# Liberal Policy Successes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 26, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242 "2013-08-26T20:39:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/21 "2013-08-26T22:17:59Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > The problem with any list of liberal policy successes is that it’s rare to have something that is either a clear “win” or clear terrible policy. > > Liberals will point to Social Security as a policy success. Conservatives as a failure. > > It’s probably better to have the current SS system we have now to nothing. Maybe. > > But it’s certainly true that the way the current system is set up is so badly designed that it’s laughable. If the system were set up from the beginning to make sense it would have: > > Private accounts from the get go, or at least was self funded and only paid out what it took in from people. > > Invested the money and grew it over time with compounding interest. > > Locked so it couldn’t be raided by lawmakers to pay for other budget items. > > Even defenders of SS lament the fact that it has serious flaws. You seem not to understand why SS was set up the way it was. The conservative approach can be summarized as: Gee whilikers, Grandpa is starving to death, but in 40 years I’ll get a pension so this is a great system. Besides needing to raise the cap so as to improve long term funding, what are these flaws again? ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/22 "2013-08-26T22:20:10Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Manifest Destiny required that land be given away liberally and without regard to the wealth or social standing of the participants. > > So… is that ‘conservative’? Lots of those folks weren’t even citizens; but their children were citizens by birth. Let me introduce you to a little concept I call “a joke”… ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/23 "2013-08-26T22:20:41Z")
The FDIC, which eliminated runs on banks is pretty successful, though it runs into trouble when conservatives deregulate things. Still we had no banks no matter how the conservative’s banker darlings screwed up without controls. Food stamps are another one. We hear conservatives criticizing the increase in food stamp spending. They don’t seem to be saying it is unnecessary, but feeding the hungry appears to be a liberal policy. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/24 "2013-08-26T22:21:52Z")
> [@TheSeaOtter](#): > > Pretty much everything the SEC does - Dominating college football with 7 consecutive BCS Championships is neither liberal nor conservative. 😃 ROLL TIDE! ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/25 "2013-08-26T22:41:34Z")
Not entirely clear-cut, but I’ll call it a liberal idea, as we understand the term today: mandatory vaccination. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/26 "2013-08-26T22:44:54Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > Yes, but it was still a liberal idea. > > (The parties have changed a lot since then) Yes they have. In many ways the old Republican party of Lincoln has swapped political positions with the former Southern Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/27 "2013-08-26T23:07:05Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > -Environmental legislation (ie anti-pollution legislation) and establishment of the EPA Nitpick: That was Nixon. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/28 "2013-08-26T23:21:17Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > And our system is going bankrupt faster while not covering a large portion of the population… > > As for your question: > > -Civil rights legislation > > -Social Security > > -Medicare/Medicaid > > -Environmental legislation (ie anti-pollution legislation) and establishment of the EPA > > -Keynesian economic policies (ie stimulus/spending during times of recession and fiscal restraint in times of prosperity) Medicare/Medicaid are horrible compromises the net effect of which has been the huge rise in medical costs over the past 50 years. A better solution would have been to collect taxes as Medicare does and to give that money back to the poor so they could shop for their own private medical insurance. That was the real problem, that so many people didn’t have medical insurance, not that we needed the government to provide that insurance with inadequate oversight. Hell, single-payer health care would have had a lot better results than the disaster that is Medicare. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/29 "2013-08-27T00:01:55Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Not entirely clear-cut, but I’ll call it a liberal idea, as we understand the term today: mandatory vaccination. I don’t think that one counts as a liberal position. It is primarily an authoritarian position which is a different thread. There are very vocal anti-vaccination groups today and they are almost all on the left side of the political spectrum. I am not saying it applies to all or even most liberals but certain loud groups of liberals get really upset when it comes to anything to do with population health science no matter how little they understand it and it is always quite trendy when it comes to the ones they choose to focus on at any given time. You can’t really apply conservative or liberal labels to such things philosophically. The same thing was true about Prohibition of alcohol. That was a liberal position at one time although you could argue the same thing about repealing it. Legalizing marijuana is a libertarian/liberal position now. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/30 "2013-08-27T00:08:02Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I don’t think that one counts as a liberal position. It is primarily an authoritarian position which is a different thread. Well, this is the problem with this thread (and its conservative counterpart). What is a liberal policy? One advocated for by liberals right now? One that modern-day liberals would have supported if they’d been around when the issue was being decided? Policies opposed, then or now, by conservatives? A leftist policy? Heck if I know. > [@Shagnasty](#): > > There are very vocal anti-vaccination groups today and they are almost all on the left side of the political spectrum. I am not saying it applies to all or even most liberals but certain loud groups of liberals get really upset when it comes to anything to do with population health science no matter how little they understand it. I disagree with you on the “almost all”; plenty of resistance to mandatory vaccination comes from arch-conservative religious groups, and libertarians, who are generally equated with conservatism on our American political spectrum. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/31 "2013-08-27T00:14:44Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > I disagree with you on the “almost all”; plenty of resistance to mandatory vaccination comes from arch-conservative religious groups, and libertarians, who are generally equated with conservatism on our American political spectrum. I don’t know the overall numbers but that is a good point. However, it does underscore the fact that liberal/conservative labels don’t have a fixed set of attributes over time or even at the same time if you break them down into subcategories. Libertarians are generally considered conservatives if you are forced to use only a conservative/liberal dichotomy yet they they hold many current liberal positions strongly. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/32 "2013-08-27T00:20:32Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I don’t know the overall numbers but that is a good point. However, it does underscore the fact that liberal/conservative labels don’t have a fixed set of attributes over time or even at the same time if you break them down into subcategories. Libertarians are generally considered conservatives if you are forced to use only a conservative/liberal dichotomy yet they they hold many current liberal positions strongly. Agreed on all counts. If the OP wants to define what a liberal policy is, it’d be helpful, especially if 19th-century policies are to be included. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/33 "2013-08-27T00:29:47Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Nitpick: That was Nixon. It was a liberal policy idea. Similarly I’d say welfare reform was a conservative idea even if done by Bill Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/34 "2013-08-27T01:16:26Z")
The abolition of child labor. This was once a controversial opinion, and opponents of it made the same arguments that are made today against unions, the minimum wage, environmental protections, labor protections, etc. ‘this will grind industry to a halt’ ‘prices will skyrocket’ etc. It was abolished in 1938 by FDR. What is a liberal policy? My impression is it is a policy designed to promote egalitarianism, transparency and justice within the social, economic and political system even at the expense of an increase in anarchy as a result. My impression is conservatism is an attempt to maintain the existing order w/o addressing the inequalities within the system. At least in theory. Kind of like the J curve. I will say some liberal policies have untoward effects. Busing created racial divisions (not like they didn’t exist before though). Welfare can be abused. By and large a lot of liberal policies have been addressed. Plus when you factor in that most humans are basically decent, most liberal policies will be labeled ‘successful’ after a generation or two. Do a lot of people support the torture of prisoners, abolishing medicare, allowing child labor, ending the minimum wage? Aside from a vocal 10-20% of the population (even of which some of them could be full of shit when push comes to shove), I don’t see it. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/35 "2013-08-27T01:19:49Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Medicare/Medicaid are horrible compromises the net effect of which has been the huge rise in medical costs over the past 50 years. A better solution would have been to collect taxes as Medicare does and to give that money back to the poor so they could shop for their own private medical insurance. That was the real problem, that so many people didn’t have medical insurance, not that we needed the government to provide that insurance with inadequate oversight. > > Hell, single-payer health care would have had a lot better results than the disaster that is Medicare. > Roddy I don’t know if this is a joke or not, but medicare is single payer health care. Also US medical costs didn’t start to skyrocket until the 1980s, 20 years after medicare and medicaid were created. [![](https://epianalysis.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-17-03-31-04-pm1.png) ](https://epianalysis.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-17-03-31-04-pm1.png) US health care was ‘slightly’ more expensive than costs in the rest of the developed world in the 80s, then the costs just kept increasing as rates of medical inflation kept growing faster. My understanding is that the funding mechanism behind our health care isn’t why it is so expensive. Even if we had medicare for all, which could save $300-400 billion a year, we would still have far and away the most expensive health care system on earth. The real reason our system is expensive is because our system isn’t run well. There are tons of inefficiencies large and small within our system, the end result is that an MRI costs 5x more or bypass surgery is twice as expensive. Changing the funding mechanism (public vs private) isn’t going to change that. ---
**Author:** ![IceQube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@IceQube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IceQube)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/36 "2013-08-27T02:59:51Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Agreed on all counts. If the OP wants to define what a liberal policy is, it’d be helpful, especially if 19th-century policies are to be included. Liberal or for the other thread, conservative, at the time. The goal if the threads is to determine whether it was liberal or conservative policies that have advanced us more. It was liberal at the time to support abolitionists. Now it’s assumed if both conservatives and liberals to uphold abolition, if at least publicly. Therefore, policies shall be defined as liberal or conservative given their historical contexts. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/37 "2013-08-27T03:10:30Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Medicare/Medicaid are horrible compromises the net effect of which has been the huge rise in medical costs over the past 50 years. A better solution would have been to collect taxes as Medicare does and to give that money back to the poor so they could shop for their own private medical insurance. That was the real problem, that so many people didn’t have medical insurance, not that we needed the government to provide that insurance with inadequate oversight. > > Hell, single-payer health care would have had a lot better results than the disaster that is Medicare. > Roddy Interesting that you are confused about how Medicare and Medicaid are different. Here is a hint - you don’t have to be poor to be on Medicare. Not to mention that I’m sure insurance companies would be falling all over themselves to insure 85 year olds at affordable rates. My father in law was on a group teachers medical insurance policy up until he hit 95 - and was the only member of the group still alive. Luckily, he could hop onto Medicare with no problems. Think he could find affordable private insurance. Not to mention that pretty much everyone loves Medicare. We do need to jiggle the funding, but it is a success unless you think that nothing the government does is a success by definition. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/38 "2013-08-27T10:58:49Z")
The New Deal The Clinton Budget/Tax plans ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/39 "2013-08-27T11:12:24Z")
Missed the edit window - For that matter (budgeting and taxes), pretty much every Democratic president, relative to the Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242/40 "2013-08-27T11:29:14Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Historical footnote: freeing the slaves was a Republican party initiative. Jesus Fucking Christ. THAT Republican Party is long dead. Yes, at one time the Democratic Party was dominated by southern racists. But in the 1960s, all those southern racists became Republican. Lincoln would not be welcome in todays GOP. Neither would Eisehower, Ford, Dole, or even Reagan. Taking credit for someone whose ideals you abandoned 50 years ago is just plain silly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liberal-policy-successes/667242.md?page=3)