Definitely. “Democracy” simply refers to whether the leaders are chosen by the people. “Republic” simply refers to whether the leaders are not some sort of monarchy. The United Kingdom is a democracy but not a republic. Syria is a republic but not a democracy. Saudi Arabia is neither. France is both. There’s nothing particularly partisan about these terms.
Right – though in some cases you debate whether a particular country is a republic or a democracy.
There’s a name for those countries that are democratic but not a republic: Constitutional monarchy. Examples are Canada, Japan, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom. In them, while the monarch is nominally in charge, the real power is exercised by a head of government – usually called the Prime Minister – indirectly elected by the people through the parliament, though nominally appointed by the monarch.
In the 18th century there weren’t any constitutional monarchies – though Great Britain was on the way to becoming one – so the founding fathers of the US did not understand that such a model could work. However, in the next century Australia and Canada adopted the UK constitutional monarchy system, because by then it was effective in the UK: Queen Victoria never exercised much real power.
You didn’t present your understanding.
All you did is give a subjective report of a religious person that, apparently, has no idea what Liberalism is.
The best definition of “lilberalism” I know of comes from Adlai Stevenson, who ran against, and lost to, Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.
“A liberal is someone who has second thoughts.”
There are no absolute truths, mistakes are human, we’ll never get all things right, but we’ve got to soldier on, so let’s not condemn each other.
A liberal is someone who lives her life as though Matthew 25:34 to 40 is gospel:
I vigorously oppose the notion that there are “Biblical” solutions that prescribe or proscribe any political position.
Our, that is all of our, interpretations of the Bible lead us to differing ideas about what is best. In the policy debate, therefore, the debate has to be on the merits of the policy, not on competing versions of Biblical truth.
Specifically, Second Stone, I won’t allege that “conservatives” ignore notions of being generous to the poor, the disabled, or the powerless. So don’t quote the Bible to me, rather cite the legislation, and policy. Have some second thoughts!
If you come from a foreign country, what your father means by “liberalism” might be something very different from what it means in American political discourse. What does the word mean where you come from?
shakabroh, as a Christian, your father should be very familiar with the directive from the Christ to “Love thy neighbor.” Seeking social, political, and economic justice for all is a way of following this teaching. Of course, one doesn’t have to be a Christian to see the value of such justice. And one doesn’t have to be a Liberal. But using the term “Compassionate Liberal” would be redundant.
Not all Liberals fit one mold, however, and the same is true of Americans. You might want to be aware that the number of Americans living in poverty is growing.
It’s true that Truman sent military advisors in in 1950, but the first U.S. servicemen were killed in 1959 when President Eisenhower was in office.
Note: It should come as no surprise that I’m none too fond of democrats or modern liberals, which I think have gone precisely the wrong way, towards the statism of the European monarchies. But that’s another question for another time.
A brief bit of history. Both parties, and both wings of American political thought, descend from you’d call Liberals up until the early 20th century. In fact, they’ve sometimes traded the “conservative” and “radical” designations between them. While there are older divisions (which can’t be dismissed, and still remain today), the major division in my view comes from the Social Gospel era of the late 19th century.
In essence, the difference between modern-day “conservative” and “liberals” comes down to a very angry split which began right then. The liberal tends to view society as an instrument and exemplar (or not) of justice and goodness. Thus, any law must be examined for fairness, for its respect to all parties, equality, and so forth. Society must be improved, usually by the hand of a central government. Even today, there’s a strong theme of government improving people’s lives, livelihoods, and even individual persons.
The conservative concept suggests that society is a platform, or even a gameboard if you like. It exists to allow people to do what they will, with government preventing groups from kicking the board.
That said, shakabroth, your father is not entirely incorrect. Modern Liberalism is often deeply concerned with sympathy for the weak, even to the point of excusing their actions.
How about: Modern Conservatism is often deeply concerned with sympathy for the strong, even to the point of excusing their actions.
And what’s up with the “statism of European monarchies”? Monarchies like France, Germany and Italy, say?
You are welcome to your opinions, but I don’t share them. Nor was I responding to anything you posted, I was responding to the OP, which asked about the intersection between Liberalism and Christianity. You request that we ignore the Christianity part of the question and focus on policy. We can do that, but it is for another thread.
Treating others well is the positive that I see in Christianity. Without that portion of the dogma, I would regard the rest as without any appeal. There seem to me to be plenty of people who call themselves Christian who are all for ignoring the poor and the sick rather than helping. I don’t have any understanding of what those people think Christ called on us to do if it wasn’t to help those less fortunate.
And government has the ability to protect the interests of all citizens, not just the property interests of the rich and powerful. With that ability and Christian sensibilities, I see a duty on the part of government to alleviate the negative vicissitudes of life for all of its citizens, not just the wealthy. Christian liberalism is about giving the opportunity for all citizens to be free from war, poverty, ignorance, sickness and crime though the use of government.
I’ll let conservatives say what they are about in their own thread.
I meant exactly that - as in the 19th-century statism, of germany and France in particular. The state is viewed as the agency of modernization, social welfare, and expects compelte obedience in return.
This would be an example of the Social Gospel, which still influences many liberals today. In order to keep things focused, I will not respond directly, (although obviously my political program does not agree with yours). I think it would be wrong to pull all of this away rom the OP.
I have recently been seeing conservative economics as a game of Monopoly. The object of the game is to accumulate the wealth of the other players, forcing them into bankruptcy and out of the game, until only one player remains with all the wealth. Then the game is over.
Is that really the game we want to model our economy on?
Good lord, can you not be polite when I’m trying to answer a serious question in a neutral, or even favorable, tone?
In what way was I impolite?
Is it any worse than modeling our economy after Greece?
Yes.
I agree entirely, Zoe, on a personal level, that we should care for the poor and downtrodden. But Yehushua’s message was never about what kind of laws and social policies we should implement in governments. Its one thing to feed the poor out of your own pocket because you are inspired to follow Him. Its entirely another to take the money out of someone else’s pocket (ultimately by force, if one refuses when the government asks nicely) unless you can find somewhere that Yehushua also condoned theft from those who do not follow his teachings.
When the young wealthy man asked Christ what he must do to enter the Kingdom, and said he had followed all the law, Yehushua told him to give away his wealth to the poor, which saddened the young man, who walked away.
That’s all great. But I missed the part where, as he was walking away, Yehushua told the disciples to go take his wealth from him by force regardless of whether he wanted to give it away to the poor.
I agree that there are reasons other than Christian teachings to find a need to take care of those who cannot care for themselves as well.
I disagree that “Compassionate” is redundant with “liberal” completely. Compassion is a quality many if not most liberals have and I am sure that you have. This by no means makes the definitions the same. And jsut as surely, there are some who agree with liberal ideology except for compassion. I know self-styled liberals who are really focused on how much sex and drugs they can have and do not give a whit for others. And then there are liberals who are compassionate in some areas but not others. For instance, the same liberal might be very compassionate with the question of a black gay jew starving to death but not a white straight Christian starving when he goes bankrupt and becomes homeless. Not many, but some.
Let’s imagine an inventor who would be destined to manufacture a medical device that could save the lives of thousands. Let’s say he has been unsuccessful at finding a financial backer. Let’s say he is trying to save $50,000 so that he can build the prototype himself and prove it works. Let us also presume he has the means to save the $50,000, but no more in a reasonable timeframe.
Now, Mr. Compassionate Liberal comes along and says, “hey look, you have $35,000 saved and there are starving people downtown, so I really must insist that you give me a thousand dollars to pay for feeding these starving people.”
Now, Mr. Inventor has no shortage of compassion, that’s why he’s trying to build his device to begin with. He doesn’t even intend to profit from it, he just wants to save lives. He’s even fed the homeless before. Nevertheless, Mr. Inventor denies Mr. Compassionate Liberal his request.
Now, is it right for Mr. Compassionate Liberal to ignore Mr. Inventor’s rights to put his money to the best uses he sees fit? Shall we then condone Mr. Compassioante Liberal if he returns with a gun to take Mr. Inventor’s cash by force? Can Mr. Compassionate liberal say, “My compassion is superior to your needs to spend your money as you see fit?”
What if the money is taken by force, the inventor only raise $49,000, and the device is never built because he was short the amount Mr. Compassionate Liberal took by force? What if Mr. Compassionate Liberal saved x lives with the money he took from Mr. Inventor and the device which wasn’t built would have saved x+1?
That’s the part about Liberalism I don’t like: the presumption that the compassion the liberals hold is a wiser compassion than others may hold, and that their compassion should therefore be enforced by law and everyone should be subject to this forced compassion; or that only liberals can have compassion to begin with.
Your view seems to be that because Jesus didn’t advocate taking wealth by force that he objected to governmental systems that tax and benefit the non-wealthy. This has a number of problems.
Taxation isn’t force in 99 percent (yes I made that up) of the instances. It is voluntary. Even if it isn’t voluntary, it still is not illegal force. It is entirely legal, and usually moral and ethical provided that the taxation goes to the good of the people. Why must the good of the people stop at munitions and roadways and postal services? Where it stops is a matter of what the people’s representatives decide. Billions are spent yearly to influence what the people’s representatives decide. The US is the only big industrial nation that does not pay for health care as a benefit in exchange for taxation. That is because the representatives have come to that decision. And enormous amounts of money are spent to elect those kinds of representatives.
Jesus didn’t speak on public policy for the most part. The Roman Empire was not the modern nation state. He did say that you have to obey the laws of Caesar by paying your taxes to Caesar. He did not teach that it was improper for Caesar to use those taxes to help the poor. In fact, Caesar and the other rich Romans had a system to feed the poor, it was the patronage system. Jesus is silent about whether this is the model to adopt, or to adopt another, or abolish all, etc.
In this little digression that you have taken us on (but still within the subject of the OP) your argument that Jesus taught to care for the poor, but that doesn’t mean he taught that the government should do it, does not in any respect mean that he would not have. It is pretty clear to me that a government like the US that taxes working people, but not General Electric, owes the taxed people protection from war, famine and storm in proportion to the amounts taxed. The proportion of working people’s income taken by the US as compared to Rome is at least a full order of magnitude. For that we get, in addition to the Legions, public education and food stamps beyond what Rome provided. That simply isn’t enough.
So your compassion is a wiser compassion than mine. Gotcha. What if I can save more lives spending my money my way than you can spending it your way?