Liberalism in itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s been responsible for some of the greatest strides forward in terms of human rights, labor conditions, etc, and the world would be a far worse place without it.
What is bad however is an excess of liberalism. You can’t have too much of a good thing? Yes, you assuredly can. It’s the wilder shores of liberalism that go too far: the insane political correctness (borrowing a card from the Red Guard), idiotic notions like ‘safe havens’ for students, ‘microaggressions’, word policing, all the aggressive and shrill stuff that gives liberalism a bad name and drives people into the arms of the conservatives.
If there were such a thing as conservative liberalism I’d be all for it.
The majority of people on both sides are religious. The majority of the religious on both sides are Christian. Jesus believed in peace, economic equality, and acceptance of everyone. Which party platform does that strike you as being closer to?
As a centrist, your point would seem to be that the problem with liberals is that they’re the same as conservatives. You have to go libertarian to escape the items you listed.
When I was a kid, my father, a former 1960s campus activist, told me the following:
“A liberal wants to give the slaves better working conditions. A radical wants to free them.”
Now, personally I think Dad was overstating things for the purpose of argument, as was his wont - the man liked to keep me on my toes - but there is something to that.
For the same reason conservatives are the boogey-man under conservative’s beds. Non-existent budgetary restraint.
We as a nation got screwed by things like Obama Care. We were promised lower premiums and a retention of our doctors. I was under-employed at the time and those were real dollars coming out of my pocket.
The difference here is that Republicans understood who the boogey-man really was and that was mismanagement by BOTH parties. There was a great deal of backlash within the party.
Even if they fix Obama care we’re still stuck with trillions of dollars of debt that won’t go away. If they don’t fix it then our debt continues to climb until collapse.
I’m not religious, but many that are use is as a weapon. Its seen from all sides all through history.
The religious right does not follow the teachings of their faith. It’s now a ‘I’ve got mine, get off of my cloud’ approach. The opposite of what their religion would teach them IF they cared about it. They don’t, and simply put on blinders.
The denial of science and facts is quite telling. There is a wall that they hit and shut down IMHO. Because GOD will save us.
Good luck on thinking that the Republicans will be more responsible under Trump, past and current plans point to both parties having issues, but the Republicans are the ones that truly do not give a damn about the budget.
Here is one of many things I could cite: How does a border wall built to fulfill a campaign promise for conservatives fit into this scheme? Is it okay for conservatives when you’re being screwed by the right people? “Budget” seems to be a really unrealistic reason to be pro conservative.
You want to pay for a mirage donnie used to get suckers to vote for him? And call that better than liberalism? At least liberals want to spend the money on someone or something.
So you where insured, but HAD to buy into ACA? Or did you just count on the emergency room?
[QUOTE=Magiver]
Even if they fix Obama care we’re still stuck with trillions of dollars of debt that won’t go away. If they don’t fix it then our debt continues to climb until collapse.
[/QUOTE]
And the debt was because of republicans, that Obama was steadily fixing.
The current atmosphere surrounding liberalism has almost nothing to do with actual, rational disagreements over policy or religion. It has to do with a concerted effort to demonize liberals culturally and socially in order to hold together a loose coalition of groups some of which might otherwise be in favor of many liberal policies.
It’s why many of the arguments in this thread—such as complaints about PC, safe spaces, etc., are fundamentally dishonest and objectively moronic.
It is fueled by a multi-faceted ongoing program to paint liberals as foolish, strident, hypocritical, traitorous, foreign-influenced, and ungodly.
It’s part of a 50-plus-year campaign to override any rational discussion of policy and pit the disparate parts of the conservative coalition against a biblical-level threat to their lives and values.
It is a cynical ploy to prevent any rational decision making and to raise political disagreements to the level of a holy war.
It’s Big Lie politics built on a foundation of racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism, and pretty every kind of fundamental prejudice you can think of.
It’s how millions of people—even on the left—can be convinced that Hillary Clinton is fundamentally dishonest and corrupt when Trump is easily a thousand times as corrupt.
It’s a position that has no rational basis in disagreement over policy, but to inflame the emotions on the right to completely bypass any scrutiny of actual policy decisions.
It’s based on the ide that liberals and liberalism are taking away something from “real” Americans
Near as I can tell this is a recreational outrage cottage industry among right-leaning internet media. In real life, I’ve never seen a so called SJW talking about micro-aggressions, checking privileges, or safe spaces. To hear them tell it, trigger warnings are destroying the country. Maybe too many people get their politics from South Park. YOU PC, BRAH?
I am not a Christian, so I do not know New Testament verses. But I offer this from the Old Testament: Exodus 23:3 “Do not show favoritism to the poor in judgement”, and Leviticus 19:15 “Do not pervert justice, do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great”. I do not know if Christians consider these Old Testament admonitions to still be valid, so I will assume they are unless I’m told otherwise. Basically, when the underdog is in the right, but unable to triumph purely for lack of power then it’s a righteous thing to support them. But to do so as a matter of instinct upon seeing them in the underdog position is not correct.
It actually isn’t but has been portrayed as such for years to the point where all you have to do is label someone a “liberal” and you know that half the audience will tune out what he or she actually says.
When your target audience demonstrably hates to think, this is actually regarded as a service.
The context though refers to what amounts to what a judgment (mostly an advice of how to dispense justice to a tribal judge) should be, in that the poor and the rich should be treated the same when a crime has taken place. This is not much about charity.
My biggest problem with it is that liberalism tends towards authoritarian practices. So does conservatism in different ways, but the thread is not about that.
Almost inevitably liberalism will result in higher taxes for me and my family. The idea that government can better allocate my resources is abhorrent to me. Don’t get me wrong, there are many things that are worthwhile to spend on consistent with the proper role of government. Unfortunately the growth of government is a difficult tide to hold back.
Many of the issues that unite liberals agree with. I’ll support those causes (I campaigned against Prop 8 in CA), but when it comes to taxes I’m opposed. When it comes to increased authoritarian practices I’m opposed.
Rebel: “All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have taxes done for us?”
I don’t know if the answer has been explained in this thread, but it’s been well demonstrated. In short, people make crazy shit up about liberals. If you hang out with liberals a while then come back to this thread you’ll be wondering wtf half the people here are talking about.
Of course, but it still indicates that despite charitable instincts, the powerful have a right to proper judgement if their case is just. There’s nothing wrong with being charitable toward the poor, however “wrong” they may be, but the righteousness of their cause shouldn’t be an automatic assumption.
