# The Problems With Liberalism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341 "2009-10-19T15:49:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/81 "2009-10-20T21:27:26Z")
There are no problems with Liberalism. It is a perfect ideology in every way. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/82 "2009-10-20T21:48:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Which points out the major problem with liberalism, as well as with creationism and other faith systems - they are unfalsifiable. No, Shodan. All it means is that, if the notion of intellectual honesty is of any value to you, you should take keep alternative explanations in mind and consider that the actual causal factors are diverse and complex, when gathering information about a problem. If you managed to do that much, your reputation would soar. Or, at least, rise out of the gutter slightly. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/83 "2009-10-20T21:54:07Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > \…the silly claim that civility was destroyed in Harvard Yard, in September, 1968, is merely silly posturing outside factual reality. Right. It was before September. It might have had something to do with the Tet Offensive in January, MLK Jr’s assassination in April, Robert Kennedy’s assassination in June, or any of the other momentous events in that rather event-filled year. But my favorite contenders are: July 24th when Arlo Guthrie performed _Alice’s Restaurant_ at the Newport Folk Festival. Or August 28th. > [@](#): > > By most accounts, on Wednesday evening Chicago police take action against crowds of demonstrators without provocation. The police beat some marchers unconscious and send at least 100 to emergency rooms while arresting 175. > Mayor Daley tried the next day to explain the police action at a press conference. He famously explained: “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder.” > Twenty-eight years later, when the Democrats next held a convention in Chicago, some police officers still on the force wore t-shirts proclaiming, “We kicked their father’s butt in '68 and now it’s your turn.” [cite](http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html) Somewhere in there civility was destroyed. By liberals. _Sheesh._ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/84 "2009-10-20T22:13:38Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > [Sure.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11445756&postcount=93) > I wonder how many Americans he would have tortured in order to prevent the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives taken in an invasion he supported. Since he supported it I’d wager ‘none’, and I consider his claim of concern for the lives of others to be simply false. Thanks yo. That’s a good point. His silence at your post is deafening too. Very telling. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/85 "2009-10-20T22:38:22Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Then one would expect that with [a decline in poverty among blacks,](http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html) [greatly increased educational opportuniities](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_outcomes_in_the_United_States_by_race_and_other_classifications), the end of Jim Crow laws and significant decline in “general societal discrimination”, that black families would improve. Which, unfortunately, [is not the case](http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/culture-of-black-out-of-wedlock-births.html) - > > So all the possible key factors you mention got better, but the result got worse. Which suggests that the factors are not as key as you mention. > > Regards, > Shodan All credit where credit is due for providing actual statistical cites, although things like [this](http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j186/DonaldDouglas/Americaneocon/ugly-1.jpg) down the right side of the page pretty much destroyed any benefit of the doubt I might have given to that last one (also, does anyone else see the comedy in someone buying products reading “My Anger Is Real - It is Not Manufactured”?). And regardless, to argue that > [@](#): > > “if marriage were restored to 1960 levels,” the black child poverty rate “would fall by nearly a third” assumes a _ceteris paribus_ that can’t possibly be there. I do think that **Polycarp** has a valid point about role models, but it’s a issue that precedes the '60s [by a long way](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagger_Lee_Shelton). Can’t blame the hippies for that one. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/86 "2009-10-21T01:22:15Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > [cite](http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html) > > Somewhere in there civility was destroyed. By liberals. > > _Sheesh._ Like all of SA’s other claims, this just proves his point: the cops were driven to take necessary measures by the incivility of the protesters. None of that would’ve happened if the hippies had gotten haircuts and stayed in school and become white collar criminals. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/87 "2009-10-21T01:27:05Z")
To elaborate, and repeat myself: What SA does is he starts with a conclusion–incivility began with liberals–and then traces it back till he finds “proof,” and then stops. He looks no further back. So the Chicago cops were given no choice by the protesters; they started it. Trace it back? Why were they protesting? Nah, no need to go back any further: he finds a liberal he can blame, then his “investigation” stops. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/88 "2009-10-21T01:43:23Z")
> [@Orbifold](#): > > MLK also refused to sit quietly back and politely wait for people to stop denying him his rights. “Uncivil” does not mean “violent”, and “non-violent” does not necessarily mean “civil”. Would you have said , I will live as an inferior person my whole life, so those after me live a little bit better? You only have one life. Compared to the people who killed and beat the people pushing for equality, he was a paragon of civility. Yes indeed he was very civil. Too civil for my taste. The marches for black rights were my first marches. Like the peace marches later on they were not fun. People would threaten and attempt to scare you off. When the march broke up ,they would waylay people who were walking alone. The threats were real and you had to prepared to take abuse. It was not fun. During marches the police and others would be very aggressive toward you, hoping you would react. Then they could stomp you and claim it was defense. There was plenty of violence but it was not on the part of the marchers or MLK. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/89 "2009-10-21T01:46:22Z")
At this point you probably won’t believe me, but this is a serious request. Can you please try to explain, to psychoanalyze yourself, if you will, to help me understand why it’s so important to you to find a way to lay all the ills of the world at the feet of the imaginary boogieman you call “liberals”? You’re smart enough to understand that many, many times you’ve been “pwned” on your positions; there have been enough irrefutable, uh, refutations of your claims that, short of actual non-sanity, on some level you must understand this. Because I honestly don’t think you’re insane, nor are you remotely stupid. But the way logical proof works, is that a premise cannot be considered legitimately proven until you’ve tested it against all possible evidence to the contrary. That’s the “scientific method,” in fact, in a nutshell: you start with a hypothesis, and then you set out to prove it wrong. Not right, but wrong: you eliminate all possible challenges to its validity. Proving something right is too easy, and is usually nothing of the kind. In that case, you start with a hypothesis, and you find a situation that still fits within that hypothesis. The sun goes around the earth. Fine, you observe. Yep, the sun goes around the earth all right. Liberals cheat on welfare. Yep, there’s a welfare cheat in my building, and she’s a liberal. But neither of these hypotheses–no hypotheses–is proven if you can find a single bit of evidence against them. That’s where the proof lies. So you make a habit, around here at least, of forming a hypothesis, and then baldly stating it as fact. You look around you, you observe, you theorize that this happens because of that, and you etch that theorizing in stone. When others point out that you’ve skipped a step–you haven’t challenged the strength of your hypothesis by testing it with possible evidence to the contrary–you dismiss them. Your initial, personal, necessarily limited, in a word anecdotal, observations are all you need. The observations, the facts, the input of any kind, of other people is not of the least interest to you. You’re not interested in seeing if your hypothesis is correct; you’re only interested in clinging to it because it somehow defines your world for you. Why? Please try to help me understand what it is about the formation of your worldview that made the demonization of “liberals” so comforting to you, so necessary. To the exclusion of all other considerations, all logic, all true understanding, all fundamental use of your own intelligence. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/90 "2009-10-21T03:16:10Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > At this point you probably won’t believe me, but this is a serious request. > > Can you please try to explain, to psychoanalyze yourself, if you will, to help me understand why it’s so important to you to find a way to lay all the ills of the world at the feet of the imaginary boogieman you call “liberals”? I am not imaginary. I am a very real boogeyman, thank you very much. Now please be quiet. I’m hiding under S **tarving Artist** ’s bed. You would not _believe_ how many scat magazines he’s got under here. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/91 "2009-10-21T03:34:12Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You would not _believe_ how many scat magazines he’s got under here. Well, given his fondness for the 50s, a bunch of Ella Fitzgerald fanzines hardly seem that surprising. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/92 "2009-10-21T03:40:34Z")
You mean special interest magazines with photographs and articles about the droppings of feral forest creatures? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/93 "2009-10-21T04:49:12Z")
Eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what it was, the works. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/94 "2009-10-21T06:17:28Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You mean special interest magazines with photographs and articles about the droppings of feral forest creatures? I thought those were fewmets? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/95 "2009-10-21T07:03:56Z")
I don’t think this sort of thing is exactly helping. ---
**Author:** ![Orbifold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orbifold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orbifold)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/96 "2009-10-21T11:33:22Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Would you have said , I will live as an inferior person my whole life, so those after me live a little bit better? You only have one life. > Compared to the people who killed and beat the people pushing for equality, he was a paragon of civility. Yes indeed he was very civil. Too civil for my taste. > The marches for black rights were my first marches. Like the peace marches later on they were not fun. People would threaten and attempt to scare you off. When the march broke up ,they would waylay people who were walking alone. The threats were real and you had to prepared to take abuse. It was not fun. During marches the police and others would be very aggressive toward you, hoping you would react. Then they could stomp you and claim it was defense. There was plenty of violence but it was not on the part of the marchers or MLK. You’re continuing to equate ‘uncivil’ with ‘violent’, and I can’t make it any clearer that I am not. Beyond that, it’s not at all clear to me just what the heck you’re disagreeing with about what I wrote. During those marches, if I were to bitch at you that you weren’t being civil enough in the face of that bullshit, I’d be acting like a jackass. That is pretty much my _point_: “civility” is a red herring, distracting attention from the actual issues. Yes, I’m aware that MLK was non-violent and that violence was civil right protestors. With all due respect, none of that changes my point and I don’t know why you think it would. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/97 "2009-10-21T12:34:31Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > No, Shodan. All it means is that, if the notion of intellectual honesty is of any value to you, you should take keep alternative explanations in mind and consider that the actual causal factors are diverse and complex, when gathering information about a problem. If you managed to do that much, your reputation would soar. Or, at least, rise out of the gutter slightly. No, it wouldn’t. I’m dealing with knee-jerkers here. You people don’t read anything all the way to the end. If it appears to be something you disagree with, the button in your head labeled “Warning; crimethink!” gets triggered and you react. LIke I said, you came across an argument you couldn’t deal with by blaming whitey, and so you played the racist card. It’s contemptible, but at least you are making it clear when you know you have lost the argument. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/98 "2009-10-21T12:49:44Z")
I didn’t read the first page. Is the problem with liberals that they spend all their time on the internet bitching about every conservative sentiment they come across? Or is it that they’re exactly like conservatives in every single way? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/99 "2009-10-21T13:09:31Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Which may point up yet another problem with liberalism, at least since 1970 or so. If it is racist to point out an uncomfortable truth, then it becomes a temptation to shrug one’s shoulders at other accusations of racism, even if they are real examples of it. Which is unfortunate. > > The old line is “a racist is someone winning an argument about race with a liberal”. There is an element of truth therein. I won’t call it racist, but let’s just say it’s _odd_, and seems to require some sort of explanation, that you should make an argument about the disintegration of marriage, yet only talk about blacks. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341/100 "2009-10-21T13:14:27Z")
> [@Eternal](#): > > I didn’t read the first page. Is the problem with liberals that they spend all their time on the internet bitching about every conservative sentiment they come across? And why shouldn’t they? They disagree with it, and conservatism is simply vile. > [@Eternal](#): > > Or is it that they’re exactly like conservatives in every single way? Considering that would mean that there’s no such thing as conservatives or liberals, no. And at any rate, they act quite a bit different; liberals naturally being both more rational and more moral. Not that either is very difficult, considering just how low conservatism has sunk on both those scales. It is kind of amusing how more and more conservatives are pushed into making unfounded claims that “the other side is just as bad!”. Practically an admission that their side has nothing to recommend it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-problems-with-liberalism/514341.md?page=6)