In other words, you want to know how to eliminate crime, or stupidity, or “bad things.”
Hey-so has practically everyone throughout history. You’re not alone.
*freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free;*
Me & Bobby McGee.
Three responses to my post so far, and only one actually addressed any of the points I made. Interesting ratio.
First of all, conservatism != Republicanism. I speak from and defend a conservative viewpoint. I am not a Republican and have no desire to attempt to defend the Bush administration.
Just not true. The three examples I gave are freedoms that liberals object to, and I could come up with more.
On the other hand, conservatism does not advocate the powerful ignoring the powerless. Conservative philosophy states that those who are successful have a responsibility to give back to the community. However, conservatism advocates that people should have the freedom to decide how much to give back and in what way it should be used. Liberals want to take away that freedom.
I didn’t say anything like that.
What’s ironic to me is that instead of taking the chance to defend your beliefs, you instead choose to try and discredit mine with some misleading offhand remark.
Yes, I agree the term “fascism” is an overused and often misunderstood term. However, fascism is not marked by close ties between the government and business. A fascist government is apt to nationalize certain key industries, generally in the interest of creating a more stable society. The freedom afforded by capitalism must be restricted, for the public good.
Here’s the definition of fascism from www.m-w.com:
Replace “nation and race” with “the common good” and it seems like a pretty good description of liberalism to me.
So which is it? Is Bush in favor of privatization or close ties between government and business? And I don’t see how the second part of that sentence follows from the first.
But it’s okay to make vast, sweeping statements damning all conservatives? Here are some recent SMDB threads where that is done:
What is with all of the hate for Gray Davis?
Claiming the word “Neocon” is antisemitic is just another Republican lie.
Why do Republicans hate the poor?
So the Neocons had no real evidence of WMD in Iraq.
You may consider my opinions on liberalism an “egregious misreadings of the main currents of liberal thought,” but I would consider it “following liberal thought to its logical conclusion.” That’s something I don’t think many liberals do. They want to create this “perfect” society, but they can’t accept the fact that the only way it could come about would be severly reducing people’s freedom and creating a dictatorial government. As long as we have freedom and democracy, people might make the “wrong” choices or hold the “wrong” opinions.
I’m not ignoring any of that. There is definately a small percentage of the population that start out with an enourmous advantage. There is also a larger percentage of the population that start out at an enormous disadvatage. And then there is the vast majority of us who start out more or less equally, except for some natural variation in characteristics such as intelligence, ambition, athletic ability, etc. True equality of opportunity could only exist in a world where there is no individual varation, i.e., where everyone is exactally the same. Is that the kind of world you want to live in?
I agree it’s a simplified example, but the point is to illustrate that allowing people the freedom to make certain choices can lead to situations that liberals consider unjust.
Whenever I see people protesting genetic engineering, they are usually holding signs that say “No Frankenfoods,” not “We want foods clearly labelled as genetically modified.” “No” generally implies an absolute negative.
I agree that all foods should be clearly marked about their contents. That’s part of a person (or corporation) being responsible for their actions. Being responsibile fo one’s actions is a central tenent of conservative philosophy.
I seriously doubt that it’s solely Republicans who do this. I’m sure there are some Democrats from agricultural states who would have no problem voting for a piece of legislation that would favor a food producer who gave money to their campaign.
We seem to be in agreement on most of your last two paragraphs (except the part about my statements being asinine), so I won’t respond to them except this one point:
Again, I’m not a Republican, and have no interest in trying to defend the policies of the Bush administration. I’m not happy about it, but I don’t see many Democrats opposing it.
It sounds like we would actually agree on a lot of things, except I haven’t been fooled into believing that liberalism is some grand, noble, enlightened belief system while conservatism is reactionary and hateful. Instead, I’ve examined them both rationally and arrived at the conclusion that conservative philosophy respects individual freedom and espouses a societal model that would aid progress, while liberalism doesn’t, to say the least.
If you replace “nation and race” with “the common good”, it ceases to become fascism, because fascism is BUILT upon nationalism and racism-the idea of one race or ethnicity or nation being above all else. “Deutschland Uber Alles”, er something.
Well, first of all, what you perceive to be liberalism’s logical conclusion may not be what liberals themselves envision. You have no monopoly on logic.
You lump “freedom” and “democracy” together, yet ignore the fact that these two concepts are often in tension. I suggest you read the work of John Stuart Mill and absorb his observations on the “tyranny of the majority.” There are times when the majoritarian notion of democracy is actually antithetical to “freedom” of the individual, and vice versa.
Firstly, it is a logical contradiction to say that there is an advantaged group, a disadvantaged group, and a “more or less” equal group. If extremes exist, there is no benchmark “equal” group, by definition. There may be a “middle” group, or an “average” group, but this is not the same thing.
And you make a common error in assuming that notions of equality are tied to notions of sameness. While it is true that people who champion the concept of equality do support a certain levelling, they also recognize the vastly different goals, loves, and ambitions that animate human beings. When you claim that a call for greater equality of opportunity would turn us all into identical automatons, you are doing little more than setting up a straw man.
It may surprise you to know that:
-
protest signs tend to simplify the message, because it’s hard to fit an analytical essay on a 4’x3’ piece of cardboard without the letting being illegible to TV cameras, observers, etc.
-
protest signs don’t always represent every strand of thought on a particular topic.
Perhaps if you read some of the literature on the issue of genetically modified food you would realize that while there are people who oppose it completely, there are also plenty who simply want it to be labelled.
It’s great that you support labelling, but many conservatives don’t.
Having emphasized earlier in your post that conservatives and Republicans are not the same thing, you now make that very same error yourself. I never said that it was Republican politicians only; what i said was “their conservative allies in government.” I’m fully aware that some of the politicians in question are members of the Democratic party. It would behoove you to remember your own advice in future.
So, explain to me how those conservatives who oppose homosexuality or abortion or Islam respect individual freedom. There is a strong traditionalist strain of thought in American conservatism, looking back to intellectuals like Russell Kirk, Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Willmoore Kendall, William F. Buckley Jr., etc., which has tended to adopt a pre-Reformation conservatism that de-emphasizes individual rights in favor of a fixed moral order and absolute values. George Nash’s book The Conservative Intellectual Tradition in America since 1945 traces this line of thought, which still resonates strongly within many sections of the Republican party and the Christian right in America. You may not be a Republican, but most Republicans that i’ve come across seem to label themselves conservatives, so maybe you might enlighten us as to the main differences between the conservative position and the Republican position, as you see it.
You might also address the possible contradiction in a strain of thought whose very name–conservatism–implies opposition to change. How can such a strain of thought “aid progess,” as you claim it does, unless your idea of progress is for things to be more like they used to be? Note that i don’t really think that conservative thought aims to go backwards, and i concede that many conservative thinkers say that they want progress. But the term “conservative” implies that there is something that needs to be conserved. What is it?
And if liberalism is so antithetical to progress, why was it that some of the greatest material and social successes in the United States came about in a period of strong state liberalism, i.e. from the end of WWII through to the late 1970s?
Personally, i don’t believe that liberalism is “some grand, noble, enlightened belief system,” althought the fact that liberalism arose out of the Enlightenment means that the third adjective in your sentence is actually strictly correct. Personally, i’m a leftist and not a liberal. I have a strong libertarian strain, but i do not believe that government is the only impediment to freedom. I think that in the face of increasingly powerful corporations and extra-governmental entities, government can often help us preserve what liberties we have. While i appreciate the thought of classical liberal thinkers like John Locke, Adam Smith, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, and find their works inspiring, i accept that they wrote in times very different from our own, and that we cannot simply map all of their ideas onto the early twenty-first century.
I concede that liberals often try to push their value systems on others. But too often, conservatism (at least as it currently manifests in the United States) does exactly the same thing, and often in a much more regressive and narrow fashion. I’m afraid i don’t see too much “progress” in the conservative program.
No, it’s a pretty good description of communism.
Only your first example has valid premises, IMO, so let’s address that one:
For example, suppose person A chooses to get an education, and eventually gets a well-paying job as a result of this decision. Meanwhile, person B does not choose to get an education and is not able to get a well-paying job. In the liberal mindset, the fact that person A makes more money than person B is an example of economic injustice. The fact that person A and person B had the freedom to choose created the inequality between their situations.
Your conclusion is incorrect. What some liberals would object to is the freedom of a company to pay person B what they think his skills are worth. I have never heard a liberal suggest people shouldn’t have the freedom to make their own educational choices.
And I don’t think you ever will, either. But why let that get in the way? 
:smack:
coax,
your OP lamenting the inability of government to control our behavior is a bit wrong-headed, in my opinion. We don’t do kings in this country. Government is reactive, not proactive for a reason. The missing piece of your puzzle is the preventive side, which relies on the social contract we have between each other as coexisting people.
As citizens of a society, we have an unspoken agreement to put the resources we each posess at the other’s disposal according to an agreed set of protocols. When we fail to honor this fact, we do damage, however small, to the society.
Your OP suggests that you would like to associate freely with whosoever you choose without running afoul of authorities that you respect, and your pot-smoking friends made that more difficult for you to do. But wishing for a hammer-blow from above is not the way to fix this situation. Part of the explicit agreement of American society is that we try to reduce our use of top-down solutions.
The reason we use the term “impaired” to describe a variety of states a person may find themselves in is that such a person has a lesser set of resources to offer the society. A wheelchair-bound person can not offer the leg strength of a walking person, a Down’s syndrome sufferer has reduced mental capacity to offer. We have only within the last few decades come to realize that a slightly lesser ability to contribute does not mean complete inability to contribute, so great is our awareness of an impaired person’s lack of ability to offer the resources of an unimpaired person.
There is a difference, however, in an impairment brought about by forces beyond a person’s control, and those sought out by one. A stoned person can not be counted on. That is the drug-user’s great blindness. By making themselves stupid or crazy or near-comatose with the use of chemicals, they willingly remove themselves during the time of their impairment from the ranks of those who can be called upon by the society.
This would not matter if they lived far away as hermits, but the fact that they live among the rest of us means that the social contract dictates we should also be at their disposal when necessary. I think it is an unconscious awareness of this one-sided situation that causes anti-drug sentiments.
While drug users think they are not hurting anyone, they are in fact hurting, in however small a fashion, the society’s ability to keep itself going during the time they decide to be out of commission.
Far more serious, of course, are your laments about the ability of anyone to commit horrific acts against others before they can be thwarted.
The solution to these situations, however is not greater surveillance of society or more oppressive laws, but greater education. We must not be afraid to admit to ourselves what hurts a free society, and train ourselves and our children to refrain from those actions. Rather than create a restrictive societal framework, we simply raise citizens who do not deliberately harm it.
If our idea of a free society is truly good, and drugs are inherently damaging to it, then this will be apparent to any reasonably intelligent person presented with all the facts of the situation. Appreciation of the benefits of this society plus simple logic would accomplish what a thousands ever more damning laws and practices have failed to do, assuming the position is correct in the first place.
The rapist rapes and the killer kills because, at the time they commit their acts, they believe the results of their acts to be more desirable than the benefits of adherence to the social contract that forbids their commitment. A top-down society might be able to crack down on this more effectively, but at the cost of having an oppressive government. A bottom-up society must make people believe in their hearts that the system works, a much taller order that requires the reasons for the existence of the current structure to be constantly available for re-examination by everyone.
Well, the point I was trying to make was that liberals do not take their beliefs to their logical conclusion.
I’ve often thought of starting a thread here titled “What would the Liberal Utopia be like?” to try to get liberals to explain what they think a perfect society would be like. Of course, I’d get no response because most liberals consider their beliefs to be self-evident. If you ask for explaination, then you’re just ignorant.
No, I didn’t (hence the phrase freedom AND democracy), and an important aspect of conservatism is recognizing this tension. There is a constant balancing act between perserving people’s freedom and maintaining a goverment powerful enough to protect those freedoms. Conservatism advocates a strong system of checks and balances to keep a democratic society from being subject to the whim of the majority.
Liberalism is opposed to checks and balances. Liberals believe that concepts such as “freedom” and “individual rights” are false notions created by the wealthy elite as an excuse to exploit the poor and disenfranchised.
No, it isn’t.
Explain, please? Can’t the extremes be considered exceptional cases?
A matter of semantics, really, but maybe “equal” isn’t the best word. Let’s change that to “average.”
No, I’m following liberal thought through to its logical conclusion. If differences between people require levelling, why would some differences be exempt from this? People like Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan are born with an enourmous amount on inate athletic talent (they also worked hard to be at the top of their game, but they started out at an advantage). Other people have no inate athletic ability, and could never be competative in the world of professional sports. Isn’t that a situation that requires leveling? Aren’t the people who lack athletic talent being denied the equal opportunity to pursue careers in professional sports?
I know it’s not exactally the same, but it’s not totally different either. The fact remains that it’s illogical to believe that we can create a more equal society by treating people unequally.
No it doesn’t surprise me. It might surprise you to know that I am a resonable intelligent and thoughtful human being. It’s a central tenant of liberal thought that anyone who isn’t a liberal must be insane, evil, or ignorant, becuase liberal beliefs are so self-evident. The fact that you are choosing to attack me rather than actually defend your beliefs leads me to believe that you have fallen into this trap.
I’ve read the literature, and arrived at the conclusion that the people who oppose genetically modified foods are irrational luddites.
We’re starting to get into these definitional issues with this and your next comment.
As I explained before, taking responsibility for one’s actions is a central tenent of conservatism. Therefore anyone who opposes labeling is probably not a conservative.
Sorry, my mistake. When you started talking about “conservatives in government” I assumed you meant Republicans, and responded to that.
Again, as I explained, there is no principle of conservatism that would justify opposition to labeling. It would behoove you to read my statements and actually consider them, rather than just writting them off as ignorant because they’re not liberal opinions.
Well, I won’t open the door on the whole abortion debate, but I’d have to agree that people who oppose homosexuality or Islam do not respect individual freedom.
Conservatism is the direct descendant of the “classic liberal” philosophy that came out of the Enlightenment. To fully explain it would take more time than I’m willing to invest right now, but the short version is thus: People have certain inherent rights. To protect these rights, people create Government. Government, being a tool created by the people, has an obligation to do what it can to preserve those rights while at the same time creating a society that is as just and equitable as possible. It’s not an easy task, and there is no absolute correct answer, so society as a whole must strive to be open minded and rational about how and in what way we can improve society without succumbing to the tyranny of special interests.
This notion still lies in the core of Republican beliefs, but the party’s platform has been corrupted by the liberal viewpoint, namely that government exists to engineer a utopian society. A particularily extremist faction (the religious “right”) has co-opted the Republican party and are trying to use it remake society in the way they envision it.
Well, I’m sure you’re aware that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” when applied to political philosophies are anachronistic and have little relation to the standard meanings of the words. Just look at the definition of liberalism (from www.m-w.com):
Liberals don’t believe in any of those things.
Having just said that conservatism doesn’t necessarily mean that there is something to be conserved, you may think it’s a bit contradictory for me to seemingly reverse myself and say that there is something conservatives want to conserve: The principles of conservatism themselves. What conservatives believe is that this way of progressive, enlightened thinking needs to be preserved and practiced, because it’s the only belief system that truely respects people’s rights. We shouldn’t throw it out just because other belief systems, such as Marxism, come along and offer seemingly utopian alternative. We need to examine such beliefs and see what we can learn from them, but not fall into the trap of throwing away proven beliefs.
How come some of the least material and social progress in Eastern Europe came about in a period of strong state liberalism, i.e., from the end of WWII through the early 90’s?
No. Conservatism rose out of the Enlightenment, Liberalism is slightly repackaged Marxism.
I’m not sure what the difference is. Please explain.
I agree.
Again, I agree.
Here I disagree. I view the liberal program as much more reactionary and narrow minded. I do agree that the religious “right” have succeeded in taking much of the progress out of conservatism, but it hasn’t moved to the liberal position.
And I didn’t say that, either. But why let that get in the way? :rolleyes: 
:dubious: ;j 
Your final premises were:
In the liberal mindset, the fact that person A makes more money than person B is an example of economic injustice. The fact that person A and person B had the freedom to choose created the inequality between their situations.
I thought you were implying that what liberals object to is ‘the freedom to choose’ whether to get an education or not. If that’s not the case, then what freedom is being opposed in that example?
Again, I was trying to follow liberal beliefs through to their logical conclusion.
I’m assuming most liberals believe that “economic injustice” exists and is a problem that needs to be fixed. That’s one of the premises of the argument, so if that’s true, then let me know.
The other premise is that the decisions that people make about their careers and/or education contribute in part to their varying economic situations. That’s not to say there aren’t other factors, but given two people of the same socio-economic background, the one who chooses education will generally be better off financially than the one who doesn’t. Agree?
So a person’s freedom to make decisions about their career and education are a factor in determining how well off or not they are economically (the second premise). Since differences in economic status are an injustice that needs to be corrected (the first premise), doesn’t it follow logically that we need to eliminate the choices that allow such differences to come about in order to create a truely fair and equitable society?
So the answer to your question is the freedoms I would expect liberals to oppose are any freedoms that could possibly lead to a difference in people’s economic situations. At least, that is what liberals would be opposed to if their beliefs were at all consistant.
Maybe I’m making a mistake by trying to apply logic to liberal beliefs. But it’s the only way I have of trying to understand what liberals really believe since they continually refuse to explain or defend their views. Whenever I ask for an explaination of a liberal point of view, I get one of three responses:
- Silence, implying that these beliefs are so self-evident they don’t need any explaination or defense.
- Meaningless off-topic dismisals, i.e., “well the republicans blah blah blah”
- Very, very rarely I’ll encounter someone who, when asked to defend a liberal position, instead attacks a conservative position. This seems to imply that they don’t have any good defense for their belief, just a conviction that the other guy is wrong.
Please define “economic injustice”.
You’re confusing liberalism with communism again.
The liberal view is that people deserve a level playing field - equal opportunity, not equal outcome. As long as two people both have the same opportunity to get an education, the system is fine; they’re free to either use that opportunity or pass it up. Making the opportunities more equal is the goal of tuition subsidies, public schools, and so on.
OK, so you defined one of those freedoms as the “freedom to make decisions about their career and education”.
Again, I state that I have never heard a liberal claim or even imply that they oppose such freedom. What I have heard, and is an example of opposing the freedom of the powerful to ignore the powerless, is that companies should not be free to pay employees whatever they want or hire and fire whoever they want.
The consistent mantra you’ll hear is that those who are not in the financial position to take care of themselves, i.e., the powerless, should be assisted by those who are, i.e., the powerful. The most level playing field, IMO, is one where everyone is free to ignore everyone else. When some people are required by law to assist others financially, you have unleveled the playing field, although such requirements in moderation are necessary to stabilize society.
As has been stated in one way or another, half the laws on the books - or more - are a result of one half of society trying to screw over the other half.
Everyone has their pet issues - and the vast majority of people (in my belief) aren’t content to simply live their lives as they wish, and perhaps try to influence others - but they want to force others to conform to their morality, tastes, and pet issues.
When a sizable portion of society agrees on how to screw the other half, a law is written that restricts freedom. Another group of people with another pet issue restrict the freedom of the rest. There are no set groups, as it’s different with every issue - but the net result is that laws keep adding up, and no one is as free as they should be in the end. The cost of them trying to screw the rest of society by imposing their morality is society screwing them.
Unfortunately, people who have a philosophy that makes them realize the value of freedom and don’t try to force other people to conform to their personal taste through law just get screwed.
And the point i was trying to make was that the liberal program, taken to its “logical conclusion,” is not one that would deprive people of every possible freedom, as you so ridiculously assert. You accuse liberals of having an all-or-nothing viewpoint, yet that is exactly the sort of attitude that you display in this thread.
Ah, i see. You are certain you’d get no response, so you don’t bother starting the thread. Nice rationale, if you’re an ostrich. You just keep your head buried in the sand there.
Well, you said “As long as we have freedom and democracy, people might make the ‘wrong’ choices or hold the ‘wrong’ opinions.” Claiming that you recognize the tension between freedom and democracy is one thing, but you make absolutely no attempt to address exactly where the balance should lie. For example, what if 51% of the population wants to increase taxes on the rich to fund social welfare programs? What if the number is 65%? Or 85%? Or 99%? When does individual freedom from excessive government intervention in the economy become less important than the wishes of the majority? Does it ever? Which freedoms are up for democratic revision, and which are “timeless” and unreversible?
This is absolutely ridiculous. While many liberals do inveigh against the wealthy elite, a key liberal argument is that the poor and underprivileged are often deprived of their freedoms and rights by legislation that allows those with more money and power to ride roughshod over them, and that actually gives handouts to the wealthy in the form of corporate welfare. Again, at least the libertarians are consistent in opposing all government handouts, not just those to the poor, which seems to be the conservative position.
On the issue of checks and balances, both liberals and conservatives seem to believe in them when they serve liberal or conservative interests, respectively, but not when they contradict liberal or conservative interests. For example, plenty of conservatives started to doubt the notion of checks and balances during the period of the Warren Supreme Court, arguing that the court was making legislation and not interpreting it. Similarly, many liberals oppose the rulings of the current Rehnquist Supreme Court.
Actually, in this area liberals seem to be more consistent than conservatives. Many liberals argue that the Constitution needs to be interpreted in light of present circumstances, and that it is not simply a “dead” document. Conservatives, on the other hand, call for strict Constitutionalism when liberals are on the bench, but are happy to accept modern interpretations when it’s a conservative doing the interpreting.
Not when there’s such a large segment of poor in the United States. And, as i said, the presence of extremes (large or small) disqualifies the notion of overall equality.
Exactly what i suggested.
Again, you make the mistake of assuming that liberals want everyone to be exactly the same and do exactly the same things. This reductionist argument just makes you look silly. Liberals simply assert that in a country as wealthy as this one, each person should have an expectation of a reasonable minimum standard, including food, shelter, clothing, and a reasonable level of education. Liberals support equality of oppotunity, not equality of outcomes.
Again, you make the common conservative error of calling for equal treatment and pretending that the whole past doesn’t exist, that everyone is magically already on the level playing field and that everyone has the same opportunities for success. I would love a world where unequal taxation, affirmative action, social security etc., were not necessary. I agree that these things are less than perfect solutions to problems of inequality. But arguing that liberal solutions should just be scrapped because a laissez faire doctrine would work better is ahistorical tunnel vision.
Aah, the poor, put-upon conservative. I have not been attacking you; i’ve been attacking your arguments. At no stage have i said that you, or all conservatives, are “insane, evil, or ignorant,” nor did i ever say that you were not a “reasonable intelligent and thoughtful human being,” although your self-abnegating martyrdom in this paragraph is starting to change my mind.
Another non-sequitur. I never made an argument one way or another about GMO food. All i said was that the main liberal position was to call for adequate labelling, not for a total ban.
Well, it’s good to know that you hold the monopoly on defining the term “conservative.” Perhaps you’d be kind enough to inform all those people who oppose labelling and call themselves conservatives that they are using the wrong moniker.
I did read your statements, and i never simply wrote them off; i responded to them by pointing out where you were misreading the liberal position on GM foods. Again, how do you explain all those who call themselves conservatives and who oppose labelling? Are they simply suffering from some sort of cognitive dissonance? Or is it possible that there is more than one strand of conservative thought in America, and that some conservatives might not agree with you on every issue?
What about the issue raised in the OP–the use of recreational drugs?
Corrupted? By an “extemist faction”? It looks to me like the religious right is right at the center of the Republican Party nowdays, not somewhere out on the margins. If anything, it’s the moderate Republicans who are the “extremists” in the Party right now.
Well, if you really think that liberals don’t believe at all in “progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties,” then i’m afraid there’s not much use arguing with you any further. You claim that liberals are blind and that they refuse to look beyond their own narrow world-view, but your narrow and distorted interpretation of the liberal viewpoint is simply laughable. I’m willing to concede that many conservatives believe in issues that liberals find important, and that they simply have different emphases where issues of freedom are concerned, and different ways of solving society’s problems. But, having accused all liberals of simply dismissing the conservative viewpoint, you do exactly the same for the liberal position.
Firstly, you give yourself away by implying that the only belief system that opposes conservatism is Marxism. And you leave no room for the possibility that conservative thinking might actually be trascended by new ways of looking at society. You’re right that we should not throw out the old in an unthinking grasp for the new, but neither should we close our eyes to ways of thinking that might allow us to create a better society. Imagine if the thinkers of the Enlightenment, many of whom were wealthy and privileged, had adopted your “leave it as it is because it’s working for me” approach.
Ah, and now the true colours are flying. If i’m following a debate, and some liberal makes an unreflective and ridiculous comparison between conservatism and Nazism, i tend to think that the person is not very intelligent, because anyone who sees the two things as being the same has very little analytical ability or historical perspective. I tend to think exactly the same of conservatives who compare liberalism directly to Soviet-style authoritarianism. This sort of asinine comment leads me to believe that you’re no longer worth the effort of debate.
Again, you make a shifty rhetorical slide from “economic injustice” to the notion of opposing “any freedoms that could possibly lead to a difference in people’s economic situations.” Correcting economic injustices, and bringing about perfect economic equality, are not the same thing, as a number of other posters have pointed out. This is just another example of your ridiculous conflation of liberalism and communism.
Applying logic–to anything–is something you’ve shown yourself singularly unable to do.
mhendo-
Well, we’ve gone way off topic here, so I don’t think there’s much point in replying, even if there was anything in your response worth replying to.
I think it’s interesting though, that your comments got more and more irrational and insulting as the discussion grew on. In your last post, you claim to not be attacking me, but your post contains several personal attacks. You’ll note that I never sank to that level. You also jump to several unreasonable conclusions and make gross misinterpretations of my comments (i.e., when I used Marxism as an example, you said that I suggested Marxism is the only alternative to conservatism).
You accuse me of having an “all-or-nothing” viewpoint, when I’ve been painfully trying to make the point that I’m extremely open-minded and have consideration for all viewpoints, as any rational person would. On the other hand, liberalism, much like other utopian belief systems, has no tolerance for opposing viewpoints. Your responses would seem to confirm that statement.
In retrospect, I may have been a little extreme and off-the-cuff on some of my remarks, and perhaps gave some not-so-good examples for the sake of making a point. My comments were more directed at nutballs like Michael Moore or Al Franken than your average, run-of-the-mill liberal.
In my defense, it gets very frustrating to have people constantly attacking your belief system, especially when those people don’t seem to understand it or have any interest in trying to understand it.
Just one final comment. I have, in the past, attempted to start many threads critiquing liberalism and asking for explainations of liberal positions. None of these threads ever got any response. Sorry if I’ve given up, but shouting down a well is not a very rewarding activity.
Some people are free to make dumb laws.
Marijuana should be as legal as alchohol.
Unfortunately freedom includes the option of being stupid, hence drunk drivers.
How do we make stupidity illeagal?