TAPPED ran a contest for the best “elevator pitch” for liberalism, and just put up the winning entry:
Liberals believe our common humanity endows each of us, individually, with the right to freedom, self-government, and opportunity; and binds all of us, together, in responsibility for securing those rights.
Can someone can tell me why that wouldn’t work as a motto for the AEI??
This falls into the category of “what were they thinking?”
Look. Liberalism is about using the power of government to make sure that the powerless get a fair deal. There’s obviously a useful and important set of arguments to make over what “fair” looks like. But if this – combined with laughable Lakoff-ian attempts at rhetorical devices – are what the Democrats plan on running under, I’m wondering exactly how old I’ll be before Democrats start winning national races again.
This would work excellently as a motto for the AEI. It would work even better as a slogan for the bi-partisan Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. I think FDD should steal it, and publicly credit TAPPED with a thank you.
This would enhance FDD’s bipartisan credentials, and confuse TAPPED.
Do you plan on using artificial mechanisms for life extension?
You could just simply say that if you follow Christ’s teachings you will find liberalism.
Or ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.
Uh, the first proposal would work really well for Ralph Reed and company. Not sure how pleased the Dems’ pro-choice constituency would be with that one. Or the Dems’ Jewish constituency. Or….
The second worked well for Hilel, but has slight problems if one is attempting to build a political program that conveys something specific. Since each group in politics advocates things that by definition they want, most are quite happy to claim that the maxim applies to them – and are often correct.
Liberals believe our common humanity endows each of us, individually, with the right to freedom, self-government, and opportunity …
Apparently liberals also believe that you can lift a line from the Declaration of Independence, replace “creator” with “our common humanity”, and your brand new political philosophy is all set to go.
To think of all the time that John Rawls wasted. To think of all the term papers I could have sold to these people if I’d gone to school with them.
BTW, what’s with this tiny puff of cranial flatulence: “self-government”? Whose self-government would that be, and since when? Is this a vestigial remnant of the Great Democratic States’ Rights Revival – which is, like, so last month – or is it a principled defense of Saddam Hussein’s regime? Or does having a hyphenated word in your credo make it sound more impressive? More “pro-active”?
Maybe some more fundamental questions need to be settled first: Do ideas really exist? Do words mean anything at all? What if all of this is just a dream?
A.L.: Liberalism is about using the power of government to make sure that the powerless get a fair deal.
Is the contest still open? If so, here’s my entry:
Q: How many Liberals does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: George Bush wants to bulldoze your house.
Which can the Earth support more easily:
5 billion Buddhist monks who own nothing, eat little and destroy little – or 1 billion US citizens? Or, China’s population growth or its economic growth?
We at Peasant Life Alliance want a meaningful discourse among civil society and academics of the options available and their costs. Though little contextual (structural) background on the authors assumptions is presented in the following debate, we present it in near its original formula in order to get the ball rolling and open our minds. We seek a correlation of forces economic, political and spiritual that can stop and reverse the US global domination and its imperialist wars. We question whether any of the debates or even the framework of the debates over global warming, Resistance or economics are meaningful – whether terms, goals or strategies are defined sufficiently or accurately in order to be of any value.
Are organizing operating within a giant lie?
An Eclectic Debate on Population vs. GNP Growth
By Dien Bien Phu (DBP) vs. Mike Pro High Value (Mike PHV)
**Italics are statements from Mike Pro High Value.
http://www.viacampesina.blogspot.com
[MARSHAL JK: The rest of a message that, when pasted into an email, reached 36K, has been cut off. There is a point at which that sort of thing becomes abuse of hopitality, not contribution to a debate. The standard blogosphere courtesy is to host such things at your own blog, and link to them. The item, and an accompanying advisory, has been emailed to the address provided if the author wishes to go that route.]
Ruth
Commie Liberalism or Classical Liberalism ?
I look in the defintion of Liberal I find the Liberal party of Austriala, (vs their commie labor party)
Or what Cherac in france is decouncing, he is no fan of Liberalism.
In the USA, the meaning of “Liberal” is inverted, and they foist planks from the communist manifesto, ideas and party planks from those that mass murdered 174 million people.
Extermination of 100+ million “enemies of the people” for Jesus ? the leftist death spiral of the tax decline repeat cycle?
What do you mean by “Liberal” ?
Austrialas Howard or the USA’s Howard Dean ?
they are polar opposites … so, which is it, Freedom and its culture of life ? or leftism and their culture of death ?
Abortion and Euthenasia for Jesus ?
Perhaps you need to be a bit more clear.
JK:
I assume you’re replying to my post, so: first, Christ claimed that he ‘came to fulfill the prophecies’, and where differed from Judaism mostly was in rejecting the pharisaitic domination of the Jewish religion, (which involved a lot of fundraising techniques). Much New Testament teaching is pretty close to the Pentateuch.
You say: “Since each group in politics advocates things that by definition they want, most are quite happy to claim that the maxim applies to them – and are often correct.”
So there you are, true conservatism is pretty close to liberalism … and liberal you recall means ‘generous’.
Robbing the poor to give to the rich – as this administration advocates – doesn’t fit either maxim.
bq. Robbing the poor to give to the rich – as this administration advocates.
Does not fit reality.
Just who is being robbed ? specifics please.
Frankly the rich are being robbed, forced at the point of a gun to surrender their earnings to be tranfered to non-earners, that is robbery.
Just what can you point at that the poor are getting robbed, well except perhaps in leftist controlled democrap areas where the poor are robbed of their consitutional right to a gun, enabling them to be robbed by thugs that the democrats refuse to punish.
Bzzt sorry Ruth, try again.
Raymond:
How about the millions Africans whom died in the MIddle Passage or those whom survived to be used as brutally as those in a Soviet Gulag in the name of capitalism? Your version of conservatism is to continue a self aggrandizing moral superiority that does not exist.
Robert
Yes it does exist.
And what are you accusing me of again ?
Do you even know where the anti-slavery movement came from ? why they was against it ?
The same principles that say slavery as a crime, see leftism as a crime, for the same reason.
The democrats simply moved from one freedom problem to another freedom problem.
174 million dead via leftist mass murder, because they deny the individual his rights, or the slaves purchased from Muslim Africa and transported on Moor shipping and denied the same. the dixicrat opposition to the civil right laws, the leftist opposition to consitutional rights.
Bzzt, sorry, try again.
“Liberalism is about using the power of government to make sure that the powerless get a fair deal.”
I agree with this. But lets look deeper and see how liberalism has, after a century of stunning victories, reached the logical conclusion of its assumptions.
Why are the powerless powerless? Well for many years the answer was simple, because they were exploited. Labor laws, unions, and civil rights largely remedied that. Compared to how the US looked in 1900, the term ‘powerless’ has taken on an utterly different meaning. Marx would be confused. Now the powerless are generally chronically bad decision makers, often generations of them (there are clear exceptions, immigrants, children, etc). 50 years of modern liberalism have proven to the electorate that pouring money into bad decision makers is a recipe for making more of them. Some programs work, most dont. So how can government now help the powerless? By taking their decisions away from them. And how to do this without exploiting the powerless yourself? By applying that standard to the everyone else as well. Liberalism is a victim of its own success. The only way now to really help the powerless on a large scale is via government controlling more and more aspects of everyones lives (conservatives attempt this for other reasons).
Mark
Are you sure ? or was it the competition for labor ?
Unions didnt create jobs, and what increased the income of the worker was the increased value of his labor not deals struck in collective barganing.
We have bettered our lives thru inventions, and productivity increases that increased the wealth creation of a mans work. we are better of because we create more wealth, not because the puny 1900 economy is more fairly distributed.
Perhaps the only thing the govt did to help things along are the anti trust laws, those things that prevent a large corp monster to block a small new startup from entering a market, key to the vitality of the economy, thats what defeated the robber barrons.
These new startups created jobs, creating competition for labor.
And antio trust laws are not against the rights of the individual, but are a garranty of them, the new startup has rights to compete in the market alongside the levithans.
That is why the “Third Way” chrony capitalism in Eurabia is failing, between robber baron chronism and the socialist burden, the economy there is sucked both of air and sustinance
If labor regs could do what you say, why are the most lavish labor regs for the workers half of what is strangling socialist Europe (the other half is taxes)? they are consuming their seed corn, consuming what the prev decades of hard work had built, and destroying their chance to turn it around with it.
Bzzzt reality check.
Ill ceed to you I have some affection for child labor laws, as long as they dont shut down waif Lisa’s lemonade stand or Billies paper route.
First of all, please quit saying bzzzt. My PC doesnt have speakers. Secondly, competition for labor didnt have anything to do with lifting senior citizens out of the extreme poverty they were often relagated to before the New Deal. Nor did the fundamentals of Capitalism overcome the hate and bile of the Reconstruction South (and North). MLK was hardly a tool of the market. The market didnt stop strike breakers from kneecapping union leaders either. Capitalism cannot work without law and a level playing field (not guarantees of outcome) and without question liberalism did a lot, especially in the first half of the 20th century to remedy terrible social injustices and hence make Capitalism sustainable.
“The market didnt stop strike breakers from kneecapping union leaders either.”
And the government didn’t stop scabs from getting shot by union members. The violence was not exactly one-sided.
“without question liberalism did a lot, especially in the first half of the 20th century to remedy terrible social injustices and hence make Capitalism sustainable.”
What is a “social injustice”? I have never seen a sensible definition of this vacuous term. And how is capitalism unsustainable?
namada (#5):
_Which can the Earth support more easily: 5 billion Buddhist monks who own nothing, eat little and destroy little – or 1 billion US citizens?_
5 billion monks would not have neither fertilizers nor pesticides to grant their food sypply. You are condemning them to starvation.
Don’t forget that if there are today nearly seven billion people on Earth is because capitalism and technology have made it possible.
Liberalism, for me classical liberalism, includes the following:
– an ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society,
– the support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system,
– the desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals’ rights from others and from its own expansion
– the universal (global and ahistorical) applicability of these above convictions.
Therefore the role of the State *is not* that the powerless get a fair deal. That is progressive ideology, Socialism. Among others it arises the problem of what is a _powerless_ and a _fair deal_
“And the government didn’t stop scabs from getting shot by union members. The violence was not exactly one-sided.”
I never claimed it was. The point is law and order needed to prevail and workers needed to be able to safely unionize. Once that is done, the market self-regulates the power of unions (see Walmart).
“What is a “social injustice”? I have never seen a sensible definition of this vacuous term. And how is capitalism unsustainable?”
Blacks not being able to get jobs is social injustice. Women not being allowed to work or advance is social injustice. Children being forced to work dangerous jobs is social injustice. All of these things must eventually be remedied or a tipping point will be reached and social order will break down, probably violently. Capitalism cannot function correctly in the midst of lawlessness (see Russia).
The biggest threat to unions was not a “market” but rather government. Corrupt government.
See Ludlow.
It is astonishing how quickly the unions have forgotten.
liberalism did a lot, especially in the first half of the 20th century to remedy terrible social injustices and hence make Capitalism sustainable.
There is no Capitalism without “classical” liberalism, and vice versa. And without Capitalism, it is quasi-socialist “liberalism” that is unsustainable.
Monopolistic oligarchy is not capitalism, and neither was the aristocratic feudalism of the Slave South. Stonewall Jackson warned that a Union victory meant the triumph of Commerce – he was right, thank God.
Unfortunately we still supporting privileged classes; namely big unions (who have no regard even for their own future) who have destroyed once-competitive companies and now threaten to bankrupt them with unsustainable pension and benefit liabilities. When General Motors is gone, the taxpayers will presumably pick up the tab.
Robert Nozick asked a long time ago: Why don’t the unions take all of their money and start their own enterprises? Set their wages, benefits, and working conditions to suit themselves, and live happily ever after? No strikes or negotiations necessary – if the union wants something, they just give it to themselves.
Their Democratic friends in government could give them tax breaks (someone would have to explain to them what a “tax break” is) and install protectionism to make the public buy their products. They’d still go broke in a heartbeat.
bq. Secondly, competition for labor didnt have anything to do with lifting senior citizens out of the extreme poverty they were often relagated to before the New Deal.
Bunkum, all those Silver hair drivers of those 80,000 $ RV’s didnt get their 2nd childhood via SS.
bq. Nor did the fundamentals of Capitalism overcome the hate and bile of the Reconstruction South (and North). MLK was hardly a tool of the market.
Well it didnt have anything to do with anything except the moral argument, that we won, but its connection to SS im a but unclear about here, lacking for revelant material ?
bq. The market didnt stop strike breakers from kneecapping union leaders either.
I seem to remember it was those “scabs” that had to endure the thuggery, beware that false leftist history.
bq. Capitalism cannot work without law and a level playing field (not guarantees of outcome)
Cannot work well, the robber baron monopolies that strongarmed anyone that imposed on their turf certainly did distort the market. now its goverment that strongarms the startups, taxing the new employer as one that needs to pay a bigger “fair share” instead of building a business. all to the delight of the mega corps, who would rather not have to compete.
Hard enough to compete against the walmarts without mr government showing up to tax the “evil rich man” at that small store, and make damn sure only walmart will be left.
bq. and without question liberalism did a lot, especially in the first half of the 20th century
Classical Liberalism Yes ! commie Liberalism No.
bq. to remedy terrible social injustices and hence make Capitalism sustainable.
Communist “Social Justice” had nothing to do with it. (which are, after all, modeled on equality of outcomes, not equality of oppertunity)
bq. and hence make Capitalism sustainable.
Capitalism dont need to be made sustainable. it already is, unless you do something like regulation and taxation, to make it otherwise.
Joe.
bq. Don’t forget that if there are today nearly seven billion people on Earth is because capitalism and technology have made it possible.
Yup from resistant crops to the diesil powered combines to fertilizers, we grow more food than ever before on less land per mouth to feed than ever before. and we answered the leftist doom n gloom with a food glut.
bq. Liberalism, for me classical liberalism, includes the following
And none of that has anything to do with this commie liberalism we see today, that is its polar opposite
As for what the commi liberals have done to blacks .. all I can see is the distruction of the black family and the creation of a cycle of dispair.
When Charelton Heston marched with MLK, he wasnt doing do because he was some modern commie “Liberal” democrap.
In fact im still kinda miffed they took the Liberal name and twisted it so, into its opposite.
The Howard govt of Austrilia are Liberals, not the “labor” Party, Cherac deanouncing “neo-liberalism” is denouncing liberalism.
The Classical Liberal republicans that signed up black republicans in the south were real Liberals, not commie Liberals. commie buzzwords like “Social Justice” are not part of the Classical Liberal vocabulary, but part of the KGB funded commie agitprop.
Without the republicans and a few northern democrats there would have neen no civil rights act.
And sheets KKK Grand Klegle Robert Byrd filibustered against it.
Im getting kinda sick and tired of the Orwellian inverted terminology, the revisionist history.
Whanna know what Liberal means ? read Heyak, He is a Liberal.
The Libertarians are Liberals
Classical Liberals, the original defintion before it was twisted and perverted, the defintion still used outside the USA.
Go to Britain and call a member of the labor party a “Liberal”, and you are calling him his political opposite.
Today, there are no office holding Classical Liberals left in the democrat party, at all.
Not there there are not some that hold office, but they are all republicans.
But with the Orwelian perversion of language, we cannot call ourselves by our proper name, I sure cant, I loath communism with its mountain of skulls as much as i hate socialism with its mountain of misery (and another 20 million skulls of its own.)
Classical Liberals threw off the kings, freed the slaves, invented the idea of the rule of law and the inalienable rights of the individual.
We created the model of freedom for the world.
Too bad the commie Liberals of the USA have taken our name and sullied it. taken what we stand for and perverted it, and use the freedom we bequethed and use it to destroy it.
Now those that call themselves liberals but are its polar opposite want to take the credit for our work by taking our name and working to destroy what we bequethed.
Gee … I should be a bit angry, Ya think ?
They did. Its called Southwest Airlines.
“Bunkum, all those Silver hair drivers of those 80,000 $ RV’s didnt get their 2nd childhood via SS.”
In 1940 more than 50% of the elderly were unable to support themselves. Those silver hairs were really living it up in the soup lines.
“Well it didnt have anything to do with anything except the moral argument, that we won, but its connection to SS im a but unclear about here, lacking for revelant material ?”
We’re not talking about SS, we’re talking about the successes of liberalism. The moral argument was won… 80 years after the Civil War ended.
“The market didnt stop strike breakers from kneecapping union leaders either.
I seem to remember it was those “scabs” that had to endure the thuggery, beware that false leftist history.”
Give me a break, if you dont think workers rights have evolved leaps and bounds since 1900 your just being willfully blind. False leftist history? Sweat shops? Tenaments? Child labor? Or were those just more made up figments of the liberal media imagination?
“Classical Liberalism Yes ! commie Liberalism No.”
Guess it depends where you draw the line.
“Communist “Social Justice” had nothing to do with it. (which are, after all, modeled on equality of outcomes, not equality of oppertunity)”
Like the Voting Rights Act? Civil Rights Act? 19th Amendment? 24th Amendment? All that commie social justice…
“Capitalism dont need to be made sustainable. it already is, unless you do something like regulation and taxation, to make it otherwise.”
So Russia’s problem is regulation and taxation and not the total lack of law and order in the gangster run industries? Sure.
Robert we probably agree on plenty of things, but you need to take a step back and recognize that not everything in life can be laid at the doorstep of ‘commies’ and the liberal media. Tax cuts are great, but they dont solve everything.
Glen
Yes, and where do you see the resurgence of the oligarchs ? getting favors and even taxpayer subsidy, while startups are strangled out of the ability to startup, but in those countries where the left rules.
France and Germany both, the taxes and labor regs is basically a total ban on new business creation while the taxpayer must prop up the old petrified levithans
There is noise in france about removing some of the suffocation so that new shops and jobs can sprout, but the regs and taxes will crop any seedling that dares peek above the soil.
All the new growth is cropped at the seed, when the old big trees are gone you will have desert.
If you knew in advance in the late 70s and earlty 80s, that home computers was gonne be a big thing, you might have invested all your money in commodor. not Microsoft Apple and Compaq.
Where is commodor today ?
Japan Germany and france are attempting to keep their commodors afloat and funneling taxpayer bucks into their old levithans.
Funny that, where do you see the olygarchs ? the robber barrons ? look where the left rules, and you will find them.
Not just olygarchs but taxpayer subsidy proped up olygarchs … with any hint of competition in your market taxed and regulated into nonexistence.
The robber baron never had it so good, just gotta love that “Third Way” Eh ?
bq. In 1940 more than 50% of the elderly were unable to support themselves. Those silver hairs were really living it up in the soup lines.
More total leftist bunkum, beware that fake leftist history.
The family used to care for their own elderly, the nuclear family is why americans didnt starve, there where more old people working and running free soup kitchens than there was eating in them.
And those same people sacraficed all their luxuries to give their kids a better life, as did the generation after them.
Now our “poor” own dvd players, have air conditioning, (even tho the AC in the two old cars they have might be broke)
Nope sorry, but thats fake leftist history, americans didnt starve, you might find a few hard luck cases if you searced hard enough, those that lost everything in the dust bowl and struggled as share croppers sure had it tuff for a while.
But even those folks was not representive.
As I said beware your fake leftist history.
At the top of the great depression, what was the unemployment rate ? .. ok what is Germanys Unemployment rate right now ?
And in the USA, the economic downturn (caused by govt malfesance such as smith hawley and plain old corruption) wwas temporary, in Germany, unless they reverse what is strangling it, is there to stay, and will get worse.
Interesting, thats one of the things talked about In the essay featured in Glens “Nightfall” post.
In Britain, the family has been distroyed by the left, so the nuclear familly that has always been the traditional safty net,, that saved all (but the unrepresentive .0001% that leftist fake history foists in their exception parade,) Americans from the downturns, has been destroyed in Britain,, so the traditional safty net is gone.
The left has done a lot of damage here too, but we could survive a tuff spot a lot better than Britain, and Europe generally.
But thats the folly of the left, wanting to replace religion the family and morality with government, with , totaly predicable, and relentlessly repeatable, bad results. often horrific results.
Hey, I got news for ya, if you fell for that load of leftist bunkem instead of talking to your grandparents, you have swallowed a load of garbage.
They would tell you they didnt have much in the way of gadjets, never owned a new car or ate out, owned an old sewing machine and made most of their own clothes because storemade cost too much.
Gramps worked his ass off and did without things like his own TV set while they sent your dad to college …
Ruff by todays standard perhaps, but they didnt think it was all that bad.
My dad, his car was an old chevy with rust holes, and thats the only car we had. Now He n Mom tour the country in a bluebird RV. a life of hard work can pay off eh ?
And if they come on hard times they can rely on us, their kids. we have taken in extended family members who hit the skids. its what familly is all about.
The same as those in 1940. too bad your leftist Paradise in Gt Britain have destroyed that insitution, the nanny state is all they have.
The same nanny state policy that destroyed the familly now must play that role. while at the same time locking them into a tax decline (both moral and economic) repeating spiral into the abys.
They can have it. we want no part of it here.
Erm, hate to break on on the extended back and forth, but I’d rather not ignore Ruth’s arguments back in #9. If this is what the Democrats plan to run under, Marc will need cryogenics to achieve his goal:
RE Liberalism = Christ’s teachings…
“I assume you’re replying to my post, so: first, Christ claimed that he ‘came to fulfill the prophecies’, and where differed from Judaism mostly was in rejecting the pharisaitic domination of the Jewish religion, (which involved a lot of fundraising techniques). Much New Testament teaching is pretty close to the Pentateuch.
I kind of wish they had remembered that last bit more over the last 2000 years. But it’s too late now, and in fact the 2 religions now diverge on some pretty key areas that go beyond Christ’s divinity.
Anyway, you’re still left with religion dumbed down to politics, and interpretation of same in the hands of the actively religious (which is to say, not U.S. Democrats in case you hadn’t noticed). As sorely tempted as I am to gleefully encourage you in this formulation of liberalism, the idea of dumbing religion down to the political level by definition is _such_ a bad idea that my conscience forces me to tell you so.
You say: “Since each group in politics advocates things that by definition they want, most are quite happy to claim that the maxim applies to them – and are often correct.”
So there you are, true conservatism is pretty close to liberalism … and liberal you recall means ‘generous’.
Uh, bit of a logic slip there, Ruth. It doesn’t mean that conservatism = liberalism. It means that just about every conservative organization would be happy to live under the rules it advocates. Liberals may not be equally happy, just as conservatives may be less happy to live under rules liberals are willing to stomach. This the reason politics exists in the first place.
Oh, and ‘liberal’ actually derives from ‘liberty.’ That’s why classical liberalism is a doctrine of… yes, liberty. One mostly held and practiced by neoconservatives and libertarian types these days.
“Robbing the poor to give to the rich – as this administration advocates – doesn’t fit either maxim.”
You might convice people with specific examples. You won’t convince anyone with this. If we’re going there, go all the way with “Glen Wishard’s motto”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006770.php#c6 and at least entertain folks.
Your conservative opponents believe that government must remain a servant, and that the more people are able to make their own decisions about their money the better off both our economy and our polity may be. They are quite happy to do unto others this way, which is generally the way they would rather the government did unto them.
They also feel they must have missed the part where Christ ruled the nation and set taxation and social policy. We’re back to the “dumbing religion down to politics” problem – though you’ll be surprised to find that socio-economic issues will become a bigger part of Christian discussion as funding for faith-based programs makes inroads (uh, you mean the idea Democrats are trying to block? Yeah, that one).
Religion is part of the public square, and should remain there. Specific religious moral injunctions may be applied to specific political issues, and become part of the debate. That’s healthy. I’m with Al Gore, however, when he notes that in the end the laws are a human choice made by and for the welfare of humans. The debate must be conducted in those terms, therefore, which means minor details like having programs that work start to matter over time. True to the scientific half of our civilization, people will evaluate the results against the theory.
You could always convert to Islam for a clearer religious view of government and socio-economic issues, though I must say their record of actually running places lately is a bit thin.
Ruth: differed from Judaism mostly was in rejecting the pharisaitic domination of the Jewish religion
Jewish religion in Roman Judea was dominated by the Sadducees, not the Pharisees. Pharisee actually means dissident, or “separated one”.
“Christ claimed that he ‘came to fulfill the prophecies’, and where differed from Judaism mostly was in rejecting the pharisaitic domination of the Jewish religion, (which involved a lot of fundraising techniques).”
Vastly oversimplified as well as propaganda written after the fact to discredit the mother religion.
JK:
You raise a lot of good points, and my time isn’t free right now, so I’ll get back to you. I have a tendency to sketch out quickly – being time constrained. Do think you’re mis-defining liberal, refer you to Webster.
GW:
Thanks, I do tend to use ‘Pharisees’ as the prime element of temple leadership, and appreciate the correction. I’ll be sure to malign sadducees in the future.
Jehudit:
You won’t find me arguing with evidence that the New Testament was written with an eye toward discrediting Judaism – after all, that was the source of much of the early church congregation.
One of my favorite examples of self-serving early church stories was the couple that insisted they had given all they had to the church, and were immediately struck down by God. REminds me of ‘you better stop scowling, if the wind blows on you with that face it will stick that way.”
Trying to keep up with all these posts is nigh impossible, but may I just point out, on a tangent, that all these attacks on “classical” liberalism v. “commie” liberalism can be transposed into a debate on conservatism as well? When both major sides of thought have many who resemble little of the past, is it really fair to attack the words used? I’d rather just accept that the definitions have changed and talk about the substance rather than accuse people of “twisting” words when what we are seeing is more of a shift of thinking within definitions than a misappropriation of definitions.
What is liberalism for me? First, it has to be crystal clear that we’re separating economic and political liberalism here. Economic liberalism has different forms: on one side we have the 80s neoliberalism which claimed a decreased role for gov’t but didnt do much to cut spending and was even more hostile to gov’t than orthodox liberalism. on the other side we have what is closer to the economic liberalism of political liberals, which would be institutional and/or interventionist liberalism, which assumes that the market is not perfect in practice because of factors affecting its effiicency–basically, since no one is playing fair and mercantilist policies still flourish, governments should help their constituents who face obstacles, and international orgs should be set up to govern the world market and help countries that can’t transition to developed status.
Political liberalism, today, is actually becoming more about hands-off policies but a hands-on governance of the general society. Basically, the gov’t shouldnt regulate details of my life, but they should govern the actions of everyone so I can’t go around trying to tell/force others how to live their lives.
More details to come if this thread is still alive.
BW:
True, and ‘liberals’ using the label without the governing principles have made occasional grossly materialistic missteps, making way for the use of terminology as a substitute for political philosophy.
Now:
Reply to JK:
JK:Erm, hate to break on on the extended back and forth, but I’d rather not ignore Ruth’s arguments back in #9. If this is what the Democrats plan to run under, Marc will need cryogenics to achieve his goal:
1. RE Liberalism = Christ’s teachings…
“I assume you’re replying to my post, so: first, Christ claimed that he ‘came to fulfill the prophecies’, and where differed from Judaism mostly was in rejecting the pharisaitic domination of the Jewish religion, (which involved a lot of fundraising techniques). Much New Testament teaching is pretty close to the Pentateuch.
I kind of wish they had remembered that last bit more over the last 2000 years. But it’s too late now, and in fact the 2 religions now diverge on some pretty key areas that go beyond Christ’s divinity.
*A: You equate public religiosity with actual religious belief. There are a lot of independents and democrats who are sincere believers in doing the right thing who aren’t comfortable associating with the many formulated groups who front for religion. Christ’s divinity isn’t a real issue with most christians.*
JK:Anyway, you’re still left with religion dumbed down to politics, and interpretation of same in the hands of the actively religious (which is to say, not U.S. Democrats in case you hadn’t noticed). As sorely tempted as I am to gleefully encourage you in this formulation of liberalism, the idea of dumbing religion down to the political level by definition is such a bad idea that my conscience forces me to tell you so.
*A: Politics usually is an outgrowth of basic beliefs, and the unfortunate aspect of the religious right wingers is that it has alienated a lot of sincerely generous folks who see an expression of hatred and prejudice fronting for religion, and know they aren’t that sort – so reject religion. (Your term ‘actively religious’ really interprets the worst expressions of religion as the whole thing.) What I said in my original post was that following Christ’s teaching would lead to liberalism – if you were familiar with Christ’s teachings, you would know that they embrace diversity, extend their faith to all races, and firmly espouse forgiveness of enemies along with humility and service/ enjoining the disciples that ‘whoever would be first among you’ would be the servant of all. [Theologically; ‘Suffering servant’ = master of all.] Democratic politics, whereby the majority opinion rules, really adopts the concept that people, not military/familial rulers, should choose the course of a nation.*
JK: You say: “Since each group in politics advocates things that by definition they want, most are quite happy to claim that the maxim applies to them – and are often correct.”
So there you are, true conservatism is pretty close to liberalism … and liberal you recall means ‘generous’.
Uh, bit of a logic slip there, Ruth. It doesn’t mean that conservatism = liberalism. It means that just about every conservative organization would be happy to live under the rules it advocates. Liberals may not be equally happy, just as conservatives may be less happy to live under rules liberals are willing to stomach. This the reason politics exists in the first place.
Oh, and ‘liberal’ actually derives from ‘liberty.’ That’s why classical liberalism is a doctrine of… yes, liberty. One mostly held and practiced by neoconservatives and libertarian types these days.
A: Conservatism is close to, not equal to, liberalism, which was my somewhat glib rendition of your interpreting ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, that each would be quite happy ‘to claim that the maxim applies to them’. And again, if one is ‘liberal’, one is by definition one who is giving, or generous . However, liberty is not a dirty word, either.
JK: “Robbing the poor to give to the rich – as this administration advocates – doesn’t fit either maxim.”
You might convice people with specific examples. You won’t convince anyone with this. If we’re going there, go all the way with Glen Wishard’s motto and at least entertain folks.
Your conservative opponents believe that government must remain a servant, and that the more people are able to make their own decisions about their money the better off both our economy and our polity may be. They are quite happy to do unto others this way, which is generally the way they would rather the government did unto them.
They also feel they must have missed the part where Christ ruled the nation and set taxation and social policy. We’re back to the “dumbing religion down to politics” problem – though you’ll be surprised to find that socio-economic issues will become a bigger part of Christian discussion as funding for faith-based programs makes inroads (uh, you mean the idea Democrats are trying to block? Yeah, that one).
Religion is part of the public square, and should remain there. Specific religious moral injunctions may be applied to specific political issues, and become part of the debate. That’s healthy. I’m with Al Gore, however, when he notes that in the end the laws are a human choice made by and for the welfare of humans. The debate must be conducted in those terms, therefore, which means minor details like having programs that work start to matter over time. True to the scientific half of our civilization, people will evaluate the results against the theory.
You could always convert to Islam for a clearer religious view of government and socio-economic issues, though I must say their record of actually running places lately is a bit thin.
*A: Governing and programs are best managed by the public spirited, usually not those making a career of remuneration. The revolving door of lobbyist/bureaucrat is very engrained in the present government, and the recent Defense Dept imbroglio (forget the name of the lady presently in jail) where the Sec’y of Defense gave contracts to Boeing in return for Boeing employing relatives of favored employees of the Defense Secy. really are great examples of public trough politics. Which is particularly reverse robinhoodism when tax breaks are being instituted in the interest of the rich while public programs serving the less well to do are being drastically cut (80% of tax revenues are coming from individual taxpayers, only 20% from corporations).
Also: The administration sent a lower level State Dept rep to the nuclear proliferation talks indicating our lack of interest. As usual, weapon proliferation profits the industries supplying our military, a growth industry in this administration. I forget the stock analyst who has a really money making investment strategy he has named the ‘W-Industrial Complex’ which has been making over market profits since 2001. He could have gotten his investment project from Michael Moore, it’s all the same names.
As to “the more people are able to make their own decisions about their money the better off both our economy and our polity may be”, my view of making decisions about use of my money is that that’s exactly what I want. And I totally disapprove of using it to make war against anyone, particularly civilians.*
Sorry, that’s more time than I could spare.
Ruth,
The SecDef affair you mention above is routine political corruption invevitable when human beings hold power. It’s hardly limited to Republicans or this administration (Remember Whitewater, presidential pardons for sale, etc)? That’s not to say we shouldn’t minimize that kind of thing wherever we can and stop it when we can, but we should expect it to happen occasionally, humans being what they are. If you’re a Christian, you know we live in a fallen world.
There’s an argument to be made that “tax breaks for the rich” encourage investment, modernization of facililties, increased consumption all of which contribute to economic growth and jobs. If I’m a rich guy who gets a big tax cut, even if all I do with it is buy a mansion, somebody has to design it, others have to build it, still others furnish it, paint it etc. An argument can also be made that many of the “programs for the poor” that Bushitleretardespotheocrat (to steal from Dan Darling) and his “rethuglicans” so mercilessly wish to cut in fact made the poor worse off rather than better by encouraging sloth, dependence on dole, and irresponsible behavior such as having more children to get more money (not just right wing propaganda, my father worked for 40 years in an entitlement program. He saw such behavior all the time).
So what is more “Christian,” policies that create multigenerational dependence and encourage or even subsidize behaviors that have turned our cities into war zones or policies that create the jobs which allow people to become self-sufficient, productive and have a stake in society other than that of a parasite?
bq. Which is particularly reverse robinhoodism when tax breaks are being instituted in the interest of the rich while public programs serving the less well to do are being drastically cut (80% of tax revenues are coming from individual taxpayers, only 20% from corporations
Which of course, overlooks the fact that Robin Hood, is a THEIF.
The left have always inverted morality to justify their immorality.
Me.. im a Classical Liberal.
Not a commie Liberal
you have freedom to do anything you want as long as it dont harm others. be as irresposible and perverted and self destructive as you want.
And my freedom, means i dont have to pay for it, i dont need to give my approval, i dont need to be asked to expose my kids to it, i dont need to indoctrinate my kids that your perversion is a ligitimate “lifestyle”, i will teach em its a death style instead.
I dont control you, nor do i owe to a subsidy to finance your self destructive behavior by surrendering the rewards of my resposible behavior.
I refuse to be taxed out of the ability to afford my children because you refuse to be responsible for yours.
Defintions of words matter, and they are twisted and perverted as the tools of the propagandists, such are the devices of evil. they was twisted for a reason, fabian socialism.
But socialism wasnt Liberalism … and now us true liberals can no longer call ourselves by our proper name.
Do I sound like a “conservative” to you ?
And well i should not, despite the fact that the commie liberals call me one.
And im not a Liberatarian either, real Liberals see the idea of abolishing the border paterol and the FDA as wacky .. we are not Libetarians.
So what are we ? welp we certainly cant call ourselves Liberals any more, the communists have twisted it and infused it with planks out of the communist manifesto, the platform of the idiology that mass murdered 174 Million people, dont allow any liberty under their iron boot all based on a proven failure that redistributes without creating untill all are equally miserable.
Its not by accident that the left have starved to death some 40 Million people in their famines after refusing to admit that socialism dont grow enough food to feed themselves.
And im no more accepting of the commie Liberals perverting and soiling our name than some effort to pervert religion.
Commies using such things as tools to advance the blood stained agenda is a constant. the Liberal conservationists are now communists calling themselves enviormentalists.
But its not about the enviroment, its about its use as a tool.
They commie-greans are no more envoromentalists than the commie Liberals are Liberals.
They are frauds, pushing an evil agenda by fraud, and agenda they cant show openly lest everyone see it for the evil that it is.
And for me, im tired of the ruse, my tolerance grows thin for the pretenders, those attempting to advance leftist evil by fraud.
Im tired of the Lies.
Raymond, please keep your posts short(er), or I’ll cut them; the goal here is a conversation, and when people make 40-minute speeches (Gov. Clinton at the Democratic Convention, anyone?), the conversation tends to die…not dinging you on content, but on form, here.
A.L.
There is a very interesting analysis of the current dearth of “free societies” which would sum up, for me, the problem with a pure liberal agenda.
Basically, the lack of access to capital (no matter how modest) restricts the ability of a people or nation from acting in its own best interests, thus remaining dependent upon others for its sustenance.
Go and seek out the book The Mystery of Capital by Henando De Soto.
_… and now us true liberals can no longer call ourselves by our proper name._
An important victory of leftist propaganda.
When the word “liberal”, that is, free man, began to be used, the contrary was “serf” related to _follower_, a person whose political freedom, among others, was not in his, but in the hands of someone else. Now the serfs of ideology call themselves liberals.
Fred:
thanks for being uncomfortable with corruption and misuse of public funds. By the way, Boeing is losing the contracts it was awarded and they will be rebid.
You said:
“So what is more “Christian,” policies that create multigenerational dependence and encourage or even subsidize behaviors that have turned our cities into war zones or policies that create the jobs which allow people to become self-sufficient, productive and have a stake in society other than that of a parasite”, following your telling about your father’s experience.
Sorry, but I have to refer back to your comments on awarding of government contracts dishonestly, we all know of abuses of any existing system. This doesn’t make a program guilty of creating either welfare drones or dishonest Secretaries of Defense. Basically, support systems keep needy from starving, and hopefully working with the recipients will help them onto productive directions. And Hopefully, enough supervision and peer review will keep those trusted with large contracts to be awarded will keep them from acting against the public interest.
The tax breaks to date have not increased development of business within this country; U.S. companies generally are maintaining much larger cash reserves rather than investing.
bq. The tax breaks to date have not increased development of business within this country
False
U.S. companies generally are maintaining much larger cash reserves rather than investing.
Big Corps ? the tax cut weasnt about them, that isnt where the jobs come from.
The new jobs come from those you want to tax so that the jobs never appear.
And frankly what people do with thier own money is none of the govts business.
We killed people and died ourselves to get that freedom.
Hopefully we wont need to do it again.
Ruth,
hope is not a plan. Conservatives believe that many of the problems they see with the liberal welfare state are not accidents, and have a developed set of theories that explain the chains of causation and seem to have predictive value in practice. Which leads them to make alternative recommendations.
Replying that you hope liberal-left programs will work is not an answer, just a statement of faith.
There’s a major difference between a personal religious outlook that inclines one to be a liberal, and making liberal/leftist doctrine your religion. Or worse, trying to portray it as someone else’s religion.
It sounds like you’ve crossed that line.
I’ll add that if you want to pursue this, it would be helpful to state your Christian denomination. This offers a way for readers to check your interpretations against others from your tradition. It’s also “honest advertising” given that different denominations of Christianity do have different views, and those making “pan-Christian imperative” claims offer more transparency by stating where they’re starting from.
JK:
You say: “There’s a major difference between a personal religious outlook that inclines one to be a liberal, and making liberal/leftist doctrine your religion. Or worse, trying to portray it as someone else’s religion.
It sounds like you’ve crossed that line.
I’ll add that if you want to pursue this, it would be helpful to state your Christian denomination.”
Actually, this sounds rather high-handed to me, somewhat like laying down a set of rules for your discourse that may or may not pertain to my inclination. Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, and this is your blog, but ‘cross’ what or whose ‘line’? I have studied and practice Methodism, as it is called, although prefer the Society of Friends (Quakerism) but since there is not a meeting house near me I don’t attend one. I have a teaching certificate in Disciple Studies, and took courses in Bible History at Wellesley. And your credentials are…?
I don’t have to believe in a Bible. I’ve actually seen one.
A few comments on theology here.
The 4 Gospels offer somewhat different key themes and portrayals of Christ. Matthew focuses on Jesus as the fulfilment of prophesies about the lineage of David. Mark focuses on Jesus as the one whose word and person demand an immediate and dramatic choice. Luke focuses on Jesus as healer (literally and figuratively). And John focuses on the Logos which bridges the otherwise unbridgeable gap between God and Man.
And that’s before Acts and then the Epistles.
One way to understand the idea of a canon of Scripture is that it is a boundary which marks out the range of foci that are acceptable … outside that boundary one is outside the Word, as with the various Gnostic schools, the existance of whose writings was no secret to the early Church even if we today seem to find them fascinating.
It would be helpful if those who intend to pronounce on what is or is not “Christian” with regard to this or that political question were first to acknowledge both the multifaceted portrayal of Christ in the Scriptures and also that — as Tillich reminded us so elequently in his Philosophical Theology — when speaking about God we should keep in mind the limits of our language and thought: for those who stress God’s mercy alone will speak untruth if they forget also to speak of his justice and his demands upon us, and vice versa.
You can argue that environmental, health, safety, wage and hour regulations are good for businesses when applied with some clarity and fairness. If I do not want to pollute should I have to compete against the guy who is willing to poison his neighbors for extra money? Lie to investors? or pay 2/hour? or endanger his employees safety? or force them to work twelve hours a day without fair compensation?
Last time a checked people also value things that have little to do with market efficiency: pride in their work, devotion to their employees, sense of their own accomplishments. These reguations when they are fair and clear (which they are not, local, state and federal piled on is quite daunting)ensure that someone can run a business, not violate their sense of fairness and make money by coming up with a great idea instead of just relying on cheap labor, lying and cheating.
When was the last time there was a run on the banks? Where do you think the consumer/entertainment based economy would be without the 8 hour day and the weekend? These and other basic structures of our ecomonic success are the result of the stabilizing role regulatory governments and unions can play.
Master of Divinity:
thank you for your observations. While I certainly admit that I overly simplify, not only do we need to acknowledge the limits of our abilities to convey God’s will as well as we may intuit it, we also need to keep in mind that the audience we’re ‘entertaining’ has a limited background and thus, ability to understand. Too nuanced treatment loses most people.
The hazards of treating politics with a religious bent also are multifold.
Brenna:
Excellent understanding and development of brilliant truism. Thanks.
M.Simon:
Are you sure? Remember, it’s easy to synthesize an apparent bible, did you check the contents? ;-]
Ruth, I also somewhat simplified. The conservative arguments I reviewed in my comment #32 are more nuanced than I presented them. And I’m not 100% convinced even by the more complex versions. However, I do believe there is enough truth in those arguments to complicate the notion that the Bush administration is “pro-rich and anti-poor” or that being “pro-rich” necessarily _is_ being “anti-poor.” It also complicates the notion that “tax breaks for the rich” are always and everywhere intrinsically evil.
I’m also with Joe that empirical evidence as well as common sense show that subsidizing a behavior creates more of it. My father’s experience was not unique.
As for the effect on business of tax cuts, keep in mind our economy has expanded almost continuously since the Reagan tax cuts started having an effect in 1982. The only exceptions are two brief and mild downturns in 1990-92 and 2000-2002. The last of those would have been even briefer and milder had it not been for 9/11. Compare that to the stagflation and regular recessions of the 1970s when liberal policies were in effect.
“Liberalism is about using the power of government to make sure that the powerless get a fair deal”
The only problem is that government also decides what constitutes “a fair deal.” Thus, if you happen to be a slave, a “fair deal” is that you are 3/5 of a person for congressional apportionment. If you are an 18 month old baby in Great Britian and the doctors don’t think you can live long, a “fair deal” is that you don’t get health care.
Government exists to guarentee individual rights and to decide between rights when those rights come into conflict – such as my right to speak and your right not to be trampled by a panicked crown in a theater.
In our world all assets are rationed. Food, water, oil, and even health care are rationed. Right now in the USA, they are generally rationed on economic terms – those with the means purchase what they can. If we let government determine the “fair deal,” then how do we ration things like health care or oil? Should government tell us how much gasoline we can purchase for our cars? What about family emergencies where we have to travel long distances? Who gets preventative care? Who gets emergency care?
As a friend of mine once said: “Government Run Health Care: All the effeciency of the USPS and all the compassion of the IRS.”
The same is true of almost all other government run programs.
Ruth
What the good smaratan did,, was not to go back to sumer, have the king pass a law that all must help on pain of death. he bent down to help the man himself.
The most of the roman tax went to be distributed to the citizens of rome, freeloaders who didnt work.
I dont seem to remember much praise for that system.
Chairity is great, everyone who can should, when govt does it, my dollar becomes pauls quarter, its better if i do it myself, the dollar goes further.
Sending your govt goons with guns to collect my donation by force, so that they can siphon off 75 cents, is wrong.
Its not freedom, its not charity, its a govt expression of power.
You seem to have a problem with the freedom thing.
Which is a problem i have with the commie Liberals, who, dispite wearing the badge of liberty, seem to have no understanding what liberty is.
The history of Chistian charity is legion, the idea that its collected involuntarialy by force of govt guns is perverse.
This marxist religion based more on lenin than Jesus is a creation of the KGB.
Its a perverted and warped and has nothing to do with us.
If you collecting Christian charity on pain of death, I guess you might as well have them convert to the faith on pain of death.
the only thing the leftist religion delivers is misery and death, famine, an the opression of the iron boot, it exterminated 174 million people most of them horrifically, and it had nothing to do with Jesus.
Is this the new appeal for the BushHitlers to win over the faithfull ?
Your presentation is bizarre and alien, others have been more than kind in their reaction to it.
I think its a good example of how wrong you can go with agenda-forward thinking.
You already know what you want, and are searching for the reason to support it.
Such is the folly of the left.
Heres a clue, reason comes before action, fact and data comes BEFORE conclusion.
The left use conclusion-first reasoning, that isnt reason.
That is why leftist states never allow a free press, never allow honest debate, and every reaction to discent is to silence it.
Leftism cant withstand scrutiny. so they dont tolerate it.
They even devised ritualitist chanting to give their moonbats something to do other than thinking.
Tax collector govt thugs for Jesus ? did he send his deciples to Ceasar to have the Senate revise the roman distribution of tribute ?
Ruth, umm, it seems you have lost the plot entirely
bq. These and other basic structures of our ecomonic success are the result of the stabilizing role regulatory governments and unions can play.
Pure bunkem.
If what you said was true, Russia would be the par exemplar. the source of all the inventions and innovations that in fact, did, enhance the value of a man labor,, and all the the wonderfull things that brought us from the masses in labor in the fields just to eat,,,, to many able to buy food from the few while they made cars, tractors and computer software.
But Free men created all those things.
Then you mix in our system of courts and law that are designed to ballance one mans freedom against another, the very concept that demands a fair and honest bank.
That borders on the offensive, its a theft of credit.
Anarchy isnt freedom, even the Libertarians embrace our system of courts, the office of sheriff, and laws and penaties against fraud and theft and murder. penalties for poluting the other mans water.
Yes you need all these things, you need them to have a free society.
But there is no room in there for defunct marxist theory, Unions could never win more than what was available for them to have, unless business failure in short order was the plan.
Workers was able to demand more as there became more available to demand. Demand alone does not create.
If what you assert is true, then Germany is therefore the richest country on the planet. lets look…. Gee, they dont seem to be doing too well.
Welp, poof goes that idea.
Your position is untennable, we live well because we are free, tax cuts created booms and we lived even more well.
Look what happened to those societies that went the opposite direction.
Poof goes your argument, As I said, agenda – forward thinking dont work.
Ruth (#40): The line of taking secular political doctrine AS religion. Which is what it sounded like.
But then you note your association with the Quakers, and suddenly things snap into clearer focus because the belief basis of your claims is now much clearer. The Quakers are known for preaching along somewhat similar lines, and now we can have a productive argument about denominational interpretations, the ability to build winning coalitions on that basis given the Quakers’ small size (I’m Jewish; been there), etc.
Revealing the level of your background, too, steps you into the ring as someone with a real and serious background, as opposed to some faceless (remember, most folks reading won’t know even your previous comments elsewhere on Winds) person from the Net who thinks liberalism = Christ.
All of that makes the debate richer and less acrimonious, and brings it to a higher level. Which is exactly what I had in mind when I asked.
Your reply was very helpful, and thank you.
FYI for those reading, I also asked because things could have taken a sharp turn for the worse at that point, with outraged Christians who disagreed with what they might see as a crude attempt to ‘hijack’ their belief system to the political ends of someone who, for all they know, was not even a Christian. Best to remove that possibility – and by answering the questions, your reply did.
Moderating a space like this sometimes means acting on the basis of potential scenarios, in order to head trouble off before it starts.
Raymond, you write:
“Unions could never win more than what was available for them to have, unless business failure in short order was the plan.”
True, and your point re: Germany is a good one. But workers without unions at all could and did win much less than was available for them to have – and the extent of that was both morally problematic and socially corrosive. “A.L.’s post on Harry Bridges”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006724.php offers one example of that situation, via Harry’s struggles. Or, to use an example more familiar to all and sundry, have a good look at the professional sports unions. Especially hockey.
Many of the labour laws enacted to the end of the New Deal Era were precisely about “using the power of [collective action] to make sure that the powerless get a fair deal” – and then using politics to make the mechanisms available to all.
Those gains did indeed stabilize both the labour and the political situation… it is not an illusion to think so.
Having said that, unions are human institutions. It’s certainly possible for workers to be exploited BY their unions as well. So using those laws properly to give the powerless a fair shake needs to be a two-edged sword. Can’t remember the conservative commenter who to this day is impressed by Bobby Kennedyfor going after the mob influence in unions when he didn’t have to, because it offended him. Why? Because what mattered wasn’t the form and interests (a union that supports “our side”), but the principle (the powerless deserve a fair deal, and we won’t be complicit in denying that).
Phil’s point (#46) about the government deciding what’s “fair” does get at some of the issues re: governments making sweeping decisions about fairness to intrude everywhere. There are others, notably the fact that governments and bureaucracies are not neutral entities but rather every bit as self-interested as any business – they will maximize their own gains first, and do (vid. “Public Choice Economics”).
In other words, conservatives argue that there are serious flaws and even some bad motives in the liberal-left ‘fairness’ rhetoric, and also point to ‘opportunity’, ‘prosperity’, and ‘the right to determine your own desity’ as competing and equally worthwhile values in the public sphere.
Having said that, there is no reason for liberal-left type to give up on Marc’s formulation, any more than the GOP would give up ‘opportunity’ or ‘protection’ or ‘freedom’ as its key watchwords. The critiques re: the flaws have to be addressed in ways that go beyond spin, but if they are, the slogan can become powerful again.
Joe
What is more powerfull, serfs demanding the lord increase their cheese ration ? or the free man who found a shop offering a better deal elsewhere ?
(Yes I know its thin, but im attempting to avoid another 30 minute speech)
Russia saw every bit of tech we invented, copied lots of it, but the people still lacked he freedom for any of it to help them.
And even today, they are looking a long hard struggle out of the leftist abys, having to rebuild all of their instututions from the nuclear family and ethics to a fair market.
Its an example of why you should look with loathing and contempt at the “tear it all down” moonbats.
the former USSR is in for a 100 year struggle even if they stick with the program, I cannot warn sternly enough, that we here, do not want to share in their experience.
Well, Armed Liberal, it is admittedly a little vague, but at least it is not a pack of lies, like the so-called “conservative principles” (limited government, balanced budgets, and so on) of George W. Bush and his Republican fellow travelers.
To clarify it, I would rephrase it this way: Good public policy perfects the common union, establishes justice, ensures domestic tranquility, promotes the general welfare, provides for the common defense, and secures the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
Liberalism is the art of keeping an open mind, and evaluating real evidence, about what policies actually DO this. That is why there is no one size fits all liberal program.
We are the “reality based community” who do not presume to govern with our noses stuck in a Tom Clancy novel and with an attitude of grand indifference to results.
Liberalism is also art of keeping open eyes about what policies most emphatically DO NOT meet this sensible standard.
By the standard of the Preamble of the United States Constitution, there is hardly a policy of the Bush Administration which would be defensible. And, by the standards of prior Presidents (Republican AND Democratic), there is little even resembling a real “policy” in this Administration at all.
Just try to articulate one, based on the evidence of what they do. George and the boys are purely opportunist and simply make it up as they go along.
I frankly don’t think that you would have the face to lay out a clear and coherent argument on this blog about how the Bush Administration meets those simple standards of good public policy.
But if you did I’m certain I would find the results highly entertaining.
I think its kind of hilarious to attack George W. Bush from the Left for not being conservative enough, when that side of the aisle has spent the last half decade exaggerating George W. Bush’s conservative credentials to scare their flock. Besides that, the only value to the line seems to be keeping Molly Ivins employed and off the expressway median with a sign “Will Froth For Food”.
In the 2000 election cycle, a lot of Republicans, myself included, were unable with George W. Bush’s mild form of Conservatism. So we are hardly scalded by the accusation now.
And the “reality based community” is the adoption of a sneer,, and the sneer is at the left.
Ie those that carp about reality,, instead of creating a new reality.. by acting, and making history.
And commie Liberalism isnt Liberalism, its its opposite.
The assertion that the founders was about marxist theory is … well hehehehe a strrrrretch.
bq. I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which grant a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. — James Madison, 1794
bq. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. — Benjamin Franklin
bq. A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and all that is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. — Thomas Jefferson, in his 1801 inaugural address
Beware falling for the leftist lies yourself, True Liberals, Classical Liberals, are quite expert on our founding documents, what the authors meant when they penned them, and the leftist attempts to pervert their meaning.
Read the federalist papers sometime, the speaches on the floor of congress, the speeches by Washington and Jefferson are excelent !
Course that would put an atom bomb to the leftist distortion of the constitution, probably why you went by what some leftist moonbat professor told you instead of reading it for yourself.
Or,, whoever that nutbar was that gave you that idea of what it is about
Open minded ? hey , data is in, leftism dont work.
174 Murdered already, and billions suffererd and still suffering, among the whole range of peoples cultures and geography has it been tried, and you still want to repeat your bloody experiment ?
As for good public policy, the tax cuts that reversed the recession was a good start.
Course, he isnt a dictator, and the congress is spending like there is no tomorrow, just like the democrats did untill the Gingrich revolution slowed it down.
Yup plenty to bitch about, if your against big govt.
Im with Mr Roberts however, after the left painted him as some kind of extreamist, its a bit queer so see you come at him from that angle.
Your problem with the guy is he is too commie-liberal?, is that your gripe ? ok so we agree.
Liberal comes from the word Liberty, think Heyek, The austrian school of economics, its the opposite of commie Liberal.
Austrailas Liberal party Howard govt, Not Howard Dean.
True, the word is perverted and inverted by the communists as a tool of fabian socialism, but its value for deception is long past. everyone knows it means communist socialist marxist … In the USA.
Whats it like, knowing that your very name, Liberal, is the first leftist big Lie ?
I am a Liberal, a Classical Liberal, But Liberal has been perverted to mean its opposite.
Course, it fits with the way you just tried to pervert the meaning of the constitution.
Just as backward, just as upside down. just as dishonest.
Why am I not surprized ?
JM:
Your citation:”Good public policy perfects the common union, establishes justice, ensures domestic tranquility, promotes the general welfare, provides for the common defense, and secures the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.”
Thanks, constitutionality is almost a forgotten precept, isn’t it? You might also cite the oath of office “to protect and defend the constitution”, a truly forgotten promise.
Fred:
No doubt, many instances can be found of profiting from public funds without returning any positive value. This is not exclusive to ‘welfare programs’, though. But this does not obviate the providing of basic care to keep needy citizens from poverty, any more than it obviates the need to develop other programs supported by public funds. The problem is to provide the funds with proper supervision.
Putting aside the personal smears (“And commie Liberalism isnt Liberalism, its its opposite.”) I think we can take the following quotation as representative of what I mean about the “reality based community”: “As for good public policy, the tax cuts that reversed the recession was a good start.”
Nothing betrays the lack of ordinary common sense among my Conservative friends than their inability to connect one relevant fact with another to evaluate the result.
A tax cut to stimulate the economy might be fine in and of itself. A round of government borrowing to finance a necessary war might be prudent, despite the future difficulties the borrowing may cause.
Put the two together and you make the government borrowing baloon to utterly insane and unprecedented levels, amplifying any future ill effects.
Somebody will pay for the Iraq war in taxes sooner or later, and those taxes will be even higher to cover the expanded level of borrowing and to service the interest on the debt.
Not to mention the lovely fact (also relevant and also completely obscured from Raymond and his cohorts) that where there is a borrower, there is a creditor. Our major creditor is the People’s Republic of China with whom we have placed our economic future in hostage.
Now I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t call this “promoting the general welfare”.
Ruth,
I think we both agree that some provision must be made for those who _cannot_ work, the disabled, the elderly, the severely mentally ill, etc. But I still maintain that welfare programs, at least as they were practiced before 1994, were subsidizing those who _will not_ work. It’s not a simple matter of a few bad individuals abusing the system. The system itself was fundamentally flawed. We both share the goal of helping people to be as well-off as they can; we just fundamentally disagree on the best method to achieve that goal.
I think we’d also agree that feeding at the public trough is not unique to welfare programs. Where we can stop it in other curcumstances, we certainly should. But as I pointed out above, we live in a fallen world. There will always be a tension between allowing power which will inevitably be abused and curtailing that power to the extent that it is ineffective in order to prevent abuse. As one who tends strongly to the cynical team, I would rather err on the side of order at the risk of abuse. You, I gather, (correct me if I’m wrong) would rather err on the side of preventing abuse at the risk of disorder. That’s just a fundamental difference in world view that I doubt either of us will ever argue the other out of.
Hillel said, “If I am not for me, who will be, but if I am for myself alone, what am I, and if not now, when?” Everybody agrees on the last, conservatives, however, (and Reagan most famously) focus on the first, while liberals place most emphasis on the second.
Joe
Joseph
Bush thinks he can hold spending and let economic growth catch up, is he right ?
One thing is a constant however, more taxes = More spending, and does nothing to fix the deficit. giving the govt money is like giving wiskey to a drunk. As always, congress will spend all you send there, plus more.
Seems the “reality” bunch have a problem with reality, the tax cuts ended the recession, a growing economy will bring more income to the govt, they have created a new reality
Nice to see the commie-libs complain about the spending tho … not exactly something that is new for us.
Well, if there has been an increase in government revenue over the past five years, my small reading has not discerned it. Nor do I think any actual examination of the plain published facts will discern it either. How long do we have to wait?
The prosperity from 1992 to 2000 was the longest time between recessions in American history. Now it may be that the current “prosperity” (which, by the way, has not translated into the ordinary and sensible measure of new job growth, as DID the Clinton prosperity,either) will last that long, but I strongly doubt it.
The signs of its faltering are already there for those with eyes to see. People are already talking about a “soft patch”, the new euphemism for “recession”, which itself was a euphemism for “depression”.
Oil prices will continue to force the Fed to raise interest rates, and the exaggerated borrowing (both government and private) on friendly terms will simply stop. When it stops so will the phony “economic growth”.
Yes, there is some lag time, something they accelerated with that rebate, but the big effects wont kick in till later.
And Yes Clinton rode the Reagan boom. add in the Gingrich rebels that took power 2 years into his term to hold down spending.
Simple formula, the less you siphon off the economy the stronger the economy.
Simple stuff, arguing the bald face lie of the inverse is whats hard (isnt it)
On the oil issue and the petro dollar, we agree, but then again, the president dont have jack to do with that, well except opening up exploration, no fix, but it will help.
And oil proces are never going back down either, there is a new customer for oil on the market called China, and she is thirsty.
Sustained high oil proces make alternatives more attractive, so perhaps bio-diesil and other projects have cost/return ratios looking more favorable.
And the gas sucking SUV suddenly looks less attractive in the market.
Does to me, my truck is parked most the time, and I have this little tercell that can go to the moon and back on 9 dollars worth of gas.
I see others doing the same.
Welp, novel to see the dems care about the spending thing, but welcome on board, so I guess they will understand if we actually do something about the spending hmm?.
I wanna see Cuts, real Cuts . not reductions in scheduled growth, but cuts, entire programs terminated.. you on board with that ?
We can start with the fed dept of education, there is no reason it should exist.
Raymond,
Well, I think to an extent Clinton rode the Reagan boom; he also got an unearned windfall from the dotcom bubble. But let’s be fair. After his health care proposal went down in flames, he didn’t propose any big spending projects even before 94. Nor am I aware of much evidence that the new Republican congress cut spending significantly. Nor has President Bush significantly cut spending (even excluding the necessity to spend for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq).
Joseph Marshall,
The dates you cite are accurate. But the 92 recovery began at the end of Bush I’s presidency. He lost in 92 because employment is a lagging indicator. It didn’t start picking up until 93 or 94. Also, if I’m not mistaken, Clinton was still president in 2000. Unemployment today is high only in comparison to the very end of the period you cite, the period of the aforementioned dotcom bubble. It is in fact at about the level it was when Clinton rode the great employment picture to victory in 96.
Joseph, the dotcom bubble during the Clinton administration did not result in sustained employment. We are still dealing with the effects of the collapse of that bubble to this day in many industries such as telecom.
Actually RR & Fred, though I can’t prove this, my private opinion looking at graphs of the national debt data is that the slowdown in government borrowing from about 1996 on was what sustained that prosperity for so long a period.
Blaming the “dot.com bubble” puts the cart before the horse. The recovery was sustained by surplus capital to invest not by where the capital went.
It could easily have gone into something more sensible and less speculative. The surplus capital came from the fact that the Government was not borrowing.
It is also noteworthy that the Fed has had to prime the pump of the current “recovery” by the lowest interest rates in nearly 40 years to offset the mounting Bush deficits.
As of right now America is currently spending 6% more than the wealth it is producing. To do this it is currently borrowing 80% of the total free capital available in the entire world. No country can sustain this indefinitely.
This state of affairs has been totally manufactured by the comprehensive effect of Bush Administration economic policy. It did not exist in 2000 and it does exist now. It is the result of contracting Government revenue through tax cuts, borrowing to sustain higher spending in spite of the tax cuts, forcing the Fed to cut interest rates so low that private borrowing has exploded here, and devaluing the dollar (with China’s cooperation, which will last who knows how long) to siphon off the majority of the world’s investment capital.
I repeat, no country can sustain this indefinitely. And the ultimate consequences are quite likely to be brutal.
Joseph,
One problem with your theory: If the slowdown in govt borrowing caused the dotcom bubble, why did it burst in 2000 when Clinton’s policies were still in effect and not in 02 or 03 when the Bush tax cuts started taking effect?
Joseph, aside from the arrogant and insulting tone of your initial post – guess what, none of us are the holders of dininely revealed truth. I do wish that wasn’t news to my liberal friends, and my evangelical opponents – your economics are absurd. Government borrowing went down in the mid 90’s because tax collections skyrocketed.
Tax collections skyrocketed because – in large part – accounting and financial deregulation created a bubble based on financial engineering. Huge incomes and vast wealth ensued. Progressive tax rates made sure that the wealth increases flowed – in part – into government coffers.
That’s reality.
A.L.
Now, if the aforementioned governments had actually used that cash flow to build up reserves, that might have helped when the unsustainable bubble burst. But it was spent instead, if not used as an excuse to increase the baseline budget to equally unsustainable levels, as in California. So much for governments’ superior wisdom over the markets and individual’s choice of usinig their own earnings.
Joseph, you are making a common error in confusing financial flows with wealth. Almost all of our economic statistics measure flow, not wealth.
This is where the mistake in believing that disasters are economic fortunes comes from. If a tornado destroys a home, what we measure are the flow of cash from insurance company to homeowner, the flow from homeowner to building contractor, the flow from homeowner to hotel for temporary lodging and the flow for the contractor’s / hotel’s employees to the people they do business with. These flows show up in things like GDP statistics.
But we don’t measure the drop in aggregate wealth as the original home was destroyed, and so the error in concept begins.
Your error is of the same order, but different. You confuse cash flows among nations with wealth.
Fred: You say “You, I gather, (correct me if I’m wrong) would rather err on the side of preventing abuse at the risk of disorder.” In our society, disorder isn’t a big risk. I have a lawn person who has been in jail because he stole, nonviolently, in his youth. His lawyer took money from his mother and did nothing to get him released. A friend of ours who has some influence got him released and he is a good husband, father and person. The lawyer took the money and has nothing on his record.
JM; don’t worry, I don’t pay any attention to ‘raymond’ since he accused me of being a baby killer when suggested he/she could save lives by offering support for their children to mothers who couldn’t afford their babies.
Listened to a mortgage broker this a.m who is scared. used to be that total indebtedness to apply for a loan was 36%, now it is 66%.
There is a picture written on the sidewalk by my house of a cat. In the 40’s it signified a kind woman, who gave to those who were indigent.
Well, Fred, it burst for the same reason that all speculative bubbles burst: the surplus capital is invested in that which is overvalued and has no real worth behind it to retain its value when the speculative money is exhaused.
But there were plenty of other, less speculative, options available for investment. The question is, where did the excess capital come from?
As far as I can see, there are two broad answers: first, the lack of borrowing by the U.S. Government forced the excess lending capital into the inherently riskier stock market, second, Alan Greenspan did not move as quickly as he might have to shut off the speculation by raising interest rates and curbing the lending of banks. If I remember, he was trying for a “soft landing”.
These two things pushed all stock values higher than normal market conditions would have achieved and encouraged far riskier speculation at the market’s fringes. I remember distinctly the ads of brokerage houses and articles in the “build your wealth” publications about not settling for less than 15% return!
The lesson I draw from this is that there are advantages to be gained in restraining government borrowing in the latter part of a recovery as there are to expanding it somewhat through tax reductions at the beginning of one. But your Fed Director has to be more dilligent in controlling speculation through interest rate increases to manage the excess investment capital released.
This lesson is frankly counterintuitive to my liberal prejudices, since it implies a pattern of restraint on the government spending side (or a politically inexpedient tax increase) after a recovery reaches its midpoint. But it seems to me that the lesson is a valid one.
Frankly, Joseph, I find your effort to find a governmental cause for the bubble or its collapse strained in the extreme.
One of the things many people ignore is that – separate from the internet “dotcom” bubble itself – the years 98 and 99 saw a large artificial surge in capital IT spending as businesses upgraded computer systems and software to prepare for Y2K. This resulting surge in spending meant that there was a huge inevitable drop in tech capital investment in 2000.
Now as to AL’s remarks. First, politics is a contact sport and there is far less contact as played on this blog than suits my taste, particularly since this is one of those blogs of the roughshod armchair generals variety.
After all, you are “armed”, so what do you need fear from a little blunt speech?
Second, I claim no omnicience and am perfectly willing to be told I am wrong, and to be told so with the same degree of contact as I like to play with.
However, it would help if, in telling me that I have the wrong answer, you better understood the question I am asking. That question is: Where did the extra capital for the dot.com bubble come from?
Speculation needs speculators, speculators need money to speculate with. Where did it come from, and what encouraged the people who had it to take higher risks? “Financial engineering” seems to me to be hardly an adequate answer to such a question. I’m not even sure I know what that means.
The fact that the government collected more taxes to make up for the drop in borrowing is irrelevant to the answer that I give this question.
The lenders are always there and the most conservative of them will buy T-Bills, if they can. When the government borrows less the lenders do not simply sit on the money but lend it in other avenues at more risk.
More capital flowing into these riskier avenues (such as the stock market) causes faster market growth rates which are separated from the sensible valuation represented by reasonable price/earnings ratios of the stocks.
Couple this with favorable interest rates which permit speculators to borrow on terms which they think they can beat with the returns on high-flying stocks, and you have the perfect conditions for a bubble. This is what I think happened.
It may not be right, but at least it is clear, which is more than I can say for “accounting deregulation” and “financial engineering” suddenly making investment capital grow on trees.
“There is a picture written on the sidewalk by my house of a cat. In the 40’s it signified a kind woman, who gave to those who were indigent.”
Does hobo sign still exist? I haven’t heard of a reference to it continuing in years. Kindness is always repaid, sooner or later, Ruth, and it sounds to me that you are already quite satisfied with the repayment.
But I suspect there will be even more coming to you in the future.
Keep up the good work.
Joseph, that’s a common mistake. Politics is a contact sport – but it’s a team sport first and foremost, and one where your opponents for this play will be your teammates for the next.
That loss – the assumption that beating the other party is more important than the success of the Republic – has been devastating to our politics.
And as to humility, I’ll recommend it highly as a tool to open dialog with the unconverted. And since we’re trying to convert folks, having a dialog with them seems like a good way to start.
And as to your notions about the sources of capital, I’ll suggest a quick read through the “FASB”:http://www.fasb.org/ pronouncements through 1993 – 1999. You’ll find them most informative in understanding where all the new capital came from.
As the PIC of a majot accounting firm once told me, “Remember, it’s all just bookeeping entries…and we decide what they mean.”
A.L.
Joseph,
Re Politics as a contact sport: When I was getting my PhD, my best friend was a British leftist history professor. Outside of politics, we had a lot in common. We were both fans of W.B. Yeats and science fiction; we had similar senses of humor, and we both had a low tolerance for bullshit. We disagreed passionately about politics, but we were still good friends because we both loved debating politics; neither of us would spout or accept bullshit because it seemed to support our point, and we respected each other’s opinions. I find many similar types of people here at WoC. I believe that’s why AL was criticizing your tone.
Its more important to know why they hold a view, than the view that they hold.
If the why is truth, the conclusion, the objective portion therof will be self evident.
Im no fan of dogma or ritual, truth is a discovery, not an invention. opinion backed by fact has value, and without has none.
Truth has no allegiance to party faction or person, facts are stubborn things.
Those that depend on loyalty for party name alone had better not count on me. and I view those that are other as no better than moonies or zombies.
I dont cite talking points and those I hear are a waste of oxygen.
I voted for Bush, he has both conforted and disappointed me.
While the media was all slavering over a stain on a dress, I was fuming about the tranfer of nuke and missle tech to china, when the flacky Bill Richardson was doing the dog and pony show I was fuming over the coverup of the real culprit Hazel O Leary.
I got mad when Clinton took credit for the Reagan boom and the young Gingrich rabble that put a hold on spending, Al Gores tie breaker vote that put SS funds into the general pool, and his sales of the Navy bunker fuel reserves to Occidental petrolium
I got pissed when the media covered Up Clinton ties with ENRON, the Indian generator plant boondogle et all, and how ENRON and Clinton was pushing the Koyoto fraud so they could get the commissions on the carbon credit trade. and putting the free worlds economy under the control of a global goverment.
As this happening while the contry was fixated on a semen stain.
Corruption is as old as societal structures made it possible, but real offenses cannot be answered with imaginary ones.
The “Everybody does it” excuse is the tactic of the guilty.
BusHitler, is not an argument. it is evidence of no brain activity.
Bush Lied,, is a lie,, wrong is not Lie.
And what matter WMD when you find both prisons, and mass graves, of children, and learn they was used for sex toys and live tiger food.
You might as well be arguing the invasion of Germany after we discovered the death camps.
To do so, brands you as an amoral creature possessing no common language for communication.
there is no such thing as the perfect society, because it involved imperfect humans, and every attempt to create one left behind mountians of skulls of the innocent, a pile of skulls more than 3 times larger than to human cost of all wars.
Proving beyond all debate, that socialist idilogy is the most evil of all evils ever to stench the planet.
As its opposite, is the American principles of freedom, and even with its imperfect history and existing imperfections, has wrought the most wide spread wealth justice and happiness than the earth as hever seen.
We have seen the evil of all evils, we have seen the closest thing to its opposite that has ever been.
These have the quality of objective truth.
I can debate anyone that will restrain himself to intelectual honesty.
Im no god, and I dont have all the answers, but that does not mean history shows us no answers.
I admire things that are self evident, its the basis of my conversation and the root of my worldview.
I always attempt to be an honest broker in debate, its just so much more ejoyable, and tactic and ploy are counter productive tools to discover truth.
If more shared my ethics, the body politic would certainly have more light and less heat.
Thats how I see it.
I like your touch on Humility Marc, Im as bad a violator as anyone I suppose, I often wonder if its possible to sound as other-worldly and sureal as some on the other side do to me.
The gulf between can seem interglactic in scale at times. how is it possible to be so far apart, and yet still be the same creature ?
JM:
Yep, we do have hobos still. Or again. And I live not far from a railroad track. Thanks, yes, I couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than kind regard for other people.
Fred: Good point(s).
And I did reply to JK earlier, by the way, by direct email.
PITA when one is so busy to miss such a good thread. If the thread holds out here are a few observations.
_Brian_
bq. _”I’d rather just accept that the definitions have changed and talk about the substance rather than accuse people of “twisting” words when what we are seeing is more of a shift of thinking within definitions than a misappropriation of definitions.”_
That would be fine with a lot of folks as long as the deeds attributed to each and are distributed appropriately. Raymond makes a very telling and compelling point about this.
_Ruth_
bq. _”Basically, support systems keep needy from starving, and hopefully working with the recipients will help them onto productive directions.”_
The second part of the statement is exactly what is missing out of the programs along with education on how not to get in that predicament in the first place. When laws are written to remove the support structure over time based on requirements of achievement of specified goals why would anyone claim foul? Why is it when requirements are set that support will stop at a predetermined time if you are capable of being productive to society (not mentally / physically disabled) everyone cries foul (the masses being supported as well as those who wish to continue to the support)?
As for the dot.com bubble. I have my own theory. People were playing with a new toy and as such new toys hold the fascination of many. People were simply glassy eyed instead of being objective. The startups of frivolous whims believing putting a pretty red ribbon around an empty box will certainly have people knocking down the door. Today’s dot.com is significantly different than time and age.
USMC
Attempting to fully describe a large free economy is like the fable of the blind men describing the elephant.
That is the reason leftist dreams of “control” of it, from communism to this new “Third Way” crap never works.
You can get a general sense of whats going on, if you step back enough so that details are undecernable, but thats about the best you can do.
Too bad they didnt study Hitlers attempt at the “Third Way” it suffered the same problems you can see today.
Our market is like the internet, it treats all such meddling as damage, but the damage also causes malinvestment and distorts the feedback mechanisms.
I cannot find a link to this article, perhaps some can remember.
bq. When Bill Clinton assumed office, many predicted he would enjoy one of the greatest economic booms in the history of the world. Impelled by the spread of the Internet, the onset of fiber optics, and a tenfold increase in venture capital – unleashed by the lower tax rates and deregulation of the Reagan administration – the Clinton economy had it made.
bq. The Bush economy, unfortunately, possessed no such immunity to bad policy, and was gravely vulnerable to policy mistakes accumulating by the end of the Clinton term.
bq. A high-tech depression, driven by a long siege of deflationary monetary policy and obtuse regulation that shriveled hundreds of debt-laden telecom companies and brought Internet expansion almost to a halt.
bq. The entire telecom sector was engaged in a heroic capital-intensive buildout of a communications infrastructure thousands of times more cost-effective than today’s. to make interactive video as pervasive as voice telephony today, such infrastructure projects create demands for funds that outreach the resources of venture capital.
bq. Just as some $200 billion of junk bonds from Drexel Burnham and others sustained the previous hybrid build-out of optics, cable and cellular, similar debt issues was crucial to the new infrastructure of all-optical networking.
bq. But there ends the similarity with the previous build-out, which emerged during a time of real supply-side tax cuts, OPEC tax collapse, deregulation, and general monetary stability, and was vindicated by soaring cash flows and equity valuations. By contrast, the far more promising new infrastructure withered in the face of monetary, tax and regulatory blunders.
bq. For debt-burdened companies, nothing is so oppressive as deflation – a dearth of money – which inflicts soaring real interest burdens, sinking asset values, and collapsing growth. The leaders of the telecosm have to pay off debt in appreciating dollars while cash flow and collateral declines, and banks deny the kinds of rollovers that saved the likes of MCI in the 1980s.
bq. Real interest rates are now drifted upward faster than the Federal Reserve could reduce them. Monetary economists prattled about too many dollars while the dollar soared against deflated currencies, such as the yen, with its interest rate near zero. From industrial staples such as steel (down 42% in four years) to the monetary tocsin of gold (down 40% in four years), commodity prices lied in a deep trough.
bq. Essential to the Internet economy was the expectation of a steady increase in the speed and capacity of connections. Nearly every dot-com was betting on it.
bq. The glitches and delays of dial-up modems aborted 70% of all intended Internet transactions and barred the business plans of thousands of dot-coms and Internet service providers, not to mention vendors of streaming video, distance learning, video telecommunications and Internet malls.
bq. The only reason for the so-called “fiber optics glut” is the near deliberate starvation of connections to homes and small businesses. It was a classic socialist famine, with the people starving for lack of market distribution systems.
bq. Part of this was because of poor business decisions in the industry, but als due to intrusive regulatory policy in an era of deflation.
bq. Typical of bad regulation is a Federal Communications Commission policy called Total Element Long Run Incremental Costs, or Telric, summed up simply as a price cap on what telephone companies could charge for links to homes and businesses.
bq. Designed in the late 1990s to prevent “monopoly rents,” the cap is based on an estimate of costs that would apply in a fully competitive environment when bandwidth is a commodity.
bq. But in dynamic technology markets such as Internet broadband, monopolies are inevitable, virtuous and fleeting. Every innovation creates a monopoly at the outset, and monopoly rents pay for financial risks and costs entailed in bringing innovation to market.
bq. Like any price-control scheme, Telric choked off supply, taking the profits out of the multibillion-dollar venture of deploying new broadband pipes.
bq. Compounding Telric were “open access” and “unbundling” rules that require companies installing advanced Internet gear to share pipes with others. The goal was to stop monopolies, but what regulators did was to bar Internet investment by privatizing the risks and socializing the rewards.
bq. No entrepreneurs will invest in risky, technically exacting new infrastructure when they must share it with rivals. At first restricted to telcos, the open-access rules was extended to cable, where they balked Michael Armstrong’s bold AT&T plan to compete with the Bell companies using cable TV plant.
bq. The absence of broadband local loops also withers the optical Internet. The $44.8 billion write-off and $8 billion loss by JDS Uniphase signaled the devastation of the most promising communications technology in the history of the planet.
bq. Treating JDS Uniphase as a budding monopoly, the Federal Trade Commission permitted its merger with SDL only on condition that it sell its Rushlikon pump laser facility to Nortel.
bq. Some monopoly. Uniphase devalued its SDL pump laser acquisition by some $35 billion. The write-off – the largest in business history – was partly because of the collapse of last-mile traffic growth.
bq. But it was also because an efflorescence of new laser and amplifier technologies from such companies as NP Photonics and Princeton Optronics was already making conventional pump lasers obsolete. The regulator couldnt keep up.
bq. Before the FTC attack on Uniphase, regulators casually destroyed the Internet strategy of WorldCom. Under Bernie Ebbers, Worldcom planned an attack on the real telopolies around the globe through the use of Internet for both data and voice.
bq. Suffering from mazes of conflicting connections, with each data packet making some 17 hops between routers before reaching its destination, Internet could compete only fitfully with the telecom establishment. But by purchasing and upgrading the Internet facilities of MCI and Sprint, WorldCom planned to transform its portions of the Internet into a coherent broadband system.
bq. Instead, upholding the fantastical view that WorldCom was becoming an Internet monopolist, U.S. regulators defended the existing monopolists against the WorldCom challenge, forcing the sale of MCI’s Internet facility to Cable & Wireless in Britain and barring the acquisition of the Sprint network.
bq. By upholding a false notion of competition, one in which no one can win or make any money, the FTC largely wrecked WorldCom, the most aggressive monopoly buster on the planet.
bq. The Clinton regulations started to bite, and as always the wrong people will get the blame the same way the wrong person got the credit.
bq. Clinton succeeded, with his regulations he left behind, in destroying the gift Reagan left Him, that he took credit for.
Remember that ? I was working in that “Heroic buildout”, perhaps other here were also.
I still remember the congressional panel that exterminated my Job, Steve Case of pre-merger AOL complaining that the cable companies was going to shut him out.
So that passed rule, or rather, as told above, extended it, so that those that was spending the billions to create these new networks had to share it with those that spent nothing.
Thast would be the same as a house builder being forced to give 2 out of 3 of his new houses to his competitor to sell in competition with him, with the builder having to front the costs of building all 3.
The investors are suddenly cheated out of the returns on their money, and they walked away.
And poof went my job. Instantly.
How about this Joseph, let see what happens if frantic leftists searching for success to punish, keep their damn hands off what they do not, and can not, understand.
A fair market can work just fine, without the toxic leftist definition of what is fair.
Raymond
I wasn’t referring to the problems with the telecommunications industry. I was referring to the stock holders who placed there faith in startup dot.com(s) that had absolutely nothing to offer for them to remain viable. Sorry for not being more explicit on that matter. When I hear dot.com(s) that’s what I think of. When I hear communications / telecommunications industry I think of your description. A big difference when one is considered investor versus provider.
As for your description concerning the telecommunications / communications industry and the woes with government intervention that is stifling and killing growth that remains status quo.
USMC
bq. I was referring to the stock holders who placed there faith in startup dot.com(s) that had absolutely nothing to offer for them to remain viable.
Yes, that applied to lots of them, and others provided services to the startups, and the gear makers was boosed by catering to them both.
bq. When I hear communications / telecommunications industry I think of your description.
And therein my point, the first group depended hevilly on survival on the completion of the network buildout.
The new regulation ran the build out into a brick wall instantly, so now the first groups business plans became an instant pipe dream.
So this means the promising companies went down with the hollow ones, one regulation broght the whole house down. see what in saying here ?
bq. and the woes with government intervention that is stifling and killing growth that remains status quo.
Right, it still has not been reversed, and bush cant change such rules without going thru congress.
When Clinton said “stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda neet” to those 1000’s of new regulations he dropped in Bushes lap, 1000s of them his last 3 days in office, he wasnt doing the country a favor, he was attempting to set Bush up for failure. it was his parting F…You to America.
The damage he did will take quite some time to undo.
USMC:
You use ‘everyone cries foul’ to characterize a response I’m unaware of, talking about requirements for performance related to social programs. Not to belabor the point, but the supervision of social programs is at least as responsible of the supervision of contracts awarded by the military, education (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/08/AR2005050800780.html about over $1 million being awarded to an Alaskan school that doesn’t offer degrees in academic subjects) and other federal grants.
Looks like the dot.com bubble is about to be followed by the housing bubble, and our deficit spending is even being decried by Alan Greenspan. I do hope for your sake, that you’re not heavily invested in speculative arrangements.
As to
Ruth,
Man, this is an epic thread. So it’s been awhile since you responded to one of my responses. Still, I do have one point to make (in reference to #69). In using the terms “order” and “disorder” I may be guilty of a bit of rhetorical overkill (whaddya want, I’m an English major). But I do believe I had a valid point. If I could bring it to earth a bit more: It’s no coincidence that incidents of police brutality in New York City rose as crime declined. I’m not defending police brutality. The Amadou Diallo [sic?] affair, for example, was a disgrace. But you have to be careful in preventing such disgraces not to hamstring the police to the point that they cannot control crime. Through the 90s the murder rate per annum in NYC went from 2200 to 600. Making a Diallo affair impossible at the cost of 1600 lives a year is hardly a bargain. Police brutality should be investigated and punished when it can be, but some level of it should be expected if the police are going to be effective.
Fred:
Sorry, you caught me after I just watched a BookTV presentation by Erik Saar who has just published ‘Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier’s Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo’. He had gotten out of college with a load of student loans to repay, got into language training and chose Arabic ‘way back before 9/11 and wound up an interrogator. I don’t want to belabor the problems, but does point out that we were paying good money for detainees – and the Iraqi, and Afghani, forces turning over supposed terrorists weren’t any too particular about who they picked up.
I think the point is pretty clear without getting down and dirty. What price order? How about the price of making huge backlogs of deadly enemies for every abuse of every innocent detainee?
I remember the incident you cite in NY, you could have used an easier name and made it LA. And I maintain that making enemies of our society out of innocent but not very pretty ‘detainees’ just isn’t worth the cost.
_Ruth_
As to claiming foul I’m referring to those in various echelons of government that bemoan it is never enough regardless of what is delivered. Just listen to the arguments on CSPAN concerning the budget. I’m with you in the sense accountability for expenditure and assessment of good needs to be done. In the grand scheme of things it is difficult to attain such a level when our legislators retort it’s only $1 million compared to billions we currently spend.
I also read with interest your take on liberal and liberalism as to what they meant or exactly what you meant by them. I had to dig a bit and clear the fog but in essence it came down to “Necomachean Ethics”:http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html as it is presented in Aristotle’s works.
USMC:
Sorry, don’t want to debate the Nechomacean Ethics with you, and don’t think we will get anywhere pointing out the influence of Aristotle on Christ.
:”Good public policy perfects the common union, establishes justice, ensures domestic tranquility, promotes the general welfare, provides for the common defense, and secures the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.”
There’s where we need to go, don’t you think?
Ruth, everyone agrees. Everyone also thinks their own program is the right match. Hence politics.
The Preamble is a great thing to keep in mind. It defines broad and general duties. What’s left leaves a ton of space to argue in, and both George Bush and John Kerry can both plausibly claim to uphold that line (actually, the only candidate this excludes is Al Sharpton).
It’s a good thing to speak about, often, and to connect with one’s programs. As long as you understand that the other side will also do this, and so barring a major failure (vid. polls re: Democrats and “the common defense”), it won’t be much of a differentiator. Or rather, it will be the setting for the smaller differentiators that will decide the vote.
JK:
Where’s the love? “Good public policy perfects the common union,” just for a start. We’re on a ‘might makes right’ course right now. nothing left of the preamble, but I’m glad to hear you at least recognize it.
_Ruth_
And yet again we agree it is not a matter of debate for us concerning Aristotle’s work as much as it is a matter of reference concerning his usage of the word liberal. As Joe pointed out it’s more about how we get there.
What is the right way to do it and are we really keeping things in perspective?
A “*billion*”:http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/trivia/billions.asp is a difficult number to comprehend but here’s a good perspective. Point of reference 9 Oct 2003.