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Post by mirium on Mar 4, 2009 1:01:29 GMT -5
I'm intensely interested in politics, and I suspect that a few others here are too. It would be delightful if we could discuss the Issues Of Our Times in the spirit of this board -- we will, from the start, Agree To Disagree, and to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable. But by starting (and ending!) with respect for each other, respect that has been earned by being intelligent and sensible in nonpolitical matters, shall we see if each of us can explain our views, with a goal of understanding each other better rather than convincing anyone to change their mind? Some basic ground rules might help -- no name calling, no casting of aspersions, no rude remarks about the personal attributes of any well-known spokesperson for any ideology. Raising a question of credibility is okay -- "He supports animal rights, but wears a mink coat -- has he explained that contradiction?" would be fine; "what's up with that?" would be borderline; "of course he supports animal rights, have you seen how hairy he is? You could sell his pelt on Ebay!" would earn a "tch, tch" fer shure.  The idea is to trot along beside each other for a while, with the understanding that we'll never walk in each other's moccasins. So, I'll start off. Okay, I have to ask -- because you're all reasonable people, and I'm an unabashed Liberal -- YES! I PROUDLY CLAIM THE "L" WORD!  -- and I know there are some (I hope) unabashed CONSERVATIVES here -- What do you think of Rush Limbaugh's announcement that he hopes Obama's economic plan fails? I have to give the guy credit for courage of his convictions, he's smart enough to know what kind of reaction he'd get, not only from the media. And I also recognize that the main source of his power is that he says what a lot of people are thinking. I know how I felt when George W. announced the Surge in Iraq -- "conflicted" doesn't even begin to describe it.  So -- what's on your mind? Anyone can chime in here, I'm just giving an explicit shoutout to folks who are not of my ilk -- I deal with the technical stuff and try to keep the peace (really, I do, despite the premise of this thread! ;D), but abjectly agreeing with the admin on non-TOS matters is neither expected nor welcomed here. Any takers? *insert hopeful puppy dog eyes smilie here* |
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Post by jaglady on Mar 4, 2009 9:44:50 GMT -5
Geez, Mirium. I wish you wouldn't post this stuff so early in the morning. I have to formulate my thoughts. (stares bleary-eyed at monitor) Tell you what. People hear the terms "liberal" and "conservative" bantered around all the time. Why don't you go ahead and define the term "liberal." What does a liberal essentially believe? Are there "schools" of liberal? (Paul Wellstone, etc). I ask that question because I can closely define myself as a "Reagan conservative". If there are different schools of liberal, which one do you closely align with? I say this because you also have a lot of teens out there who hear terms from the media, and we all know how truthful and informed the media can be (heavy emphasis on sarcasm). Also, you hear a lot of screaming, a lot of name-calling and a lot of insults. Yes, I relent. On BOTH sides. It's also important to have standards. You can't really decide something if you don't have a standard by which to go. For example, I debated with a young man from Holland. He too was a liberal atheist. We agreed on Webster's definition of "religion." Incidentally, for what it's worth, the pop-up ads at the top of this thread currently include "Psychotherapy Works!", "Counseling Can Help", and "#1 Way to Remove Wrinkles".  |
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Post by mirium on Mar 4, 2009 13:19:18 GMT -5
 It's trying to sell me security systems and law enforcement careers -- Google Ads work in mysterious ways. :smiley-think005: This will probably be a relatively slow-paced thread, jaglady, since the questions require thought -- taking a day or two to ponder is a good thing. ;D So I'll charge right in and answer your question immediately.  I'm not much of an ideologue, so I've never gone shopping for a Liberal School of Thought. Here's my vague understanding of "liberal", which is probably factually inaccurate in places, and is limited to American politics -- "liberal" has a very different meaning in other countries. So all you world citizens are encouraged to chime in! I believe Liberalism got started in the late 1700s/early 1800s; it was based on the idea of protecting individuals from the government, and promoted private property rights, small/limited government, and free markets. Libertarians continue that tradition, which is why they tend to be called "extreme liberals"; it's also closer to the philosophy of modern Conservatives (e.g. Republicans) than modern Liberals. Anarchists have an extreme version of classical liberalism, which is why they're "far left." (Random factoid: in pre-Revolutionary France, the political party that supported the King were seated on the right side of the legislative chamber, dissenters on the left -- so "the right" championed the status quo, "the left" wanted to make radical changes.) Modern liberalism changed in the late 1800s/early 1900s, as more countries became democracies -- the government could be controlled by voting instead of rebelling, and became an potential ally as well as a potential enemy. The danger now came from those who were financially/politically powerful, and government became a tool for protecting the masses from the mighty -- from the rich and powerful, including the government itself. The idea is to have checks and balances on power; to prevent power from becoming so concentrated in a few individuals/organizations that they can abuse it without restraint. Economic liberals support such things as labor unions (so workers have as much bargaining power as employers) and minimum living wage laws, child labor laws, work safety regulation, trade regulation, and government intervention when the economy goes wonky. Social liberals support protection of civil liberties against abuses by government (search and seizure, arbitrary arrest, favoring one group over others, invasions of privacy) and persons (anti-discrimination laws); they also support a minimum quality of life and various "safety net" programs (free public education, unemployment insurance, Social Security retirement/disability benefits, basic health care, etc.). There are various flavors of Liberals, but I'm sadly ignorant of the labels. I guess the closest equivalent to a "Reagan conservative" would be a "Kennedy liberal", which refers to Senator Ted (rather than his brothers Jack and Bobby), and is pretty close to my beliefs. I'm probably more of a traditional Progressive than a Liberal -- and forget everything you've heard the media say about Progressives, they throw the term around without having a clue what it means.  But that's a whole other essay. So, what does a Reagan Conservative believe, and what are some of the other flavors of Conservative? Take your time..... 
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Post by mirium on Mar 17, 2009 7:44:11 GMT -5
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Post by gregrox on Mar 26, 2009 18:30:49 GMT -5
Ok copy and paste from the Fox News thread.
I'm just going to add a short little thing. The Canadian political system is pretty different from the American one. There's five major parties (Bloc Quebcois, Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Green) and instead of voting for just the leader of one party we vote for a Member of Parliment in a riding. Whichever party has the most MP's becomes the party in power and the leader of that part becomes the Prime Minister. But they can either have a majority governemnt where they have the majority of the seatsand stay in power for four years or a minority government with less than 145(?) seats which can be toppled with a non confidence vote by all the MPs in parliment.
Right now the Conservatives(they're our equivalent of the Republicans) are in power. But they only have the support of around 33% of the population. It's the highest amount of support of any party though so they're in power. They do have minority government.(thank god)
Most Canadians aren't as politically aware as most Americans though. They just vote for whichever party has the most charismatic leader or the best commercial. And in some cases whichever one isn't from Quebec. And they don't research who they're voting for. For example I'm not sure that many people know that our current prime minister (Stephen Harper) used to be a member of an Alberta Sepratist party. And most politicans here are a bit more polite and don't try and make their opponents look bad. Stephen Harper is an execption to that which is one of the reasons I don't like him. Anyway so much for that being short xD.
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The idea is to trot along beside each other for a while, with the understanding that we'll never walk in each other's moccasins.
So -- what's on your mind?