But… but… but… the Democrats are always tax-and-spend! That’s what the Republicans tell me! They wouldn’t lie, would they?
So, massive spending and deficits are bad, right? A President who massively increases the national debt is a bad President by definition?
You are apparently against the bailout. Are you also against the stimulus package? After all, it costs even more.
Regards,
Shodan
I think you cannot make a blanket statement about spending like this without an examination of the times in which they occur. The US government went way into debt during WWII but I doubt anyone would argue it wasn’t necessary.
Whether the bailout is the right thing to do is obviously a subject of much debate. Personally I hate it but think it is the lesser of two evils. Allowing a catastrophic collapse of the economy (more than now with things like rampant deflation, staggering unemployment and so on) that could last a decade or more just does not seem a good solution for anyone.
Of course this can be debated and has been on these Boards but merely trying to apply a label to Obama that he is some kind of typical tax and spend liberal is misleading at the least and arguably disingenuous.
If somewhere down the road the economy is steaming along nicely and Obama then wants to just tax and spend into ever greater deficits then you will have a point.
Where did I say the Republicans were serious about controlling spending and deficits? I carry no brief for the Pubs.
No more than the Democrats, anyway.
Serious question . . . how did “liberal” come to mean borderline command economy/socialism? I’m increasingly seeing self-defined liberals say that their most important issues are redistribution of wealth, government basically controlling big businesses, etc. I think of myself as a liberal because, to me, the word connotes liberty, civil rights, personal freedom, etc. And can someone please explain how liberal = banning guns? 
Missed the edit window: I understand economic “liberal spending” within the context of capitalism, but redistributing wealth and making major, fundamental, day-to-day decisions for businesses is beyond just “liberal”, it’s a whole different kind of system. Economic liberalism, in a capitalist system, says to me things like funding for National Parks, education assistance, reasonable healthcare assistance (not “free” since that doesn’t exist), reasonable wellfare/unemployment assistance, public betterment programs, reasonable arts and sciences funding, etc. I’m ok with all that stuff. I’m not ok with money my parents or grandparents earned literally being taken away from me and given to random people in the interest of “fairness”, and I’m not ok with someone who runs a business being told by the government what s/he can pay him or herself.
'Cuz ya shouldn’t wanna hurt other people, man, we’re, like, ya know, all brothers and sisters in this incredible cosmic journey of life and like Gandhi said it’s bad kharma so we should all just like live in peace all together and share the land. Far out. Don’t Bogart that joint, man.
I think you’re overstating the degree to which liberals want a command economy. But you speak a kernel of truth about how distributive fairness became the concern of liberals.
This is obviously a complicated question. But there is a somewhat natural arc from civil rights to distributive fairness. The definition of liberty as freedom from state interference (so-called negative liberty) is not the only definition. Increasingly, people began to think of liberty as certain positive rights: the ability to feed yourself, live in a house, put clothes on your children, get medical care, etc. FDR’s Third Freedom is a good example of this transition. Another window into this progression in liberal thought is the life ofDr. King. He began focused on first-order questions of state discrimination, but became increasingly convinced that underlying distributive injustice was the real, or at least next, problem.
I’ll confess, I don’t follow this so well. What is the goal? Simply a more mobile population? Encourage people to leave inner cities and ghettos? Why two (not one or more)? I’m guessing by the “bottom quintile” qualifier you are trying to get the lowest performers somewhere where they can succeed, but where are they going to go? What will happen to cities if all of these people leave?
If I am following your line of thought correctly, I might counter that urban poverty has many more factors than simple location. Care to cure my ignorance?
My liberal wish list would include:
[ul]
[li]Healthcare for all- UHC, Single payor, whatever works[/li][li]Separation of church and state-completely[/li][li]Stronger environmental regulation[/li][li]Much more US funded R&D, especially for space, nanotech, biotech, electronics, mass transit and energy projects[/li][li]Greater international cooperation, especially with our neighbors.[/li][li]Greater corporate responsibility, liability and accountability[/li][li]More transparency/efficiency in government: Bill page limits, naming rules, earmark elimination. [/li][li]Less military spending, less unilateral action, more involvement in UN and similar agencies, less international action for our own good, more for the good of others.[/li][li]Government sponsored “educational career training” for 18-22 year olds. Could be a 4 year degree, 2 year degree, vocational school, peace corps, volunteering.[/li][li]Serious population control, eliminate tax credits for having children (no penalty for 1 or 2) and start charging large families an appropriate cost for their higher use of services. Free birth control to all who want it.[/li][li]Change taxes to account for effect of person on the above issues. For instance, smokers/obese pay more taxes to cover higher healthcare costs, get a DUI- pay more taxes for the next 10 years, your company dumped toxic waste at a playground-all involved pay more taxes, you volunteer at the library-take x% off of your tax burden, ect.[/li][/ul]
Most of all it comes down to thinking rationally, realizing that you are part of a community, from streets to global (whether you like it or not), and either being part of the solution or part of the problem. From this line of thought, gay marriage and legal marijuana would flow as freely as water.
Here’s what this Brit would like to see in America:
Same sex marriage.
Abortion fully legalised.
2nd Amendment fully upheld - anyone can own any weapon that they with their family can operate.
Legalisation and unrestricted sale of narcotics to adults. I’m including alcohol.
Universal Health Care.
Withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
A budget surplus leading to the national debt being significantly reduced, and eventually paid off.
Decent funding for schools.
Lawyers who take cases on a contingency basis to be liable for the other party’s costs if they lose.
An end to the Death Penalty.
Full steam ahead with the nuclear and solar power programs.
End INS / Green Card discrimination against Europeans and Britons in particular.
End positive discrimination.
Make America more legally homogeneous.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m actually not pro-gun at all. But . . . it’s a right guaranteed in the constitution. And they’re already here. If they were invented yesterday I’d probably say ban them, but at this point I think banning them would cause more problems than it would solve.
The idea isn’t primarily about economics, though I do think increased mobility would be a net gain for the country’s economy. The purpose of the income qualifier was just that we don’t need to be subsidizing a middle class person’s move–they can afford it on their own.
The idea is that one of the central problems of democracy is preventing the oppression of political minorities without overly restricting the ability of the majority to govern itself. Our federal system–with each state holding onto it’s own area of power–is, in part, a way to achieve this balance between the power of the national majority and the liberty of political minorities. Additionally, federalism allows states to experiment and have vastly divergent policies. I think that’s great. Laboratories of democracy! But both of these principles of federalism–protecting the rights of political minorities and encouraging experimentation–are better served when everyone can change where they live. Alabama wants to restrict second trimester abortion? If that’s what the people of Alabama want, and the Constitution says its OK, then that’s fine. But it is made much more palatable if young women are able to move. Iowa wants to amend its Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage? That’s tragic, but less tragic if no one is forced to live in Iowa. Etc.
The reason I picked two was because I wanted people to be able to move back if they couldn’t succeed in the new state, but for there to be functionally one shot at a new life somewhere else. If a cost analysis showed that this wasn’t that expensive, I’d be happy to increase the number.
This approach is obviously not without its problems which would be pretty analogous to the problems associated with school vouchers (except for the First Amendment problem). If everyone flees from Pennsylvania or one of these other negative growth states, that might hasten the state’s financial collapse. And there’s some risk of balkanization, I suppose. But I think that ultimately mobility–voting with one’s feet–can be a way to empower political minorities without restricting the ability of the majority to govern itself.
I think a lot of this is a mischaracterization of the issues much as those who oppose abortion call abortion rights activists “baby killers”.
Few liberals support a redistribution of wealth ala Robin Hood such that the Feds point a gun at Bill Gates, make him write a check which they distribute to you and me.
More it is about balancing the system out. More money begets more money and power and the ability to lock other people out (mostly in the effort to protect what they have and get even more). More money to schools, better social programs such as day care for poor mothers and so on grant the ability for poor people to work their way out of being poor. Yet this form of social welfare is anathema to conservatives who figure the poor woman should not have had that baby or if she wants better schools for her kids she should work harder to provide it.
Funny thing is that under Democratic presidents the rich actually propser just as well as they do under republican presidents…a bit more IIRC. A growing middle class is a growing economy…they buy more stuff. So (as an example) Mr. Rich Guy may make $1 million/year under a republican regime and pay 25% in taxes so nets $750,000. Under a democratic regime the Democrats fund day care and such by raising taxes to 35%. But now Ms. Poor Mom can actually go work and use her money to buy stuff. Mr. Rich Guy sells more widgets now and makes $1.5 million/year netting him $975,000 for the year. Thing is it just galls Mr. Rich Guy to have to fund Ms. Poor Mom by having a greater percentage of his money taken. Nevermind that he actually makes more money overall this way.
Is that “redistribution of wealth”?
As for “controlling big business” I think people are sick of seeing big business pretty much running the show and making up their own rules as they go along to the detriment of workers and, now, the economy. I do not know that liberals want to “control” big business but they do want to see reasonable restraints and regulations put in to moderate big business more egregious excesses. Given the current state of the economy and what got us here how can anyone argue that big business really knows best, will regulate itself effectively, nothing to worry about?
As for banning guns most liberal strongholds are urban areas where they see guns as a blight rather than a cherished right. Liberals can support the constitution and the 2nd Amendment while having good reason to think the 2nd is read too expansively and is too permissive as written. Yeah, the SCOTUS does not agree currently but that does not wave away a fundamental disagreement on the issue.
That said there are plenty of liberal gun owners. Not least of which is our own current Vice President.
Thank you, Richard Parker and Whack-a-Mole. That gives me a much better understanding (especially the stuff about FDR)-- and I genuinely didn’t get it. I think there are some valid points in what you said, but I also think it sheds some light on how “liberals” got stuck with the prefix “whiny.” I’m not saying conservatives should use it-- as I said, I self-identify as a liberal-- [Chris Rock] I’m just sayin’ I understand!
Sounds like you’re more like a libertarian, or a old-school ‘liberal’ in the pre-WWII sense of the word.
My favorite is ‘Progressivism’, which is usually the biggest misnomer imaginable when one begins to delve deeply into the policy positions therein. It’s about as anti-Progressive as one can imagine. It’s stagnant at best, and regressive at worst.
Dispossessing citizens of their freedom of choice (along with their wealth) and abandoning hope that the past record of innovation in a unfettered free society that has produced our high living standards will continue.
Having the government step in to pick winners and losers in industry. Having the government make choices for us on healthcare, impose massive costs and uncompetitive restrictions on trade and industry in the name of ill-defined environmental goals, restrict the ability to trade freely with dirt-poor workers in 3rd world countries making our shirts and shoes, and focus on dividing a fixed pie up into more equal-sized slices.
That’s usually what passes for ‘Progressivism’.
No, though I thought I was a libertarian for awhile in my late teens, I think all the stuff I mentioned in the post right after the one you quoted would get me kicked right out of that club. Maybe I’m an old-school liberal. Maybe there’s just no one word you could apply to my complicated set of beliefs.
I won’t comment on the contingency, but I will on paying the other party’s cost.
I’m not sure how the legal system works in the UK, but the loser paying would be a disaster here. Let’s say you want to sue a company, I’ll use Walmart as an example. You go out to Lawyer’s are Us and pick out a lawyer. You go to court and face Walmart’s very expensive legal team. Who do you think will win?
Here in America, just having the facts on your side doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win.
What a coincidence - that happens to be Dr Evil’s action plan in his Maniacal Villian’s Guide to Destroying Countries.
I don’t see the sharks with frickin’ *laser beams! *