Correcting my understanding of Liberalism

Great Debates
101

Sorry, didn’t have access to a computer for a few days. It seems the conversation has raced ahead. Trying to play catch up.

But wouldn’t the state government be a lot more equipped to understanding the ground realities of the particulars of the individual circumstances of it’s constituents a lot better than the federal government? Wouldn’t the State governments be “breathing” in the same air as the people in the state that they live with and be a lot more familiar with their gripes and concerns? Wouldn’t the State government be a lot more familiar with the terrain that their people walk in?

102

I would like to conjecture a hypothesis. It is only that.

I feel that you Americans would see your state governments and federal governments very differently if your history had been different. I feel that instead of the United States being a relatively new country, if it had the kind of history that nations that are over a thousand years had, you would view your state governments with a lot more importance than your Federal governments.

The fact seems that your culture, across the United States has not been able to “ferment” long enough. Think of it like good wine or good scotch. The longer it is stored in a certain place undisturbed, the more it gains it’s own unique identity. Certainly the United States does have pockets of unique culture even for a relatively new country. The difference between the North and the South, New Orleans, California, New York, etc, are said to have distinct cultures. And yet, it is not distinct enough, compared to many other older nations.

Take nations in Asia or Africa or even a country like Afghanistan. Or even India. China. Egypt, Iran or Iraq. Israel. And because people have been living in certain land masses for many many centuries, the cultural differences between even villages/tribes, is very dramatic. Different languages, different value systems, different clothes, religions and different taboos.

So in countries like that, State governments play a huge role. The Federal government in nations like that could not possibly be sensitive to the huge level of diversity there is at the state levels in those nations.

If history is any guide, I feel that your State governments will gain more importance in time as the culture in individual States “ferments” and gains their individual unique flavors. And each county in each state will further specialize in having it’s own flavor and color and mood of culture. And at that time you will see the importance of your State governments in a way that you don’t see it right now. Give it a few more hundred years.

103

a) OMG, things would be different if they had happened differently!? You’ve really added something to scholarship on the matter.

b) America’s problem is that different cultural groups haven’t figured out how to perceive their differences as divisive and hate each other enough. If only we could get over this “common identity as Americans” feeling, we’d have it made like China and Iran! Oooookay. Thanks for sharing.

104

Absolutely. Often the federal government will allow states to decide on the specifics of how to spend money that is earmarked for a particular general purpose – highways, or education, for example.

The federal government tends to get involved at the local level for three reasons:

  1. Some local decisions have national impact. Environmental problems tend to ignore state borders, for example.

  2. Some parts of the country are richer than others. But its bad for everyone if the poor states suffer while the rich states don’t. So the federal government provides funding to equalize things a bit.

  3. Some parts of the country are less fair than others. This was particularly true during the civil rights era when it became clear that the state governments of the southern states were themselves part of the institutionalized system of racism that was hurting black citizens. So the federal government intervened on the side of citizens who were being denied their rights by the local authorities.

105

Overwhelmingly more probably is that what little cultural differences exist will be washed away in a tidal wave of capitalism, migration, and global media. How are people in a particular town going to develop a particular style of clothing that they wear and nobody else does, when half the kids who grew up in the town move to the big city, and half the adults living in the town moved there from all over the country, and everybody is paying attention to national or international fashion trends and buying all their clothes from Walmart and Target?

And this is going to intensify in coming decades. People are much more tuned in to the national culture nowadays in 2011 than they were in 1961. In the next 50 years, is the trend toward cospomolitanism going to continue and intensify, or stop and reverse? Which is more likely? I suppose given a global social and economic catastrophe that spells the end of global commerce, we’ll see a return to localism. But global catastrophes like WWI, the Great Depression and WWII didn’t mean a return to localism, they meant migration and globalism. How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Paree?

106

It is obvious that you see culture and identity in only negative terms and don’t see the positive side of having strong roots.

107

Yes, strong roots are certainly doing a world of good in all the nations you named: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East. I’ve really noticed that deep ethnic divisions that go back for thousands of years are super helpful for all those regions. That’s why they are among the world’s most peaceful and prosperous nations! Oh wait! They aren’t! They’re basically all completely fucked!

And Lemur is correct. US culture is now more homogenous that it has ever been, and is growing ever more so. Geographic mobility for native-born citizens in the US is high. With citizens freely mixing among states sharing an importing and hybridizing local culture, the culture of particular states will never become more distinct than it is presently, unless somehow the free mixing of people and information comes to a stop (nuclear apocalypse, giant asteroid, total environmental collapse… I’m not ruling out any options). Like biological forms, culture requires isolation to speciate.

108

There is a positive side to having a strong family. Ethnocultural “roots,” not so much.

109

“We are a Republic, not a Democracy,” is something Republicans like to say because the name of their party contains the word. It has nothing to do with fact or reality. As someone else said, the two things are not mutually exclusive.

I am a die-hard, unaplogetic liberal and I see liberalism as a hedge against a capitalist society. The corporations are not going to regulate themselves. They are not going to abstain from actions which hurt people if they can turn an obscene profit. To the contrary, they will take every profit-making enterprise to the Nth degree with no regard for the consequences to others. In a country where we are free to pursue wealth with no reservations, as the corporations have done so successfully, there must be a powerful advocate for the people. That advocate for the people is the Government and the parties with liberal ideologies. The government is the only entity with the power to take on multinational corporations (although in the social networking age, we see a shifting balance of power in some cases, like with Bank of America).

When a too-big-to-fail financial firm goes broke and needs a multi-billion dollar bailout, a Conservative will tell you, “the things they did weren’t illegal.” And then when you try to pass a law to balance the scale, they scream about the government and regulations.

As for the OP, this guy started a thread on one topic, and then changed it into a diatribe about why America sucks, so I’m not going to bother to address his poorly expressed, broken English thoughts.

110

This.

Although I would replace “balance the scale” with “prevent the same thing from happening again”.

111

You are correct. That would have been a better way to put it.

BTW, this is my last post on this board. I’ve been here all of five days, and I find it so maddening that I’ve decided to bail before I venture into warnings and bans…

See y’all.

112

I hope you reconsider! The maddening Great Debates threads are part of the fun.

113

That’s really disappointing. I only just saw you today for the first time, and I wanted to welcome you to the board.

If you reconsider, may I suggest you play around in MPSIMS, GQ, CS, and IMHO when the ability to control your emotion-driven behavior threatens to break down? This place can be really fun for someone who comes to enjoy himself. Or herself.

114

Inalienable possessions are imbued with affective qualities that are expressions of the value an object has when it is kept by its owners and inherited within the same family or descent group. .. .The primary value of inalienability, however, is expressed through the power these objects have to define who one is in a historical sense. The object acts as a vehicle for bringing past time into the present, so that the histories of ancestors, titles, or mythological events become an intimate part of a person’s present identity. Inalienable possessions both belong to their possessors, and define their possessors’ social belonging. Thus, how they are represented—how they are objectified—is important in defining both persons and the nation to which they belong.

All the above qualities were very important to Native Americans and Native Hawaiians because they had strong roots and a history that went back centuries. Do you deny their right to their culture too? Oh right, that’s right, you immigrant-Americans did deny their right to their culture too, didn’t you? :smack:

And what did you replace their native culture with instead? Oh right, your highly evolved values against their barbaric backward ways. :smack:

I suppose this is the American way. Imposing your ‘brand’ of ideology on others by hook, crook or weapons.

Or as you like to call it: with guns, germs and steel:

After all, what did those Native American and native Hawaiian clowns know huh? They were all just killing each other for centuries and centuries before your enlightened ideologies and philosophies swooped down to save the day. Those savages were just pitting it out like the people you all mentioned in the posts before this one in all those other nations.

:slight_smile: Yup, I suppose the Native Americans and Native Hawiaans were the white man’s burden. And your ancestors have liberated them from their ethnic cultures. You deserve a medal for that.

No, I’m not being sarcastic. Where is there a need for sarcasm, when you take so much pride in cleansing away someone else’s culture and leaving a vacuum where something organic grew?

http://www.barefootsworld.net/seattle.html

No, you deserve a ‘Mahalo’ and a ‘migwe’c.’

And just in case you don’t know what that means, it means ‘Thank you’ in those languages, that are near extinct. Great job!:slight_smile:

115

Or…as George W Bush called it: “Mission Accomplished!” :eek:

116

Shakabroh, what in the world does that have to do with Liberalism?

117

My ancestors walked the Trail of Tears. Don’t lecture me on European treatment of native Americans, foreigner.

118

You’re treated worse than a foreigner, in your own ancestors land. You are kept in a zoo and given enough food and drink so that the “old foreigners” to your land may educate their children about your history. And you are lecturing me?

119

Your knowledge the history of Native Americans and the United States in general is laughably poor.

My kids know where they came from. They also know that the land that was taken from my family in Georgia was worked by black slaves who were owned by my Indian ancestors. My family took their slaves with them to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, then freed them when they joined the Union and fought to preserve the United States from the Confederate rebels. Would you like to know about the throats my family slit in Oklahoma? How they avenged themselves the chiefs who betrayed our people?

American reality is considerably more complicated and nuanced than the cartoon version you’ve picked up. Good guys, bad guys, all mixed together.

120

Yes! Yes! Start with that! :slight_smile: