Why We Are Liberals

That's how I see it, anyway. (10.47 / 15)

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 09:25:37 AM CDT

Although I have doubts about how the universality of the mind-set and principles outlined above are enacted, they are why I am still here. (0.00 / 0)

Where Democratic liberalism has failed has been in spreading universally the principles of civil and human rights we adopted after the 1960s across the globe. We have had successes, yes. Still they remain subject to corruption and exception and purchase by the highest bidder.

Keep working at it is all that one can say.



Silence is not an option. It merely helps to perpetuate human rights injustices.

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by: shergald @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 09:48:19 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

This is why (9.50 / 4)

you are blog mom no one could have written this better!

This is it in a nutshell.....

A life lived in service of other human beings results in limitless reward, while a life lived in service to the reward itself results in futility, emptiness and frustration.

Indepe said yesterday that we are going to become a 3rd world country.  I responded, in so many ways we already are.  The lack of ability to realize this truth (in the quote above) creates a starvation that robs the heart and soul of a human being.
Avoid one tries to fill with stuff, the very source of greed.

Thank you Maryscott for this beautiful essay.  Please post it everywhere it is award winning!

It is a matter of life and death, see the documentary Food INC and vote no to corporate take over of our food every time you buy groceries  

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by: Kathleen @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 09:59:42 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Can't resist (7.00 / 1)

Does this make Mother Teresa the liberalist of liberals?

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 10:24:22 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

No Mad. Trying to emulate Daily Kos falls far short of liberal standards. (0.00 / 0)

Sometimes what determines your thinking is blog business first, principles later.

Look at the liberalism in the invited frontpagers first, therefore. And I'm not talking about the frivolity of the local frontpagers by any means. Far from it.  



Silence is not an option. It merely helps to perpetuate human rights injustices.

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by: shergald @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 12:22:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Frivolity, you say? (7.00 / 2)

Do you apologize for pulling my ears all the times that you pulled my ears?




Lord of the Karmafishes

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by: Karmafish @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 12:50:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The nutshell (8.25 / 4)

I think you nailed it Kathleen. There is a Jewish proverb that says something like "He who seeks righteousness will never find it." I apologize, but I can't find the original source, though I suspect it is from the Pirke Avot, the Sayings of the Fathers. It is probably a long involved story that I've wittled down to that short sentence. Or it may be an adaptation of the words of Hillel who also said (with modern paraphrasing) "Be a mensch, all the rest is commentary". But ultimately, I think it is one of the cores of modern liberalism.  

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance .  G. Washington

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by: Kane in CA @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 11:02:29 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Thank you (7.20 / 5)

I've been calling for an essay from you like this.

So I just wantd to thank you for it.  And I will not be writing an involved response to it picking on every little point, so rest easy.

maybe later, after i read what DA says, I'll have, maybe, 2 things to say.

nice work/  Now Ihave to go pick on Kathleen.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 10:22:53 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

LEAVE ME ALONE!!! (7.67 / 6)

NO NO NO PICK ON KATHLEEN!

It is a matter of life and death, see the documentary Food INC and vote no to corporate take over of our food every time you buy groceries  

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by: Kathleen @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 10:55:43 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

In the 19th century a liberal was someone (8.50 / 4)

who believed in free markets, a free press, freedom of religion, and democracy.  A conservative was someone who believed in the Old Regime, monarchy.

With FDR, of course, liberal came to mean the belief in the necessity of government involvement in the economy to benefit the poor and middle class, provide jobs when necessary, regulate markets and support labor.

By the 60s, liberalism expanded to include "rights liberalism," identity politics, and the anti-war movement; the New Left.

Today a "conservative" is, more or less, a 19th century liberal.

And liberals are seeking a yet unfound direction.  

But whatever becomes of liberalism, the notion of "common good" remains at its core.  The current tension is between ideals of the common good versus ideals of liberty.

And that is the tension between market regulation versus free markets, gun control versus the second amendment, universal health care versus the private system, etc.

The tension between notions of the common good versus ideals of liberty is at the center of American politics and has been since the writing of the Constitution.  This tension, in fact, is embedded in the very first sentence of the preamble.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There it is.  Right from the very beginning.

And they constantly conflict.




Lord of the Karmafishes

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by: Karmafish @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 10:46:13 AM CDT

Karmafish (4.00 / 2)

I'd just make a minor-- let's call it a "correction" since I have a big ego-- to the 60s thng.

The War was brought to you by liberals, including the Big Cheese Liberal who contributed the "superb distillation" in Maryscpott's essay.

The New Left actually despised liberals.  The liberals were the enemy (see last paragraph).  the actually hgad mnore respect for libertarian wing conservatives.  That's when the "horseshoe" notion of the political spectrum evolved, wherein the liberals were in the middle, while the ends, now close to gether, were the far left and the far right.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 10:57:17 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yup. Quite right. (6.00 / 2)

The radical New Left did hate liberals.

I think I would argue, tho, that many people who now call themselves "liberal" have adopted elements of the New Left agenda.

Fair?




Lord of the Karmafishes

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by: Karmafish @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 11:07:34 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Fair? (4.00 / 1)

Yep.  Many but not all liberals seem to have lost their predoilection for the use of the military as a tool to do the good things that liberals want to do in other people's countries.  And many of these now seem to confuse this endency with liberalism itself.

As fpor the New Left, that might be true in some way, from an end point perspective.  But the New Left itself was rather hard lined marxist in one way or the other, with a neat streak of good old American individualism that made them treat the Communists, who took orders from Moscow, with utter contempt.  (I'm talking generalities here.)

For me, I always loved the fact that the Marxist most associated with the New Left, Herbert Marcuse, had his books banned in both China and the Soviet Union.  The New Left was (and i throw this up to start a fight) a sort of Punk Marxism, a Marxism that encouraged individual expression, that didn't much care about spending a lot of time in stirring renditions of L'Internationale.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 11:27:04 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I view (10.00 / 1)

"Liberals" as recalcitrant. Going off the script, off the reservation is judged more harshly in progressive circles.  An blinding unwillingness to step beyond dogma. I'm a conservative who is Pro Choice, Pro Gay Marriage and I've never felt hostility in my own circles for my beliefs.  You couldn't be Pro Life in any modern "liberal" construct.

I could make an argument that the existence of Nuclear Weapons has actually saved millions of lives in the Industrial World since 1945.

No current "liberal would entertain the veracity of that statement because the dogma is "war is evil" and "nuclear weapons are evil."

Yet, in my opinion, the net result of Nuclear Weapons is less war.

Lives are save but dogma is challenged.

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by: PHIL. I. STINE @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 21:38:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Nuclear weapons (7.00 / 1)

are a tool.

sort of like shergald!

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 23:10:01 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Phil you pushed the nuke button (9.00 / 1)

in me.

Nukes do not make sense to me.  I am a believer that you lead by example not with  a hammer.  

However if what you say is true and a part of me realizes that once the genie is out of bottle it is all desperate attempt to control the dang thing.

My question is why the hell do we have to have so many?  How many times do we need to be able to distroy life as we know it to be safe?  When Boeing built the PEACEKEEPER (an 18 nuke head bomb and I think they built 30 of these) in the 80's, where in the hell are we going to use these?  Against who?  What man, woman, or child?

These are expensive war tools and now that we are sinking in dept how much is it necessary to tax and spend to keep us safe? War, war toys and war people take the biggest bite out of our budget.

How is it that conservatives claim to be the party who lets you hang on to your money? When do we tighten our belts? In yet another crisis we are facing with the melt down, when do conservatives says maybe we need to cut back on the war machine, it is a deep black hole that is costing us not only our lunch but our dinner as well.

It is a matter of life and death, see the documentary Food INC and vote no to corporate take over of our food every time you buy groceries  

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by: Kathleen @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 06:29:40 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Liberalism run amuck...proof that there CAN be too much of a good thing. (4.00 / 2)

"I am so awesome and can do so much good for my fellow humans. Watch me do all kinds of good for them in Southeast Asia by stopping Communism."  

Quiet American syndrome.

Neo-liberals, man.  Not much to distinguish them, foreign policy wise, from neo-conservatives.  (See also:  Pollack, Kenneth.)

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by: John Brown's Body @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 11:09:37 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's right (0.00 / 0)

Of course, even the liberals in the midst of the cold war against godless communism believed that we should fight 'em there so we don't have to fight 'em here.  It was the domino theory.

And dang if Bush didn't do the same thing:  we fought 'em there so we didn't have to fight 'em here, AND we set out to do them a great good by overthrowing their evil dictaor and endowing them with the wonderful prize of democracy.

Next, I'm worried that our military is going to have to do some good for the people of Darfur.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 11:17:57 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

That last sentence is so fucking brilliant... (8.00 / 2)

...it's become my new masturbatory fantasy.

Pure, uncut awesome.

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by: John Brown's Body @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 11:05:11 AM CDT

Maryscott, this may well be one of your best... (10.50 / 4)

it's inspired, brilliant and beautiful.

I love you for all you do, for all you are, for your humor, for your raging fire and depth of purpose.

Just wanted to say thank you.

It is a long, strange trip, indeed, from innocence to consciousness, from self-interest to the common good. Along the way one may abandon some personal goals and acquire others. One may move from passive political observer to impassioned political activist.

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by
When happily ever after fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly

I know a place where we can go
That's still untouched by man
Sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind

You can lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

O beautiful, for spacious skies
Now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
Armchair warriors often fail
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers clean up all details
Since daddy had to lie

I know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin
Well sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind
Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair spill all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

Who knows how long this will last
Now we've come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us

I need to remember this
So baby give me just one kiss
Let me take a long last look
Before we say good bye

Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

"Shine on silver girl..."

"I tire of this banal chat...now is the time on Sprockets when we dance." ~Dieter/SNL

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by: Cheryl @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 11:46:58 AM CDT

Words are cheap, especially when they are the words of others. (0.00 / 5)

So while one has given over the frontpage to right wing Zionists, said not a damned word about the injustices being perpetrated against the Palestinians, Darfurians, or even the Myanmarians, and other places around the world,

one cannot beat his chest about his own liberalismm by extension.

Try reading the writings of Kusinich if you want to hear liberalism, not just in words, but in practice.




Silence is not an option. It merely helps to perpetuate human rights injustices.

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by: shergald @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 12:31:54 PM CDT

Douchebag. (7.60 / 5)

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 12:49:36 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Liberally yours... (10.00 / 3)

'nuff said.

"I tire of this banal chat...now is the time on Sprockets when we dance." ~Dieter/SNL

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by: Cheryl @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 12:46:20 PM CDT

Damn I'm almost afraid to comment (11.00 / 6)

considering what Madscientist said above.  What am I, Mad?  Your personal Oracle of Delphi?  Just kidding.

I'm probably going to be long and windy here, but a essay such as this deserves it.

First and foremost, regardless of style, this might be you're finest work, Maryscott.  It delineates, in a "big picture" kind of way, how and why you feel the way you do.  It is unlike either "manifesto" in the Community Essays as it doesn't get bogged down in the details.  What detailed references you make are secondary to the main message.  

Most of you won't remember, but there was a time, for about a year or two, where I didn't say much at this site (for those of you hoping for a return to those days, Pooh!).  Although I was drawn here by the forcefulness of Maryscott's writing, I was decidedly reticient to embrace the LEFT!  I never thought that my own odd brand of libertarianism could be considered either conservative or right wing, but the opportunity for misunderstanding was certainly there.

Of course, it appears now, through the growth and the maturity of this community, that many of us are not the Jacobins of Revolutionary France, ready at the guillotine to purge our nation and even our compatriots in the guise of revolutionary purity.  A large part of this community have seemed to realize that the "politics of fear" are not just the province of the other side.  It really shouldn't be Us and Them.

Although we joke about it, I cannot in good conscience wish for natural disaster, dead American Soldiers,  nuclear war, or a selective plague that would change things, even if it was for the better.  I cannot believe that concept could ever be considered liberal.

I'm enough of a realist to know that my vision of America will probably never be realized.  We can no longer go back to the agrarian economy, back when people and companies were industrious, not just industrial.  Back when government didn't need to provide universal health care, because health care was affordable, even though the technology wasn't available (hell, everybody could afford leeches).  Back when we didn't need an agressive Federal government, because we had caring local and state governments and we often "took care of our own."  Those days are gone.  We are urban, ex-urban, suburban now.  For all of us here in this nation and all other nations to survive, we need to have the support of others, and to provide that support to others.

Sometimes, the differences lie in how to go about giving that support.  I applaud the efforts of FDR during the Great Depression.  However, I abhor what I consider was the cynical political program which was LBJ's Great Society.  I cheer that Ralph Nader helped point out the need for seat belts in cars.  I hate the laws that force us to wear them.  I applaud our continuing efforts in Civil Rights.  I despise that we still appear to need some form of affirmative action to level the playing field for minorities, gender differences or sexual preferences.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There was a time, and I wish it were still here and now, when all that government needed to do was "promote" the general welfare, and the community would respond.  Sadly, probably, those times are also past.  But, if they do return, it will be because more people begin to feel and believe the concepts in this essay.

Anyway, Blogmistress...kudos.  A wonderful essay.  You appear to be evolving just like the rest of us.  Whodathunk, let's say a decade ago, that you'd be a "Football Mom?"  Or how even that would change you?  The curveballs that Life throw us often teach us (if nothing else, they teach us not to swing at a really good curveball).  Why it would have been impossible to predict, even a couple of years ago, that the angry author of the powerful (but depressing) "We Are Fucked" could clearly express such hopeful and positive thoughts.

Truly Fucking Superb!!!

DA is The Most Interesting Man in the World. - Karmafish

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by: devilishadvocate @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 13:58:48 PM CDT

Here's the word that creates controversy (6.00 / 2)

There are a whole lot of people who think that "promote" mean "cheerlead" or "use the bully pulpit" or "advocate".

Here is a common dictionary definition:

pro·mote  (pr-mt)
tr.v. pro·mot·ed, pro·mot·ing, pro·motes
1.
a. To raise to a more important or responsible job or rank.
b. To advance (a student) to the next higher grade.
2. To contribute to the progress or growth of; further.
3. To urge the adoption of; advocate: promote a constitutional amendment.
4. To attempt to sell or popularize by advertising or publicity: commercials promoting a new product.
5. To help establish or organize (a new enterprise), as by securing financial backing: promote a Broadway show.

For liberals, "promote" generally means contribute to the progress or growth of.  And broadly speaking to "establish or organize, as by securing financial backing".  Liberals are as likely to establish non-profits for direct action as to insist that the government do something.

The current crop of Republican "conservatives" use government as a piggy bank for their favored corporations.

Want a third party -- 50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts -- Go get 'em

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by: TarheelDem @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 15:44:16 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

In my essay I noted that difference (6.00 / 3)

but granted with a different emphasis....

Promote the General Welfare - To me, this is the key one.  The dictionary lists the following for "promote":  

1. to help or encourage to exist or flourish; further: to promote world peace.
2. to advance in rank, dignity, position, etc. (opposed to DEMOTE).
3. Education. to put ahead to the next higher stage or grade of a course or series of classes.
4. to aid in organizing (business undertakings).
5. to encourage the sales, acceptance, etc., of (a product), esp. through advertising or other publicity.
6. Informal. to obtain (something) by cunning or trickery; wangle.

In no way can I see that the Preamble to the Constitution, the "mission statement" if you will of the United States Government, states that the government should provide for the general welfare.  To help (conceivably through regulation and incentives for private industry), to organize, to encourage, yes.

Different dictionaries, but also I feel it must be taken in context with the rest of the source quote..

There is delineation between this term and...

provide for the common defense

secure the Blessings of Liberty

establish Justice

insure Domestic Tranquility

I'd like to think that these guys knew what they were writing.

So, I guess my definition from the previous essay holds true here.  That through regulation and incentive, the government would hopefully be more effective in "promoting the general welfare"  as opposed to a massive bureaucratic machine, plodding towards a supposed goal.

Of course, that definition is not generally acceptably to either established party platform.  

DA is The Most Interesting Man in the World. - Karmafish

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by: devilishadvocate @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 16:18:00 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not a bad definition (0.00 / 0)

through regulation and incentive, the government would hopefully be more effective in "promoting the general welfare"  as opposed to a massive bureaucratic machine, plodding towards a supposed goal.

Here's an idea of how the US government "massive bureaucratic machine" is allocated by head count (acutally FTEs):

(thousands of FTE employees)

Agriculture	91.1
Commerce	53.9
Defense-military functions	677.2
Education	4.2
Energy	16.1
Health and Human Services	60.8
Homeland Security	166.2
Housing and Urban Development	9.5
Interior	68.6
Justice	115.8
Labor	16.8
State	32.2
Transportation	55.5
Treasury	109.6
Veterans Affairs	253.4
Agency for International Development	2.6
Broadcasting Board of Governors	2.1
Corps of Engineers-Civil Works	17.0
Environmental Protection Agency	17.1
Equal Employment Opportunity Comm	2.6
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation	4.6
General Services Administration	12.0
National Aeronautics and Space Admin	18.1
National Archives and Records Administration	2.9
National Labor Relations Board	1.7
National Science Foundation	1.4
Nuclear Regulatory Commission	3.8
Office of Personnel Management	4.9
Peace Corps	1.3
Railroad Retirement Board	1.0
Securities and Exchange Commission	3.5
Small Business Administration	3.2
Smithsonian Institution	5.3
Social Security Administration	59.8
Tennessee Valley Authority	11.5
All other small agencies	16.9

Now, which of these constitute a massive bureaucratic machine, plodding towards a supposed goal?  No, not a rhetorical question.

By contrast, here are the 50 largest employers, some of whom also can be characterized as massive bureaucratic machines plodding toward a goal.

Rank	Company	500 Rank	2007 Number of Employees
1	Wal-Mart Stores	1	2,055,000
2	United Parcel Service	46	425,300
3	McDonald's	106	390,000
4	International Business Machines	15	386,558
5	Citigroup	8	380,500
6	Target	31	366,000
7	Sears Holdings	45	337,000
8	General Electric	6	327,000
9	Kroger	26	323,000
10	AT&T	10	309,050
11	Home Depot	22	276,385
12	General Motors	4	266,000
13	Ford Motor	7	246,000
14	FedEx	68	238,935
15	Verizon Communications	17	234,971
16	Berkshire Hathaway	11	232,781
17	United Technologies	39	225,600
18	Bank of America Corp.	9	209,718
19	Aramark	216	207,500
20	Safeway	55	201,000
21	Supervalu	62	191,400
22	Walgreen	40	191,350
23	Lowe's	48	188,000
24	PepsiCo	59	185,000
25	Macy's	91	182,000
26	J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.	12	180,667
27	Yum Brands	253	174,580
28	Hewlett-Packard	14	172,000
29	Starbucks	277	172,000
30	Delphi	92	169,500
31	HCA	89	161,000
32	CVS Caremark	24	160,000
33	Wells Fargo	41	159,800
34	Boeing	27	159,300
35	Darden Restaurants	415	157,000
36	Starwood Hotels & Resorts	396	155,000
37	J.C. Penney	126	155,000
38	Marriott International	197	151,000
39	Gap	162	150,000
40	Johnson Controls	72	140,000
41	Best Buy	66	140,000
42	Lockheed Martin	57	140,000
43	Electronic Data Systems	115	139,500
44	Procter & Gamble	23	138,000
45	Emerson Electric	111	137,700
46	Walt Disney	67	137,000
47	TJX	132	129,000
48	Northrop Grumman	76	122,600
49	Honeywell International	73	122,000
50	Wachovia Corp.	38	121,890

Want a third party -- 50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts -- Go get 'em

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by: TarheelDem @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 18:35:15 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Interesting point (4.00 / 1)

Perhaps the "massiveness" of the federal bureaucracy is inferred from both por either of the massiveness of its goals or the molasses-like inefficiency of its operation.  (Like DA, I've worked years for the government.  I've also worked for private companies in the same capacity.  It was like suddenly being able to breath.)

I think it wold be fairer for you to compare the total federal bureaucracy with one company, for the fact that the government has different departments and agencies is no different from Wal-Mart, say, having different departments or subsidaries.

Now, let's admit that the division often made is not absolute.  Some companies beomce so big and/or blated as to approach government like stagnation.  But in the main, privbate companies can more easily adjust their workforce to track their objectives and the realities of the market.  this is much moire difficult in government.  Private companies can quickly adjust goals to what is possible, rather than having to accept goals that are impossible.

What private company would take on the goal of insuring that every piece of meat sold at market is free of risk to the consumer, knowing that they could not posibly hire enough people to actually do this, and would be roundly blamed when an outbreak of, say, bacterial food poisoning or hypoer thyroidism occurred?  Yet we actually expect that because the government "regulates" meat that it will be safe, that is, without risk, even though the chance of a particular piece of meat being inspected by a government worker approaches zero.

In a proivate company, a manager not having enough workers to meet the goal is much more likely to get changes because of that, either more employees or an adjustment of goals, or both.  This is unlikely to happen in government, and because governemtns are focused on start ups and uprount costs, losing interest afterwards "didn't we take care of the meat problem years ago?), the gap[ between the goal anbd what is actually accomplished is more likely to get wider.

As I see it, this is not so much an argument against meat inspection as it is an indictment of a political system that encourages the myth of zero risk, that makes idel promises to voters that it will take care of problems that can't be taken care of.  In fact, my bet is that if the met problem flaired anew, a candidate for office with a realistic plan to inspect meat who realistically described what could be done with an inspection program would lose handily.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 21:31:16 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Now Add... (0.00 / 0)

The state and local.  The levels of bureaucracy in this nation has reached such a point that 1 out of 8 people available in the work force, work directly for some form of government.

That doesn't include military forces, intelligence agencies or contractors (like Blackwater or the Post Office).

I'd have to look it all up again, but I posted it here a few years ago.

Some of these are necessary, teachers, fire fighters, police, but I personally feel we've reached well past the breaking points.

Especially if you remember that almost all of us have...er...unions (employee associations, et. al.).  In fact, the largest percentage of union membership is now in government employees.

DA is The Most Interesting Man in the World. - Karmafish

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by: devilishadvocate @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 21:44:16 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Interesting viewpoint (11.00 / 2)

OK, what exactly would you two cut at the federal, state, and local levels?  No broad statements, a specific list.

Broad generalities of principles look good until you start digging into the details.  Not that there isn't a large amount of waste in both government, private corporations, and non-profits as well.

Madscientist raises the meaat issue as an example.  In this he misunderstands the function of federal inspections.  Federal inspectors essentially audit a meatpacking plant's own inspection program.  It audits the plant's process for inspection.  The number of employees depends on the number of meatpacking plants and the frequency which they must audit them.  No one in the food industry or the regulators thinks in terms other than lowering the variation of the risk and lowering the number of incidents.  It used to work.  We need to ask why it no longer does.  Outbreaks of e. coli would have been unthinkable 20 years ago; meatpackers would have been afraid that the market would punish them.  Apparently, that is no longer true.  This argument applies in general to most regulatory activities of governments; they tend to be restricted to auditing industry  quality processes instead of directly inspecting.

What Madscientist says about the response of private companies with not enough workers to meet a goal is not as universally true as it was 20-30 years ago.  Which is why it is the private sector that is in trouble right now.  The cost-cutting impulse has hollowed out a lot of private companies at the same time that tax-cutting policies in a time of war have stressed money markets.

The bureaucratic problem is one of communications and has been studied by folks who have studied network effects.  Bureaucratic organizations lower the cost of decision-making as they get larger, but as they get larger the number of possible back-channels increases exponentially, meaning that accurate information from outside the bureaucracy has a hard time getting through because of all the internal talk going on.

A second problem with large organizations that have tried to solve the bureaucratic problem with information technology is that the information technology they have institutionalizes the business processes of five, ten, twenty years ago and the current business processes are always having to work around the IT systems in order to get anything done.  The fundamental problem in almost any large organization, governmental or private, is that the accounting systems do not deliver consistent, salient, timely information to decision-makers in a form that allows them to analyze what is going on programatically and financialy.  So decision-makers cut corners, shoot from the hip, hope and pray--or they hunker down afraid to make any real decisions.

I have worked in or with government organizations that have moved towards their goals rapidly and ones that were ossified.  I have worked in or with private corporations that have accomplished amazing changes of operation and profitability and in ones that just continued to go through the motions without attention to customers, suppliers, or even shareholders.

Showing the breakdown of the federal department is relevant because you get a sense of which ones actually operate most directly in the field -- Social Security, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Justice (field operations like courts, Marshals, and the FBI), Treasury (Alcohol and Tobacco tax enforcement, regulation of savings  banks, and the IRS).  The sorts of field office presence issues they have are no different from those of UPS or Wal-Mart or McDonalds (whose figures don't include franchise employees).

Philosophical objections cannot account for how you deal with large operations without having bureaucratic communications and legal chains of command.  The only alternative is to have smaller organizations, which then have external coordination and contractual negotiation issues.  Or return to local autarky, which is limited in its economic opportunities and social goals.

Want a third party -- 50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts -- Go get 'em

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by: TarheelDem @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 08:40:15 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Tarheel (4.50 / 2)

I put you in charge!   You are right and you rule!

I am in awe of your wisdom and knowledge!

It is a matter of life and death, see the documentary Food INC and vote no to corporate take over of our food every time you buy groceries  

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by: Kathleen @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 09:03:35 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

It wouldn't necessarily have to be at the Federal level... (0.00 / 0)

if statewide programs proved to be sufficient (Let us say the AQMD and CARB in California, which have the strictest vehicle emission laws in the nation) then, let the locals handle it.

I know, I know, we fought that war, in the 1860s.  But, even now the "federal oversight" doesn't work.  I mean, here's an example....

Locals have limits?  Good.  More limits, less oppresion!!!

Since you listed so many, please tell me we need Federal Marshals, FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret Service, and Department of Homeland Security?

Regardless of whether we actually need to be fighting a war on drugs, or a specialized group to investigate Alcohol and Tobacco taxes..oh wait, they do a little more than that.  But still, doesn't it seem excessive to you?

Couldn't they at least share a secretarial pool?

DA is The Most Interesting Man in the World. - Karmafish

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by: devilishadvocate @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 20:06:13 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Statewide programs (6.00 / 1)

There are a large number of programs that are state-run or even local government-run.  Most state-level programs and a few local programs (such as schools) get federal funds, which sort of act as revenue sharing between rich jurisdictions and poor jurisdictions.

The remainder of your points are well taken and goes to policy decision, not some abstract size and power of government philosophy.

Excessive yes, more police state than nanny state.

Want a third party -- 50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts -- Go get 'em

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by: TarheelDem @ Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 08:48:42 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Believe it or not, TarHeel (0.00 / 0)

I know a little bit about meat inspection and food microbiology in general.

My point had more to do with the public perception.  The facts are like sausagte making:  you really don't want to know bouyt it.

I would dispute that we necessarily have a system that is much worse than it has been.  There are now and always have been E. coli contaminiation.  It was the rise of strain O157 that brought it to public attention.  Those outbreaks obviousl8y get notice.  And we are much better at monitoring outbreaks now.  

To think about it theoretcially, the ideal wold be to inspect each piece of meat sold to the public.  Obviously this is not possible.  So the shortcut you mentioned is used, as well as the more obvious shortcut of intermittent inspections.  The penalties for non-compliance must also be high enough to to be a terrence even when catching non-compliance is a low probability event, as it is now.

As I said, this doesn't argue against inspection.  But to ber 100% effective, it would take more inspectors than there are workers in the government.  The practical ideal would be to find the conjunction of worker numbers that created the lowest risk before the law of diminishing returns made hiring more inspectors too expensive.

Another practice that hasmade the spread of E. coli in meat harder to trace is packaged ground beef.  I wouldn't buy that in any case.  (It mixes beef from several different sources.)

Now, what wold i cut>  First, NEA.  There is absolutely no justification for this in government.  oddly, when one argues to cut it, the first argument is that it doesn't take much of the budget.

A German once told me that Germans have a particular word, which I've forgotten, for the phenomenon you demonstrate here.  They despair of ever removing something from government once it gets in it.  the idea is that to get something into government, there is a required justification, while once it gets into government, it no longer needs any justification.  then, those who believe in totalitarian government seek to pass the burden to those who would remove something.  Since someone loses anytinme a government servoice3 is removed, none will ever be removed if the scheme is followed.

Bertter to subject the government to zero-based budgeting.  As you no doubt know, this requires that the cost of everything in the govenbment be estimated, and all parts of the government prioritized.  Then the amount ofr money available to fund the government would be estimated.  The list of prioritized parts of government would be followed until the cost equalled the amount of money available to fund it, and a line would be drawn at that point.  Anything of lesser priority than that line would be dropped.

It's a formalized way to do what we do at home, what businesses do, what any entityu that is responsible does.  It leads to painful decisions.  But the truth is that we can always justify doing more, and because we don't directly consider the cost, we will have to raise taxes continually to get within some shouting distance of paying for programs.

So, the question should not be "what is a good thing to do as a government," but "what can we afford to do as a government?"  There are some things we must do.  The rest, we may like to do them, but that is not good enough a reason.

The ball is in your court.  If you had to prioritize all gfederal government operations, and keep only what could be paid for with the available taxes, what would you end up keeping?


"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 22:18:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The public is not expecting 100% (0.00 / 0)

It is just expecting industries (not just meatpacking) to take prudent measures to reduce the risk, knowing you cannot eliminate it entirely.  And the public becomes appalled when industries engage in transparently imprudent action.

Way to dodge my question. "The ball is in your court."

Sorry not taking the bait.

Want a third party -- 50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts -- Go get 'em

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by: TarheelDem @ Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 08:43:11 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Way to duck the question, TarHeel (11.00 / 1)

First, the public damn well does expect that what the government regulates should be risk free to them.  They may be realistic about the actual limitations of this or that government, but, ultimately, they believe that a properly functinioning, regulatory government would prevent food poisoning traceble to production or prep[aration, would prevent towys fromcausing illness or accidents in children, and so on.

Now, I gave you an exact answer as to how I would determine what to cut out from the federal government.  Let me repeat:  you prioritize everything for which there is an expense, estimate the cost of each item, estimate how much money you have to spend on the government, go down the list until you have equalled that amount of money, and you draw a line.  In practice, at this point, you do a little dickering.

I have had to do this in practice.  You are forced to make practical decisions.  For instance, since your employees are also on the list, a hospital unit might run most smoothly with an evening shift staff of 12 (X5=60 sahifts comvered, meaning that one could schedule 8+ staff per evening) but you might have to cut that to 10 staff (X5=50 shifts a week, and 7 staff per evening.)  More likely, you will have to cut to 8 staff (X5=40 shifts a week or 5 staff per evening).  The unit may average 60 patients.  Given illnesses, vacations, vacancies, and so on, practically, much of the time, you will have 4 staff on that shift.  This will cause programs to be curtailed , which in itself can lead to unrest and perhaps violence.  But you, TarHeel have to make this decision because you need to mee budget.  There is no question of what you would want if you had all the money in the world.  but you don't.

What I'm arguing against is the notion, implicit56 in you que3stion, that if t the federal government's doing something makes the world better, then that is a sufficient justification for the federal government doing it.  Trumping that notion up by focusing on programs already in the government just makes thinking clearly more difficult, and, in fact, is the intent of the argument.  As you know.

Here's another way to look at the problem.  Let's say we focus merely on medical research.  Therre is no medical research I know of that one could not justify the government backing.  Who's to say that your disease desearves more or less research backing from the government?  Now, hoiw much funding is justified?  An argument can be madwe that thee is no upper limit for research on any disease.  No matter how much money you put into research on cancer, por heart disease, or Tarheel's disease, those doing the research and those suffering from the disease can honestly justify more money being spent.  How do you set limits?  How dpo you decide to spend X amou8nt on Cancer, Y amount on heart disease, and no money on Tarheel's disease.  (A disease, I take it, that afflicts those who come in chronic contact with a certain type of soil.)

So, I am arguing, the argument can't be about what can be justified for federal government spending.  What can be justified would take more money than there is in the world.  Noir can we ask what we would cut out, since there is some justification for any program.

What we must ask is what we can afford.  I asked you to do what i've had to do as a government employee.  You ducked the question.

I did give you one specific.  I would dump the NEAQ.  The fedeeral government does not need to be supporting art, which, after all, involves it in decisions of aesthetics.

You know, years ago, I was collecting money for a group home for released mental patients.  it was designed for patients who could not live alone, but were well enough to live as a group with support from outpatient teams.  I asked one of the social workers at the hospital for a contribution, since she had been key in developing the p=lan.  She told me, "I pay taxes to take care of these people.  So, I already gave."

of course, if taxes covered it, i would not have been collecting money.  The principle?  Government replaces charity.  It's back to maryscott's essay.  If we want to encourage virtues, we must not allow government to take over those virtues.

Now, I have given you the method that I wold use to trim programs (and people) from government.  What is yours?

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 18:43:50 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Oracle of Delphi (Part I) (4.33 / 3)

I actually thought that you would have something interesting to say, i was right, and I didn't want to step on your toes beforehand.

This note is to focus on part of your note and subsequent discussion.  I have objected before to making much of the dicta of the preamble.  First, to use it to make any case at all, one would have to explain where the terms came from, and what they meant at the time.  (This would avoid obvious idiocies like that of the gentlemen that once explained to me that Great Society welfare programs are required by the "promote the general welfare" language in the preamble, but would also prevent some of the more subtle anachronisms.)

The fact is that documents such as this constitution seem to demand some introductory material which speaks in the grand terms of the day without specificity and reflect, not realitities, but "wishes."  (The term John Dean used to describe the purpose of dicta in his book.)

Let's say you are facing a major medical procedure (the example seems to come out of nowhere) that will be performed in a hospital.  Among the things you might do to assess the hospital chosen for the procedure is to read their policy and procedure manual.  (I happen to be a connoisseur of policy and procedure manuals, and have helped right many of them, including the preambles.)  That policy and procedure manual will most likely come with some "Statement of principles," or "Announcement of Medical Philosophy" or perhaps, soimply "Preamble."  This preamble will talk about the dignity of each patient, perhaps the intention to include the patient as much as possible in his own treatment, some general statements of commitment to privacy and to best treatment, and so on.

What i am here to tell you is that you will learn nothing about the owrkings of the hospital by reading this piece of fluff.  On the other hand, actually reading the policy and procedures can tell you much, although not everything.  What kind of manual do you have?  Is it general, elucidating the broad outlines within which practicioners can operate, or is it compulsively detailed?  Our constitution is like the former, while an old Pennsylvania constitution was so detailed that it discussed railroad guages.  The former creates a freer expanse for creative practice and the ways to adjudicate conflicts, the latter seeks to foresee every conflict, but ends up creating ballast and inertia.  I once worked in a hospital that would not allow the use of any equip,mment, for instance, until a full pro cedure for that equipment was submitted to the P&P committe, reviewed, approved, and placed in every manual in the hospital. That meant that if a psych or training unit, say, bought a new VCR of a kind not priviously owned by the hpospital, a complete new proceedure had to be prepared.  ("Operating the JVC model XV-3245A VCR....")  It didn't matter that we already had the JVC model XV-3245 VCR, and that the only difference was that the new model had, according to the company, an improved comb filter.

What occurred to me today thinking about this is this:  if i were dicatator for a day, and could promulgate one fiat in order to improve the understanding of our government, our politics and political culture, and the genius of our constitution, for both our citizens and those outside our country, I would decree that the preamble would forever be removed from the Constitution.

for surely, the Constitution consists most decisively in all that is written from "Article I" on.

In even contemplating the preamble, we would do well to remember that the writers of this document were not discussing the duties of government.  The might well have believed that government ought to provide for those who could not provide for themselves.  but none of them saw that as the role of the federal government.  their notion of this document consisted an attempt to create a federation of states in a government strong enough to carry out those duties which the states could not in principle carry out themselves.  As Madison explained, unlike the state cponstitutions, this constitution was largely about limiting the federal government, to protect the states, localities, and the people from that government.

In modern language, the founders were keen to avoid a Big Brother federal government, no matter how benign Big Brother might turn out to be.  All this despite the fact that any state, on its own, at the direction of its own voters, could institute a Big Brother government within its own bounds.

Perhaps ths can be seen clearly in the Bill of rights, added to make cler the limits placed on the federal government.  The establishment clause, for example, was put in despite the fact that some states had established religions.

To, just for a minute, dip into the discussion, if 'promote' means anything in this context, it is "remove impediments from," or, more importantly, "not be an impediment to."


"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 21:15:25 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Oracle of Delphi, Part II (4.50 / 4)

Let me skip down to here:

We can no longer go back to the agrarian economy, back when people and companies were industrious, not just industrial.

It is true that we will not go back to an agrarian economy.  But i weas unaware that there was a ratchet on virtue.  There is no reason that we cannot be industrious, as weell as some of theose other things we were, in general, sometime back, like individually generous, thrifty, willing to live within our means, suspicious of credit, pursuant of self-reliance within a full culture of interdependence (so that we looked to ourselves and to those with whom we intercted to solve problems).  There is no reson we cannot return to being the peole who said "We can" rather than "I don't know if we can, but it's just better if government does it for us."

It is not too hard to see in Maryscott's essay exactly the return to a set of values we formerly had.  for her essay is much less about political liberalism than it is about Christian morality.

[Here, before the righteous objection descends, let me state that my use of this term is historical.  I certainly don't mean that Buddhists, Hindi, Muslims, Jews, and so on, didn't believe in formulae like "all men are brothers" or "love thy neighbor as thyself," or "I am my brother's keeper."]

The essay once again brings to my mind Nietzsche's observation that socialism (here i include liberalism, progressivism, and other cognates) is an attempt to maintain Christian morality without god.  Maryscott is certainly not hiding from this fact: some of her examples come directly from scripture and she might have first heard them in church.

In short, Maryscott says "I am my brother's keeper."  She contrasts this (unintentionally, perhaps, but anyone with libertarian leanings knows, feels in heir bones, that it is a contrast) with "live an let live."  Both are moral precepts; both provide guidance for the individual.

Problems arise immediately when we try to translate these to government.  "The government is my brother's keeper, and mine as well."  You know, sort of a grand "Big Brother."  And governments find the second precept, live and let live, antithetical to their raison d'etre.

Let's take a practical example.  Let's say I see an old woman about to cross the street.  She seems a bit unsteady, and, following the first precept, I determine that she might be able to use a little help.  So I offer.  She may accept, and I guide her across the street.  She gets safely across, and i am filled with a huge smile knowing that I did the right thing, and she benefitted.

Or she may refuse my offer:  "get away, you stupid kid, what'ya think that just because i have white hair i forgot how to cross the street?"  Here, I can immediately switch to the second precept, and leave her alone, again, happy that I did the right thing in offering my help.

Now, how does this change if government is involved?  Your legislature, flush in 2009 with a great Democrtic majority and a new Democratic president, notes the need to help old ladies across the street and considers two pieces of legislation.  The first rpoposes that all able bodied peoiple beteen the ages of 18 and 60 are required to offer their services to old ladies crossing the street in their vicinity, commands local police to enforce this measure, and provides penalties for those who fail to offer such help.  an amendment to provide millionsd to local authorities to pay for extra police for this enforcement is defeated by a coialition of Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats.

A second measure likewise creates the new law, but also crates a federal sub-agency within the FBI which will be charged with policing the streets of our towns and cities to enforce it.  The backer os this bill do not understand why libertarians oppose this measure, saying that it is obvoius that anyoine who opposes it doesn't care about old ladies.

The result:  no matter which measure passes, morality will be taken out of the equation.  And this is a general principle:  whenever government replaces morality, public morality decreases, and the people become more depraved.  When the government becomes moral, the people are restrained from liberality.

And so, DA, I propose to you that those moreal changes you think can't be turned back are at least partially due to government intervention.  Why be thrifty when the government will take care of us anyway?  (A lesson not lost on CGI and other companies).

Ah, but you protest.  You say that it was never all that nice in the first place.  That is certainly true.  Our public morality has never been perfect from the standpoint of any particulr morality, and it has not been perfect even if one takes a long view that includes seemingly all moralities.  But i submit that the attempt to make us morally perfect collectively has negative side effects for both all of us individually and all of us as a country, that it is contraindicated.

The fact is that if we want to be a virtuous people, we must create the conditions where virtue is taught individually, and where there is no particular sanctioned advantage to lack of virtue.

It is an old problem.  What does the society of the ants say to the grasshopper when winter comes?  I am suggesting that a moral ant would share with the grasshopper.  But a society of ants which has as a goal the feeding of needy grasshoppers will eventually breed only grasshopers, and no one will be fed in winter.

Back when government didn't need to provide universal health care, because health care was affordable, even though the technology wasn't available (hell, everybody could afford leeches).

Not quite.  Healthcare was never affordable for most people.  But neither were fringed surreys.  Niether was seen as a right that the evil rich were withholding from everyone else, or that government should provide fundamentally.

Instead, to take another example, we decided that education was good for our democracy, and we provided it to children to a certain age, not as a right, but as a requirement.  We did this at the local level and at the state level.  Decisions about education were made clse to the people.

We provided this because we could afford it.  If we are to provide universal healthcare, we must first decide that it is good for our democracy, strenthens our country, and serves the constitution and the goals (life, liberty....) for which it was set up.  then we have to decide what we can afford to provide.  Because oif the influx of patients and money into the system, there wold be upward pressure on prices.  Because treatment would shift from ERs to other settings, and care would be more preventative, there would be a downward presure on costs.

But as long as this is argued on moral grounds, the argument is bound to be divisive and will probably fail.  

Back when we didn't need an agressive Federal government, because we had caring local and state governments and we often "took care of our own."  Those days are gone.

Why?  If Maryscott's essay is anything, it is a call to individuals to re-implement these values in individuals.  To me, the argument that the days are gone when we as a people will support caring programs at the local and state level so we, the same people who apparntly won't support them at the local and state level must insist that they be implemented on the federal level is as stupid as the notion that because the taxpayers in the several states can't afford to support certain programs, the same taxpayers, taken as a whole, sending their money to Washington, can.  There is both pessimism and a lack of reality checking in the notion that we as individuals can't be moral "like we think we used to be" but that we can create a government that will be moral for us.

The questions here should be practical, and the answers should be practical.

To me, surveying Maryscott's essay, what is not liberal is to confuse one's politial postion with one's morality.  So, assuming that one is immoral because they don't agree with a particular liberal politifal program is decidedly illiberal, as i read Maryscott's essay.  In other words, it is illiberal to assume that because someone does not support say, Obama's proposal for universal health care that they don't care at all about those who need health care.  It is both illogical and mean, and certainly not liberal.

To me, Maryscott's essay is quite beautiful.  It promotes the Christian "works of mercy," which we are all called upon to carry out.  I will list them here, knowing that the anti- or ir- religious will not be sympathetic with a few of them:

The corporal works of mercy are:

 To feed the hungry;
To give drink to the thirsty;
To clothe the naked;
To harbour the harbourless;
To visit the sick;
To ransom the captive;
To bury the dead.

The spiritual works of mercy are:

To instruct the ignorant;
To counsel the doubtful;
To admonish sinners;
To bear wrongs patiently;
To forgive offences willingly;
To comfort the afflicted;
To pray for the living and the dead.

If trying to live according to these directions is liberal, then I think all should be liberal.  But if we ae saying that to force those who do not share these values to participate in them by using the power of government is liberal, I have my reservations.  After all, it directly violates the "live and let live" provision.

Ultimately, libertarians, if they care, have a faith in mankind that tells them that although not everyone is good, most are, and given the freedom to do so, will work to carry out thes4e works of mercy both as individuals, as groups (like the Lion's Club, say) or at lower levels of government where the works can be more closely matched with the needs of real people.

It saeems to me that those who would remove thse works from individuals to a central government have as part of their impetus the notion that most people are not godd (as they are), and that such forced morality is necessary to even approach the moral goal, that such works be carried out.

I can no better nail down this notion than to quote maryscott's essay at the end:

If "I am my brother's keeper" is one side of the liberal coin, "Live and let live" is the other.

Note that there is an 'I' in this formulation, and an implied 'I," but no government.

"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 23:00:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

One of your best pieces (6.00 / 2)

A most clear expression of your point of view.  Definitely "food for thought".

Want a third party -- 50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts -- Go get 'em

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by: TarheelDem @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 08:49:05 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I stand in awe (9.50 / 4)

And Maryscott, you stand among the best spokesmen for my beliefs that I have heard in half a lifetime. I remain, smitten.

Thanks
Bob Higgins

Bob Higgins Worldwide Sawdust

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by: BobHiggins @ Fri Sep 19, 2008 at 18:18:44 PM CDT

Here's my comment, Maryscott (8.00 / 3)

I will hold it to two comments, enumerated for your convenience.  You may want to, or not, read my answers to DA and TarHeel below.

I don't want to spoil your transcendent essay with argumentative comments, so i will just pick a couple of incidental things and try to draw them out a bit.

0)  (heh, heh)  Not really a comment on your essay, but a general comment.  Essays of this type, which seek to define a goup or movement or ideology of which the writer might be a part have a tendency toward self-aggrandizement.  I will not even think bout that, and the existence or extent of such are for you and others to contemplate.  I'm just saying that Attila would have a different definition of "Hordes of Huns" than those who got in his way did.

1)  In the Kennedy quote, he says that a liberal individual is someone who "looks ahead and not behind," which I find a wonderful notion, and one I could tie directly into my notion that politics is about solving practical problems in the here and now with practical solutions.

Surely Kennedy would not stop us from looking to the past to search for the causes of the present so that we can learn either what brought us to a happy outcome or what mistakes led us to an unhappy outcome, so that we not repeat such mistakes in the future.  But this is looking into the past to serve the future.

It strikes me that this is quite different from blame, which dwells in the past often to the detriment of the future.  Would you say that blame is illiberal in Kennedy's sense?  Is there any role for blame in the liberalism you describe here?

2)  I believe that the Christian morality has been a positive (in the main) undercurrent in America, and those that liberals most vilify, the corporate capitalists, are just those farthest from that morality.  It is easy for me to see a psart of liberalism as a search for another moral ground with the waning of the influence of religion throughout our society, (and, one might say, the rise of particularly ideological versions of the religion that is left).

But one place where liberals have always been one step better than most Christians has been in the treatment of prisoners.  Liberals have been the inheritors of the Quaker tradition, as in the Philadelphia experiment, which left it to God to decide if someone was beyond redemption, and believed passionately in the possibility of the rehabilitation of all prisoners.

On these pages, OPOL recently began to tell his story, and made a plea to re-emphasize rehabilitation.  Granting that liberals have sometimes been unrealistic about criminals, what do you think are the possibilities that we can once again ask society to take a little risk to believe once again in rehabilitation?  Since such programs often feature phased return to normal society, and since success is never guaranteed, there will be risk, and in the last couple of decades, one horror story can kill an entire program.  Can we get away from this kind of anecdotal "poster child" argument to teach people at large of the larger aims of such programs?  Note that even liberals are not above using such poster child arguments when it suits them.

"Gratuitous extra comment"

You wrote:

Our purpose on this planet is to help others.

This one hit me right on the nose.  Of course, no one knows what our purpose is on this planet, nor even that we have a purpose.

I think you would more honestly say that you have made it your purpose in this world to help others, and, perhaps, that you think we would all be better off if we adopted the same purpose.  I think maybe your modesty got the better of you here, for your adopting this purpose is a great accomplishment.  In fact, one can sense your purpose even when it is not obvious on the surface, and that is part of what I, and I think others, love about you.

Many of us have taken steps on this path.  but you have helped even when it hurt.  I have seen it.

heck, you've even helped me.


"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one." -Voltaire
Ah, my dear Voltaire, doubt is an acquired and cultivated taste, like Laphroaig Whisky or fine truffles, and quite as exquisite.

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by: Madscientist @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 01:12:27 AM CDT

My take on it: The problems in the country DID NOT start with the last 8 years, but they did get worse. (10.50 / 2)

This:

"Surely Kennedy would not stop us from looking to the past to search for the causes of the present so that we can learn either what brought us to a happy outcome or what mistakes led us to an unhappy outcome, so that we not repeat such mistakes in the future.  But this is looking into the past to serve the future.

It strikes me that this is quite different from blame, which dwells in the past often to the detriment of the future.  Would you say that blame is illiberal in Kennedy's sense?  Is there any role for blame in the liberalism you describe here?"

I  believe says it in a nutshell.  I do think that the past and the present absoilutely are intertwined, and that the past really does have some bearing as to the way things are today..right now.   As horrible as the last 8 years have been, they were, unfortunately, a long time coming.  The United States' constant interference in other countries' affairs, the overthrowing or attempted overthrowing of governments that the United States didn't like, (i. e. our Indo-China conflict, what the U SA did in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Korea, the Phillipines,  Iran, to name afew places in the world) the decline of unions, which, btw, started in the late 1960's, when President Nixon was in power, our always exhorbitant  military budget and our getting involved in  unnecessary wars, and the ever-present lack of a healthcare system in place for everybody.  

Racial, religious and ethnic prejudices, always rampant here in the United States have gotten worse.  Our lack of vigilence and failure to share information with  Europe, as well as terrorism around the world, also  helped lead to 9/11.  

Our ghettoes are still very much in place, and, with rare exceptions, our public school systems have never been that great to begin with.  Due to extreme recalcitrance and resistance  by school committees and top officials throughout the country, both north and south (including and particularly Boston) led to Federal Lawsuits throughout the country by aggrieved parties, resulting in policies that not only failed to get to the root of a deeply-ingrained, age-old problem(s), but exacerbated age-old, pre-existing racial & ethnic tensions and hostilities, failed to achieve what it set out to do, and made many people far more angry, fearful and suspicious of each other.  I think that mandated school busing is an excellent example of that,  especially in Boston, where it involved taking kids out of real hellholes in Roxbury, Mattapan and North Dorchester and shipping them to other hellholes in poor white South Boston, Charlestown, and other white neighborhoods.

In many places across the country, ghettoes were created by certain programs that ostensibly were to help low-income first-time minority homebuyers break out of the ghettoes and attain the responsibility of home ownership for the first time, were, in fact, "red-lining" practices, which involved limiting minority homebuyers to purchasing homes only in the red-lined neighborhoods, resulting in white flight and affectively creating overcrowded, crime-infested ghettoes that still persist to this day.   Boston's B-BURG program is, I believe, a notable example of this kind of disaster.  

Demogogue politicians, who consistently ride on the coattails of and play to people's fear of "the other", or whoever, have long been a problem in this country, pretty much since day one.  The McCarthy period, during the early to mid 1950's, which ruined many, many lives, as well as the "Yellow Peril", and the Red Scare, which is what ultimately resulted in our Viet Nam war and the United States' overthrowing of governments that didn't tally with their interests, as well as the overreaction of police towards sometimes  unruly anti-war demonstrators were a problem that showed up during the mid to late 1960's,  all helped culminate in the road to fascism that America is going down now.  

I also believe that intergroup tensions and hostilities, which have often resulted in such things as the beating, harassing, or even murdering people walking or driving through neighborhoods who look, or even dress or talk differently from any of the people living in them,  the deliberate prevention of people from buying housing in neighborhoods where they liked, the Jim Crow Laws and the persistent  refusal of government to really crack down on people who committed hate crimes against others was also a big problem almost from day one.  

I also think that lawlessness and secrecy has long been a problem within our government, and that, contrary to what many, if not most Americans (no matter what their political persuasion) believe, the United States lost the respect of the rest of the world after World War II.  

Regarding conflicts abroad, such as the I/P conflict, I believe that both the Israelis and the Palestinians have really been reaping what they've sown.  The Arab countries, along with the Palestinians, refused to accept Israel's existence and the divvying up of the land in question into two separate, sovereign, independent nation-states of Israel and Palestine.  Several wars came about as a result, with the Palestinians being used as a political football by the rest of the Arab world to make war on Israel for the first 40 years of its existence.  israel's occupation of West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights came about as a result of this kind of intransigence by the rest of the Arab world.  Y et, I agree that israel, too has contributed to the overall situation by occupation of WB, GAza and East Jerusalem, demolishing Palestinians' houses, the deprivation of Palestinians civilians of livelihood, income and education, not to mention water, food, medicine and electricity, as well as the humiliatig checkpoings and the killing and maiming of innocent Palestinian children and adults civilians alike.

That being said, I believe that Israel must do its part by pullling their troops and settlers out of Gaza, EAst Jerusalem and WEst Bank, give up control of the waters off of those territories as well as their airspace and allow the Palestinians to create their own, independent sovereign nation-state alongside Israel and not in place of it, like many people want.  I also think that the Palestinians, too, in no small ways, contributed to their predicament by pre-occupation cross-borders attacks on Israel using WB, Gaza and East Jerusalem as launching pads for  that purpose, the hijacking of Israeli El Al airliners and taking of hostages, as well as the taking hostage of and slaughter of Israeli athletes in Munich during the 1972 Olympics, an attempted similar hijacking-hostage taking at Entebbe, Uganda 4 years later, not to mention things such as suicide bombings inside Israel proper, which also resulted in killing and maiming of innocents, are all examples of this.    

The erosion of Civil Liberties, too, had started during the late 1960's, with the overzealous reaction of many police forces to demonstrations against our Indo-China involvement,  snowballed  under  Carter,  Reagan, G. H. W. Bush Sr. and has gotten far worse  under Dubya.  The polarization and  basic stifling of debate in this country started with things such as the McCarthy period, and, in many communities throughout the United States,  free debate over subjects and expression have long been in existance.

Our society and culture's total dependency on the gun.  For several decades the NRA and the omnipotent Gun Lobby have bullied various lawmakers out of passing stronger, more afffective gun laws and strengthening what we have, and it, too, has finally come home to roost.    We're now seeing the net result of this.  The United States has the  highest murder rate per capital in the Western Hemisphere, especially by handguns,    due to disputes between family/friends, acq, and the easy presence of guns at hand and blood is regularly spilled like water in many ghetto areas throughout the United States, as drive-by shootings, etc., compell many ordinary people to either being prisoners in their own homes, or making sure that they are home, inside their houses/apartments by or before sundown.  

I believe that part of the reason that many of these problems are not soluable is due to the fact that they've been ingrained into the very fabric of our society and culture since day one,
and for the past 8 years, they have gotten worse.  All of the above having been said, one does not have to defend the actions and behaviour of this present administration to realize this.  Although the Republicans have been disgraceful,  the Democrats, with rare exceptions, have done no better, for they have capitulated to and voted for many, if not most of the programs, etc., that the Republicans have implemented.

Certain things could've/should've been done differently.  Had Boston's BBURG program been carried out differently, allowing minority homebuyers, etc., access to housing in neighborhoods through the city, there would not've been the need for a divisive policy like mandated school busing, which failed to get to the roots of the problem and exacerbated age-old, pre-existing racial and ethnic polarization in Boston and many other places.

Accountability has also been missing, especially during the past 8 years, and the 1960's turmoil (mid to late 1960's) also helped bring about much rudeness, incivility and excesses, which, in turn, helped issue the Republican "counterrevoilution" and get presidents such as Carter, Reagan, Clinton and both the Bushes elected into office.  That being said, I admittedly don't have much optomism about the country's slide into outright fascism being slowed down, let alone stopped, regardless which Presidential Candidate becomes POTUS in January.

I know I may invariably catch a certain amount of hell for saying all of this, but this is my take on it.

Ahhhh....Life goes on.

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by: independentminded @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 06:19:43 AM CDT

Great piece Indepe!!! (5.50 / 2)

I think most here would agree with you!

I am a believer that all things happen for a reason and sometimes things have to get worse before we do the work to make it better.  Before we learn the lesson.

What I ponder, I ask you and everyone to join me in this..... what in the hell do we do now?  What have we learned?


It is a matter of life and death, see the documentary Food INC and vote no to corporate take over of our food every time you buy groceries  

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by: Kathleen @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 07:05:07 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

So, I just read this... (7.00 / 2)

After being accused of deleting the duplicate version with the good rating -- my nefarious reasoning being, no doubt, that if no one saw the good rating, then no one would READ the comment?

Anyway -- I second what Kathleen said. And I don't see why you would catch hell for saying any of this.

--7.88, --6.56      If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 07:33:56 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

My Hope (6.00 / 1)

I admittedly don't have much optomism about the country's slide into outright fascism being slowed down, let alone stopped, regardless which Presidential Candidate becomes POTUS in January.

My hope is that this turns out to be "having a positive mental attitude through negative expectations."

If there is a change, how would we know it?

Want a third party -- 50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts -- Go get 'em

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by: TarheelDem @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 09:06:13 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

To run my mouth off just a wee bit more: (0.00 / 0)

For starters, I also might add that, regarding the I/P conflict, the persistant refusal of both sides (i. e. Israelis and Palestinians alike) to openly and squarely face up to their accountability in the decades-old conflict is one of the biggest, if not the biggest obstacles to the necessary peaceful 2-state solution being implemented, in addition to the Israeli Jewish settler movement, which should noit have been allowed to happen in the first place.

Secondly, I consider myself a liberal with libertarian leanings.  (my opinons on mandated school busing, the I/P conflict and at least afew other things indicate that.)


Ahhhh....Life goes on.

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by: independentminded @ Sat Sep 20, 2008 at 09:48:35 AM CDT

Good Weird (9.00 / 1)

Most of the quotes about being a  Liberal are already on my fridge door

:)

I wish I could be registered as a Bleeding Heart Liberal but being registered as an Indie has to do for now. Excpet being an Indie screws you up in the pre-vote crap. ACK!


"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." ~Jimi Hendrix

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by: Damnit Janet @ Sun Sep 21, 2008 at 01:13:37 AM CDT