posted
I have to admit that I tend to agree witht he BASIC ideas of John Locke in that we should limit the powers of government -- and that tyrany comes from big government (Adam Smith said the same thing).
That being said, I must admit that one good reason to vote for Bush in the next election is that at least it means less growth of government power -- while a Kerry vote ia assured to give us a much more expanded form of government.
Having lived in Europe I can say that I really hate the Borgish attitude of Nordic peoples towards government power. While they have civil rights those civil rights are what the government gives them (no reference to God being the author of life or liberty) and the basic attitude of the socialists there is that if a civil right is inconvenient, then it can be chipped away at. I see this with liberals in the US who believe in political correctness and wóuld restrict freedom of speech and religion to make us all give each other a big Telituby hug and do what the government says.
In this case I could care less if Bush went after Saddam in order to protect Israel (I believe that was the case for the most part) or to find weapons of mass destruction (we knew Saddam wanted them, Clinton believed he had them, so what?). I will vote for Bush just to keep Kerry's vision of big, liberal government from becoming a reality.
Thank goodness for overseas ballots!
Posts: 232 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I really ought to point out the negative impact Bush is having on America's economy. Mainly, the devaluing of the American Dollar. There are a host of reasons not to vote for Bush that even a hard-core conservative would find logical.
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posted
I find it funny how both the right and left think of each other as dictators and tyrants...and calling each other by their names is supposed to be the biggest insult.
Both seem to think they are all for civil rights and free thinking...
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posted
Perhaps, but the economy is improving -- and Kerry's policies of more regulation and higher taxes would stagnate our economic rebound.
As for civil rights and liberalism. I am somewhat a libertarian on civil rights, but I am firmly against called abortion a civil right.
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posted
You can't really blame Bush for devalueing the dollar. It's actually quite an economic mystery that it took so long. This is where I'd start writing a treatise on investor confidence after the 1998 SE Asian crash, but it's not the thread for that.
quote:That being said, I must admit that one good reason to vote for Bush in the next election is that at least it means less growth of government power
posted
Strange, Bush has undertaken a much vaster expansion of government programs than any other President in recent history. I would think you'd prefer a split government with Kerry in the presidency and republicans in congress if you actually wanted to curb government expansion. Why not support a presidential candidate based on past experience rather than wishful thinking about how his behavior will change in the future?
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It wasn't until '99 that the number of government employees was equal to what it was (temporarily) in '94. There wasn't a large growth of government employees until Bush took office.
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posted
As for the Patriot Act, if some crazy fundamentalist want to blow up the plane I am riding then I am all for catching him. However, as for telling me how I should educate my kids, or what I can say in church -- that is something the Republicans and conservative Democrats (yes, there are some that are great) are against.
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posted
Okay, I'm beginnint to think you're just a troll. Have you seen the NCLB act? Its all about telling people how to educate their kids -- in particular, it makes it remarkably easy for schools to be taken over by the government in the name of "improvement".
As for the PATRIOT act, it hasn't been used to prosecute a single terrorist yet. It has been used to try to obtain records about abortions and to create higher penalties for non-terrorist crimes.
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Sorry, if you think I am a troll think again. I love debate and now that I have discovered this site... Posts: 232 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
(just to add to what's above, most of the highly conservative economic thinktanks have come out against many of Bush's economic policies -- including the tax cuts, because they're not conservative, they're economically irresponsible. Cuts should pretty much always begin in spending. Another favorite target is his overly protectionist trade policy).
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posted
I think you may be a troll because you're mouthing off these little soundbites that are easily refutable, or at the very least far more complex than what you assert, as if they're fact. You could also be a fairly naive person.
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posted
This is the biggest beef that I have againtst the Republican presidents we've had. They say that they are against big government, but the government grows just as much under the watch of the republicans as the democrats.
At least with the Democrats we don't have to wonder if taxes and government spending will increase.
posted
Given the vast array of educational material available these days, I think we should just make a rule that anyone who uses the word "liberal" to mean left-wing is a troll.
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posted
No, no, no Richard, you have it all wrong. He figured it all out. Crazy "liberals" like me want to do everything he said about us. Since you figured me out, michael, I'll just admit up-front that the reason I am pushing gay marriage so strongly is that I like the expressions good righteous conservatives give when they are around a couple of gay guys holding hands.
posted
I strongly maintain that a split government is the best sort of government (in our two party system).
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posted
I happen to be a norwegian socialist. Or rather a Social Democrat but some people don't seem to see the difference, and I'm quite amused and a bit offended by michaele8's statements.
I love my country. I love the people here. I happen to think I live in the most democratic country in the world. I'm not sure what you actually mean.
quote: Having lived in Europe I can say that I really hate the Borgish attitude of Nordic peoples towards government power. While they have civil rights those civil rights are what the government gives them (no reference to God being the author of life or liberty) and the basic attitude of the socialists there is that if a civil right is inconvenient, then it can be chipped away at. I see this with liberals in the US who believe in political correctness and wóuld restrict freedom of speech and religion to make us all give each other a big Telituby hug and do what the government says.
Clarify please.
Are you saying that nordic socialists try to restrict freedom of speech? You have got to be kidding. Are you saying that we 'chip away' at whatever civil right we find inconvenient? Don't make me laugh.
"A big Telituby hug and do what the government says"
I think you americans misunderstand. The government doesn't tell us what to do. We tell it what we want done. The government isn't an all-powerful entity out to control us, it's here to serve us and it's time you americans learned that.
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posted
If the two parties have to be the 2004 versions of Republicans and Democrats, then yes I agree. But that's quite a restriction. If we ever came across a party that didn't suck, I'd love nothing better than for them to have a 4-8 year unadulterated white-out festival.
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I guess I'm either ignorant or naive. Richard, could you please tell me why it is unacceptable to use the word "liberal"?
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Because liberalism and big-government-itis are polar opposites. The word "liberal" means "plentiful" or "permissive" or "unbound to authority."
Note: this is not the same as the familiar observations e.g. that "conservatives" don't "conserve" the environment. Using the standalone word "liberal" as proper political jargon (i.e. anti-tyrannical) has 4 centuries of history behind it.
[ June 09, 2004, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: Richard Berg ]
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Government is only as evil or as good as the people who make and enforce the laws. Admittedly, with a Dubya/Frisk/Hastert/Scalia-controlled government, things are looking pretty damned favorable for the forces of evil, which apparently you side yourself with.
Last time I checked, God allows people to be as good or as evil as they please. So any rights are pretty much what man decrees.
I'd also suggest that you check the USConstitution for a reference in which our rights are attributed to God. There aren't any. Deliberately.
posted
St Yogi, while I don't support Michele's rather extreme attitudes, I think it's easy to see how individuals in government can use the powers we've given them to worm their way out of our control, and the more power the easier.
There is an ironic sense, as well as the proper one, in which "whoever would be great among you, let him be servant of all", can be read. Aside from actual physical constraint, the greater the service, the greater the measure of control the servant gains. (The later Foundation novels are a good metaphor for this effect.)
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posted
Heh, I think we have a very different form of government. I don't think there is any one person in government with enough power to wiggle out of our control.
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"Are you saying that nordic socialists try to restrict freedom of speech? You have got to be kidding. Are you saying that we 'chip away' at whatever civil right we find inconvenient? Don't make me laugh.
"A big Telituby hug and do what the government says"
I think you americans misunderstand. The government doesn't tell us what to do. We tell it what we want done. The government isn't an all-powerful entity out to control us, it's here to serve us and it's time you americans learned that. "
Lets see, in Sweden and Norway it is technically illegal for one to say that homosexuality is wrong or immoral -- even in a church setting.
In Sweden it is seen as socially a good idea to try to eliminate any gender roles starting in day care -- which is practically manditory socially and economically as taxes are so high women really don't have the choice to stay at home with their kids or not.
In America you can say that immigration from Mexico should be curtailed -- that would be illegal in Sweden. It is illegal for a political party that wants to stop immigration from advertising or putting up billboards.
I could go on...
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quote: Lets see, in Sweden and Norway it is technically illegal for one to say that homosexuality is wrong or immoral -- even in a church setting.
Are you kidding? It's not 'technically illegal'. I can say that homosexuality is wrong or immoral as much as I want. People won't much like me but I won't get arrested or anything.
Please go on. Tell me how little freedom I have.
Posts: 739 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
You might want to reread Smith and Locke, you appear to have missed some of the subtler nuances. You have read their works, I presume, and aren't just assuming they agree with you?
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St. Yogi, it is illegal to condemn homosexuality in Norway and Sweden. In Sweden, for instance, homosexuality is listed now as one of the protected classes. You can be fined or jailed for condemning homosexuality. It is illegal as of January 1st. of 2004. I have heard the same is true in Norway.
posted
Step 3) is essentially a loophole a mile wide!
I'm sure Smith (who I have only read analyses of) goes into more detail, but you can justify almost anything the government does as facilitating economic growth.
-Bok
EDIT I would also like you to prove your claim that rights and freedom flow from a Godhead in such a way as to be convincing to people with various religions or lackings thereof. I actually agree that rights and freedoms are purely creations of society, and that they are contingent on that society's continued blessing. Maybe people OUGHT to have certain inalienable freedoms and rights, but the society is the final arbiter on these points (on this plane of existence).
posted
For that matter, Step 1 and Step 2 can be interpreted pretty broadly, too, depending on how much people need to be "protected." Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Canada has hate crime laws protecting homosexuality. Which, I suppose, means they're a protected class here as well. And yet, I still haven't seen anyone hauled away for speaking out against that lifestyle.
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"The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those publick works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain”
Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations. He included a number of things in this, including certain forms of schooling. Smith was for the freedom of private enterprise, but also for the intervention of the government in those areas in which enterprise was, for the reason he mentions above, inefficient.
I repeat more overtly, have you read Smith?
edit: I might point out that the duty you assert is actually a bastardization of this actual quote, which says something rather different.
quote: However the whole principle of being a liberal means being for civil rights! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No - it means being for a particular set of civil rights, while conservatives are for a different (but overlapping set) of civil rights.
Just wanted to jump in here for one purpose only. Dag's response here (the second remark) is a classic example of why I really appreciate his posts.
In this particular case, this difference becomes oversimplified (on both sides) in the "liberal vs. conservative" debate(s).
I appreciate this whether he's agreeing or disagreeing with me in a given situation.
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quote:There are three orders in society - those who live by rent, by labour and by profits. Employers constitute the third order. . . The proposal of any new law by or regulation which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with the greatest precaution and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public. . .
Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit but constant and uniform combination not to raise the wages of workers. . . . Masters. . .sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the level of wages. . . These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy. . .
Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality, instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. . .
Perfect liberty can never happen if government heeds or is entrusted to the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers who neither are, nor ought to be the rulers of mankind.
Quick quiz, who wrote that?
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I think you're looking at the wrong place to criticize. France and Germany have some pretty strict anti-defamation laws, as well as various anti-Nazi artifacts in the speech code, but the Nordic countries are pretty, well, liberal in this regard Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Richard, as you well kow Smith opposed merchentilistic government. He also opposed guilds and laws that were supported by large money interests who also have the attention of their cronies in governmnet. He supported free enterprise, not the kind of system that government and big industry are married together.
For modern day examples one could look at environmental regulations that are often supported by large multi-nationals knowing the true losers are small firms that can't afford to meet certain goals.
If anything, Smith and Locke were more in line with patriots like Teddy Roosevelt, not Teddy Kennedy.
Posts: 232 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Yes, it is very true that Europe as a whole doesn't value free speech the way we do. But an overall analysis of BoR-type freedoms doesn't generalize. Many Euro states have stricter gun control than the U.S., yet many are far more liberal than Texas. Their protections against search & seizure, on the whole, go beyond what we espouse (especially in practice). Ditto cruel & unusual punishment, if you don't count Jerry Lewis.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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