What Philosophical Principle Do Liberals Hang Their Ideology On?

[Publius1787]

Truth, Justice and the American Way......C Kent

Define justice.

I wonder if he'll copy and paste from Plato's Republic?

Yes, I beleive you and I are the only ones in this thread who understands your joke.

 

[Agit8r]

So you do realize that Locke said that a man may justly own more property than he can make use of in that very same chapter?

Sure. I'm a liberal, not a communist.

So why did you highlight the previous? Is that where you wanted Lockeian philosophy to end? That’s ok if you do. That’s where Marx’s buddy Engels also wanted it to end. ( Locke's Use of Private Property versus Marxist Dissolution of Private Property by Aziz ur Rehman 10/28/2000 | Aziz Rehman - Academia.edu ) Funny you two are in such agreement.

As noted, even in Locke's day, taxes were collected from the various strata of society and supported the most impoverished members of society, that they might be raised above the level of savagery, rather than below it. This was not communism. They saw the a peaceful society required a broad enfranchisement into the economic system.

 

[Dragonlady]

I base my liberal principles on the teachings of Jesus as well. He said that to be His follower, you had to give up your possessions. And He said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus didn't think much of the rich at all. He was big on our responsibility to care for others, even total strangers. He had respect for the poor which is more than today's conservatives.

And the threat of an eternity in Hell isn't coercion? Much worse than anything the government can do to you.

 

[007]

As C Kent said.........Liberals defend justice for all. regardless of social standing, race, religion or relative super powers

Unless they are rich, white or Christian, but at least the liberals are consistent.

Liberals look after the meek, the mild mannered in pursuit of truth, justice and the American way!

By stealing from those who work hard and strive to be successful, and then punish them for it.

 

[Publius1787]

If it feels good, do it.

Oh... and by the way... I'm broke because I don't like to work, so I'm going to need you to buy me some groceries and pay my rent for me.

There are many liberals who could pose a proper response to the op, I am sure. However, they do not exist in this forum. In that case, why do we post here at all? I thought they would know where I was coming from by pointing to Locke and J.S. Mill but they have no clue who they were! AMAZING!

We post because the liberals on this forum will never expose themselves for what they truly are. Liberals HATE to be exposed and have their hypocrisy and two faced arrogance put on display for everyone to see. They like to hide it and pretend it doesn't exist. They like to dupe those who we would consider the low information voters.

But we know what they are, so why let them play their games. Just expose them, and then laugh as they respond with some BS psychobabble liberal mumbo jumbo.

It is amazing. I gave them the opportunity to debate the very essence of their ideology but they couldn’t do it. Not only do they not know what I was talking about, they don’t know what they advocate. This is literally the fall of Western Civilization!

 

[Londoner]

American Liberalism also traces its intellecutal origins to the 17h Century European Enlightenment Philosophers - but it places a greater emphasis on equal opportunity, so that more people can own the property John Locke wants the government to protect. A private property sytem where the market winners use their concentrated wealth to fund elections, staff government, write policy and rig markets is not a private property system so much as it's a state maintained plutocracy.

In the broadest terms, American Liberalism respects the rights of all individuals to freedom. But, it feels that freedom is meaningless when their is such unequal access to wealth producing assets. If you're born into a family who can send you to a great univeristy, help you with buying a house, and serve as a general safetynet throughout life, than you have more "Freedom" than someone born into poverty - that is, you have an unearned head start in the competition for jobs and property. American Liberals believe that a political system that reinforces this kind of unequal access to property and its fruits are merely strengthening the old feudal aristocracy of pre-modern Europe. Deviously, instead of projecting an ideology of nobility and birth right, America's wealthy project a false ideology of "freedom", while also claiming persecution by a Stalinist State - (a state they happen to own through generous lobbying and election funding. Claims of persecution is populist bullshit of the rankest vintage, right? You have the ultra-wealthy getting out of their jets, just having bankrolled an election, but claiming to be John Galt. Tragically the GOP has found enough naive voters to buy into this stuff.).

American Liberals believe that Republicans use the power of the state to protect and expand the power of the already wealthy. American Liberals want the possibility of freedom and wealth accumulation to be available to all.

This is why they believe in a strong middle class, i.e., people not born wealthy but who have upward mobility based on things like livable wages and affordable education/health care. In order to ensure upward mobility, American Liberals (not fake ones like Clinton or Obama) believe that rather than paying for useless wars in Iraq, money should go into increasing the access of hard working American families to college. I urge you to look not only at the GI Bill, but the state university systems developed in California and New York during the postwar years (the universities who are being defunded so we don't have to raise taxes on Mitt Romney's offshore millions]. These great institutions gave millions of middle class families access to a better life. It wasn't a hand out, as your side claims, it was an investment because these educated children formed one of the most productive work forces in history (until your side figured out they could get cheaper labor in China, and slowly began lowering middle class wages, benefits & education subsidies in order to give the investment class higher returns and lower taxes. This is why Reagan used the Cold War to expand markets to the developing world: cheaper operating conditions. Read the label on the your clothes and tell me where they were made).

When FDR gave Ronald Reagan's father a government job to help the Reagans weather the depression, it wasn't a hand-out by an interventionist government (as your side would have to claim). It was an investment in hard working Americans who would go on to make valuable contributions. [Of course, we can no longer make those investments because your side strategically constructs non-wealthy Americans who have fallen on hard times as Welfare Queens so as to justify cutting their education and subjecting them to austerity - in order to make room for the tax cuts of those who own government and use it's centralized power to create a subsidy and bailout system] Regardless, some say FDR's government investment in the Reagan family paid off. My point is that government has a role, however limited, to play in protecting not only the property of the wealthy, but the opportunity of the non-wealthy - otherwise you are going to go back to the absolutism of old Europe, where government existed primarily to protect the property and rights of the wealthy.

 

[Pheonixops]

What Philosophical Principle Do Liberals Hang Their Ideology On?

For conservatives, it’s easy. They either place their ideology on the principle of self-ownership as written by John Locke or the no harm principle as advocated by J.S. Mill. But what does the modern day liberal trace his/her ideological principles back to? What is the foundation of their thought? It can’t be the classical liberalism of the above stated philosophers (Which calles into qustion the reason they identify as "liberals"). So who/what? Is it “From each according to his ability to each according to his need”? Certainly a modern day liberal/progressive/democrat should be able to shine some light on this question.

Those are Liberal ideologies and NOT conservative ideologies. I would think that your conservative philosophy would go back to the likes of John c. Calhoun. I'm willing to go "issue to issue' with you to see how my Liberal philosophy compares to what i think that your conservative philosophy is.

There is a difference between classical liberalism and a party that renamed themselves liberals as a PR stunt after the embarrassment of progressivism. In any case, this was already addressed in the above post. The question at hand was not to go by issue by issue but to figure out what modern “liberals” trace their philosophy back to. You can’t claim principle of self-ownership and you can’t claim the no harm principle because modern day liberal policies divide people by class and implement redistributive policies. That’s not liberalism.

What examples do you have of the modern day Democrats calling themselves Liberals? What context was it in? Was Romney a 'modern day Liberal" when he referred to the "47%"? That was dividing people by class. What have the republicans done to change the progressive income tax system? they held the MAJORITY in BOTH Houses during the previous Administration. Did they "shrink" or increase the size of government? Did they pass acts to protect our civil liberties or did they initiate and pass acts that cold potentially infringe upon Our rights as afforded in the Constitution?

 

[Londoner]

Also, I think you're confused. Edmund Burke is a much better choice where Conservatism is concerned. Locke opposed traditional conservatism. Some of his thoughts, e.g., Natural Law, are compatible with Conservatism. He was also very much part of the broader Liberal Enlightenmnet project, which eschewed birth rights and aristocracy for free elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of Religion, freed trade and property rights. But he's much closer to Libertarianism than Conservatism.

I suggest you go back to Reagan and study the uneasy franchise he created between Conservatism and Libertarianism - this franchise has created many intellectually confused Republicans. By blending two very different philosophies, Reagan needed a voting coalition illiterate enough to buy into it. Indeed, study the conflict between William F Buckley and Ayn Rand. Or read the great conservative professor, Daniel Bell's "The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism". He points out where conservatism and free markets conflict. I would urge you to at least learn all this stuff, if only to better investigate your beliefs.

 

[legaleagle_45]

Let me explore this topic with my view of the political spectrum.

I do not consider the political spectrum to be linear, from left to right. Instead I believe it can be best exemplified by a figure eight. At the bottom of the figure 8 is anarchy. As you proceed up the 8 on the right you will have survivalists and on the left the anarchist movement exemplified by the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, and the Occupy movement. As we proceed up the figure 8 on the right we meld into the libertarians. On the left the liberals. Liberals and libertarians have a lot in common. Both believe in the primacy of the individual and individual rights. The primary distinction between them is that liberals believe that government is the the best means to protect and preserve individual rights while libertarians believe that government is the greatest threat to individual rights.

Continuing up the figure 8 from the left and the right melds into moderates at the center of the figure 8. Going up from there to the right, we have conservatives and on the left progresives. Both groups tend to emphasis the health of society over the rights of the individual with conservatives emphasing nationalism and free enterpise while progressives tend to emphasize internationalism and socilal justice. Continuing further up the figure 8 to the right you reach facism where the state take precedence over the individual. To the left we reach socialism where the individual is a servant to the needs of society. At the top we achieve totalitarianism... In my view there was no significant difference between Hitler and Stalin. They both arived at the same spot from different directions.

As for myself I am very close to the center of the figure 8, but tending towards the libertarian side.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

Truth, Justice and the American Way......C Kent

This is the truth, these are the ideas of justice, and most importantly, THE AMERICAN WAY

I've been wondering the same thing myself:

Let me quote what REAL LIBERALS thought at the Founding of our Nation (Thomas Paine, Common Sense):

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

The underlined quote refers to the story of Adam and Eve, not that I care personally, but I thought I'd make it clear for non religious readers.

 

[Derideo_Te]

No one said anything about the Constitution. That is a separate argument that I would be happy to address in another thread, particularly James Madison’s federalist no. 41 (Last 4 paragraphs). Yet even the founding fathers recognized that there are some things that shall not be legislated on. My point is simple. No one has the right to impede the right of self-ownership for anything other than the right of self-ownership. You disagree? Good, you just made slavery a viable option. The idea that a group of people has the right to legislate one class of citizens into any service other than to the preservation of self-ownership is indeed, a very “modern liberal” stance. In many cases, a conservative one as well, but not to such an extent. In any case, your assertion that the mob is right in anything they wish to do because of a preamble of which grants no power to any branch of government as noted by the Supreme Court only shows that this subject is beyond your comprehension. The government has the right to tax but for what purpose? "The General Welfare." Not "Specific Welfare." This utilitarian phrase couldn't be clearer. But nonetheless, you have in no way shape or form addressed the question posed in the op.

The purpose of my questions is to solicit information surrounding your position. So far all that you have provided is little more than a selfish attitude where you are opposed to providing anything that contributes to the general welfare of the society that provides you one of the highest living standards in the history of the world. You are certainly entitled to hold that position but you don't seem to have any rational basis to support it. Instead everything that you posted is self serving. A society where everyone believed as you do would not function and would certainly be incapable of providing you with the standard of living to which you have become accustomed. Your feudal mindset seems based upon some primitive belief that you are an island and that you depend upon no one else for your welfare. Feel free to point out where this impression is wrong and how you are a good upstanding contributing member of this society. How you don't begrudge paying your taxes and support the constitution and the duly elected government of the people. I am looking forward to how you explain the cognitive dissonance between your mindset and your actions.

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. (See video below). And after I've pointed to Locke and Mill YOU STILL NEEDED TO SEE WHERE I STOOD???? Obviously you've never read either. Your the anti-liberal claiming to be liberal without knowing the greats of liberalism. Funny. If you want to see how I explain the cognitive dissonance between my mindset and my actions you best understand the motivations of Machiavelli. But then again, I wouldn't want to you to strain yourself in an lazy attempt to understand the classics of political thought.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A]Milton Friedman - Greed - YouTube[/ame]

So your position is that unfettered capitalist greed is the solution to every problem in the world. Furthermore you believe that any attempt to help the less fortunate is a mob trying to steal from you. Under your feudal mindset there will be no police or fire services because those are for the evil "common good". You will pay a toll on every road beyond your driveway because they must all be owned by capitalists. Your neighbors will be free to pollute your air and water since you have no right to deprive them of their rights to unfettered capitalist greed. Your grasp of how society actually operates as opposed to the utopian nonsense that you are advocating indicates a failure to grasp the most fundamental of principles.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

These "Liberals" are so ignorant they probably don't even realize that Publius was Hamilton's pen name when writing the Federalist Papers (name of the OP).

 

[legaleagle_45]

These "Liberals" are so ignorant they probably don't even realize that Publius was Hamilton's pen name when writing the Federalist Papers (name of the OP).

Publius was the pen name for not only Hamilton, but also Madison and Jay... all three of the authors of the Federalist Papers employed it.

 

[Publius1787]

Sure. I'm a liberal, not a communist.

So why did you highlight the previous? Is that where you wanted Lockeian philosophy to end? That’s ok if you do. That’s where Marx’s buddy Engels also wanted it to end. ( Locke's Use of Private Property versus Marxist Dissolution of Private Property by Aziz ur Rehman 10/28/2000 | Aziz Rehman - Academia.edu ) Funny you two are in such agreement.

As noted, even in Locke's day, taxes were collected from the various strata of society and supported the most impoverished members of society, that they might be raised above the level of savagery, rather than below it. This was not communism. They saw the a peaceful society required a broad enfranchisement into the economic system.

You do understand that your confusing the times with his writing? That’s like trying to explain why Marx loves capitalism by pointing to the capitalist times of which he lived while ignoring the Communist Manifesto or Das Capital. If Locke approved of his government he wouldn't have written his anonymously published second treatise.

 

[007]

There are many liberals who could pose a proper response to the op, I am sure. However, they do not exist in this forum. In that case, why do we post here at all? I thought they would know where I was coming from by pointing to Locke and J.S. Mill but they have no clue who they were! AMAZING!

We post because the liberals on this forum will never expose themselves for what they truly are. Liberals HATE to be exposed and have their hypocrisy and two faced arrogance put on display for everyone to see. They like to hide it and pretend it doesn't exist. They like to dupe those who we would consider the low information voters.

But we know what they are, so why let them play their games. Just expose them, and then laugh as they respond with some BS psychobabble liberal mumbo jumbo.

It is amazing. I gave them the opportunity to debate the very essence of their ideology but they couldn’t do it. Not only do they not know what I was talking about, they don’t know what they advocate. This is literally the fall of Western Civilization!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rytC4QsIiG8]PJTV: #1 Public University Producing Idiots - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Pheonixops]

I would say that the teachings of liberalism can be traced to the words and teachings of Jesus.

Is that why so many liberals hate Christianity, and proclaim to be atheists?

What percentage of them "hate Christianity and proclaim to be Atheists"? what study are you quoting? Do you realize that the new Pope is a Jesuit and comes from the Latin American Liberation Theology mindset?

 

[The2ndAmendment]

So your position is that unfettered capitalist greed is the solution to every problem in the world. Furthermore you believe that any attempt to help the less fortunate is a mob trying to steal from you. Under your feudal mindset there will be no police or fire services because those are for the evil "common good". You will pay a toll on every road beyond your driveway because they must all be owned by capitalists. Your neighbors will be free to pollute your air and water since you have no right to deprive them of their rights to unfettered capitalist greed. Your grasp of how society actually operates as opposed to the utopian nonsense that you are advocating indicates a failure to grasp the most fundamental of principles.

That is the view of Corporatists pretending they are Conservatives. Both the Repulican and Democratic Parties are engines of destruction --- destruction of civil and economic liberities.

A true Classical-Liberal believes that no one rights may be restricted, so long as he does NOT INFRINGE upon the rights of others.

So pollution is easy to answer. Everyone has a right to Life. The rights that come under Life are so simple and basic, that it even sounds silly to discuss them. However, one of the rights of life is the right to breathe. If someone or something is making it toxic to breathe, then they are infringing on your right to life.

As such, Congress can make laws that are necessary and proper (or General Welfare Clause) to put an end to pollution, or limit it significantly.

That being said, Democrats abuse this and take it to the extreme, and they don't actually solve the pollution problem anyway. They prefer to "tax pollution," instead of "stop pollution."

 

[Publius1787]

The purpose of my questions is to solicit information surrounding your position. So far all that you have provided is little more than a selfish attitude where you are opposed to providing anything that contributes to the general welfare of the society that provides you one of the highest living standards in the history of the world. You are certainly entitled to hold that position but you don't seem to have any rational basis to support it. Instead everything that you posted is self serving. A society where everyone believed as you do would not function and would certainly be incapable of providing you with the standard of living to which you have become accustomed. Your feudal mindset seems based upon some primitive belief that you are an island and that you depend upon no one else for your welfare. Feel free to point out where this impression is wrong and how you are a good upstanding contributing member of this society. How you don't begrudge paying your taxes and support the constitution and the duly elected government of the people. I am looking forward to how you explain the cognitive dissonance between your mindset and your actions.

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. (See video below). And after I've pointed to Locke and Mill YOU STILL NEEDED TO SEE WHERE I STOOD???? Obviously you've never read either. Your the anti-liberal claiming to be liberal without knowing the greats of liberalism. Funny. If you want to see how I explain the cognitive dissonance between my mindset and my actions you best understand the motivations of Machiavelli. But then again, I wouldn't want to you to strain yourself in an lazy attempt to understand the classics of political thought.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A]Milton Friedman - Greed - YouTube[/ame]

So your position is that unfettered capitalist greed is the solution to every problem in the world. Furthermore you believe that any attempt to help the less fortunate is a mob trying to steal from you. Under your feudal mindset there will be no police or fire services because those are for the evil "common good". You will pay a toll on every road beyond your driveway because they must all be owned by capitalists. Your neighbors will be free to pollute your air and water since you have no right to deprive them of their rights to unfettered capitalist greed. Your grasp of how society actually operates as opposed to the utopian nonsense that you are advocating indicates a failure to grasp the most fundamental of principles.

You obviously have never heard of J.S. Mill's "harm principle." Am I talking to a brick wall? Listen, you cannot hang in this conversation. You lack the intellectual capacity. Everything you’re asking about can be assessed in the op where I have told you where I stand. The problem is that you lack the education to understand that. Please don’t make me step down any further into the land of teaching the ignorant. Go study Mill and Locke before you continue this conversation. You have no clue how lost you are and it is a joke to everyone here who understands what I am talking about. Or perhaps look up Thomas Hobbes who no doubt you agree with assessing the above response.

 

[bripat9643]

What Philosophical Principle Do Liberals Hang Their Ideology On?

This is what confuses the right, resulting in conservative disdain for what they perceive as ‘liberal.’

Liberals are for the most part pragmatists, there is thus no single, specific ‘philosophical principle’ to which they blindly adhere.

That's another way of saying liberals have no philosophical principles.

Their guiding principles, among others, are the desire to predicate policy decisions on fact, not dogma, as conservatives are prone to do, to attempt to be consistent with the application of policy, and to ensure the laws of society benefit all citizens equally.

Everyone believes their policy positions are predicated on fact. Everyone also thinks his opponents policy is based on dogma. I find it interesting that you believe the laws should benefit everyone equally rather than that the laws should be applied equally and impartially. Apparently you disagree with the latter. Laws that are applied equally will always benefit some more than others. For instance, laws against stealing benefit honest hard working people and penalize lazy shiftless thieves.

Indeed, much of the conflict between liberals and conservatives is not a conflict between competing ideologies, but a conflict between conservative dogma and liberals rejecting that dogma because liberals correctly understand its factual errors and failings.

In other words, conservatives are stupid. The reality is your answer is stupid. It's nothing but a pile of prejudices and pretensions.

For example, conservatives seek to establish drug testing as a condition of initial eligibility for public assistance applicants predicated on rightist economic dogma and animus towards those requesting assistance, oblivious to the fact that those receiving public assistance are no more likely to use drugs than the general public.

It doesn't matter whether they are more or less likely to do drugs. They are receiving money from the taxpayers who are entitled to attach strings to that assistance. Furthermore, your belief in the probity of welfare mothers is not justified by any factual data. People who engage in irresponsible sexual behavior are also likely to engage in other kinds of irresponsible behavior.

Conservatives perceive making it more difficult to apply for government benefits as striking a blow against the ‘welfare state,’ when in reality they’re striking a blow against the Constitution.

ROLF! Hardly. Public assistance isn't even mentioned in the Constitution.

That the courts have invalidated such measures is proof of that.

Nope. That's only proof that the courts are populated with toadies and political hacks, especially the kind with "no single, specific ‘philosophical principle’ to which they blindly adhere."

 

[bripat9643]

What Philosophical Principle Do Liberals Hang Their Ideology On?


a participatory Democracy in support of popular and necessary causes.

You have no principle other than a belief in mob rule, apparently