Why do people hate Liberals?

[Foxfyre]

yes... Yet that was after Hitlers and FDR's camps.

The camps of Siberia started under the Tsars. Lenin used them heavily with about a 99% mortality rate. Stalin actually increased the survival rates of the Gulags - though it was still a virtual death sentence, a Menshevik sent to the concentration camps in 1927 had about a 5% chance to live - better odds than had under Lenin.

USSR--Genocide and Mass Murder

Yes, the chapter of the U.S. Japanese interrment camps is not as easily defined as those under totalitarian governments intended to punish and destroy large groups of state 'enemies'. Just as there were extreme measures in the immediate wake of 9/11 because we didn't know who the enemy was or where he intended to strike next, FDR was in the much the same situation with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

It was not that we didn't expect to be at war with Japan. The relationship between the USA and Japan had been strained for decades and was escalating throughout the 1930's. It is recorded that Harry Hopkins, FDR's closest adviser and architect of the New Deal, was with Roosevelt on December 6, 1941, when FDR received the latest rejection of proposals from Japan. FDR told Hopkins, "This means war." Hopkins comments that he wishes "we could strike the first blow and prevent any sort of surprise." FDR responds, "No, we can't do that. We are a democracy and a peaceful people. But we have a good record." Within hours, Japanese planes were bombing Pearl Harbon.

Did Japan intend additional attacks? And would Japanese people living in the U.S. side with their new country or with Japan? How much would they inform and/or assist Japanese aggessors? Because of fears of sabotage expressed by farmers, port authorities, manufacturers, et al, 39 days after the attack on Pearl Harbon, FDR reluctantly signed the order to inter Japanese citizens for a time.

Mixed reviews. The Japanese in the camps were well housed, fed, and treated. Many did suffer great economic harm by being taken from their farms and businesses. Others report that they were relieved because they feared the hatred and retaliation of their non-Japanese American neighbors. A proud moment in American history? No. But as these things go, the devil is always in the details, and many historians figure 10% of those interred would have given help to the homeland. We'll never know will we?

Is the history presented honestly under liberalism? Not so much. But then too, conservatives sometimes leave some of the history out that is not so easy to justify. Perhaps it is a wash.

 

[Dragonlady]

Conservativism, as defined in modern day America, does not coerce, force, or mandate other than what absolutely has to be done to secure our rights and provide us the freedom to live our lives as we choose.

Anarchist libertarianism is not liberalism but neither is it conservatism because it would deny us the ability to organize ourselves to live as we choose.

And Liberalism, as defined in modern day America, assigns all power over to the government to dictate to us what rights and privileges we will have, what property we are allowed to keep as well as how we are allowed to use it, how different groups are expected to speak and conduct themselves, and what sort of lives we are expected to live.

Your definition of liberalism is false. Liberals don't want to assign all power to the government, but rather, they want mandates which reduce the power inbalances which currently exist. The free market will always favour the wealthy and the powerful. So you have low income workers who get no vacations, no maternity leaves, and no benefits because low income workers are hardly scarce or difficult to find. They have no power.

Conservatives think that they will be fairly treated by the corporations. I have no such faith.

 

[eflatminor]

The free market will always favour the wealthy and the powerful.

Only if business has the support of crony politicians in power...the very same central planners you hope will save the poor.

A better idea might be to eliminate the ability of business to engage in cronyism by restricting where politicians can meddle. After all, if no government politician or bureaucrat has the power to grant favors or create loopholes, the business has no ability to manipulate the system to their favor.

In other words, you're looking for a savior among the very people that created the problem in the first place.

 

[Foxfyre]

Conservativism, as defined in modern day America, does not coerce, force, or mandate other than what absolutely has to be done to secure our rights and provide us the freedom to live our lives as we choose.

Anarchist libertarianism is not liberalism but neither is it conservatism because it would deny us the ability to organize ourselves to live as we choose.

And Liberalism, as defined in modern day America, assigns all power over to the government to dictate to us what rights and privileges we will have, what property we are allowed to keep as well as how we are allowed to use it, how different groups are expected to speak and conduct themselves, and what sort of lives we are expected to live.

Your definition of liberalism is false. Liberals don't want to assign all power to the government, but rather, they want mandates which reduce the power inbalances which currently exist. The free market will always favour the wealthy and the powerful. So you have low income workers who get no vacations, no maternity leaves, and no benefits because low income workers are hardly scarce or difficult to find. They have no power.

Conservatives think that they will be fairly treated by the corporations. I have no such faith.

Conservatives don't care whether corporations treat anybody fairly or not. Conservatives want the right to make a living, choose who they will work for, and have the freedom to sell their labor, experience, expertise, etc. to the highest bidder who will offer the working conditions the conservative desires. Conservatives know that when government can dictate how corporations will treat their employees, there can be some benefits, but the cost is far too high in the options and opportunities that will be lost.

In the free market, those who want the best employees will offer those employees the best deals that they can afford. And the best employees can command better deals than anything the government can mandate for them. Corporations who treat their employees badly or don't create environments to attract the best of the best only hurt themselves. And only the dregs of the work force will be willing to work for them.

You say you don't want to assign all power to the government, and then you go ahead to describe how you want government to create the society you wish to have. And THAT gives government power to do anything to you or me and everybody else that it wants to do.

 

[Toro]

Conservatives were betrayed by Dubya and we were vocal in our opposition to his Democratic domestic agenda but as I've said before, Liberals lie and you are a liar

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

You may have vocal in your opposition to Bush, but most conservatives were not.

So? Most progressives were in favor of Hitler and Stalin does that mean they are all like that?

No they weren't.

 

[Bfgrn]

Conservativism, as defined in modern day America, does not coerce, force, or mandate other than what absolutely has to be done to secure our rights and provide us the freedom to live our lives as we choose.

Anarchist libertarianism is not liberalism but neither is it conservatism because it would deny us the ability to organize ourselves to live as we choose.

And Liberalism, as defined in modern day America, assigns all power over to the government to dictate to us what rights and privileges we will have, what property we are allowed to keep as well as how we are allowed to use it, how different groups are expected to speak and conduct themselves, and what sort of lives we are expected to live.

Your definition of liberalism is false. Liberals don't want to assign all power to the government, but rather, they want mandates which reduce the power inbalances which currently exist. The free market will always favour the wealthy and the powerful. So you have low income workers who get no vacations, no maternity leaves, and no benefits because low income workers are hardly scarce or difficult to find. They have no power.

Conservatives think that they will be fairly treated by the corporations. I have no such faith.

Conservatives don't care whether corporations treat anybody fairly or not. Conservatives want the right to make a living, choose who they will work for, and have the freedom to sell their labor, experience, expertise, etc. to the highest bidder who will offer the working conditions the conservative desires. Conservatives know that when government can dictate how corporations will treat their employees, there can be some benefits, but the cost is far too high in the options and opportunities that will be lost.

In the free market, those who want the best employees will offer those employees the best deals that they can afford. And the best employees can command better deals than anything the government can mandate for them. Corporations who treat their employees badly or don't create environments to attract the best of the best only hurt themselves. And only the dregs of the work force will be willing to work for them.

You say you don't want to assign all power to the government, and then you go ahead to describe how you want government to create the society you wish to have. And THAT gives government power to do anything to you or me and everybody else that it wants to do.

"One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good"
Edmund Burke

Utopian blind faith.

The closest twin we have in America today to the communists and Marxists in Russia are the 'Marketists'; conservatives, libertarians and 'free marketeers' who have turned government nonintervention and 'laissez faire' into a religion. It has created 'malaise faire'

One politically popular myth, that free market economics and government non-intervention provide the basis for true democracy, flies in the face of history. The first democrats, the classical Athenians, had a word for the ideal free marketer, the homo economicus, working for his own economic gain but unconcerned with the community. It was not particularly complimentary, the ancestor of our word “idiot.” Pericles expressed the sentiment underlying this: “We regard the citizen who takes no part in these [public] duties not as un-ambitious but as useless…”

We have ignored the ramifications of this as we remodeled our pantheon. We have replaced the notion of public-spirited citizens interested in the common weal, a vital part of democratic thought from ancient Athens to our founding fathers, by the invisible hand of the free market. This promises to maximize benefit for society, if only we will be idiots.

In so far as it fails to value disinterested public spirit, free market doctrine only pretends to cherish democracy. Let the people concentrate on their economic gain while their leaders rule in any manner they choose. The Peoples’ Republic of China instituted free market reforms to sustain its autocratic political regime. Augusto Pinochet brutally repressed even mild political dissent while pursuing free market economic policies in Chile.

The reality of our own political power structure is that despite the primacy of our financial markets and our contemporary rituals of democracy, powerful corporations, unions and special interest groups fund political campaigns and exact repayment in the form of enormous influence on legislation. Our government is responsive primarily to these organizations, rather than to citizens. This resembles the corporatism of Mussolini’s Italy more closely than any historic democracy. We are blind to the connection between corporatism and the lack of public interest in politics and in the common good.

In our enthusiasm for the dogma that any government interference is necessarily bad, we forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

This is not meant to imply that everything government does is beneficial. But to start from the faith that everything government does is necessarily harmful not only disregards history; it sacrifices the ability, and even the interest, to distinguish between the beneficial and the harmful.

 

[koshergrl]

What claptrap.

 

[JimBowie1958]

You REALLY aren't paying attention, or you're not smart enough to follow along. I suspect the latter.

Conservatives have NEVER given us less government. Their idea of less government is less Democrats in government. Conservatives have no problem spending a LOT of taxpayer's money, as long as corporations can suck the tit of government. Like big Pharma and insurance cartels who make a windfall off Medicare D.

1) Medicare Part D is a PERFECT example of conservatism.

Part D is not in fact an entitlement program; it really isn't even a benefit provided by the government. It's a program subsidized (and nominally run) by the government in which people buy prescription drug insurance policies provided by private companies.

2) Conservatives made no provision in the bill to pay for it.

The chief actuary of Medicare, Rick Foster, had scored the legislation as costing more than $500 billion. The Bush administration suppressed his report, in a move the Government Accounting Office later judged "illegal.”

3) Unlike the VA and Medicaid, it forbids negotiating drug prices and it is a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry.

By the design of the program, the federal government is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as federal agencies do in other programs. The Department of Veterans Affairs, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, has been estimated to pay between 40% and 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D.

Estimating how much money could be saved if Medicare had been allowed to negotiate drug prices, economist Dean Baker gives a "most conservative high-cost scenario" of $332 billion between 2006 and 2013 (approximately $50 billion a year), and a "middle cost scenario" of $563 billion in savings "for the same budget window".

4) It is in the conservative spirit of stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.

Former Congressman Billy Tauzin, R-La., who steered the bill through the House, retired soon after and took a $2 million a year job as president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the main industry lobbying group. Medicare boss Thomas Scully, who threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster if he reported how much the bill would actually cost, was negotiating for a new job as a pharmaceutical lobbyist as the bill was working through Congress. A total of 14 congressional aides quit their jobs to work for the drug and medical lobbies immediately after the bill's passage.

I cannot blame you for being confused. Though these things are opposed to conservatism, the GOP keeps putting in candidates that are NEOCONSERVATIVES and Bush was labeled by the GOP leaders a conservative. And he was but only in a knee-jerk way. He daily did things that were NOT conservative at all.

Unfortunately, if you want to know what conservatives espouse you cant learn that by looking at what these neocons do in office, but you have to read it from the pundits and more reflective conservative academes, the few still remaining anyway.

Yea, when Bush was in office you right wing 'conservatives' were cheerleaders shaking pom-poms. NOW, after the smoke has cleared, we are able to see the carnage of 8 years of utter failure you want that shit off your shoes...

Sorry, I am not buying ONE word of your bullshit. I talked to thousands of you so called 'conservatives' during the Bush regime. There was not a PEEP from you folks that was critical...

Was Reagan a 'conservative'?

Dude, a huge number of conservatives were opposed to Bush, like Ron Paul, Dick Army, Bob Barr, etc.

If that means nothing to you then you are a fucking retard.

 

[Bfgrn]

I cannot blame you for being confused. Though these things are opposed to conservatism, the GOP keeps putting in candidates that are NEOCONSERVATIVES and Bush was labeled by the GOP leaders a conservative. And he was but only in a knee-jerk way. He daily did things that were NOT conservative at all.

Unfortunately, if you want to know what conservatives espouse you cant learn that by looking at what these neocons do in office, but you have to read it from the pundits and more reflective conservative academes, the few still remaining anyway.

Yea, when Bush was in office you right wing 'conservatives' were cheerleaders shaking pom-poms. NOW, after the smoke has cleared, we are able to see the carnage of 8 years of utter failure you want that shit off your shoes...

Sorry, I am not buying ONE word of your bullshit. I talked to thousands of you so called 'conservatives' during the Bush regime. There was not a PEEP from you folks that was critical...

Was Reagan a 'conservative'?

Dude, a huge number of conservatives were opposed to Bush, like Ron Paul, Dick Army, Bob Barr, etc.

If that means nothing to you then you are a fucking retard.

What it means to me? What does it mean to YOU that Ron Paul and Bob Barr were both on the ballot for President in the past. It was as standard-bearers for the libertarian party.

 

[Mr. H.]

Liberals are fraught with misspent empathetic emotions.

Misspent, misguided, misinformed, misaligned, and... for the lack of further terminology...

totally fucked up.

The end.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Yea, when Bush was in office you right wing 'conservatives' were cheerleaders shaking pom-poms. NOW, after the smoke has cleared, we are able to see the carnage of 8 years of utter failure you want that shit off your shoes...

Sorry, I am not buying ONE word of your bullshit. I talked to thousands of you so called 'conservatives' during the Bush regime. There was not a PEEP from you folks that was critical...

Was Reagan a 'conservative'?

Dude, a huge number of conservatives were opposed to Bush, like Ron Paul, Dick Army, Bob Barr, etc.

If that means nothing to you then you are a fucking retard.

What it means to me? What does it mean to YOU that Ron Paul and Bob Barr were both on the ballot for President in the past. It was as standard-bearers for the libertarian party.

lol, they were also Republicans for most of their careers, and conservative for their whole lives.

Discounting conservative opposition to Bush because the RINOs embraced him is like condemning socialism for what the communists did in Russia and the commies call themselves socialists too.

But go on with your hateful lies; the Truth will rise.

 

[JimBowie1958]

The one thing about this board that most baffles me is the incredible depth of hatred and contempt for liberals.

It isn't directed at classic liberals, but at the current crop of lying, anti-white, cheating, grow-government-at-any-cost peope who call themselves liberals but who come more from the Marxist school of thought than the Teddy Roosevelt to Jack Kennedy style of liberalism.

The situation is only made worse by the complete cowardice of liberals to denounce these frauds.

 

[Bfgrn]

The one thing about this board that most baffles me is the incredible depth of hatred and contempt for liberals.

It isn't directed at classic liberals, but at the current crop of lying, anti-white, cheating, grow-government-at-any-cost peope who call themselves liberals but who come more from the Marxist school of thought than the Teddy Roosevelt to Jack Kennedy style of liberalism.

The situation is only made worse by the complete cowardice of liberals to denounce these frauds.

Classical liberals assume a natural equality of humans; conservatives assume a natural hierarchy.
James M. Buchanan

FRAUDS? You mean the liberals who created the most robust and prosperous middle class in human history? You mean the liberals who created an era with huge economic growth and shared wealth, fantastic successes in technology, vast expansion of citizen freedoms and liberties and the growth of a middle class that defined this country and made America the 'city on the hill', the envy of the world? You mean the liberals who PAID for what they spent? As opposed to conservatives like Ronald Reagan who stopped paying for what we spent and put America on the Beijing credit card? As opposed to conservatives like Ronald Reagan who decided our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren should pay for what HE and conservatives spent? As opposed to conservatives like Ronald Reagan who created as much debt in 5 years as ALL the Presidents that preceded him COMBINED???

And liberals should denounce the greatest era in American history and praise the WORST era in American history instead???

NONE of those liberals from Teddy Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy were Marxists. They were all capitalists who clearly understood that capitalism is not a religion and it is not a form of governance. It is an economic method that works very well when properly regulated. And FAILS miserably when dogmatic doctrinaires try to turn capitalism into a religion and believe in magic.

And classical liberals have nothing in common with right wing conservatives who want to create a plutocracy.

If anyone or anything needs to be denounced, it is the TOTAL failure of the Reagan revolution. VOODOO economics and 'trickle down' eco-fascism. It was just as big of a failure as the Bolshevik revolution.

The closest twin we have in America today to the communists and Marxists in Russia are the 'Marketists'; conservatives, libertarians and 'free marketeers' who have turned government nonintervention and 'laissez faire' into a religion. It has created 'malaise faire'



"The debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
David Stockman - Director of the Office of Management and Budget for U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

 

[editec]

Ah yes, more collective group mental masterbation by this board's Rs and Ds as they pretend that the words liberal and conservative actually mean something real.

TEAM thinkers = morons

 

[Dragonlady]

Conservativism, as defined in modern day America, does not coerce, force, or mandate other than what absolutely has to be done to secure our rights and provide us the freedom to live our lives as we choose.

[snip]

You say you don't want to assign all power to the government, and then you go ahead to describe how you want government to create the society you wish to have. And THAT gives government power to do anything to you or me and everybody else that it wants to do.

Your first paragraph is bullshit. Conservatives are all about regulating women's reproduction rights to the point of introducing legislation to which effectively renders Roe v Wade as dead - limiting a poor woman's ability to obtain a legal abortion.

I didn't say a thing about creating a particular kind of society. I talked about regulating employee abuses and minimum wages. Just like they do in all of the countries with a higher quality of life than the United States.

The US is the only first world country in the world where employees have no right to take a vacation, no guarantee of health care insurance, and no maternity leave.

 

[Bfgrn]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Dragonlady again.

 

[Bfgrn]

Ah yes, more collective group mental masterbation by this board's Rs and Ds as they pretend that the words liberal and conservative actually mean something real.

TEAM thinkers = morons

SO above it all high and mighty=a narcissistic moron.

The ideas, solutions and policies of liberals vs. conservatives and where they want to take this country ACTUALLY DO mean something real.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

You may have vocal in your opposition to Bush, but most conservatives were not.

So? Most progressives were in favor of Hitler and Stalin does that mean they are all like that?

REALLY?

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller

Obama's erecting a genuine fucking police state here in the USA, you should get off your fucking knees and speak up against it

 

[Dragonlady]

Obama's erecting a genuine fucking police state here in the USA, you should get off your fucking knees and speak up against it

Again, this is total bullshit. No one is throwing US citizens into jail on a wholesale basis. US citizens are not being tortured or murdered by the state. No one is confiscating your precious guns, and the last time I looked, you had constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, imprisonment without due process, and the right to free speech and freedom of the press.

One of the biggest problems I see with conservatives is the hyperbole that they post about the current President of the US. He's not a communist, or incompetent, or a wuss. He wasn't my first choice as President, but he has done a good job with the economy, preventing the US from going completely into the toilet in the wake of W's mismanagement of the economy. I realize that this view won't go down well with conservatives here who, quite frankly, or the most economically illiterate bunch I've ever encountered.

Managing the economy is a delicate balancing act. You have to keep businesses growing, but you have to protect citizens from abuses and excesses by the corporations, who exist solely to make a profit with no concern about how that profit is achieved. Corporations are not people, and they don't have aspirations, goals or dreams. They exist to make the most profit possible within the framework of existing laws and regulations. They have no interest in the broader community because that is not the mandate of a corporation. The government has a responsibility to the broader community to ameliorate the worst excesses of the single-minded pursuit of profit, in the same way that the criminal justice system exists to punish those individuals who would injure their fellow citizens through assault, theft, and other personal and property crimes.

Conservatives assume all employers are benevolent, all profitable business deals are on the up and up, and no one would ever take advantage of their wealth and position to bully those with less, and everyone wants clean air and water. If you believe this stuff to be true, I have a lovely ski resort in Miami I'd like to talk to you about.

 

[Bfgrn]

Obama's erecting a genuine fucking police state here in the USA, you should get off your fucking knees and speak up against it

Again, this is total bullshit. No one is throwing US citizens into jail on a wholesale basis. US citizens are not being tortured or murdered by the state. No one is confiscating your precious guns, and the last time I looked, you had constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, imprisonment without due process, and the right to free speech and freedom of the press.

One of the biggest problems I see with conservatives is the hyperbole that they post about the current President of the US. He's not a communist, or incompetent, or a wuss. He wasn't my first choice as President, but he has done a good job with the economy, preventing the US from going completely into the toilet in the wake of W's mismanagement of the economy. I realize that this view won't go down well with conservatives here who, quite frankly, or the most economically illiterate bunch I've ever encountered.

Managing the economy is a delicate balancing act. You have to keep businesses growing, but you have to protect citizens from abuses and excesses by the corporations, who exist solely to make a profit with no concern about how that profit is achieved. Corporations are not people, and they don't have aspirations, goals or dreams. They exist to make the most profit possible within the framework of existing laws and regulations. They have no interest in the broader community because that is not the mandate of a corporation. The government has a responsibility to the broader community to ameliorate the worst excesses of the single-minded pursuit of profit, in the same way that the criminal justice system exists to punish those individuals who would injure their fellow citizens through assault, theft, and other personal and property crimes.

Conservatives assume all employers are benevolent, all profitable business deals are on the up and up, and no one would ever take advantage of their wealth and position to bully those with less, and everyone wants clean air and water. If you believe this stuff to be true, I have a lovely ski resort in Miami I'd like to talk to you about.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Dragonlady again.

You're on a great roll Dragonlady. You are nailing it...

Here is a great Op-Ed I read this morning...

To Big U.S. Corporations: What About Some Patriotism for America?

The 4th of July is synonymous with patriotism. Tomorrow, all over the country, Americans will congregate to spend time with family and friends, barbecue, watch fireworks, and celebrate our nation's independence. Many will recite the pledge of allegiance or sing the national anthem. Wouldn't it be appropriate for the large corporations that were founded in the United States to show a similar acknowledgement of patriotism?

After all, these corporations rose to their enormous size on the backs of American workers. Their success can be attributed to taxpayer-subsidized research and development handouts. Not to mention those corporations that rushed to Washington D.C. for huge bailouts from the taxpayers when mismanagement or corruption got them into serious trouble.

How do these companies show their gratitude to their home country? Many of them send jobs overseas to dictatorial regimes and oligarchic societies who abuse their impoverished workers -- all in the name of greater profits. Meanwhile, back home, corporate lobbyists continue to press for more privileges and immunities so as to be less accountable under U.S. law for corporate crimes and other misbehavior.

[...]

In an age of increased jingoism about freedom and American ideals, the comparative yardsticks of patriotism should be applied frequently and meticulously to the large U.S. corporations that rove the world seeking advantages from other countries, to the detriment of the United States. It is our country that chartered them into existence and helped insure their success and survival. And these corporations now wield immense power in our elections, in our economy, over our military and foreign policies, and even in how we spend time with our friends and families.

The 4th of July is an ideal time to call out these runaway corporate giants who exploit the patriotic sensibilities of Americans for profit and, in wars, for profiteering, but decline to be held to any patriotic expectations or standards of their own.