of shit.:right:

Neo-cons lie about wanting smaller, less intrusive government and lower taxes.
For that alone, I want them gone. It is more than enough.
They want a police state, it is all they have tried to do, every time they get a bit of power.
There is NOTHING conservative about BushCo.

The one idea the communists have put out that absolutely no one can argue with is that communist countries prosper best in the company of other communist states, and prosper ultimately in a world entirely full of communism. Anybody characterizing this as fascism is either a liar or a liar's dupe.

And we said Soviets were bad because they had puppet states and were spreading their ideals?

You can't force another country to become democratic, it has to come from within. If they don't it will be a disaster.....like Iraq.

Is that an emotional feeling you have on that issue or do you actually have a citation to support that statement? Just curious.

Is that an emotional feeling you have on that issue or do you actually have a citation to support that statement?:3_eyes:

Patriot Act

Do I have to say anything else? They want peace through control.

The proof is in the pudding?

How has your life personally changed and how have they personally controlled you through enactment of the Patriot Act since it was inacted?

It's called the Patriot Act... Patriot = GOOD.

[/thread]

It doesn't matter, it was an act of control.

We have many acts of control in society. Many, to numerous to count.

Pierce, are you trying to tell me you think communist countries prosper?

Because that's quite the wrong answer. Communist countries are all about organizing the scarcity, not creating the wealth.

Communist countries do not prosper.

I ask this from a deliberate perspective of naiveté, but are there not a finite amount of resources?

Not so much to provoke a lesson in why system A is better/worse than system B, but . . . what is "wealth" anyway?

If there is a finite amount of stuff you can possess, is "wealth" how much more you have than others? Or is it the power to take what you want?

If you simply begin with the first question of what is wealth? you will have to address the subsequent answers within the context of different societies. i.e. wealth in the Sudan is different from wealth in the US is different from wealth in Bolivia. I do believe that you are on to something, in some countries wealth is not always material.

On the present planetary scale, Flint, I'm not sure there is a finite limit. Maybe on a solar-system-wide scale there is, but the matter is not yet tested.

Wealth does not yet appear to be a zero-sum game, so far as I can see. The Club of Rome tried modeling the future of Earth's global economy that way, and nothing they predicted panned out. They thought India would be a starved-out desert by now, et cetera. They seemed not to have reckoned with innovation, admittedly an imponderable.

Well, it is zero for some.

Bad pun! Bad! :p

(Bend over, bend over, space-eh people-eh!)

It's not a zero-sum game because the output of workers converts things that are not valuable into things that are valuable.

The major component of the $300 Intel multi-core microprocessor is less than a penny's worth of sand.

Before internal combustion, all the oil in the M.E. was worthless.

Before the industrial revolution, 50% of the population had to do hard farm labor in order to feed the rest.

Capitalism works better because it maximizes human energy into producing wealth in this way. If something is considered valuable, resources are automatically put into generating it, without anyone's plan or program or signature.

i could never be 100% down with the views of any one group.

I think sometimes I subconsciously include qualifiers, even while ignoring their implications. At any rate, UG sliced right through this one with an enchanted Ocaam's Razor +3.
That's what I get for not questioning assumptions (and I usually spend all day trying to find new ways of doing that!) UT continues... I think, at the bottom of what I'm saying is the nagging fact that you can't eat microchips. Well, you can't eat sand, either, but what I mean is we could "run out" of, say, life-giving fresh water.

In that case, the Middle-East might face the awkward situation of having converted from water-hoarding tribes, to petroleum-hoarding tribes, only to convert back to water-hoarding tribes. Please stop comparing things to other things. As rightful owner of this threadjack, I forbid it.

On an astronomical scale, there is definitely a finite amount of wealth/stuff/whatever. We may be able to keep adding value to sand by making it into chips, and then smashing those chips into sand, and making new chips, etc. But once the sun burns out, our energy source will be gone, and it will be done. It is finite.

Everything they have done and try to do.
Emotion does not enter into it.
My emotional opinion, the government has no business asking for more power, needs no more, the police abuse what they have, so they need no more.
The US has a perfectly good Constitution, we need to return what the neo-cons have stolen from it and the Bill of Rights as it is, hopefully the next president will.
The best way to fight terrorists and those who hate what the US stands for is to remain that which we stand for Free, not a police state, what BushCo & friends want.

No, I am just strongly against the idea of "spreading democracy". If another country wants to become democratic, let them. If they don't, fine. The US hasn't really been sponsors democracies anyways, just puppet states.

It’s a different philosophy so you will get different results. I do not think communism works either because of various reasons.

I agree, we need to pull out of the Middle-East completely, all aid, all military, EVERYTHING... just let em' go to hell.

Almost as soon as "America" came into being, as a shining beacon of freedom, we began supporting Imperialism in neighboring countries. Not Democracy.

Why? Slave revolts. Slave revolts scared our slaveowners. Better to support the Imperial masters than risk insiring our slaves to revolt. So began the oxymoronic journey of our foreign policy.

We've never been in the business of spereading Democracy. We routinely bring about the removal of Democratically elected leaders that stand in the way of our interests.

Exactly, that we spread democracy is a myth.

As much as I would love to disagree with this, it is for the best. Iraq is in the middle of a civil war right and by us staying there, we are only going to extend it and could possibly build tensions which will make it even worse than it is now. Yes, it could easily lead to genocide but what are we going to do to stop it?

I am against isolationism but there is a time when you need to intervene in other countries' affairs and a time when you don't. More times then most the latter is the best in the end.

The only real times I see when military action helps is:

1. When both sides want peace and need help keeping it (Palestine/Israel is getting closer to this….hopefully)
2. When it is a slaughter (Darfur/rest of Africa)

And as an ex-military person I can tell you that the minority of troops support these mis-adventures. We made that mistake in Somalia. We are not the worlds policeman. We don't want to be in Iraq, but we are, not much we can do to change that as soldiers. Being in the middle of a civil war is the last place we want to be and both of your examples are extremes of that. Screw Darfur and screw the Israeli-palestinians conflict.

Define "Neo-con". You are no different than radical conservatives. Us and them is all you can see. "Everything they have done and try to do." is such a vast generalization that it is not worth discussing as a valid point.

There is a difference between Iraq and two groups that actually want to work together for peace (Palestine/Israel wasn’t a great example but they are showing steps of wanting peace even if they aren’t close to being there yet). Iraq is not working for peace so there is nothing we can do there. If two places want peace, but just need help keeping it, America, along with other countries, should step in for the greater good. If things get out of control then leave.

Durfur is different because it is a slaughter. There is nothing the natives can do to stop the genocide in Sudan so higher authorities have to step in. You guys talk tough about everyone’s right to life but do nothing to protect anyone else's when they are asking for help.

Those are your opinions. I can tell you that it is not the job of American's to step into any shit hole. Darfur is a shit hole. That is the problem of Africa, they need to deal with it. The government of Sudan should deal with those issues. What you are saying is double-speak. On the one hand to talk about the US as a "higher authority" and at the same time say we should impose our will on other people because you think the cause is just. Bush thought that sending us to Iraq was just and look where that got us.

Who said anything about "us guys talking tough about everyone's right to life"? Certainly you are not making assumptions about my belief's?[/quote]

This is exactly what we should not do... Our history is littered with countries where we went in with good intentions and pulled out when things got tough only leaving the country in shambles. Maybe that is why people in the know are resistant to pull out of Iraq, I don't know. You don't step in with force and impose your will on others and pull out cause things are suddenly a bigger shite sandwhich for you to swallow... :2cents:

Neo-cons are those who think that they are right and that gives the the right to make others bend to their will, that religion has a place in politics, that the police having more power is a good thing, that saying lower taxes during a campaign but raising them as soon as they are elected is acceptable, that the military is a tool for foreign policy, the federal government is a tool to be used to bully states into doing as the party wants, ignorant stuff like that.
Basically BushCo.
Conservatives believe that the Constitution and Bill Of Rights are good as they are and should be respected, that the people's rights are more important than the police, that lower taxes are better, that State's rights are important and private property should not be stolen by the state.

The problem is that it is as common for me to lable people "liberals" as it is for anyone who has a conservative view on any one issue to be labled as "neo-con". If you look at the available terms on line it really should be narrowed quite a bit more than the things you listed. True "neo-cons" are actually a very small but vocal minority portion of conservatives.

Democrats currently in power are certainly people who "they are right and that gives the the right to make others bend to their will". Happens every day in Congress right now...

Many conservatives believe "that religion has a place in politics" and they are not "neo-cons". (I do not, I am more of a anti-religion state guy).

"the military is a tool for foreign policy"... well unfortunately this is a true statement regardless of one's political leanings. Name a president and I will name a case where the projection of military power was used as a tool of foreign policy. Any one in the last 100 years...

"the federal government is a tool to be used to bully states into doing as the party wants"... this is a common thing that Congress (the Federal Government) does to States all the time. It is unrelated to whom is in power or who is the President. Federal mandates handed out which hold money in check unless the States comply abound.

Yes, they are my opinions but it goes deeper than what we've said. I never said we should go to other countries without that country's consent (I'll go more into that later). If two countries think they need help keeping peace then we should go help them because they can help us later on. You scratch their back and they will scratch ours. The biggest problem is that these "peacekeeping" missions are used much more frequently then needed. Peacekeeping missions should only be used when both groups will work and sacrifice to begin and keep peace. These situations are rare but they do show up.

The second situation is true one-sided genocide, when one group takes complete control of another and starts methodically murdering them. The oppressed group wants help but there is nothing they can do to stop it. Even though this is obviously opinion, I think it is the UN's responsibility (note I didn't say US) to step in and put an end to it.

You don't have to have a higher authority to do either of those. Both times an outside source is asking for help, not where we say they need help.

Please tell me of a historical situation, esp one in the case where the world knows that there is a genocide, and both sides want us to come in and keep peace by force?

"If two countries think they need help keeping peace then we should go help them because they can help us later on." In fact the opposit is more true. One side wants our help and we believe that we should help them because we have current or future interests in the region. This is one aspect of power projection used by every government in the world.

You can't have both sides wanting to stop a genocide. I said that the opressed side is asking for help, not the opressors.

If it is a true peacekeeping mission then there is no room for bias because there will already be an agreed peace that we can not alter. We are just there to keep order (not control both countries) while they settle down. The peacekeeping of what I am saying is much different the peacekeeping that actually occurs today.

I understand your desires... peace keeping of that kind results in a resurgence of the genocide when the peacekeepers leave. It would never happen in a real world situation.

Yeah it can, economic sanctions and all of those can prevent further genocide.

Oh really, would that have worked in Rawanda. They killed about 800,000 people in 4 months as Madam Albright and Senor' Clinton did fucking nothing. The same for the cocksuckers in the UN. Read "Shake Hands with the Devil" or "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families" then give me a hollar... Your ideas are great, just not based on reality or how the world currently functions.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...12243357&itm=1

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...86715107&itm=1

I'll give one of them a read hopefully by the end of the summer, my list is decently long right now. Thanks.

I understand what you are saying and I can see how you are right. If someone really wants to kill another group there is nothing we can do to stop them but not every genocide is on the same level. I can see perfectly how we can not stop it but if a group is as intensive in the genocide, it could possibly be stopped through economic means, but that obviously isn't a guarantee.

I guess the point I am getting at is that unless we throw our military might completely into the fray and force peace we really can't do anything about it. Either way we end up choosing sides to stop the killing. If we do not choose sides we sit in the middle and get blown up by IED's. There is a point of diminishing returns. We, Americans, cannot police or fix the ills of the world and years of hatered through force, and mostly because the people of the US do not have the stomach to take the fight to evil people the way it needs to be done. Sure, we are great at the quick kill, but our society has no stomach for the long haul, socially or economically. I am ok with that, but lets stop putting ourselves into these situations and accept the fact that there are people out there who hate each other and sometimes it is better to let Darwinism work things out and figure out how we are going to deal with the left overs.

Problems in Africa are things that Africans should deal with, problems in the Balkans should be delt with by Europe. Same for the ME. The fact remains that our economy is globally interconnected to many nations and the stability of those countries affects us at home, some tangible, some not so tangible. We have enough problems here at home. Imagine if we spent all the money we have pissed away in Iraq on the immigration issue and sealing up our pourous borders? But guess what? To late for that. Now we have to deal with it.

I would always be in favor for the UN to take care of genocide and peacekeeping over any specific country. That has a different set of problems though.

Yeah, we have internal issues we have to worry about now and they are only getting worse so we should concentrate more of our attention and money on those instead of external affairs that will most likely have the same result. I don't really think this matters anyways since there is no candidate that has a chance of getting elected that I can seriously see pulling us out of Iraq. All of the republicans are pro-war (except Paul but he doesn't have a chance) and for the democrats....Obama I can see but I will not trust him until he proves me wrong. Edwards the same as Obama. Clinton is a joke.

I find that this run for the White House will be similar to 2000 and 2004 in the sense that it will be either a vote for the best of two evils or a "no" vote against one canidate or another. "Out of Iraq" will be the inevitable mantra of the Dems and they will more than likely win on that. The larger question is will who ever eventually pulls us out of Iraq accept responsibility for the eventual genocide.

Get involved! Don't get involved! Invade and fix the problems of the third world! Stay out of other countries business! Save the world! Fuck the World, fix our problems at home! Save the poor, stop the violence! Feed our poor, stop the gang wars! We can't have it both ways...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...wgeight109.xml

It will be blamed on Bush no matter the outcome...

I agree, but there are some republicans that I really don't trust and are way too delusional about the terrorist threat.

Whistle, stomp, clap, cheer, applause.....

Genocide is a crime by a state. Any reason not to punish it by the extirpation of that state? Who weeps if the Khartoum government is seized and hanged en masse?

I see no one has raised his hand.

I will not weep but will still say it is wrong unless done during the war/movement, but after, as retrobution... wrong.

Can I have some of what you smoke?