Fair enough. I wasn’t making an argument, or taking a gratuitous cheap shot in that post. I was trying to answer the OP.
On a personal level, I’m not happy that with the idea of the government set up in opposition against the powerful to protect the powerless.
There’s an assumption in there that is certainly not valid or objective.
The assumption is that the “powerful” one (however that is defined,) is out to get the powerless one, that protection is needed, and one who is powerful must be at fault.
Case in point:
Relatively speaking, I am powerful and my 14 mos. old daughter is powerless. Should the government step in and protect her from me?
In many ways I am more powerful than a mugger in the Port Athority in NYC. In any conflict between the two of us shouldn’t the Government protect that mugger from me?
What about the White Trash starving and illiterate in appalachia. I’m more powerful then most of them. Shouldn’t they be protected from my evil intent?
No, justice needs to be blind.
I actually think my way fits better. You can’t assume corruption and vixtimization from the presense of power de facto and be just.
I don’t know if I’m a perfectly true liberal by this definition, or if this definition is absolutely correct, but the interesting thing is that I can’t see why anyone would be so vehemently against one who believed your points 1-10. I could see disagreement here and there, some modification, but overall it seems so very sensible to me…
Oh well, I cannot take up this argument. I simply MUST get back to my life. There was a reason I mostly disappeared from the Dope for a year, and I’m vividly recalling what it was (looking around at her desk piled high with work).
I trust Elucidator to fight the good fight. Carry on, boys! (Slaps her horse on the ass and rides off into the sunset…) Hiho Silver, awaaaaaaaay!
Boy, it is too late to respond to all the points raised in this thread that I’d like to debate, but let me start with this one. Now, Scylla, I think you are being a bit naive here. Do you not think that when you or Bill Gates walks down the street that you are not a lot safer than you would be otherwise in large part because the government, in the form of the police, is protecting you from those “less powerful” (in an economic sense) people who might try to steal your money or harm your person? This is but one small example.
Everything in this society is stacked against those who are less powerful. So, yes, I think it is the role of government, in part, to protect them from the more powerful. But, I am not naive enough to believe this is what happens most of the time. Most of the time, the government is a tool used by the powerful to advance their own interests. Still, since democratic government is really the only institution in a society by which the less powerful have a chance to gain some redress, I believe it is still better than nothing.
I think this is a problem that comes up again and again in conservative thought…whether it is in discussions of affirmative action, prayer in schools (talking about the non-libertarian conservatives here), etc. There is this bizarre tendency on the part of the powerful to see themselves as somehow repressed and disadvantaged. Good God, folks, get a freaking grip on reality, man! (Sorry, it is getting late and I lose my inhibitions after midnight.)
As for those who talk about the liberal conservative dichotomy in terms of less or more freedom for the individual, let’s talk about freedom! Is one free if one is growing up in such squalor that it is very hard to get a decent education, to find positive role models, etc. to become a productive member of society? Is one free if one bikes down the road in fear of the huge SUVs bearing down on you and filling your lungs with noxious fumes…essentially off-loading the costs of the vehicle choices they have made onto you? Is one free if one is struggling to make ends meet and has to worry about a catastrophic illness plunging them into financial ruin?..You get the picture.
Rights and freedoms inevitably conflict. It is in how these conflicts are resolved (and how different types of rights and freedoms are weighed) that define the differences between the conservative and liberal ideologies.
Great. Now, based on your paraphrasation, please apply it to the “typical” liberal position regarding homosexuals marching in the St. Patrick’s Day parade; and please be specific about which group, gays or the Irish, has historically had it “too good” in this country.
As an aside here - apart from weighing in on the intrinsic merits of this thought, I am so happy to see someone not misusing apostrophes (i.e. “SUV’s”) that praise is warranted. Good show.
Gee, Freedom2, every time I see an intelligent and thoughtful post from you early in a thread, I get my hopes up for a fair dialogue that eschews false dichotomies and misleading rhetoric. And then you post something like the above.
How about this: To liberals and conservatives, individuals exist within the context of their society. To liberals and conservatives, there are valid and accepted situations where society should provide assistance to the disadvantaged. The differences between liberals and conservatives are partially found in the degree to which each ideology expects this assistance to be delivered through collective agreement or through individual choice.
In response to milroyj:
I was thinking specifically of Article 1, Section 8 (regarding “the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”). This section specifies, among other things:[ul][]Regulation of interstate and international commerce[]Establishment of Post Offices and “post roads”[]Patents and copyrights[]Establishment and maintenance of Armed Forces[*](and most importantly) “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers”[/ul]We can also include the operation of Immigration and Naturalization Services, mentioned in Article 1, Section 9.
Conservatives are willing to pay for government services from which we all benefit (i.e. military defense) or have services on a pay-for-service basis (i.e. the post office). The problem with this approach is that some services are meant to benefit only the poor (i.e. welfare, soup kitchens) who by definition can’t pay for it. The conservative solution is to have these services provided by private charities which are funded solely by voluntary private or corporate donations.
And definition of liberal:
Liberals would like to see additional services for the poor provided by the government. This is because the charities are unable to collect enough donations to provide services to everyone. Also, the voluntary nature of private and corporate donations means that there is massive potential for unequal access to these services, or even flat out denial of services. Millionaire John Doe might donate his money to a soup kitchen with the stipulation that it only serve left handed people. Or he and his friends may decide to withold any donations this year, thus ending all the soup kitchens in their area. Thus, the liberals want the government to make contributions to these services madatory, and of sufficient size.
So to summarize:
Conservatives trust the individuals and corporations to voluntarily provide needed services in a fair and equal way.
Liberals trust the government to decide who get services and how much services they get, as well as who pays for it.
Gurd: *Conservatives trust the individuals and corporations to voluntarily provide needed services in a fair and equal way.
Liberals trust the government to decide who get services and how much service they get, as well as who pays for it.*
And anybody who would genuinely “trust” the entities involved to that extent in either case, of course, is an idiot. This is why one-sentence summaries of political philosophies are not usually tremendously useful; they may illustrate the tendencies of important differences, but they can hardly ever avoid being factually erroneous.
(By the way, Pyrrhonist, nice fall-back on long-distance psychoanalysis and mystic prophecy to explain why you feel Hillary Clinton is really a Socialist: she’s a “Closet Socialist” and has a “Socialist soul.” :rolleyes: Oh. Glad you could clear that one up for us. By your standards of political analysis and characterization, GW Bush can be described as a “Closet Oligopolist”. So much easier to label people when you can throw around vaguely sinister generalizations instead of bothering to look up facts, isn’t it!)
I’ll try to answer the question in the OP. It seems that most people who answered are either very confused about the definitions, or very biased towards their personal ideas.
The idealogies of liberal, conservative, libertarian, and authoritarian hinge on two basic factors: personal freedom and macroeconomic freedom. Here is how each of these idealogies feel about these factors …
Liberal
Less Macroeconomic Freedom - Government should be involved in putting controls on big business and the economy (e.g. affirmative action programs, breaking up monopolies, minimum wage, health care programs, etc.)
More Personal Freedom - Government should not be involved in limiting the freedoms of the individual (see under Conservative for opposite examples)
Conservative
More Macroeconomic Freedom - Government should take a “hands off” approach to big business … let things run as they will with no interference.
Less Personal Freedom - Government should be involved in controlling the morals of the individual (e.g. drug laws, prostition laws, anti-gay rights, school prayer, what you should and shouldn’t watch on television, family values, etc.)
Libertarian
More Macroeconomic Freedom
More Personal Freedom
Authoritarian
Less Macroeconomic Freedom
Less Personal Freedom
And this should also answer the other question you posed. Liberals are sometimes branded as Socialists because they believe the government should be more involved in macroeconomic matters. While this doesn’t exactly make them socialists, they do have more socialist tendencies (compared to conservatives). Many people feel that socialism is a dirty word (and some even mistake it for communism), but no government can survive with no socialistic controls whatsoever … even a conservative would agree with that.
As another defining characteristic (and since the term was alluded to earlier), let us consider the modern liberal definition of “crime victim”:
Crime Victim: any member of an oppressed group, who due to poverty and/or racism finds it necessary to commit a crime.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by xenophon41 * How about this: To liberals and conservatives, individuals exist within the context of their society. To liberals and conservatives, there are valid and accepted situations where society should provide assistance to the disadvantaged. The differences between liberals and conservatives are partially found in the degree to which each ideology expects this assistance to be delivered through collective agreement or through individual choice.
This as a limited definition isn’t bad. But conservatives might argue that individuals exist period, not merely within the context of their society.
My point is that neither liberal nor conservative philosophies apply to individuals except within the context of their society. Liberal philosophy in no way subordinates the individual’s needs to those of society as a whole. Rather, liberal philosophy emphasizes the responsibility and influence of each of a society’s members on the actions of that society. Conservative philosophy tends to minimize those responsibilities and influences in favor of each individual’s responsibilities towards their own welfare.
Another difference between liberalism and conservativism is the approach of each toward change and open challenge to existing beliefs, methods and conventions. Conservatives, obviously, are friends of the status quo. Liberals become conservatives when they begin to toe a party line on specific issues instead of examining the effects of policy. The fact that many liberals become apparatchiks to the “more liberal” party accounts for the mistaken impression that liberalism necessitates a dogmatic insistence on “liberal” policies.
I think I agree with the one where it says “conservatives believe in goverment programs for all” whereas liberals believe in goverment programs for all and for some groups.
“Crime Victim: any member of an oppressed group, who due to poverty and/or racism finds it necessary to commit a crime.”
Thats why I’m not a liberal. Because even if you were a victim of poverty and racism and your also a white male suddenly you are no longer a crime victim.
Im also a big fan of the Status quo as almost any change in the short term will be bad. In the long term it might be bad or it might be good with about a 50% chance for each.
So how did we get from things like interstate commerce, post offices, coining money, and the Armed Forces to things like the Endangered Species Act, the National Endowment for the Arts, or Hillary’s (failed, so far) national healthcare plan?
This just illustrates the fact that conservatives generally favor less government, while liberals generally favor more.
True, but I think most liberals have a “there but for the grace of God go I” attitude about it. I don’t mind paying for welfare programs or Medicaid because that way I know they’ll be there should I or my loved ones ever need them.
You might say that conservatives assume that everyone can succeed, and liberals assume that anyone could fail.
My hear bleeds for you, Asmodean. As a white male, you must run up against such horrors and discrimination everyday. I don’t know how you manage to press on under these dire circumstances. Persevere, my friend!
There, are you freakin’ happy now?!? As a white male myself, I have to say that of all the crazy, nutty things I see on this board, the claim that we white males are somehow constantly victimized by some sort of reverse discrimination has got to take the case as just about the nuttiest.
Sure, if the status quo is good for you now, then a change will likely be bad. (Although I guess changes in the status quo such as the skyrocketing ratio of pay for corporate CEOs relative to their lowest paid workers are good…Hey we gotta embrace some change, right?!!)
