Today, liberalism and conservatism are distinguished by a laundry list of issues, only some of which follow the dictionary definition. E.g., a conservative, in comparison to a liberal, favors
– smaller government (i.e., smaller than what the liberal wants)
– lower taxes
– less government transfer payments
– less government regulation
– stronger military
– more use of military power
– more support for Israel
– fewer restrictions on political speech
– fewer restrictions on commercial speech
– more restrictions on arts
– more religion in government
– more belief in America’s goodness
– less support to preferences in favor of underprivileged groups, such as blacks, gays or women
– more opposition to post modernism
– reduction of tort liability suits
– less support for certain interest groups: lawyers, labor unions, education establishment, government workers, AARP
Note that the President has muddled his conservatism to a degree by supporting Ted Kennedy’s education approach, signing Campaign Finance Reform, and espousing the addition of prescription drug coverage to Medicare.
I think conservatism is better than liberalsim today it better meets today’s needs. I think liberalism was better at a time when there was a need for additional government programs and powers. Many excellent programs were enacted. Now the government has become so big and powerful that prudently cutting it back is more desirable.
I do find it odd that “conservative” and “religion” typically go hand in hand, personally, though I guess that falls under the category of “tradition” (“Who, day and night, must scramble for a living…” sorry). However, looking at the definition in the OP, nowadays it seems that a lot of conservatives are favoring “tradition” over “government activism” to ensure that religion or religious icons remain situated in government mentions.
'Course, this just goes to show just how fuzzy the line between “conservative” and “liberal” can be… it’s all a matter of degrees as to what someone thinks is important and what isn’t important. For instance, I typically base my opinions on social issues on “what won’t hurt” - that is, if it won’t hurt anybody, have at it - while I base my opinions on fiscal issues on “what will help,” that is, if it won’t do any good, there’s no reason to spend any money on it. This makes me, technically, socially liberal while remaining fiscally conservative, though I identify myself more with “conservative” than anything else.
Traditional Liberalism entails all of the free-market laissez-faire stuff that current Conservatives are advocates of. I’ll try to do my analysis of the current American political Left and Right, which is perhaps what you were aiming at. (This stuff is all from my experience, and is also painting in broad strokes.)
On transfer payments:
The Left is focused on helping out the needy by giving them what they need. After all, the Left says, teaching someone how to swim while they are drowning is not a very effective tool of saving lives. It is downright immoral in a wealthy society for some of its citizens to go without the basic things necessary for life. The welfare of the citizenry is the government’s responsibility. Thus, a more centralized system of welfare and pensions are good things.
The Right seems to be focused on helping out the needy, as well. In contrast, they seem to be of the opinion that, if you give handouts to everyone with problems, and promise them such help in the future for an indefinite period of time, than there will be no motivation for self-improvement. Why work if the Government will take care of all of my financial problems? Welfare-to-work programs are more desirable than straight welfare, as this helps the individual become a productive member of society, able to make a living on their own. Besides, the Government shouldn’t bring its huge beauracracy and regulations into a sector where private charities do a much better job, and on a local level, where response time is better.
On affirmative action:
The Left looks back at hundreds of years of white, male dominance in the country. With a few notable exceptions, folks typically stay within relatively the same economic bracket as their parents. Minorities especially have been the bulk of an economic underclass, dating even back to slavery. The current power structures of the US make it obnoxiously difficult for minorities to make signifigant advances as a group. Just look at the presidency. Even considering the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and all of its positive changes, every president has been a white male, most of them Christian. This skewed demographic preponderance of white males in positions of power is a symptom of institutional remnants of descrimination. After all, if society were truly race-blind, than the demographics of those in power would mirror the general demographics of the nation. (This is, of course, assuming that ethnicity or gender plays no part in how capable a person is of doing a task. It seems self-evident to the Left that this is so.) Looking at this disparity, it is quite obvious that something needs to be done to level the playing-field and ensure that the positions of power are more evenly balanced to reflect the population as a whole. Affirmative Action is this remedy.
The Right, in general, (I’m not counting the nutcases in these paragraphs,) agrees with the Left that society should do its best to eliminate racism in all forms. A Rightist therefore looks at the recent University of Michigan graduate admissions process (the infamous “points” system) and is flabbergasted that such obvious racism can exist in a public institution. After all, institutions should not descriminate based on race. People should be judged on their merits alone. They should be judged on the things they can control. Why, therefore, should society allow a system that gives extra admissions points to minorities, not for anything that they earned or merited, but simply because of the color of their skin? White (and Asian, if I recall correctly,) students are therefore handicapped from the beginning of the admissions process because of their race. This, and all such affirmative action programs, are putting less-qualified applicants ahead of better-qualified applicants simply because of race. Thus, it is intolerable in a just society.
…and so on.
I really don’t think that, if Liberals and Conservatives were to independently create utopian societies, they would be that different. Both groups believe in the eradication of poverty, the promotion of peace, the best education system possible, the best healthcare possible, jobs for everyone, and good economic growth. Unfortunatly, we live in a world with problems. The only real difference between the Left and Right is in what they believe are the best remedies to the problems, and when to implement those solutions. Roosevelt’s New Deal government programs were unabashedly Leftist. Reagan’s tax cuts were unabashedly conservative. Yet both managed to grow the economy. Neither ideology is correct or incorrect, in a broad sense. They are just different, and perhaps one method is better than another in a specific instance.
Your question phrased another way. Which is better at painting a house? A roller, or a detail brush? You could finish the job with either, and they are different, so one has to be better, right?
Nope. A roller can go quite fast, but it has trouble in the corners and along the edges. A detail brush is very exact, but would take forever to finish. The best solution is to use a little bit of both, depending on the specific situation.
Oh, and to wear my political bias on my sleeve (so as to admit my affiliation at the start to avoid accusations of bias in my writing.) I’m a registered Democrat. I tried to be as nonpartisan as possible. (Partisan musdlinging is something I cannot stand.)
Not to speak for December, but elephant shit smeared on a painting is not ‘art’. It is certainly not the sort of ‘art’ that should be displayed in a publicly supported gallery.
‘Restrictions on Art’ as far as what public monies, in any form, should support. And get rid of, or at least radically restructure, the NEA.
Missing in your arguments is the conservative notion that government is A) dangerous, and B) inefficient.
Your argument sets up a a lot of falsehoods. Let’s look at these statements one by one:
How does this fit in with the modern regulatory state? How does the respect for individual autonomy fit with traditional ‘liberal’ nanny-state laws? Anti-smoking statutes, worker safety regulation, restrictions on the cars you drive, where you live, where you work, how much you can earn, how little you can earn, what safety gear you must have when you ride your bike or drive your car, where you buy your Nikes from, etc. ad nauseum? Now, ‘conservatives’ support some of these, but by and large the modern regulatory state is a construction of liberals.
As for the ‘natural goodness of humans’, clearly liberals don’t believe that. Laissez-faire is an idea that belongs to conservatives. Liberals want thousands of laws to ‘protect’ people from other people. If you believe in both the autonomy of people and in their natural goodness, there is only one institution built on both ideas: The Free Market. Liberals are generally opposed to markets, and conservatives support them.
Protection from arbitrary authority? The government IS arbitrary authority. In a free-market world, if I make a product the only limit on my selling it is whether or not I can convince other free people to buy it. In the modern regulatory state, I have to meet zillions of arbitrary rules set up by authority.
This is a little closer to a ‘classical’ definition of conservatism, but it really confuses cause and effect. Conservatives don’t just want traditional institutions for traditions’ sake. They want them because those institutions better espouse conservative principles than the current ones. Conservatives had no trouble wanting to rip apart ‘traditional institutions’ such as welfare.
And the opposition to ‘sudden change in the established order’ was because the changes in question were towards more liberal values! Again, when the sudden change is a change towards conservative values, conservatives are all for it. Welfare reform, school vouchers, etc. Ayn Rand used to say she wasn’t a conservative - she was a radical for Capitalism.
Modern conservativism does have a ‘traditional values’ component, but that’s not so much in the economic realm. It’s more about family, community, church, etc. A return to what they saw as a ‘better’ way of living.
So let’s redifine the two terms with these ideas in mind:
Liberals: People who believe that government is the main organizing force for society. Markets are not to be trusted, and big government is a force for good. Workers and people organizing together and passing laws to protect the weak, the poor, the stupid from the vagaries of the free market. Society is something that can be managed and modified to ‘improve’ it. (a few years ago, I would have added that liberals believe governments can manage the economy through industrial policy, five year plans, subsidies for desirable businesses and tariffs on undesirable ones, etc. But in this area the free marketers seem to have won the day, and now even most liberals aren’t economic planners in the same way that they are still social planners).
Liberals believe that government can ‘improve’ the market. They see the market as a collection of failures that need to be corrected. Income inequality, resource management, product safety, environmental effects, worker standards - they believe that government should heavily regulate the activities of the market to ‘improve’ it.
Conservatives - They believe that the fundamental organizing institution of the economy is the free market, and the fundamental organizing institutions of society are family, community, and (for religious conservatives) church.
Conservatives are distrustful of government. They believe governments are inefficient. Interventions to ‘improve’ the market wind up distorting it and making it less efficient. They see many intrusions into the market by government as nothing more than arrogance - the belief by government that it is somehow smarter and better than the people who wish to engage in market transactions - and they reject that notion. They see many government social programs as not only being inefficient, but destructive to traditional societal forces that have proven to be very effective. Welfare and Social Security reduce the power of family. Market regulation reduces the need for personal responsibility. Welfare degrades the community. They believe Liberals neglect to consider the side-effects of regulation. They speak of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Fundamentally, conservatives are more willing to trust the free market, and see it as the main organizing force of society. They are more willing to accept ‘market failures’ (and think they are overblown anyway), because they believe that large government ‘solutions’ are often worse than the problem.
Anyway, given all that, I have to say that modern ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ are a mixed bag. They’re more like individual bundles of special interests and constituencies under a common flag, and so the dividing line is a lot more smeared. There are plenty of ‘liberal’ ideas in the modern conservative movement. George Bush, for example, who most liberals see as very conservative, is a promoter of a federal Department of Education and prescription drug benefits for seniors - both of which would have been seen as intolerably liberal ideas by conservatives 20 years ago. In fact, up until the first Bush administration is was a conservative policy position that the Department of Education be disbanded.
And on the other side, it appears to me that liberals are more willing to embrace ‘good government’ management such as balanced budgets. Canada has a budget surplus under a Liberal government. Many liberal governors in the States have been fiscally conservative.
I posted the links because I figured they would be pertinent. And I was right.
As I stated over and over in the Anne Frank thread there is no contradiction between trusting people in general and not trusting all of the individuals. Progressives believe in the goodness of people but that doesn’t mean we are willing to stand by while misguided individuals exploit them. All of these examples fall into the category of distrusting the individual except the seatbelt/helmet laws. It isn’t progressive to protect people from themselves. Even the smoking bans, while it seems to me that they are at least partly motivated by a desire to protect people from themselves, are promoted as an attempt to protect people from the second hand smoke from others.
What does the market have to do with faith in humanity?
Not so. If you don’t believe in markets then you aren’t liberal. I have avoided the term as much as possible because it can cause confusion. As I also note in the linked threads not all leftists are liberals. In fact there is a basic division on the left between the liberals and the socialists. And the disagreement is, you guessed it, over markets. Liberals favor them while socialists do not.
Not so. Democratic government is responsible to the people.
Not so. As I pointed out the rules are not arbitrary if established by a democratic government. Nor is it easy to imagine anyone actually advocating a market without regulation. Once you prevent me from killing you and just taking your stuff then you have introduced regulation.
Not necessarily. Many of us feel that the family is, and should be, the basic organizing force.
Not so. We believe markets and governments are institutions which can be forces for good but we shouldn’t blindly trust that they will be.
Not so. As I have already pointed out, we are regulating the markets and no one, not even the libertarians, is suggesting we stop. We have not only laws against murder, extortion, and the like but also plenty of tariffs, tax subsidies, and other regulatory schemes. These aren’t going away. As for society, we do know that we can improve things. Every governmental action has social consequences. Simply paying attention to those effects is the simplest form of social engineering. The acceptence of homosexuality in the military is an easy example. Once that happens it will be impossible for the conservatives to shove them back in the closet.
I will refrain from misrepresenting the right as Sam Stone has done to the left but I do want to comment on the conservative view of government. The right wing view is that governments should be inefficient. In fact, that view is so strong here in the USA that nearly everyone shares it. Checks and balances are inefficient. The conservative government model is Tejas. It is highly inefficent with its part time legislature where it normally takes 2/3 of the Senate to agree to even consider a piece of legislation and its hyperdivided executive with a weak governor. The progressive model for government is the clean and simple unicameral government of Nebraska.
One last comment is to note the difference between ideologues and politicians. Liberals do believe that Bush is very conservative and do not see his support of education and a prescription drug benefit ( and AIDS money for Africa for that matter ) as evidence that he is not. Instead we tend to think he is just touting those programs in hopes of garnering enough votes to keep his job just as his support of a steel tariff doesn’t mean he is against free markets necessarily. It seems more likely that he did that to win West Virginia. This reminds me of those who doubt the conservativeness of Nixon because of his policies. He was the last president to promise to end poverty, after all. But those were the times he lived in. An ideologue is free to take any stand s/he wishes. Pols have to give folks reasons to vote for them.
Except for certain areas of personal freedom that the conservative believes should be regulated by law, such as making abortion illegal, mandating what sexual positions two consenting adults can use, having it illegal for two consenting adults of the same sex to have sex, and even having it illegal for two adults of the same sex to enter into the marriage contract.
Except for the kinds of speech that the conservative doesn’t like, such as flag burning.
As long as it’s not anti-American, of course.
The conservatives that I hear are just hypocritical and inconsistent. The conservative doesn’t want the government to tell him what he can and can’t do, but he does want the government to tell other people what they can and can’t do, where the “can’t” is anything the conservative disapproves of. The conservative doesn’t want the government involved in the “private” contract between an employer and an employee, telling the employer who he can hire or how much he must pay his employees. But when it comes to the private sexual practices of two consenting adults, the conservative believes it’s the government’s duty to restrict those activities to only what the conservative deams “acceptable.”
The conservative doesn’t want the government putting any restrictions on what kind of contract two consenting adults can enter into, except of course when it comes to the marriage contract in which case we need a Constitutional amendment to forbid two adults of the same sex from making that particular contract.
I personally have some views that would be labeled “conservative” and others that would be labeled “liberal”, but I have more respect for so-called liberals because at least their views are not self-contradictory.
Good point. Liberals certainly tend to favor sexual freedom more than conservatives do.
Flag-buring is a trivial form of speech. I agree that it should be permitted, but it’s extremely rare. OTOH the kind of free speech restrictions contained in Campaign Finance Reform are much more important. They include restrictions and controls on running certain advertisements on TV and in newspapers.
Knowledge is power.
Just the opposite of what you post is true. The inner cities, which tend to vote democratic, are the group with the largest percentage of uninformed. Hence, your assupmtion that people that are not well informed tend to gravitate towards conservatism is dead wrong. The less informed, who are less powerful, tend to rely on government for help - they more often than not vote liberal.
Sam Stone said;
“*Liberals: People who believe that government is the main organizing force for society. Markets are not to be trusted, and big government is a force for good. Workers and people organizing together and passing laws to protect the weak, the poor, the stupid from the vagaries of the free market. *”
Not in the least. Liberals and conservatives are totalitarians. If you want to not be totalitarian, a “third party” is probably the way to go. If you want to be straightjacketed into a narrow, totalitarian worldview, become a liberal or a conservative.
“socially liberal while remaining fiscally conservative”
To subscribe strictly from either column A or B is nothing but
pure assholiness.
BECAUSE BOTH SIDES HAVE ALOT OF BULLSHIT THAT NEEDS SQUEEZING OUT!
As for liberals, they cannot claim moral high ground on free speech.
Quote:
“Conservatives are for freedom of speech except for the kinds of speech that the conservative doesn’t like, such as flag burning.”
I counter that
"Liberals are for freedom of speech except for the kinds of speech that the liberal doesn’t like, such as “name calling (must be PC at all times, espouse conservative ideas while being any kind of educator - see how quick the leftists will be out in protest on campus)
You’re free to speak as long as you say what we like!!”
GET OFF IT - you’re not entitled to an offense-free life! People will say hurtful things. Only you can empower them by reacting to words. Is calling me a dumb cracker somehow worse than calling me a stupid fucking bastard? It’s only as bad as I let it be.
Conservatives don’t get off the hook either:
“We hate nanny laws - don’t tell us to stop smoking or to wear seat-belts or helmets”. Sure, you want to do whatever you want, but you’re not willing to pay extra for the risky behaviour. You’re more likely to die from cancer or a head-trauma but you expect to pay the same as me for insurance. Be willing to register yourself as a risk-taker and pay for the privilege.
And stay out of people’s bedrooms. Half of you holier-than-thou bastards have something on the side anyway and you have the balls to point fingers at those “sinners”? As JC said “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Only true to an extent. This statement becomes less true the greater the level of bureaucracy. As an example, which elected official is responsible for a hypothetical change in OSHA regulations?
I’m sure there are liberals who feel the way that you do but IMO they are a minority. Do you feel that liberals who hold this view are a significant minority of liberals as a whole? A majority?
Conservatives also believe that governments and institutions can be forces for good in the proper context. Government is a tool and just like all tools they work better for some things and worse for others. A large adjustable wrench works great at tightening bolts, poorly as a hammer, and not at all as a screw driver. Some problems government is well suited for (i.e. roads, public education, law enforcement, etc.) and some it is poorly suited for (wealth generation, making people happy, etc.). Conservatives feel that the role of government should be limited to those things it does well (generally speaking) and progressively less involvement in the areas where it doesn’t work as well. The primary reasons why I believe the role of government should be limited to certain, well defined areas are:
Bureaucracies are inefficient. Larger ones generally more so than smaller ones. Governments are the largest bureaucracies known to man. Even small governments are more complex and bureacratic than some of the largest companies in the world.
Government bureaucracies are generally not answerable to the public. Companies are (at the very least by being subject to market forces). Companies and private entities must remain reasonably efficient and productive or they die.
Government is difficult to reform. Ineffective changes are removed slowly (or in some cases, not at all). The effects of mistakes at the government level are experienced for long periods of time and are hard to reverse.
Personal involvement in improving the community is better, generally speaking, than government involvement. The French government, while having a large amount of money budgeted for social programs, has a very low rate of private donations.
Many choices (especially ones which involve complex systems or structures) give rise to side effects which weren’t originally anticipated. The introduction of DDT had the unintended consequence of harming predatory bird populations. Government changes (due to the highly complex systems they modify) have a greater capability of producing unintended consequences than any private entity. Change is inevitable and government must adapt to the shifting circumstances. Changes in government, therefore, must be made with caution and forethought with the potential of negative side effects kept in mind.
[Lumberg]Yeaaaahhh… I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there[/Lumberg]. I know of no conservative who thinks that governments should be inefficient. I know plenty who feel that it is inefficient due to it’s very structure. IMO should has nothing to do with it. Governments are the most effective available solution in some areas and the least effective in others.
Well, of course Bush is very conservative. I don’t believe Sam was trying to say otherwise. He was merely pointing out that, though considered a conservative, Bush is a proponent of some policies normally considered liberal.
I seem to have fallen into my habit of procrastination again. Sorry about that. When I talk about efficency of institutions it is in the context of viable real world alternatives. Sure bureaucracies aren’t all that efficient but they are the best we can do. There’s no conspiracy behind government, military, and business being run by bureaucracy. It is the most effective way of organizing we’ve got. The structure of our government, OTOH, is deliberatly designed to be inefficient. Bicameral legislatures are less efficient than unicameral assemblies. A government divided between federal and state jurisdictions is less efficient than a strong national government. I’m not pointing fingers at rightists for supporting the less efficient option here. As I say, most do of those Americans who think about such things. But inefficient government is the more conservative position. The progressive tendency would be to trust the majority to govern.
Our exective is rather divided as well with some parts being taken from the direct control of the president. The most notable examples being the Federal Reserve Chair and the FBI Director who are nominated for five year terms. OSHA doesn’t seem to be one of those. It’s run by an “Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor for OSHA”. This person is selected by the ( nominally elected ) president and confirmed by the ( inequitably elected ) Senate. Complaints should be sent in care of George Bush and Bill Frist though there is no guarantee that you will have any vote in their selection. Our elections are quite divided as well sometimes leading to the Republic v Democracy argument.
While there is argument about what our government is, was, and should be called there is no controversy over it being more answerable to the public than a business. Companies are not more democratic than governments. Governments work for the public interest and companies for the private interests of their owners. I see no reason to prejudice against either the public or private sphere. Some maintain that public action is somehow artificial to begin with but I reject that assumption. People can organize and get personally involved either publicly or privately for reasons both selfish and compasionate. Neither fashion is inherently more efficient or dangerous.
I’ve never consciously identified the basic organizing force in society before. I just assumed it was the family and that others would agree. I guess I don’t know how other people feel about it.
It seems that you’re saying that the government was intended to be inefficient. I disagree. Government was intended to protect the rights of the people and the structure created to ensure those rights has, inherently, some inefficiency. It sounds to me like you’re seeing it backwards (i.e. government was designed to be inefficient in order to protect our rights vs. government was designed to protect our rights and the design happens to not be the most efficient). Regardless an absolute monarchy is one of the most efficient forms of government around but I don’t hear many liberals calling for an emperor.
I never claimed that companies were more democratic than governments. What I did claim was that companies were more responsive to change, were more generally efficient due to their profit requirements, and made choices which were less potentially damaging to people and society than government. Government and companies are optimized for different tasks. Companies exist to make money and they do a good job at it. The engine of wealth is found in private institutions. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of it’s citizens, establish order, and to provide for national defense. The opinion of this conservative is that (as I said before) government is most useful for some things, less useful for some, and useless entirely for others.
You have claimed that conservatives have misrepresented the liberal position 2sense without really clarifying what the liberal position is. In your opinion what does a typical liberal feel that the role of government is?
While I could argue that, for some at least, inefficiency in government is itself a goal that is really beside the point here. Intent is meaningless to my pointing out the incongruity of complaining about government inefficiency while supporting divided, and thus inefficient, government. Public institutions aren’t naturally more inefficient than private institutions, that’s just how we have made the ones we have. Had we built simple governmental structures they would be efficient and simple to reform. But, as you point out, there are other considerations.
Notice that I have not made a broad claim that conservatives are misrepresenting the left. Instead I stated that one conservative, Sam Stone, did so and I clearly detailed his offenses. If it is not presumptious for me to say it seems clear that the typical liberal believes that government is instituted to serve the public good. There is plenty of disagreement about what exactly constitutes the public good, of course. You can try checking out Liberalism Resurgent which echos your argument that government is good at some things and not so good at others.
