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Musicmystery -> RE: Towards a Liberal/Conservative Synthesis (6/2/2010 2:59:17 PM)
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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
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Thesis: Religion is the only way to order society.
Antithesis: Science and secularism are the only way to order society.
When the premises are flawed, deduction is shot from the start.
It's also an appalling misunderstanding of Hegel's triads. Being and Not being can be synthesized to creation. You have simply contradictory flawed premises and a compromise rather than a synthesis.
From there, it's a fast and loose bait and switch, freely presenting unsupported opinions as fact and interchanging terms as suits convenience toward preconceived conclusions.
So help me out, and give me what you consider more accurate assumptions.
Firm
You're asking me to rewrite from scratch. No thanks--I have work to do. [If you're questioning why the premises are flawed, that's patently obvious--existing governments disprove them both.]
I have, however, previous posts along these lines, if not in your grand synthesis scenario.
Not strictly on topic, but since you asked (sort of), enjoy. The contexts are different than here, of course.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
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Whats laughable is equating today's Liberals with actual Liberalism.
Just out of curiosity--describe what you see as "actual Liberalism."
Today's Liberals, you claim, are socialists/communists. What would actual Liberalism look like? What's its ideology? How does it differ from today?
Rush uses it to mean "anything not conservative," a way inaccurate use, as true liberalism would be attacked from the left as well as the right, and not for the reasons today's "conservatives" use. In fact, actual liberalism is very much like what many conservatives posting here claim:
"Liberalism--Political and economic doctrine that emphasizes the rights and freedoms of the individual and the need to limit the powers of government...In the economic realm, liberals in the 19th century urged the end of state interference in the economic life of society. Following Adam Smith, they argued that economic systems based on free markets are more efficient and generate more prosperity than those that are partly state-controlled...The U.S. Economic stagnation beginning in the late 1970s led to a revival of classical liberal positions favouring free markets, especially among political conservatives in Britain and the U.S." --Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
"Liberalism--In general, the belief that it is the aim of politics to preserve individual rights and to maximize freedom of choice...Apart from the concern with equality of rights and amelioration, liberalism has focused on the space available in which individuals may pursue their own lives, or their own conception of the good. The immediate threat to this ‘space’ was considered to be the arbitrary will of a monarch, leading liberals to consider the proper limits of political power. They explored the relationship between legitimate power and consent, and the characteristics of the rule of law." --Political Dictionary
Here's where they split.
"In response to the great inequalities of wealth and other social problems created by the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America, liberals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries advocated limited state intervention in the market and the creation of state-funded social services, such as free public education and health insurance." --Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
"Conservatives...overlook the dependence of market economies on the (government-enforced) rule of law and the (government-funded) provision of social services...Conservatives...following in the path of Thomas Hobbes, have tried to reduce politics to the protection of individual rights, particularly the right to property [concentrated in the hands of wealthy]." --U.S. History Encyclopedia
In short,
"American political scientist Louis Hartz [in agreement with the Oxford English Dictionary] emphasized the European origin of the word, conceptualizing a liberal as someone who believes in liberty, equality, and capitalism—in opposition to the association that American conservatives have tried to establish between liberalism and centralized government." --from Hartz's book "The liberal tradition in America." (1955)
In fact, the traditional positions are the opposite of what today's conservatives claim:
"Liberalism is attacked from the left as the ideology of free markets, with no defense against the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a few, and as lacking any analysis of the social and political nature of persons. It is attacked from the right as insufficiently sensitive to the value of settled institutions and customs, or to the need for social structure and constraint in providing the matrix for individual freedoms."
Ironically--it's the conservatives who support strong government and the right of individuals to use it to protect economic exploitation. The points today's conservatives raise are much more liberal.
That is, except for the neo-con leaders. Read "The Family," a book about conservative group behind the prayer breakfasts and the Iraq/Afghanistan invasion policy. It's an eye opener. They are for wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a wealthy class, and military domination of the world. Yes, world--and that the world be made to convert to Christianity. A chilling read. [The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlot (2008)]
The point here, though, is that regarding the origins and meaning of liberalism and its ideology--you're way off base.
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
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When you write that Bush is a Conservative you open yourself up to all kinds of ridicule because thats just ignorant.
It's an ignorance a lot of conservatives share; they embraced him for eight years, and didn't mind when he repeated "I ran on a conservative agenda" and insisted he was elected to implement it. Certainly he was no fiscal conservative.
You're confusing talk show entertainment with the conservative leaders' agenda. He served The Family well, other than their criticism that he should have gone much further:
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And just because I'd like to know.. and I ask this of anyone not posting to any specific person.. What are the examples of where the trickle-down economic policy actually worked?
This is a good question--why would such a failed policy be repeated? There are actually reasons--for the conservative elite.
Remember what conservativism is (vs. the more recent rhetoric) -- protecting the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands and institutions of the established conservative elite, both through insulating them from interference and militarily promoting their interests. Then look at what happened, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II.
For the conservative elite, mission accomplished. The strata between rich and poor widened. Wealth was redistributed via unpaid tax cuts primarily to the wealthy, offset with government borrowing paid for by everyone. Sure, deficits quadrupled, but their interests were served. This borrowing also funded unpaid wars, from Central America to the Middle East. Regulations were stripped or watered down (including, unfortunately, mine safety and oil oversight). Banking got aggressive, and when its overreaching failed, the tax payers picked up the tab, from the Savings & Loan crisis to the credit crunch bailouts.
For them, government, properly controlled, is a candy store. Well established industries, from oil/gas to massive corn farming, still get heavy support--allowing people like Dubya, incidentally, to make millions even though all his businesses tanked (his brothers profited from the S&L bailout). Their "big government" rhetoric is reserved for regulation--they're not advocating returning any of the billions they're making from it, not the least of which comes from military operations.
This is why Clinton (who, other than health care, was really a rather conservative Democrat) was such a threat. He understood the economy, and when Newt rushed into town, he knew he'd need to work with him and adapted. Newt, also, despite his silly Contract with America pagent, realized he had to work with the President to get things done--and they both did, in the largest peacetime expansion in our nation's history. This, however, was reversing the gains of the conservative elite.
So they demonize government even as they use it. Find a "moral" issue, blow it out of all context, whether immigration, gay marriage, abortion, whatever, and get the voters fired up. Promise them you'll cut their taxes and usher in change (by the way--you all have been getting tax cuts since 1980 now...what have you all done with all that extra money? Just curious...).
OK, that's the past, so where do we go from here? Despite the rhetoric about Obama's administration/Congress so far, other than health care, they've continued Bush's conservative approach, protecting large financial institutions and trying to buy their way out of recession (Bush had already used up lowering interest rates in two previous recessions) and promote liquidity. Whether this was a good idea (a lot of economists say it should have gone much farther), and whether it worked (most economists say it at least helped), doesn't really matter in terms of the nation's direction, as that was/is a short term situation. Jobs will come back as inventories continue to fall and confidence/knowledge about where we are and what's coming (including adjusting to health care changes) settles down (probably starting after August--orders for durable goods and production goods are already up). So while no one likes how much we're spending, this is a blip, correctly handled or not.
This is the problem with the Teas, and why I consider their approach naive--just replace everybody, preferably with new, uncompromising conservatives, a recipe for gridlock, lax regulation, and handing the candy store keys back to the conservative elite. After all, economic woes keep people from worrying too much about keeping a closer eye on what else is happening. It also makes a labor force relatively grateful for that thankless, low paying job, as better than nothing. It's a prosperous middle class, more than anything, that keeps a close eye on misdeeds. As long as cash can still be rechanneled from taxpayers to the ruling class at the top, all is well as far they are concerned.
This is also why conservative leaders consider liberals such an obstacle--they promote individual rights, and this threatens their power structure. Consider this list of liberal achievements generated in another thread:
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Yeah, I weep when I think of all those good things liberals destroyed: segregation, old-age poverty, child labor, sweatshops, malnutrition in schools...monopolies, unaffordable education through high school, extreme poverty, work place discrimination in hiring...dumping toxic waste into rivers, logging off old-growth forests, damming wild rivers, lead in gasoline, cars without seatbelts, lead paint in baby cribs....
Every one of those was opposed by the conservative structure as too costly, and you can see why--it takes money away and forces social accountability. Remember before all this, the 1890s and the early 20th century, with completely free markets--incredible monopolies, including intertwined trusts, no workplace safety at all (one in three workers died on the job), workers locked inside factories, children chained to their looms, factory workers earning 25% of what it cost to support a family--this is the conservative ideal. "Compassionate" conservatism is accepting that society has advanced, and conserving the consolidation of the wealth, power, and institutions of the ruling elite from there, while promoting its global interests at the cost of the citizenry's lives and tax dollars.
So yes, trickle-down economic policy works--for the powerful wealthy elite, and at the cost of American taxpayers.
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