A plea to the closet Republicans of Marin: come out, come out, wherever you are
It’s not that I’m unsympathetic to the plight of those such as Bookworm who are Republicans (or Independents, or at the very least non-liberals) living in mega-blue areas such as Marin County, and who choose to keep their mouths firmly shut about their politics for fear of social rifts.
The temptation to “pass” for liberal is very great. I understand; I do. I even feel your pain.
But I have come to believe that the costs of keeping silent are much greater than the costs of speaking up—both for Bookworm and her fellow closet Republicans, and for our country. And yes, even for her liberal friends.
Bookworm writes:
As regular readers know, I’ve chosen to keep my political life separate from the day-to-day aspects of my life. I simply can’t (and don’t want to) run the risk of tainting my carpools, my neighborhood barbecues, my kids’ comfort level at school, the camaraderie of the sports teams with which we’re involved, etc., by exposing myself to the obloquy that is routinely heaped on conservatives here ”” and this is a hostility that increases as elections draw near, of course.
Bookworm goes on to describe a clandestine meeting of Marin Republicans that seems only one step removed (okay, maybe more than one step) from 1984’s trysts between rebel Winston Smith and his lover Julia, out in the woods away from the spying eye and mic of the otherwise omnipresent telescreen:
With about 25 of us clustered about the living room, the local chair called the meeting to order, and asked us to begin by identifying ourselves. One after another, people stated their names and their City. Everything stopped, though, when a young woman, maybe 25, spoke her name very softly and added that “I’m a secret Republican.” With that single statement, the stories started.
One of the attendees, who had been asked to make phone calls on behalf of McCain, said that he spoke to one lady who said, “Don’t call me again. I’m going to vote Republican, but I can’t let anybody know. It’s got to stay a secret.” Another person recalled a party he attended a few months ago. When he mentioned, discretely, that he was a Republican, a young lady sidled up to him and whispered, “I’m conservative too, but don’t let anyone know. I also have two friends here. I’ll point them out to you. They’re also secret conservatives.” Incidentally, I was unable to interview either of the people who told these anecdotes because both were afraid that any more details might give away their identities and harm them professionally.
It’s clear that in Marin and its environs, Republicanism has become thoughtcrime. This is serious stuff. This is—if I may use a phrase that has become tainted with controversy—un-American.
And the only way I can think of to combat it is for individuals to speak out and come out. They may find, as I did, that there’s some unpleasantness but that the vast majority of friends and family stick by them, and the ones that don’t aren’t the finest of the lot.
Bookworm writes:
I know I should be speaking out when I hear [vicious anti-Republican] statements, but the sad fact is that I like these people. Barring their monomaniacal animosity towards Bush and the Republicans, they’re otherwise very nice: they’re hard workers, loving parents, good neighbors and helpful and reliable friends. Being the social creature that I am, I don’t want with one word (”Republican”) to turn these friendships upside down and inside out. (I’m not the only one with this problem.) I don’t want to be on the receiving end of some hideous Jekyll to Hyde transformation, so I just keep my mouth shut.
Full disclosure here: I know Bookworm. I like Bookworm. I respect Bookworm, and her right to make her own choices in life. But I disagree, and here’s why:
(1) The fact that these people are “otherwise” very nice is irrelevant, I’m afraid. Because in this particular pocket of their minds/souls they are most definitely neither nice, nor tolerant, nor even especially intelligent. In fact, they are being exactly what they profess to hate: rageful, closed-minded, prejudiced, ignorant, conformist. So how “nice” can they be?
(2) Same for the “helpful and reliable [my emphasis] friends” quote. If you are afraid that they’ll turn on you viciously and perhaps even permanently for the heinous sin of voicing a political opinion in disagreement with theirs, that seems pretty unreliable to me. If “one word (“Republican”)” can “turn these friendships upside down and inside out,” then such friendships are not worth being designated with the word. They are instead associations of convenience with the appearance but not the substance of friendship.
To Bookworm and others in the same position: silence takes its toll, and speaking out is—to coin a phrase—liberating. Yes, you may lose a few friends, but if your experience is like mine, your true friends will stand by you, and they will be in the majority. As I wrote here, you will not have to argue your case at every party you attend, or at every Little League game, or every time you hear a discouraging anti-Republican word.
But if you tell your good friends in a respectful and calm way about your political views, you will experience not only the relief of being out of the closet at last, but the greater relief of knowing that you have expanded their knowledge of what Republicans actually are: not the enemy, but that nice woman next door.
[NOTE: I’ve written about this topic before, also in response to Bookworm’s quandry.]
[ADDENDUM: And Bookworm, it could be worse. You could be a gay Republican—not that there’s anything wrong with that.]
I’ve had a moonbat mom (even here in red SoCal) come into my home to pick up her darling and for some reason launch into an anti-Bush tirade right in my home.
My wife shot me a “let it pass” look, later saying that she didn’t want our son ostracized (!). I basically gently countered with your points above, but let it drop, as arguing with your wife is about as productive as arguing with an IRS auditor.
The upshot: little Che and our son eventually went their separate ways (on their own), so I can tee off on his mom if she ever starts up around me again.
Along these lines….I recently was in two foreign countries. In both places, I had fruitless discussions about whether or not “Bush is stupid.” When I defended Bush, the discussions were both punctuated with the shocked statement that “You’re a Republican, aren’t you!” in a tone indicating that the person believed that Republicans were disgusting creatures.
Since these Europeans obviously knew nothing about U.S. politics except what they read in their daily rags, I didn’t answer “Yes.” (Actually, I now self-identify as “Independent” even though I’ll probably vote Republican from now on.) It was clear that in the Euro world, Republicans equal “deviants,” like child molesters, or some such.
I didn’t get too far in either conversation because these Europeans thought they knew everything they needed to know, and weren’t the slightest bit interested in my views.
This is the same reaction I always get from my liberal friends and family. Their minds are closed. I would be more discouraged if it weren’t for the fact that so many Americans are “Jacksonians” and don’t fall for the liberal bullsh*t.
Neo, I agree with you that one should keep trying to change closed minds. But many of these minds are closed so tightly that there can be no discussion at all. As to identifying oneself as a “Republican,” that involves a belief that the Republican party is unified in some way. In Chicago, there is no real Republican party, so I would never identify myself as one.
I certainly will do my best to promote McCain over Obama, though I know that will get me nowhere. As far as I know, every person in my social circle voted for Kerry. I couldn’t get even one of them to consider the fact he was a liar and a lightweight nobody. These same people don’t want to look at Obama’s record. They refuse to do so, in fact.
Plan to grow distant from that crowd over time. I don’t necessarily view this as a loss.
I whole-heartedly agree with you neo. It’s important for people to be brave enough to speak out. For people that are fed up with the enforced homogenization by the oh-so tolerant left, we have to do it ourselves. It should be obvious to all by now that the institutions that you had once trusted to maintain and enforce an objectivity are no longer going to bother. Not the press, not academia, certainly not liberal politicians.
Since we know that the bulk of liberal ideology hinges on emotion and popular consensus rather than reasoning. Those trapped in the group think arent going to come out of it while their beliefs remain unchallenged.
Yes, you’ll look like a fascist meany. Yes, many on the left get down right angry and un-hinged, but it absolutely must be done.
This country will descend into a divided mix of antagonistic ethnic, racial, income, etc special interest groups, each demanding special constitutional allowances for themselves with the justification born of self victimization. You all ready have people talking about the US Constitution being a “living” document, and in the UK, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of all people, has suggested that sharia law should coexist along side an established form of government and legal system that generations of their own citizens gave their lives to preserve.
The only thing that ties us together across all these divisions is our commitment in maintaining a fair and impartial system of government. To do that takes courage to defend.
This isnt an appeal to make liberalism go away, it is an appeal to force liberals into being honest about their own beliefs and exercising true tolerances for other people’s views.
My strategy has been to lie low, but look for tipoffs of like thinkers (one of the best indicators: someone who considers individuals responsible for their own decisions, and doesn’t accept the lame “society made him do it” excuse).
I find foreigners in the US dumping on Bush to be particularly egregious. At a recent meeting a highly opinionated foreigner dominated a dinner table conversation with what a moron Bush was. A number of us studiously examined our plates and ate in silence, but inwardly I fumed at the ignorance of this clown disparaging the American President in “no tickee, no shirtee” English.
On the obverse side of the coin, I lived in Europe for quite a few years, and used to smile through gritted teeth when I was introduced as “an American, but you know, a good one, a civilized one.” If only they knew about my cloven hooves…
How about a look from the other side? The vast majority of my town still supports TED STEVENS. If that isn’t as crazy as the liberals you’re talking about I don’t know what is. We minorities need to speak up, regardless of whether the majority surrounding us is conservative or liberal. I’m going to have fun in my American Government class this year.
It’s a tragedy that whole groups of people like this can close their minds so much. What we really need to do is break the two party system. Neo-cons are vastly different than true old-time conservatives and there are a lot of people in both the major parties that by all accounts should be libertarians. Let’s get some political diversity, and then we might be able to spread some common sense and open the way for reason.
“”””Peter said:
The vast majority of my town still supports TED STEVENS.”””
Oh, you assumed that commenters here would have a problem with Ted Stevens?
Nyuck! Nyuck! I’m kidding, since I imagine they would, and I can also understand why you’re aggravated by the Stevens loyalty. Had it not been for that selfish, greedy old prick, as well as the likes of Trent Lott, among others, Congress might still be in republican hands.
This is self-serving, I know, but after reflecting on this in as honest a way as I can, I think a disproportionate amount of the vitriol arises from the left, and its tendency to demonize political opponents as evil, whereas conservatives tend to think their opponents are silly or misguided rather than evil.
I would exempt hard-core leftist agitators (e.g., Ayers, Angela Davis, Lynne Stewart, and others of that ilk) from the latter generalization, because I consider them to be evil. By contrast, most liberals strike me as silly cognitively-challenged fashionistas, fundamentally good people, but ones who shouldn’t be trusted with the responsibility of feeding the dog.
Btw, if Stevens did half the stuff he’s accused of (which I’m fully prepared to believe), they should string him up – no two ways about it.
I once dated a truly kind and good woman who was a standard-issue NPR soft-leftie. One night we were discussing some political issue of the day. I forget what. Anyway, she got angry and called me a monarchist. I was thoroughly delighted, tickled pink, in fact. But she thought she had offended me and was quite upset. She could not understand how anybody could not be bitterly hurt at being called what she had called me.
I have chosen, in my personal and professional life, to be either low-key about my political affiliations and views or surreptitious about it. I completely empathize with people who see that there is no benefit to “coming out.” In my 53 years on this earth I have observed that many – not all – people are petty, vindictive, and controlling. And you don’t always have warning that a particular person may possess these qualities (they hid it well, especially when they have more education and social/economic status). Truth be told, most of the time many people lack the intellectual rigor to carry on a rational, civil conversation about political policy. Thus, usually there is no benefit to a debate or discussion. One has to be very, very careful about who one can talk with about politics and religion.
I will say this about the Left and about Republicans: when I was on the Left I found Republicans to be very tolerant of my Marxist views and only wanted to have a truly intellectual conversation. They didn’t call me names. They didn’t call me stupid or evil. I’m not making this up. One of the guys who lived in the house we rented when I was in college was a very pro-Reagan Republican, and he knew I was a revisionist Marxist. He was amazingly tolerant of me and I had a lot of respect for him, even if I did not agree with his politics. And when I was a Leftist I didn’t treat people on the Right the way today’s young (and old) Leftists treat people Right-of-Center.
The nation right now really is a powder keg, in the midst of a vicious political war in the midst of a larger war with Islamic jihad. And we on the Right are losing the fight, but I don’t think it’s because we’re cowards and won’t engage. We just see the futility of it, when the education system, media, and legal establishments are in the tank for the enemies of the nation.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Can you imagine what it must be like to work for Halliburton? /shudder
I especially like the meme that Cheney became VP to make money (!). By leaving Halliburton he took a roughly 99% pay cut (from $20 MM to $200 K). Now that’s how to get the big bucks!
Coincidentally today I sent off an email I’d been sitting on for over a month to an old friend who is distressed that I’m no longer in the leftist circle. She won’t let up on the “Bush is stupid” meme and tells me that all the smart people she knows insist how wonderful Obama is.
I replied in some detail, trying to leave her room to vote for Obama if she must, while being clear what a poor, unqualified candidate I think Obama is.
I don’t know what Democrats do this year if they are not enchanted with Obama. I can understand voting against Republicans and the Iraq War (though the latter point is becoming moot) but voting for Obama is something else again.
There is nothing you can do against closed minded people. However, I insist upon telling people that they need to learn how to talk with folks that they disagree with politically. That’s all they have to do. No name calling, just say “I disagree with you.” If they can’t do that, I personally don’t want anything to do with them.
I am an artist and declaring my principles out loud has consequences.
There is a point at which one must declare oneself on serious issues. I don’t need to run around telling people I am a Republican: I’ve already declared my Christianity and paid the price. And, in conversation, I have espoused conservative principles. Being a Republican is almost a given.
At a certain point, one must filter one’s friends. The leftist and liberals drop off over time because their political leanings deleteriously affect their character and their intellect: those who deny God exists — which is the foundation of the Left and Liberalism — will be given over to a disordered mind and, in time, to their depraved passions. One simply cannot maintain friendships with such people without hurting oneself. Besides, they instinctively sense who is with them or not: they begin realizing it when you won’t get drunk or smoke pot with them.
The nation right now really is a powder keg,
I think so too. Cost what it may, we can’t let that which those who went before us fought, died for and left us go down the tube.
Give your friends the benefit of the doubt. Reasonable people can disagree. The other thing to think about is that it’s helpful to think about how you say something.
But it shouldn’t be a horrible deal when someone goes into a tirade about Bush to say affably, “Gee I really like him.” If the tirade continues, I’d be an imp and add “You know, I bet he would like you too”.
I started on the left and came to the right, but did so before I met my friends where I live. It’s a heavily blue state and you’d be impressed as to how well people who are good friends in other ways will accept you as you are.
If they only like those with whome they agree and you still want to be friends, then find things that you do agree on. It’s okay to have friends that focus on topics non political, such as art, music, gardening, etc.
As one of the above poster said “The Left thinks the Right is evil. The Right thinks the Left is stupid.”
I don’t understand how the Right can continue to hold this belief. After the last 10 years I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the Left are vile, bigoted, intolerant, willfully stupid people.
It isn’t a question of being uninformed. Many (most I deal with) on the Left are very intelligent people (as am I). So, I can’t give them the excuse of “well they had good intentions. They couldn’t have known.” But they could have known. If they are smart enough to be engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc, it isn’t a question of inherent stupidity; it is a question of actively being stupid. Being willfully stupid.
And once they have taken that affirmative action they are responsible for the consequences. They are not nice people. They are evil.
An added note- when John Roberts did so well in persuading the judiciary committee to support him as SCOTUS Chief Justice, an item appeared in the WSJ’s Best of the Web Today, by James Taranto.
The ever witty Mr. Taranto found a clip in which a liberal was lamenting how well conservative nominees do in these proceedings and came to the conclusion that this was the result of a conservative needing to deal with liberals in the field of law, but that it was entirely possible that liberals in law would never come in contact with a conservative. The argument was that conservatives had more practice with dissent (and by inference, tolerance).
EvilDave, intelligence among lefties is probably trumped by the herd instinct and the desire to belong. Leftish views are kind of a shibboleth, a sign and countersign as it were, among these people (“See, I’m cool. Sign my yearbook?”). The vitriol and willful stupidity are merely poses to establish the person’s bona fides as fashionably left. It’s kind of like fashion in clothes; pants getting baggier and baggier, and lower and lower, as every fashionista tries to outdo the other, until another fad starts, and the cycle begins again.
But intelligent lefties know their views are nonsense and totally unworkable. Evidence for this: they don’t actually implement their philosophy in their own lives (except in symbolic ways). For example, avid supporters of labor will hire non-union day laborers to work on their houses. Those posturing about the need to raise taxes go to great lengths to avoid taxes.
Occam’s Beard,
Your post nailed it down. And I saw this many years ago when I was on the Left. The ones with the leadership positions and the good jobs behaved like – well – capitalists, while those on the bottom agitated for revolution. And I would not call the upper crust ones necessarily intelligent. Clever, cunning, and calculating – yes. Intelligent – no. I do not credit a person lacking integrity as being intelligent in a deep way.
I am still trying to understand the mystery of the contradiction: how can people who so obviously benefit from capitalism be so anti-capitalist? It’s as if they really do not understand how the wealth is created. And if that is the case, then they are as dumb as dirt.
From reading the above comments, I can see why many of you do not wish to enter into needless productiveless arguments with the ideologically committed. I agree with that to some extent, but as we all have come to understand, the left is incredibly persistent in making their point, and part of that is, I believe, meant to cower people into silence. When they attack George Bush like they do, what they’re really doing trying to intimidate you either out of your position, or at least into self-censorship, and thereby silent compliance or agreement.
There were too many commas in that werent there?
{sigh}
I’m amazed at how liberals will profess they’ve held politically steadfast while conservatism is the one venturing into extremes.
They insist on this, knowing full well that if they read JFK’s innaugural address they’d swear it was the speech of a radical Bush praising republican.
Willfull ignorance abounds with these people.
harry,
These people have absolutely no intent on either a fair debate or one in which their minds are opened. I have so much long experience with them that I no longer wish to punish myself with the futility of it all.
It is, however, true that over time I listened to the Right’s arguments and gradually changed over a period of years. What happened was that I was predisposed to take good arguments seriously and ponder them in the privacy of my own mind, but first I was trying to find a way around their salient, hard points. After literally years of investigating human behavior and the scientific basis of knowing and of embracing certain values over others I came to realize that the critics who had the greatest impact on me, Michael Novak and William Buckley, Jr., were right. Mine was restless mind interested in two things: how to free human beings from poverty and meaninglessness AND the truth about our condition. Even while I was a committed revisionist Marxist I had not burned any bridges because I knew that any ideology not based on the truth about our condition was doomed to failure.
I was a restless soul. And that is a precondition for being flexible and open to the truth. Most people I meet are not interested in that journey at all. Hey, I still revisit thinkers I thought I once understood and now have doubts that I truly understood.
Experience: Generally, political operatives and political junkies are not inclined to be into the Socratic dialog. They are after victory, not truth. They are two very different things. And the activist types I met during my Leftist days were not intellectuals. They were organizers and doers. They had no patience for the things I wanted to talk about, since they already knew where they were going…
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Neo, I agree with you that one should keep trying to change closed minds. But many of these minds are closed so tightly that there can be no discussion at all.
You may have read my comments on Book’s post there, but if you haven’t, then you might not realize that there are certain defenses built into people who have been lied to by propaganda yet don’t want to admit it.
Those defenses can only be bypassed by subterfuge, stealth, and cunning. You cannot openly come out and go toe to toe in honesty argument with them. Then their defenses come up and they have a way to exclude you and not listen. But if you pretend to be a neutral or an ally, and then you provide arguments to test and weaken the propaganda they have heard and believed in all their lives, then you have a chance.
Even if it only educates you, and does not change their minds, it will allow you a deeper and more insightful glimpse into why they think as they do. Once you find that, everything else becomes golden.
I am still trying to understand the mystery of the contradiction: how can people who so obviously benefit from capitalism be so anti-capitalist?
Guilt. They didn’t earn it. That means somebody has to blame. They can’t blame themselves, that’d be called introspection and taking responsibility. So they have to blame… you or the system or America or capitalist pigs.
It’s as if they really do not understand how the wealth is created.
Michelle never understood how her wealth was created. Oh, she worked and scheemed to get those increases, but she never accepts that the things she did to do so were unethical. And if people like her engages in unethical actions to get money, why shouldn’t the white boys have been doing so for centuries? She didn’t create wealth, thus the white boys must never have created wealth any ways. Michelle stole the money for her salary from a bribe her husband gave the hospital she worked out, so this must mean every rich person exploits and steals money in order to benefit.
Mine was restless mind interested in two things: how to free human beings from poverty and meaninglessness AND the truth about our condition.
The transformation from Leftist to true classical liberal requires such things.
Many potential classical liberals gravitate towards the Left given their rhetoric of being against oppression, exploitation, and what not. But eventually, if you pay attention, it’s all lies. They’re not against oppression. Look at their position in the Cold War, on Iraq, and for slavery in the Civil War. They’re not against exploitation, look at Al Gore at he exploits Global Warming for cash.
Eventually such things will turn the real classical liberals away from Leftism. Which is why so many Leftists were called useful idiots by the Soviets. A Leftist that has trained in Marxist revolutionary tactics and techniques, yet defects to classical liberalism, is a dangerous tool indeed to be left unattended to. For he is no longer a tool, then, for he now understands the score. The value of a tool rests in its ability to do what you tell it to do. A true classical liberal will realize where the Soviet Union was taking the world and would refuse their commands and desires. That cannot be allowed. Which is why the useful idiots cultivated by the KGB in America were one of the first to be slated for the wall once Communism reigned supreme in the US.
I never paid much attention to politics on tv until after 9/11. Everything I saw in the news was either unrelated to me or so grossly politically convoluted that I saw no reason to pay attention to it. It was only after seeing 9/11 happen on tv, as it happened, and watching the current events as they happened, that hooked me on political debates and what not.
I considered the nature of terrorism and their use of planes, with them still on it, as living guided bombs. I asked myself “what kind of a person could do such a thing, sacrifice their life just to kill people they don’t even know and had never offered them any kind of threat”. I considered the kind of monster that would do such a thing and I knew, to the depths of my soul, that with my experiences to that date, that I could not face that kind of monster with courage in my heart.
The acts of 9/11 were never social problems to me. Social problems like bar fights and disagreements can be solved with social skills. But this kind of violence is completely outside of society. It was war, with no rules and no traditions. Just killing people, however you could, whenever you could.
People kept treating terrorism as a social problem, though. They kept saying that if only we did what they wanted, gave them more support, gave them more money, or erased their political grievances, that they would stop. Since when has a murderer and evil villain stopped his actions because you gave him what he wanted? Even if you give up your own life, that doesn’t mean he won’t go to the next person and kill them as well.
Asocial problems require asocial violence. The only place that offered such knowledge and solutions were the Republicans, Bush primarily, and the US military. They killed, even if it was in a social chain of command framework due to orders. But they killed without a court decision, without debate, and with effortless ease seemingly. That kind of solution was the only one I considered even half way effective against the kind of monsters I suddenly realized inhabited the world in greater numbers than I had ever suspected.
Killing those monsters did not require social skills or solutions. And the ones who advocated such things, were no classical liberals to me.
I have always been a conservative and have never really cared if others got worked up over it. I’ve also been a hunter and have worked on DoD projects as a computer scientists (VERY much not popular).
I chose to neither hide or broadcast my political and religious beliefs (the latter also costing me some jobs). If the group is *that* bad then there are other problems, they aren’t otherwise nice people.
Simply for being tertiary involved with some DoD projects I’ve had interviews immediately stop when that is mentioned (Amazon.com was one – a very abrupt “thank you, we are not interested” when asked if I had professional contact with people outside and I said I had with the Israeli Defense Force as they were using something I had written).
People that do that are not “otherwise nice” and there are deeper problems than that. You will not be happy, you may fool yourself into thinking you will be less happy if it came to a boil, but in the long run you will be better off.
FredHjr,
I understand what you’re saying. I guess it depends upon the setting and the circumstances. I dont let it go by in the class room. I dont think it’s the place to discuss politics, unless of course, it’s a political science class or something that deals with law and public policy, but in both writing and biology I try to add my two cents worth where possible. I get nasty looks and the instructors sometimes get frustrated, that I just dont let them get by, but hey–we’re suppose to respect all points of views arent we? At least that is what both instructors have said at the outset of the term.
Or did that pertain only to people like me?
Anyway, I was wondering were Ymar had gotten off to that we dont hear from him till today.
Oh, and it isnt me brininging the politics into the class room. I just wanted to make that clear.
Please, staying in the closet concerning Obama is just plain gutless, and it’s how the worst kinds of demagogues and frauds rise to power to wreck countless lives. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk!
Ymarsakar,
Yes, I did get the impression that if the Left ever won and imposed a socialist regime that people like me would have been the first to be done away with. I asked too many questions and I do not reside in a land of ideological certitude. I took the arguments from the Reagan people seriously. Also, the activist types did not like the fact that I was a practicing Roman Catholic, and a seminarian to boot (or prior to entering the Jesuits after college, one aspiring to the priest
hood).
It is interesting that today I am not entirely comfortable on the Right, but relatively more so here than I was as a Leftist. Yes, I want smaller government, but I still believe in some kind of social safety net and the judicious and efficient use of smaller programs to help people out. I am very pro-military, because I’m a veteran, but also because I’m realistic: there are evil actors in the world. Right now we are fighting the world’s oldest surviving totalitarian ideology/cult. I believe my country is a good country and has brought far more good things into history than bad effects. No other society in the history of humanity is so willing to criticize itself and own up to mistakes. I could go on and on. I feel very fortunate to have had the journey I’ve had, plus I am grateful to live in such a great country. I meet so many people who feel no such gratitude or who have not been blessed with the kind of education I’ve had.
My impression of most young Leftists these days: FAR less mature intellectually and emotionally than most of us realize. It’s frightening. Much of it is not really their fault. The education system and the culture surrounding them has not served them well.
I can’t ventilate my politics in public. I work in the arts. My contracts would just melt and no one would ever now why. “Just one of those things.” “We don’t have anything for you.” “Your style is out of fashion.” “Terrible times in the field, these days.” You don’t believe it? Talk to any conservative in the arts or entertainment. Or even any non-liberal. Mind you I already pay by not VOCALLY endorsing their views. They’re not sure and so they only come to me when they absolutely have to.
I do know of a few others, but that’s because we’ve worked out more signs and countersigns and hidden symbols than gay people in the bad old days. And when we SUSPECT the other might be “one of us” we dance and prod and dance again, always ready to vanish at any sign of disapproval.
P.
I have to admit to keeping a low profile (here in a very left leaning district in L.A.) at times, but my real friends and of course family know who I am and what I believe. It doesn’t hurt that many of them are like minded, but not all. But I also have many ‘friends’, not people I rely on, but more than acquaintances, my neighbors and such. It would do me no good to be confrontational, and being straightforward about my beliefs would be seen as confrontational, even were that not my intent. Therefore, my tactic it to let them believe what they like, while not hiding my conservatism. I have a support the troops sticker on my car, and fly the flag (my patriotism I will not conceal), but I make no open declarations of political allegiance. Perhaps because I don’t really believe in political allegiance, at least not as they do.
I find that it’s actually very useful to first let them see that you’re a nice person, who cares about children, the elderly, the poor, and women, and then you can start to gently question their knee-jerk responses with ‘well, maybe it’s not quite like that’ or ‘maybe there’s also this other thing to consider’ and when it’s not coming from a known ‘evil Republican’, they might actually have a more open ear for it.
But I also agree, I wouldn’t trust anyone that would drop me for my political beliefs too much.
>I did get the impression that if the Left ever won and imposed a socialist regime that people like me would have been the first to be done away with.
Oh, give me a break. A socialist regime? Who believes in that anymore? Done away with? You’ve got to get out more, FredHjr.
I think what’s missing here is the value found in having friends with whom you disagree.
What is important to the American Enlightenment for a classical liberal is the ability not to demand to persuade others, but to accept others as they are. That said, it’s not an honest pursuit to go in hiding.
I’ve held my views and made my points in the way that I felt was most valuable in the discussion. But I listened to the other side with the respect that my friend had every right to entertain whatever view he or she discussed.
But dissent is a good thing and it can be used to annoy (as is the theme noted above). Or you don’t have to let it get to you, but use what you learn in the other side of the argument to make your own argument better.
And no one is infallible – it’s okay to challenge your assumptions. In fact it’s recommended. But it’s not likely that I will be thinking that my life is controlled by persons or entities other than myself, simply because someone says something. One of the reasons I went to the right is how tired I was of “being free to do as I was told”. Repetition is assumed to mean that the other person will agree.
I don’t buy it on the left and I don’t buy it on the right. Accept that people see the world differently and have a good discussion to challenge assumptions, but with the respect that the other person has every right to believe whatever idea that you might think is crazy.
I have been surprised how some of my friends are affected by what I say and come more to the right, but it’s not my intent to change someone else, but to have an honest discussion.
What’s also not discussed here is that few liberals encounter any conservatives and become intellectually lazy. It’s not the sole province of the left. There are individuals claiming to be conservative who are also intellectually lazy. These arguments are futile, because someone is projecting their own self image of inadequacies onto something or someone else.
The good news is that when some liberals meet conservatives, some do learn to challenge their assumptions.
Mitsu, the Speaker of the House is a member of the Socialist International and she is behaving as though she controls the Politburo.
Anyway, I was wondering were Ymar had gotten off to that we dont hear from him till today.
If you read the comments for Bookworm’s Room before this post, you would know the answer to that question.
I also comment at Blackfive, Villainous Company, and Donovan’s Castle.
FredHjr
I mentioned the class of useful idiots and the KGB due to the contention on whether fake liberals were evil or not. To be evil you have to knowingly do things that destroys the world, holds humanity back, and perpetrates the greatest vices and horrors in human history.
Is what the Left does unethical? Yes. Are they evil for doing so? For those that believe so, you give them too much credit. Only a few individuals and villains are truly evil. They know that they serve entropy, that the only progress they are creating is the progress for humanity’s eternal suffering. They are enemies of humanity and they know it.
But for the most part, most Democrats are useful idiots precisely because they are easy to delude. You cannot call someone that will willingly delude themselves, due to how long they have invested into this world view, “evil”. They aren’t leaders or criminal masterminds. They should not be given a title they have not earned.
One of the many unethical actions Democrats have made people do concerns Columbine and gun free zones. They put so much energy into destroying the foundation of the United States Constitution, the 2nd Amendment, yet they blame Republicans for Columbine and other violence. They blame them for not fixing these asocial violent acts with social solutions. Democrat social solutions, that is.
Disarm the population, let them get slaughtered, then say it was the people trying to arm the population that was at fault. Make the population negative towards foreign oil, artificially restrict the supply to increase the price of energy, and then say that it is those trying to use drilling as a fake long term solution that is at fault for the prices.
Who believes in that anymore? Done away with? You’ve got to get out more, FredHjr.
Look at Mitsu. He seems to believe certain things died out just because people say they did.
On that score, you should really read Chuck’s take on Pelosi. Very funny.
Nobody said Chuck was fair to the Left
That said, it’s not an honest pursuit to go in hiding.
That depends on whether honesty is a virtue or not. Is it honest, and thus a virtue, to tell the murderer where your family is and how to take out the defenses around them?
Most classical liberals end up as cannon fodder for the political masterminds aka ideological spiritual leaders, like what happened in the Iranian Revolution, precisely because classical liberals shun deception, manipulation, real politek, and propaganda operations. Military affairs is something they won’t ignore, but military affairs by themselves don’t teach you how to counter insurgencies or avoid political downfalls such as the one Khomeini engineered.
Neo here was versed in psychology of one sort or another. She had a leg up due to such. MOst classical liberals aren’t in fields where they study human nature by osmosis, however. They are thus easily manipulated and led astray by false promises that takes advantage of their idealism.
But every belief and philosophy can be taken advantage of. It just always seems to happen to be ours because the enemy is very aggressive in such matters. They cannot easily defeat us in an even fight.
Concerning Fred’s comment on how classical liberals aren’t comfortable on the right, this is due to religious conflicts and social issues.
In a war, those things get erased most of the time.
“But dissent is a good thing and it can be used to annoy (as is the theme noted above). ”
“accept that people see the world differently and have a good discussion to challenge assumptions, but with the respect that the other person has every right to believe whatever idea that you might think is crazy.”
This is also a hard thing to do – how many of the above “Liberals hate me” really should be “Normal people hate me”?
To take my example of the interview at Amazon – how did that occur? In this case they asked me “Have you ever had to deal with people from other countries or different cultures”. My response was “Yes, my software was picked up by the Israeli Defense department in use for their cluster simulating tanks, it took work to get past the language barrier but we eventually worked it out just fine” – “Thank you, we aren’t interested with someone who has done that”. WTF? To be fair I don’t know if that was some type of corporate policy (say, all people must fit their corporate culture) or I was just “unlucky” in who I got to interview me.
I’ve met conservatives that I wouldn’t hire because it was a problem, it would have been a problem even if you were conservative because *everything* came back to that – not good.
However I’ve found VERY few places that are conservative only – most of us just don’t really care. I’ve found MANY liberal/leftist places that will not hire conservatives because it belies an inability to think (same thing with religion – I’ve found my religion matters little to most other religious people or agnostics, to most Atheist I can’t clearly think and shouldn’t be hired). This happens even to the point of regularly being asked questions about it in technical interviews (the IDF question from Amazon wasn’t the first answer I had given that had political implications – though it was the first I had volunteered).
I’ll reiterate something about the two sides – Conservative thought is along the lines of individualism. We mainly worry about how your ideas work out.
Leftist/liberalism is more along the lines of communal thought. They are mostly worried about how others think/feel about you.
Given that how the community thinks about you is MUCH more important in liberal/leftist groups. It’s not really “close minded” in the sense that they do not want people who think different as much as thinking different means you can not think clearly.
Same thing with “patriotism” – all of us want the US to do well just that some of our definitions of “doing well” are highly different.
I’ve basically given up on the reasoned argument approach with liberals. Because ultimately reason demands that we judge people and cultures based on the actions and results they produce. Not what they SAY. Which requires a willingness to be wrong on occasion.
Liberals are hyper conditioned into thinking no action or judgement is better than ever being wrong in our actions or judgements.
May I direct all those who are worried about speaking the truth to the obituaries of Alexander Solzhenitsyn?
What annoys me are the people who triangulate every single utterance they make in relation to Bush , Republicans or the US in general.
Like if i were to comment somewhere “Our enemy Saudi Arabia is funding x% of mosques in America”
the response will be
“That NAZI Bush goes to Saudi Arabia and holds hands with them. That’s what you deserve”
I tell them their life must suck if every waking moment they are evualating how the present thing in their mind can related to Bush.
Without knowing Bookworm’s exact situation, one shouldn’t sit in judgment of her.
Nonetheless, as a lone conservative in a synagogue filled with off the wall lefties, I haven’t experienced the ostracism that Bookworm fears. After making a few (or more than a few) vain attempts to convince me that Chimpy McBush-Halliburton is EEEEEVILLLL, my friends have concluded that they are not going to change my mind, and politics just doesn’t come up.
Ymar:
“If you read the comments for Bookworm’s Room before this post, you would know the answer to that question.”
Ooh! Snippy arent we?
You guys lambast liberals for painting you as Nazis, yet you believe all sorts of ridiculous things about Democrats without even researching it yourself.
Pelosi is not a member of the Socialist International. Give me a break. That stupid rumor started because a columnist compared her membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus with the Democratic Socialists of America, who support the Progressive Caucus (but not the other way around).
Another point is democratic socialism (for example, as they have in Sweden) is nothing like Soviet Communism, with gulags and so forth. Sweden is a capitalist country that just has high taxes. They also have the highest average income in the world. To conflate the two is ridiculous.
mitsu,
Nancy Pelosi is a member of The Progressive Caucus, itself a part of The Democratic Socialists organization. Go ahead and google it and you will come up with articles which substantiate what I just mentioned. I would post the links, but I’m (honestly) kind of dumb about how to do this in the blogger forum. I know there’s a way to post links so that you can just click on it and go right to it, but someone is going to have to point me towards the instructions on how to do this. I’ve tried to cut and past links here before, and the links are so lengthy that they get cut off and are useless.
For the record, since we live in a country where people are free to hold any views they wish, I am never in favor of silencing or suppressing anyone’s views. Now that is a far cry from how the Left treats its opponents’ opinions. In many places you cannot say certain things which violate political correctness, and I think you do indeed know what I mean.
And so, since it is a free country where one should not be arrested for being a socialist, holding socialist views, or even being a Communist, WHY IS IT THAT PEOPLE WHO DO HOLD THOSE VIEWS HIDE THEIR TRUE IDEOLOGICAL IDENTITIES? It does beg the question.
And that is why I respect, even if I disagree with him, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. He has always been open and candid about where he is and what he believes in. The guy has courage and he’s a pretty straight up guy. He’s the only member of Congress/Senate who has described himself as a socialist. He belongs to the same organization that a number of others belong to, only they will not openly admit to this. Pelosi is one of them. I have zero respect for cowards and liars.
When I was on the Left I never hid my true political leanings. I called myself what I was, and the consequences be damned. I was not ashamed of it. I don’t believe in deceiving people. I knew plenty of fellow-travelers who were into deception, and that was just one piece of the entire chain of contributing factors which led to my eventual falling away from the Left.
If socialism is not such a bad thing in the eyes of the people who belong to its caucus and parent organization, why are the politicians who belong to it not more open about it?
Rubbish.
Sweden: $36,500
U.S.: $45,800
Next time please check your #@$%^&* facts.
Btw, Swedish voters kicked out the Social Democrats in 1991 and installed a Conservative government.
The vast majority of my town still supports TED STEVENS. If that isn’t as crazy as the liberals you’re talking about I don’t know what is.
Ummm, William “Cold Cash” Jefferson winning his re-election bid this year would top that…
…how can people who so obviously benefit from capitalism be so anti-capitalist?
Oh, that’s easy. They believe themselves to be among the “elite” in society, so when the Revolution comes, they’ll be in a position of power and comfortable circumstances.
Stalin had a phrase for these people: useful idiots. Once their utility has passed, they’ll be sent to the gulags. Or worse, the firing squad.
I don’t think labeling Democrats like Pelosi or Obama as Socialists, Marxists, etc. is helpful. It’s true that they are of the left, and probably have been shaped by Marxism and socialism more than they realize, but they do not define themselves that way, they don’t quote Marx or socialist thinkers, they don’t use the jargon, they have largely accepted capitalism and private property though Democrats are more want to control the both more than conservatives like.
To most Americans, calling Pelosi a socialist just sounds like a term of abuse from the right, and reduces the right’s credibility, not the other way around.
I agree that bookworm should “come out of the closet”, but she needs some strategy.
1) suggest, first, a common goal — like Freedom to Vote in Iraq. Or economic growth. Or freedom to worship.
2) ask specifically if different people can agree on a good goal, but disagree on the best way to get there?
Be ready to claim to not want to talk about it for fear of intolerance.
3) Perhaps suggest that it’s great that Bush is going to be gone in a few months. Perhaps remind the friends about how much they said they hated Bush, and ask if they wouldn’t be happier with McCain?
4) Perhaps ask a liberal friend– who was the best defender of Bush, or what was the best argument for Bush’s policy?
A point not made — the last 6 years of demonization of Bush was false. Bush was merely the incarnate non-PC leader. It was really the demonization of non-PCness. The silence in defending Bush’s policies, by pro-war folk, has encouraged the thought-fascists to be even bigger bullies.
Finally, it would be good to get more JOKES and humor about it.
I suggest — “Bush was so lame, he thought there were 57 states!” or,
“Bush was such an opportunist — he said he’d stand by his pastor, but then dumped him. No wait, it was his Sec. Defense Rumsfeld he dumped.”
“Bush was so arrogant — I heard he wanted to adjust his daddy’s Presidential Seal even before he was elected.”
FredHjr:
I would post the links, but I’m (honestly) kind of dumb about how to do this in the blogger forum. I know there’s a way to post links so that you can just click on it and go right to it, but someone is going to have to point me towards the instructions on how to do this.
Go to this source.
Scroll down to HTML Tags Chart, and go to the second row, where Name= anchor. It may take a while for the page to load, so be patient.
Unfortunately, Neo’s site does not allow for previewing of comments. Here is a site that has previewing of comments, which you can use to test your posting.
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/
Huxley,
I agree that in most circumstances “name calling” (i.e., calling Leftist politicians “socialists”) usually backfires. But, cannot people quit the b.s. and start being more honest about where their ideas come from?
In the case of Pelosi, she joined The Democratic Socialists of America years before the subgroup, The Progressive Caucus, was formed. As well as other well-entrenched, Far Left Democrats. And a lot of these people are millionaires. A few are billionaires. So, what gives? They believe in very high taxation and redistribution of wealth. Just not theirs – they hide theirs away offshore. So, socialism is for the rest of us chumps?
I was aware of these “limousine liberals” back in the early eighties when I was on the Left. I had very little respect for them, because they were always triangulating back then, in order to make sure they did not alienate the soft liberals and lose their re-election bids.
The dishonesty is stunning.
“Bookworm” is only trying to protect herself from the all-too-common bullying and ostracizing that many people in Left communities, workplaces, and areas experience when they are out of step and have moved Right-of-Center. She’s not trying to gain an advantage from hiding her identity, like some politicians are. I personally know a few university students who hide their conservatism so as not to be penalized in the liberal arts courses they take, because it really is true that if you are a Republican in an academic environment you get pounded down.
I’ve never, in either a face to face or group setting, berated, bullied, or intimidated a liberal/Leftist. I’ve listened quietly and politely disagreed, but never called them names or went off in some kind of apoplexy.
It says something about the condition of our nation when people have to lie, hide, bully, and not discuss issues vital to the country with each other in a controlled and rational manner.
FredHjr:
In the case of Pelosi, she joined The Democratic Socialists of America years before the subgroup, The Progressive Caucus, was formed.
Now that you have been given instruction on how to convert long website names into short tags (@ 12:46 p.m.), could you please document the above assertion?
Thank you.
I’m in a liberal-dominated field, and am not sufficiently well-established to air my views with complete impunity. A couple of weeks ago I went to a professional meeting and the whole thing had to grind to a halt for a literal “Two-Minute Hate” straight out of Orwell’s 1984, directed at Ann Coulter, of all people. The few people in the profession who are overtly conservative get all kinds of sniggering and eye-rolling.
I’ve wondered if my wife’s career didn’t suffer a few years ago because of some of my opinions expressed at social gatherings. Nobody ever comes out and says “I’m not hiring you because your husband is a Republican” — it just happens somehow. No way to prove it, of course. You never know for certain.
The code words and “secret handshakes” are real and almost comical. I knew one of my friends a good two years before figuring out his politics. Liberals feel free to inject their politics into every conversation, and pat themselves on the back for their “bravery” in “speaking truth to power.” If only they knew.
And yet . . . I think I should be more open. The secrecy breeds paranoia. I start to feel contempt for my colleagues which may be unjustified. I think I’d rather know who’s willing to stick with me and who’s willing to drop me.
Pelosi has never been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. The Progressive Caucus is not “part of” the Democratic Socialists of America. All the websites which claim this are right-wing websites — there’s no independent documentation of this claim. I mean, people claim Obama is a Muslim and was educated in a terrorist madrassa, another claim which echoes around the right-wing blogosphere but is demonstrably false. Don’t be so quick to believe everything you read.
The only actual socialist in Congress is Bernie Sanders. He IS a member of the DSA, and by extension, the Socialist International. Pelosi has not and never has been a member of the Socialist International nor the DSA. Yes, the DSA supports the Progressive Caucus but that doesn’t make the Caucus a “part of” the DSA.
Furthermore, all this hullaballoo about the Socialist International is even in itself overblown. Again, they’re an organization of *social democratic* parties, such as the Socialist party of France or the Socialists in Sweden and many other quite democratic European countries. You may not agree with their economic policies but they are Western democratic parties in every sense of the word, and are firmly part of the West and were in opposition to the former Soviet Union. Democratic socialism (which I don’t happen to support) has nearly nothing in common with Soviet totalitarianism. Even if Bernie Sanders were somehow to be elected president and the Congress were taken over by Democratic Socialists, the worst that would happen is we’d have higher taxes and universal health care. We’d still have elections, democracy, freedom of the press, and you could defeat them at the next election in such an eventuality. No gulags, nobody up against the wall, no KGB. You guys really can be paranoid sometimes.
Europeans “socialism” isn’t really socialism, it is just capitalism with varying degrees of socialism mixed in, and thus is like American capitalism (with differing proportions of socialism and capitalism, of course).
European socialism is to true socialism pretty much as the sniffles are to a hemorrhagic fever. Any attempt to implement full-blown socialism (public ownership of all means of production, the primacy of the collective) necessarily degenerates into totalitarianism because of the need to coerce individuals to place the collective good above their own self-interest, which they will pursue if not prevented from doing so.
That can only be done by giving people the impression that they are – or might be – watched at any given moment. That means they can’t identify the watchers, i.e., the police, so the police must be in plain clothes. Voila! Secret police.
So the difference between European socialism and Soviet totalitarianism is basically one of degree, and depth of comittment to the socialist ideal, rather than one of kind.
Poor Mitsui… trying to deny the obvious and lying about it badly.
DSA seeks to increase its political influence not by establishing its own party, but rather by working closely with the Democratic Party to promote leftist agendas. “Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party,” says DSA. “We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. … Maybe sometime in the future … an alternative national party will be viable. For now, we will continue to support progressives who have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means left-wing Democrats.”
Until 1999, DSA hosted the website of the Progressive Caucus. Following a subsequent expose of the link between the two entities, the Progressive Caucus established its own website under the auspices of Congress. But DSA and the Progressive Caucus remain intimately linked. All 58 Progressive Caucus members also belong to DSA. In addition to these members of Congress, other prominent DSA members include Noam Chomsky, Ed Asner, Gloria Steinem, and Cornel West, who serves as the organization’s honorary Chair.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1248
Click on “Visual Maps” to see her network of Leftists
>is basically one of degree, and depth of comittment to the
>socialist ideal
A reasonable argument, Occam, but I really don’t agree. Soviet-style “socialism” I believe bears nearly no relation to social democratic capitalism as we know it in the West. I don’t believe it is a matter of degree. The Soviet state was, in my view, an extreme version of an oligarchical corporatist state in which the state and the oligarchy had merged. One could just as well say that the Soviet Union was an extreme version of conservatism as it was an extreme form of socialism. The Soviet corporate state was extremely inefficient, because the centralization of power in the form of politburos and the planned economy was inherently unworkable — no planners could possibly do as well as a decentralized market in providing goods and services to people. However, the social democratic countries in Europe are reasonably efficient — as I mentioned, Sweden has the highest median income in the world (there are reasons other than their economic system for this, but at the very least their “socialist” economic system is hardly preventing them from being very prosperous economically). That is because they do not attempt to do a planned economy, which clearly could never work — they use the market, competition, etc., with government intervention to provide health care, child care, welfare, etc. This clearly can and does work. A social democratic system is I think a completely different animal from a centrally planned economy.
I agree with the right that competition and markets are generally more efficient than central planning, in other words. The problem is, an unfettered market often leads to the formation of monopolies, which then destroy the whole benefit of competition. It also can lead to other instabilities, such as excessive imbalance in income distribution (which ultimately hurts the economy because this eventually leads to a large underclass of undereducated citizens who therefore cannot contribute to the economy effectively), and excessive speculation and corruption leading to fiscal meltdowns (as we’re seeing now in the housing market and many other times previously in other markets. Enron, etc.)
To my mind, an effective government is one which acts to check the power of corporations, and an effective political system is one which also acts to check the power of government. Simply identifying government as the sole evil or corporations as the sole evil misses the point entirely. The problem with the Soviet Union was it was the worst of both worlds: the giant, corrupt corporation became a state monopoly. This is to my mind the ultimate result that one would expect in an extreme *right*-wing scenario, where the government essentially cedes all of its power to the corporation which then takes over and *becomes* the state.
One can, of course, also see it as the extreme result of excessive emphasis on eliminating private power. My point is that a democratic socialist is concerned with maintaining private power by insisting that power remain distributed via democratic elections as well as by limiting the power of corporations. In many ways the democratic socialists are concerned with limiting power as much or more than the libertarians.
I believe power should be limited: both private AND public power. I am not a democratic socialist because I think their prescription makes it difficult to innovate — Nokia, etc., are innovators but the US is more of an innovator, because of our more freewheeling culture and economic system. I believe the right balance is not to be found in the democratic socialist approach but I do think their approach does preserve liberty because it is founded on very different principles of power than the Soviet system.
Mitsu Says:
“Another point is democratic socialism (for example, as they have in Sweden) is nothing like Soviet Communism”
It is not that simple Mitsu. Social dems generally try to get away with more than they do but are beaten back by other parties… and moderate because they have no choice. You can take Sweden. They tried to have a planned economy, they tried to outlaw satellite dishes to stick people to watching public TV they controlled (and which routinely bashed the US but had praise for communist countries), they tried to have forced equality in healthcare, et cetera, et cetera… its just they were stopped.
Social dems are mellow today because they were humbled. Not because they were always a nice and fuzzy movement.
Regarding Pelosi and the DSA — you’re just quoting from a right-wing website, Vince. The Internet has greatly democratized information flow but it has also greatly increased the amount of disinformation and outright falsehoods out there. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Bernie Sanders is the only socialist in Congress. It’s ridiculous to simply repeat the false claims on right-wing websites and call it “research”. Do your own research and find out the truth for yourself. Do you really believe that outside of Vermont and a few other communities ANY politician in America could be elected if they were members of the DSA (even though, as I’ve said above, the DSA is hardly as scary as you guys think it is?)
>Social dems are mellow today because they were humbled
But the point I am making is that social democrats are committed to *democracy* which ultimately limits their power. Sure, some Swedish politicans may have wanted to overregulate their economy — but to the extent that would hurt the economy, it would hurt their political standing. And if it hurts their political standing they have to adjust their policies to be more realistic. Thus — social democrats, being committed to democracy (unlike the Soviets), end up being a totally different thing from Soviet-style “socialism”. The fact they’re committed to democracy means they’re responsive to pragmatic concerns. Obviously the Swedish system works well enough to have created a very prosperous economy — contrary to what many might have expected from the degree of taxation and regulation they have there. To the extent it doesn’t work — they have to adapt or be defeated at the polls (as they have been, as you say: humbled). Democracy is not a minor difference between the Soviets and the social democrats — it’s a fundamental difference.
1. Mitsu Says:
August 5th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
“A reasonable argument, Occam, but I really don’t agree. Soviet-style “socialism” I believe bears nearly no relation to social democratic capitalism as we know it in the West.”
You’re missing the point that social dems want socialism via democratic or slower than revolution means.
I just finished a sociology class and had some exposure to modern leftist arguments. They want to take over the economy but via new ways. Like in the name of equal worth they’ll set wages. In the name or racial equality they’ll take over the healthcare system (since African Americans have fewer live births than whites, obviously the system is unfair or broken). Et cetera. Same old song and dance… new arguments. Sort of like Pres Wilson displaying contempt for the Constitution vs. current progressive saying ‘living Constitution’ instead… same goal, better camo.
Mitsu Says:
“But the point I am making is that social democrats are committed to *democracy* which ultimately limits their power.”
It is now and has always been a method or means to their end. They are not democrats.
>Regarding Pelosi and the DSA – you’re just quoting from a right-wing website, Vince.
Wow… next you’ll tell me I’m quoting from a source that uses Latin letters for its alphabet.
But you’re right I guess.. I should let Dan Rather tell me how it is
> I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Bernie Sanders is the only socialist in Congress.
Good,, i hope that’s the last time such nonsense is asserted.
>It is now and has always been a method or means to their
>end. They are not democrats.
First of all, that assertion is ridiculous. Have you ever actually been to Europe and talked with real live social democrats? If anything their commitment to democracy is far greater than the commitment of conservatives in the United States.
And you really believe that social democrats are really trying to turn their countries into versions of the USSR? A completely discredited social system which is now part of the dustbin of history? Man you guys really nurse some really old, old paranoia. Next thing you’ll be telling me the British are going to invade again, and anyone drinking English Breakfast tea is a potential traitor. (There was a South Park episode to that effect recently…)
I know this is completely off the topic of the post, but just to clarify a few matters:
Mitsu, as usual, uses his boyish earnestness and naivete to shield him from some uncomfortable truths. Among others, these would include the fact that there is a fairly smooth ideological continuum from Maoist (or, worse, Khmer Rougist) cultural revolution, through Stalinist and then bureaucratic Soviet communism, to socialism (democratic or otherwise), then “Progressivism”, then “social democracy” and then left-liberalism. The Cold War liberals of old that Mitsu commonly and fondly cites did draw a clear line distinguishing themselves from their leftist flanks, but they’re long gone, and so is their political sensibility — today they’d be seen as to the right of Bush-Cheney, and at least as subject to the frothing obscenities that characterize so much of left-liberal political “discourse” (as the topic of this post obliquely touches upon).
Mitsu is more or less right about one thing at least — few lefties today, after the fall of their ideological mainstay, the Soviet Union, have the courage any longer to openly avow themselves “socialist”; instead, they prefer the negative label “anti-capitalist”, deliberately obscuring whatever it is they might be “pro”. Some, of course, have tried to straddle the fence, with a nebulous and fundamentally unstable notion of a “Middle Way”, or “Third Way”, but it turns out that its particular poster child, Sweden, has a per capita GDP that comes somewhere between Mississippi and Arkansas, two of the poorest US states. For people like Pelosi et al., of course, this is all largely meaningless anyway — they’re just politicians whose primary purpose is simply to get themselves reelected, and whose ideological loyalties can flip on a dime.
Sorry, can’t go along with that one. Like “left” and “right, the term “conservative” means a lot of different and often contradictory) things. For example, was Brezhnev right wing? Conservative? In some senses of those characterizations, yes, in that he was trying to maintain the status quo. In other senses, he was quite the opposite.
Similarly, Mussolini was radical (in fact, an ardent socialist, much admired by Lenin) who during WWI came to realize that nationalism trumped international class solidarity, and who then fused nationalism with socialism — national socialism — to build socialism across classes within one country, instead of within one class across countries (international socialism, a la Lenin). Left-wing? Right-wing? Conservative? (Of what?) Radical?
“Conservative,” “right-wing,” and “reactionary” originally (19th century) referred to monarchists and pro-clerical movements in France, whereas “liberal” and “left-wing” referred to those opposing them. (Hence the John Stuart Mill quote much beloved of contemporary liberals and now quite anachronistic that “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”)
So the terms are meaningless today. Let’s use instead the terms “individualist” or “collectivist,” which put the characterizations on a more sound operational footing, and avoid conundra such as having to characterize Brezhnev, Kim Jong Il and Castro as right-wing or conservative (and Che Guevara as left-wing, or radical). They are all collectivist, that is to say, subordinate the individual to the state, rather than the converse.
By that standard, all of the totalitarian regimes naturally fall on the collectivist side, as of course they should. Taking individualism to an extreme would lead to anarchy, not totalitarianism.
Extending this reasoning, social democratic states fall in the same camp as totalitarian ones, because they give the collective (state) pride of place politically and economically, over the individual. They’re just not willing to go as far in doing so.
Yes and no. In the short term, central planning is more efficient. The first country to adopt it was Imperial Germany (War Socialism) imposed during WWI. Britain and the U.S. effectively had centrally planned economies during WWI and WWII as well, because we couldn’t afford the time lag necessary for the market to work. In essence, speed was more important than efficiency.
But over a longer haul, central planning allocates goods and services inefficiently, and stultifies an economy because government bureaucrats are not inclined much toward innovation.
Disagree with this. Living in the UK during some of the Thatcher years, I heard many Labour howl in opposition to privatizing national industries, and in fact promise to nationalize more industries (the “commanding heights of the economy”) if they came to power (which ensured that they didn’t). The essence of socialism is that competition is inherently wasteful, and government ownership and central planning (industrial policy) will improve efficiency and promote equality.
Speculation is not bad; it’s good. It keeps markets liquid, by providing intermediaries who are willing to take the other half of a deal, and thereby provides a continuous check on reality. No one knows what most art is worth, but the worth of a barrel of oil today is easy to ascertain. Sometimes markets get caught up in speculative frenzies, sometimes in depressions, but these are more functions of mass psychology than economics. If the efficient market hypothesis were really true, such irrational swings would never occur.
Agreed.
This is the inherent problem with socialism: the consumer cannot take his business elsewhere, because in a socialist system there is no elsewhere: the government owns and runs everything.
For example, when I first moved to the UK it took six weeks to get a telephone from (the nationally owned) British Telecom. Once a quarter I received an unitemized bill that just said I owed X pounds sterling, with no details. Period. Don’t like it? Tough. Don’t have a phone then. BT was a government monopoly by law.
British Rail had similar problems, for the same reason. Of the four TV stations, two (BBC1 and 2) were run by the government, supported by a mandatory license that every TV owner had to pay every year. Picture Air America crossed with PBS and you’ve got it.
Absolutely.
Sally, yet again I have no idea who you’re talking to. I’m 43 years old, and have been around long enough to remember the Cold War political landscape as well as the current one. The liberals I “fondly cite” are most of the people I know, with the exception of a small number of leftists I met in college or shortly thereafter whom I am still friends with. You seem to imply that modern liberals are more leftist than liberals of old — exactly the opposite of what is the case. Modern Democrats, for the most part, are far more conservative than Democrats of old — as are Republicans. Nixon would today be considered a moderate to even liberal Democrat, in terms of his economic policies, at least.
I will agree with you that there was a time when some social democrats felt some affinity for the USSR … however I would assert that this was primarily due to their ignorance of what the Soviet Union was actually like than any actual affinity with the totalitarian police state that was the reality of the USSR. There was nothing liberal or leftist in the real sense with the old USSR. They were, as I asserted before, despite being nominally “leftist” essentially the ultimate state corporation. As an example of this: they wreaked havoc on the environment, dumping huge quantities of toxic waste all over the place, polluting cities, etc. They are responsible for the Chernobyl disaster. They destroyed entire ecosystems. The entire system was designed to preserve the power of the party members, a renamed oligarchical elite.
Functionally there was little difference between the Soviet Union as a left-wing state and as a right-wing state. The two had merged at that point, in one oppressive, dictatorial regime.
Social democrats, whether they espoused sympathy with the Soviets or not, were never anywhere close to that in theory or practice. By this I don’t mean all leftists — I mean social democrats as in the political parties which still exist in Europe today. Clearly, today, whatever their past sympathies, they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the USSR and are not about to turn their own country or any other country into a copy of that discredited regime.
Occam,
You make some good points vis a vis collectivist vs. individualist. However, my point is that in practice the conservative view tends to overemphasize the dangers of state power, and underestimate the dangers of corporate power. Conservatives tend to be so skeptical of state power they are loathe to use it even when it is to constrain the abuse of corporate power — to the extent that conservatives tend to be skeptical even of the application of antitrust law. It seems to me that if conservatives really were concerned in a consistent way with individual power, they’d be concerned (as you asserted above — and I’m glad we agree) both with abuses of corporate and government power — and particularly when corporate power tends towards a monopoly — and even more so when corporate power tends to corrupt public institutions through bribes, etc. To my mind there has to be a balance of power between government and corporations — with the individual winning out when both struggle with each other.
Mitsu, I think the reason for greater scepticism about government than corporate power is that the latter is more evanescent and miniscule by comparison. Corporations can’t tax, draft, imprison, or execute people.
Also, corporations typically do not retain their power for all that long. (At the turn of the 20th century the railroads and steel were the bully boys; they’re on life support now. Look at how the composition of the Dow Jones index has changed in the last 20 years.) In this respect it’s rather like the reason strong man dictatorships are less of a problem than ideologically-based ones. When the strong man goes to his reward, it’s a whole new ball game. An ideologically-based dictatorship (e.g., the USSR) can continue for generations, and therefore is more of a problem.
A further problem with government constraining corporate power comes back to my earlier post: such constraint necessitates government interference in the economy, which leads to the truly colossal disasters. For example, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae both got in over their heads because those lending to them assumed the government would stand behind them — as it has. Both had an unfair advantage — cheap credit — by virtue of their quasi-association with the government, which sheltered them from the discipline of the market.
Enron is an ironic case. Enron got rung up for doing exactly what the government is doing with Social Security, putting IOUs in the cookie jar and calling them cash. Expecting the government to sort out Enron-type fraud would only work on the “set a thief to catch a thief” principle.
Still a further concern with the government curbing abuses of corporate power entails a theoretical problem: who curbs abuses of government in discharging this task? What’s to stop the government from using its machinery to target political opponents? “MoveOn.org gets its money from shady sources, so let’s have the IRS audit ‘em.”
Last, government power, like government programs, operate like a ratchet and pawl: they only move in one direction. Once they exist, they are virtually impossible to rein in.
So those are some reasons why conservatives are leery of using government to constrain abuses of corporate power.
gringo,
Here is a link to information about Nancy Pelosi’s affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America, subcommittee The Progressive Caucus. She left the Caucus and the parent organization when she was elected House Minority Leader. So, she is not currently a member of those organizations, but her past membership is not in doubt and her current loyalties to their agenda cannot possibly be denied with a straight face.
http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_more/progressivecaucus.htm
Fred: That website has a graphic of an American flag on it… obviously the site is completely illegitimate.
There are many reliable sites with hammers and sickles and crecents and stars on them you can go to instead
“Pelosi has never been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. The Progressive Caucus is not “part of” the Democratic Socialists of America.” stated by “Mitsu”
Mitsu further declares that right wing websites which state the link between the Progressive Caucus and the The Democratic Socialists of America are impugned simply because they are…. right wing! Thus, “It is so because I SAY IT IS SO!”
http://www.sovereignty.net/center/socialists.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a612a9f3007.htm
The Democratic Socialists of America had referred to, on its own website, the fact that the Progressive Caucus was an affiliate organization. Its members were also members of The Democratic Socialists of America.
Apparently, if no recent Left Wing periodicals or organizations verify this fact, then it does not exist and never existed. We are just making shit up, as the true Right Wing liars we are. You see, we lie all the time and we spin deceit as a matter of course.
And I resent the aspersions about my credibility for making this fact of Pelosi’s past known on this forum.
At times I wonder if trolls like Mitsu aren’t here simply to make sure we don’t have an interesting and potentially useful discussion. We were going quite well about the perils — and benefits — of being politically “out” . . .
. . . and then he has to stick his God-damned oar in and divert the whole thing into a Freshman dorm lounge argument about the definition of “socialist.”
Anyway, back on topic, over time one can get tired of the same BS from leftist (soon to be former) friends, and even relatives. At some point it gets tiring smiling through the obvious self-deluded lies, and you want less of it.
The difficulty in defining “socialist” really owes to the fact that so many of its adherents deliberately obfuscate its meaning and their own relationship with socialist thought. Not all do this, because years ago I did meet some honest and deep people who embraced socialist principles and were unapologetic about it. And they were good people to. I still will defend their character. Unlike the activist types, these were people (and they were, admittedly, few) who were truly good human beings. Also, they were not unhinged loons who would lose their composure and fulminate over “right wingers.”
Socialism is the believe in wealth redistribution. That is the core principle. And believe me when I say this most of us Americans do subscribe to this to one degree or another. Government takes our taxes and then uses it to fund many programs which essentially provide aid to those who less well off. And I’m not against that. For me, the critical issue is HOW MUCH SHOULD WE DO THIS? I used to think we should do it on the scale that Western Europe does. I have since undergone an evolution in my thought, such that I now believe in a basic social safety net, with some small, targeted, and hopefully efficient programs that work. But keep government smaller and let people use their ingenuity and initiative to grow the economy and spread prosperity. In other words, I think Adam Smith mostly got it right, and Karl Marx and his French intellectual predecessors mostly got it wrong.
One final thought and then I think I’m calling it a night… I think a large part of the atmosphere of repression towards people who are Right-of-Center owes to a really poor job the education system does in preparing people to introspectively and rationally examine their own ideas and attitudes. Thus, people resort to mockery and bullying of those they find who do not “get with the program.”
For example, in all honesty if “mitsu” were to work where I work, neither I nor any other person there would punish him or ostracize him for not being a Republican. No joke. Ten years ago I was still a Democrat and my best friend, who is a Republican, never treated me badly because of my politics. We still went hunting together and our families socialized all the time. He hated Bill Clinton and I voted for him. He used to good naturedly tease me about my views, but it was done in a very light spirit. Today, I have rarely seen civility and restraint from the Leftists. That is not to say that there are not people on the Left who are civilized. It’s just that the general feelings “out there” are hard, nasty, and irrational.
A progressive can call it whatever he or she wants. In the end, progressivism, social democracy, or whatever the name of the week is, it’s just disguised feudalism, based on the structural intolerance of individuals of the “wrong” status. Rejecting Aristotle and clutching fervently to Plato’s butt covering that there are supposedly golds, silvers and bronzes and clearly the golds get to decide.
And for all the efforts to eliminate financial differences between individuals, the commitment to democracy is merely to announce that we are only free to do as we are told.
This is what we are getting at – to what extent does liberty mean that the government cannot control what you say, what you eat, what other decisions that you are not permitted for yourself because someone who has a tolerance problem can’t stand for you to make decisions for yourself.
Not very progressive at all when you think about it.
cannot = can
Sorry. I can’t let this one go yet. It’s too close to home. Maybe Neo can analyze the case. Anyway, there are these neat slacker commercials, just in case you miss your liberal hippie former friends:
Sorry again. Previous comment should link to FreeCreditReport.com commercials.
I am a Republican living in Marin. I am also on the Board of the Lincoln Club and we are small in number but strong in spirit.
Join me. Keith.Ogden@eacp.com
At times I wonder if trolls like Mitsu aren’t here simply to make sure we don’t have an interesting and potentially useful discussion.
Trimigestus — Please don’t go there. Mitsu is out of this locale’s mainstream, but that doesn’t make him a troll. He’s sincere, bright, polite, and makes some effort to support his claims and be open-minded about those of others. At times I wish that he would edit his posts more, but that’s all I ask.
Lately I’ve been posting as a stranger in a strange land at David Brin’s blog, and find myself attacked for “psychopathology” by Brin himself, as well as wanker, whiner, and troll. Contrary David Brin
I consider it a serious problem that Americans today are communicating so uncivilly in these discussions across the red-blue divide.
“At times I wonder if trolls like Mitsu aren’t here simply to make sure we don’t have an interesting and potentially useful discussion. We were going quite well about the perils – and benefits – of being politically “out” . . .”
As much as I dislike Mitsu I will also say he isn’t any more a troll than we are (we all do to some extent). Conversation moves around, it’s no big deal.
I think that Mitsu isn’t necessarily a great political thinker, but at least being as honest as any one else. He just isn’t terribly critical of his own beliefs and work very hard to rationalize them (otherwise known as “cognitive dissonance”) – but that is far far from being a troll, it’s just telling us things as he see’s them.
For the most part I don’t see much reason to argue – the people who can be swayed by his logic are already swayed (and really aren’t going to moved either). Those that aren’t see it for what it is and attacking someone also gets you in trouble.
I agree that Mitsu is no troll.
Thank you huxley. I am certainly not a “troll” if by that you mean someone who comes in deliberately to stir up shit without attempting to sincerely have a conversation. I absolutely am interested in having a two-way exchange of views, because I feel there is far too much polarization in the blog world, with people only talking to other people they already agree with. That is eminently the case for both left and right-wing blogs.
I strongly argue my views in liberal circles as well as in places like this. For example, I recently had an argument with a leftist over the Afghan war, which he was arguing was immoral and unnecessary. In the process many other people (mostly liberals like myself) also argued in favor of the Afghan war, quite forcefully. I felt a bit sorry for the leftist (and I don’t say that with any derision, as I keep saying, I respect and admire many leftists, despite the fact that I disagree with most of them about many things) as he ended up being quite outnumbered. However, I thought about this site and how conservatives often seem to feel liberals hold extreme views that are totally incompatible with theirs — when in fact we are not as far apart as you might imagine.
I just believe American political discourse has been deteriorating because we can’t seem to have a conversation.
Occam and I, on the other hand, do seem to be able to converse, and I appreciate the fact that some others of you have been able to converse with me as well. I’m trying to argue in the realm of ideas. I’m trying to make it clear that not all of us on the left side of the spectrum are closet Stalinists who want America to be turned into an Islamic caliphate (how one person could be both things is beyond me… yet sometimes it seems many of you think all Democrats are like this).
Regarding Pelosi. Believe what you want to believe, but my main point is IF Pelosi actually wanted to establish a Stalinist regime in the United States, she would share nothing in common with the VAST majority of actual Democrats, and as soon as she even began such a project she’d be booted out of office. European democracies have never come anywhere near such a fate, yet there are many of you who think that even the slightest step in the direction of, say, supporting some social programs means the person secretly wants to throw all Republicans into prison.
Occam, regarding your last comments — I have read the argument that oligarchical dictatorships are less problematic than ideological, and it may surprise you to learn that I am somewhat in agreement with it. However, I think you ignore one crucial factor when it comes to thinking about restraint on government power, which is that our government is restrained by our longstanding democratic tradition. Democracy is in our blood, it’s been part of our society for generations, and the people would rise up and overthrow any serious attempt at dictatorship. In sum, I believe democracy provides a countervailing weight to the power of government. You ask who provides a check on unrestrained government power? The people do, via the ballot box. This is how Swedish democratic socialism was restrained just as it is here.
I believe the power of money should be balanced against the power of the vote. Yes, government can be oppressive and corrupt and it can make mistakes … but if it goes too far, the people can vote them out, at least in stable democracies, which our country happens to be. Sure, I believe government intervention in regulating business ought to be limited — but nevertheless in our society, where our government isn’t particularly oppressive, it is corporate power that tends to be more problematic. And, yes, it’s less damaging than the totalitarian case, but I see no evidence Democrats or even social democrats are even within light years of instituting a Stalinist regime in our country or any other.
Another point is democratic socialism (for example, as they have in Sweden) is nothing like Soviet Communism, with gulags and so forth.
Totalitarianism is totalitarianism. Regardless of what name you call it or what brand it comes from. Democratic socialism may be easier than others when creating a full totalitarian system like Sharia Law, but does that excuse D S because D S isn’t like Sharia. I think not.
Next time please check your #@$%^&* facts.
What Mitsu thinks is true and what the facts are are not easy to separate out for him.
All the websites which claim this are right-wing websites
What did I tell ya. He doesn’t need proof, he just needs a justification for himself. And there are plenty of self-justifications if you can’t find any evidence to the contrary.
If anything their commitment to democracy is far greater than the commitment of conservatives in the United States.
That’s laughable. Their commitment to democracy must then consist totally of relying on America to defend democracy and liberate countries, like France and Germany were liberated. Democracy for them and hell for everybody else. A good deal for them, but it ain’t democracy. Just monopoly.
A completely discredited social system which is now part of the dustbin of history?
For somebody that likes to talk about lies and deceptions on the internet, you sure seem very fast in adopting positions born of deception. Nationalizing industries is part of the dustbin of history? Ensuring social equality with the power of the state is now part of the dustbin of history? Creating gulags where you can place your political enemies is now a dustbin of history? Talk to Maxine Waters, the Democrats, and Obama’s intent to prosecute his predecessors when he is President, since you seem to be forgetting things.
One could just as well say that the Soviet Union was an extreme version of conservatism as it was an extreme form of socialism.
Conservatives aren’t revolutionaries. Given both Hitler and Stalin came to power due to various revolutions or what not, you’re just trying to cover up the fact that once people like that come into power, they want to conserve the power given to them by social revolutionaries. By saying they are conservatives or right wing, is just another way of covering up the truth.
However, I thought about this site and how conservatives often seem to feel liberals hold extreme views that are totally incompatible with theirs
Fake liberals do hold views completely mutually exclusive with classical liberals. As to who is a fake liberal, that depends on their actions as well as their stated beliefs.
I believe the power of money should be balanced against the power of the vote.
That’s going to be funny to see when money starts buying votes. We’ll balance one with the other.
Yes, government can be oppressive and corrupt and it can make mistakes … but if it goes too far, the people can vote them out
Is that why you support the Patriot Act and given Bush emergency powers in war because after the war is over, they can vote them out of power and change the laws back?
And, yes, it’s less damaging than the totalitarian case, but I see no evidence Democrats or even social democrats are even within light years of instituting a Stalinist regime in our country or any other.
They don’t need to be the ones wielding the knife. They can have auxiliaries and employees do it. Like they did for Vietnam. It was never the Democrats that killed and imprisoned the people of Vietnam after the US were forced to leave and the South Vietnamese had their support cut against the Soviet might. The Democrats never explicitly gave the order to execute civilians. They just allowed it to happen. That’s so much cleaner, wouldn’t you say.
As we see in Britain, leftist notions of power and rightness creates a vacuum from which Sharia, a totalitarian philosophy, can come in and setup shop.
Democrats don’t need to wield the knife. They have plenty of other people to do such things for them.
the people would rise up and overthrow any serious attempt at dictatorship.
Not if it’s a PC based dictatorship ‘for your own good’, and all opponents had been silenced by intellectual, conversational, and social bullying.
I don’t like smoking, but the draconian anti-smoking laws are little dictatorships. The wide use of Ritalin to drug boys in school, so they’re no more trouble than the good girls, seems like support for teachers as dictators.
Every nanny-state increase in state responsibility is a step towards accepting dictatorship, the Father state who will give you all you need — and require you to behave (for your own good).
So I ask again — how can secret conservatives open the eyes of some of their friends? Arguing about “socialism”, the word, won’t do it.
Maybe over-exagerating criticism of Bush? Bush is terrible, he’s the reason house prices are dropping, he’s going to make most Americans lose their houses!
He’s going to bomb Iran! It’s better to let Iran get the bomb, they don’t really want to use it on Israel or anybody else; Bush should have been talking to them to more, sooner.
Bush and the Republicans are terrible! They’re worse than the Tutsis in Rwanda! They’re worse than the educated in Cambodia! They’re worse than pre-war German Jews! They’re terrible!
I’m safe in Slovakia, where I often get mild anti-Bush/ anti-Americanism, but like most E. European countries who actually lived thru Russian dominated socialism, the problems of capitalism are far preferable. (Altho corruption remains a big issue.) US politics can be fun to argue about, but it’s not such a big Identity deal to Europeans.
Without religion, too many elites seem to have developed a “PC identity’ based on Dem Party politics, such that disagreement with the politics is equal to an attack on their identity.
Perhaps conservatives could ask: is it possibe for some people to replace Religion with a political party?
… The Democratic Party has become the opium of elites.
As Groucho Marx once said, he wouldn’t want to be a member of any club which would let him in.
Conservatives have a streak of contrarian. Might as well out yourself to your friends. It’s actually fun. Do you want to be in the club of progressives if they would pitch you out when they find out who you are?
Scroom.
Let them snicker. As my sainted mother used to say, “Consider the source, dear.”
Mitsu,
I do not consider you a troll. If I read in between the lines of your posts, you are arguing for something that part of me quite understands: that a truly moral society does not base its entire raison d’etre upon money. I just happen to be a person whose faith in socialism many years ago was shattered – and all for the right reasons based on solid facts and reasoning. My Catholic upbringing inclined me to be sympathetic to the concerns of the truly humanistic socialists, not the apparatchiks and ideologues. I went at the problem intellectually and from a Catholic Christian perspective. And I came out the other end convinced that you cannot compel human beings to live justly. Capitalism has a dynamic that just DOES produce more wealth and generally does make a society more prosperous, overall. But it does leave pockets of people who get left behind. Some because of their own indolence and some because they truly have tried to do the best with the hand they are dealt and just had too much to overwhelm them. I’ve had rich experiences of being exposed to a lot of situations and people, growing up and into adulthood and my seminary days. I’ve seen a lot. I’m not saying I’m better than anyone else; it’s just that the path I was on, voluntarily and involuntarily, I was exposed to a lot of human experience. And that is why I come down more on the side of Adam Smith over Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci. What I do advocate is a mostly capitalist society within which one builds some basic kinds of safety nets that do not overwhelm the ability of the people to provide for. And some smaller programs, combined with private efforts, to help those in need to help themselves. Thus, I consider the European hybrid of socialism and capitalism to be a bit much.
This is the only way we are going to both allow the ambitions of individuals to bring home the bacon for themselves and society at large, and take care of the ones less fortunate. It’s a fine balancing act. And I am convinced that in just about every aspect of human life one of the keys to being wise is balanced thinking, acting, speaking, etc. BALANCE is the key to the good life.
So, someone like me is an irritant to the pure ideologues of socialism and capitalism. I infuriate the socialists I’ve betrayed because of obvious reasons, and I infuriate the pure capitalists because I concede a small part of it all to the social well being of people. Even though I balance it more towards the capitalist model, I guess I don’t go far enough.
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Fair enough. I don’t actually ignore that factor, I just hate to put it to the ultimate test unnecessarily, for fear of asking too much of it. Democracy is to an overweening government much as a safety harness is to a fall from high steel: it’s designed to stop the problem in extremis, but it’s better not to rely on it to do so.
The other problem, of course, is that under stress a democratic electorate can enable policies it would not normally consider. Depression, hyperinflation, war, terrorist attack, assassination, or epidemic, to name some suitable stressors, can remove the impediment democracy offers to totalitarian government.
So for these reasons I’d prefer that the market be the main check on corporate abuses, with the government stepping in rarely, reluctantly, and only when absolutely necessary.
I don’t think we’re actually that far apart. To the extent we differ, it is in where we’d draw the line.
I have lived in Marin in the past and was not quiet about my conservative views. I was looked upon as a curosity. Quite frankly I didn’t care for those who looked down on me and didn’t worry about their thoughts about me or my “kind”. I live in a more concervative area now, but I refuse to give way when someone attacks my Presidnet. An Austraian couple found that out during my vacation one year when they said Bush was stupid in what they thought was safe San Francisco.
This WWII poem had real meaning then and somewhat revised has meaning now. Long live the 1st Amendment.
“In Germany America, they came silenced first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for silenced the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for silenced the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came silenced for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
I apologize for my spelling errors in the previous comment. I hit submit thinking it was review.
>What I do advocate is a mostly capitalist society within
>which one builds some basic kinds of safety nets that do not
>overwhelm the ability of the people to provide for. And some
>smaller programs, combined with private efforts, to help
>those in need to help themselves.
I pretty much agree with this exactly, though I’m sure we disagree on where to draw the line (as Occam also put it). To me, that’s a place where we can have a reasoned discussion, based on evidence. You can look at data, see if a given program is working, throw out the ones that don’t, etc. It can be based on objective review of the effects of the program, rather than rigid ideology. This is why I supported welfare reform though many liberals were appalled by it. It makes sense to give poor people incentives to get off welfare. On the other hand, it makes sense to help them achieve this by offering training programs, etc. This has been shown time and again to work well.
So color me a relatively cynical liberal, one who doesn’t believe, for example, that racism is the cause of all the problems minorities face — yet someone who DOES believe racism is ONE factor that still affects minorities. I don’t believe government programs will solve all social problems, but I believe SOME government intervention can help. And so forth. I happen to think most Democrats are more or less in the same general area as I am in this regard.
We can have a civil debate as to where to draw the line. What I’m trying to do in my small way here is to try to get the discussion beyond the “you’re a Stalinist!” kind of rhetoric. I also think mindless bashing of conservatism as occurs on liberal websites is equally pointless. Sure, there are extremists on both sides, but that’s not where the vast majority of Americans are, and I hope we can, as a country, learn to talk with each other and learn from each other.
Oh, I wanted to make one comment about your interesting remark, Occam:
>it’s designed to stop the problem in extremis, but it’s better
>not to rely on it to do so
To some extent I agree with this, but I think there’s more to it. Democracy also provides a system of incentives, complementary to the incentives of the market. That is, politicians have to win votes to stay in power. Sure, money corrupts the system, to a large extent, since money can help influence votes — but popularity is also a huge factor, obviously. For example, if a given policy hurts the economy, it will lose votes for the politicans in power. Thus, we don’t have to wait for the government to become totalitarian before democracy has an impact — it has a constant, ongoing impact by influencing decisionmakers in directions they believe will either be popular enough to keep them in office or will be effective enough to improve conditions (economic, etc.) so they will be re-elected.
Sure, it doesn’t work perfectly, and in many cases incumbency and other factors can create huge inertia. But, time and again the people have shown they can and will change the party in power when they become unpopular enough. I think the Federalists had it right — you don’t want the whims of public opinion to constantly influence every decision (thus, they proposed the Senate, with 6-year terms), but at the same time you don’t want popular opinion to matter not at all. The optimal solution, I believe, is to have popular opinion be one of many incentives that drive decision-making.
The problem with using the market alone as a guard against excesses of power (though I agree it is an excellent optimizer especially in the short term) is twofold, I believe. The first is monopolies, which, once formed, obviously can dramatically reduce the incentive structure of the market, and the other is the inertia of capital accumulation. A large corporation with a large mass of capital could continue to operate in a way which might be harmful to the public (for example, by secretly dumping toxic waste) — without government oversight and the pressure of popular opinion, their excesses could go unchecked for quite some time. This happens in right-wing oligarchical societies all the time, and it happened in the Soviet Union as well. Yes, I might agree the USSR was worse … but it had a similar problem with power (no public opinion incentive structure). So, I believe democracy is in fact a crucial factor both in terms of the extreme case and in the everyday case.
We can have a civil debate as to where to draw the line.
Mitsu — I think most red-blue disagreements boil down to this, though once polarization sets in that’s anything but obvious.
I’m sure tired of hearing about Bush “shredding the Constitution.” One would think that newspapers were being shut down wholesale, elections canceled, and dissidents rousted out of their beds and being sent to camps in Utah by bus caravans.
The problem though is that arguing over degrees of difference is harder than right/wrong/good/evil. Plus it’s less exciting. You can’t get a good self-righteous buzz on when you’re fighting to move the pitcher’s mound six inches closer to or further away from the batter.
But bring up the DH, and it’s on!
DH — That would be Designated Hitter, I take it?
Oh yes.
I live in very blue Minneapolis, and I have quite a few friends who would think Nancy Pelosi is dangerously reactionary.
I’ve found that just being out front and honest about my political views works well for me. In fact, it’s gotten me a bit of a “bad boy” reputation. That works well if you’re interested in girls who like bad boys (fun, but not for permanent situations).
One friend, who is an artist, absolutely hated Republicans. But she likes me so much that she admitted that she’s altered her views; some Republicans might be okay, and intelligent people could be Republicans.
But I do understand and sympathize with those who work in the academy and in the arts. One whiff off a rumor that you have a subscription to National Review can be economic suicide.
A very thoughtful debate.
Mitsu is defending modern liberalism well:
So color me a relatively cynical liberal, one who doesn’t believe, for example, that racism is the cause of all the problems minorities face – yet someone who DOES believe racism is ONE factor that still affects minorities. I don’t believe government programs will solve all social problems, but I believe SOME government intervention can help. And…I happen to think most Democrats are more or less in the same general area as I am in this regard.
Let me offer a well-intentioned disagreement on one part of this: I contend that once a majority of pols in a democratic (small D) government decide that gov’t is responsible for ensuring that all its citizens have a certain minimum welfare, the course is set for an inevitable collapse. And I mean that literally, not hyperbolically.
Here’s why: Mitsu wrote in this thread that he likes the idea of citizens being able to vote pols out if they do unpopular things–as do we all. This is indeed a great feature about democracy. The problem is that when pols–presumably acting out of good intentions– decide to get the gov’t into the business of social welfare, the transfer benefits get higher and higher.
This happens because the people who receive welfare vote, and after they reach 30 or 40% of the electorate it’s virtually impossible for a candidate for office to oppose more welfare and win. Similarly, incumbents know opposing more benefits is a path to being thrown out of office.
A strong President could spend his political capital trying to convince Congress to pull things back toward balance, but as Reagan’s experience with Tip O’Neil showed, you can’t trust Congress to honor their agreements to cut spending. And even *nominally* conservative presidents (GWB) don’t necessarily lead in this regard.
Eventually, the weight of welfare costs–plus the staggering cost of debt service on the deficit spending that accompanies this sort of mentality–must cause a reckoning. Whether that takes the form of financial collapse, or a military so weakened by budget cuts as to be unable to prevail against an invasion, or simply an electorate so poorly educated and ignorant of history as to invite in an invading group (as in the U.K.), the outcome will be the same.
The only way to avoid this is to leave all welfare to charity, whether religious or otherwise. Sounds impossible, or horribly harsh, but it seems to me the current alternative is an unavoidable course for disaster.
SF: Outstanding comment.
Our liberal friends have taken their wealth and comfort for granted. They think that everything we have somehow magically manifested itself.. and if we only will ourselves to have such benefits, then they will never go away.
You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Of course, you can also choose where to live.
I know none in my family, for instance, would be happy to know that my husband and I are conservatives. So, we moved to a state where being one is OK, and where we can find friends who think likewise.
My ten Thanksgivings and Christmases in this state (TX) have been the most peaceful ever! If I wanted to see liberal stupidity on bumper stickers and other places, I’d go to Austin. (But again, why take the chance?)
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Fascinating argument, SF, and this is precisely the sort of debate I think is most interesting to have.
First of all, let me say again that I am someone who was and is in favor of welfare reform, limits to benefits, etc., with some exceptions (there are legitimate cases in which some people are unable to work, not because they’re lazy, but due to a disability or some other severe difficulty).
The reason I don’t believe your argument works is simply that, economically, it would not be possible to have 30%-40% level of people subsisting on welfare. The taxation required to support such a level would result in the total destruction of the private economy, which would result in a massive decline in the standard of living for everyone, both those working and those on welfare. Such a decline would become evident far before the number on welfare reached such a high level. Such an imagined society would be one in which everyone existed at near-subsistence levels. Politicians responsible for such an economic debacle would be voted out of office long before such an event occurred.
One thing to keep in mind here is that the United States has *always* had one of the lowest levels of welfare of any industrialized nation — even before welfare reform. The percentage of the national budget spent on full-time, permanent welfare (i.e., AFDC), even at its height, was only 1 percent. Yes, ONE percent. Even if you add in programs like Medicaid, school lunches, pensions of military veterans, etc., the total before welfare reform was only 12 percent. By contrast, 43 percent of the Federal budget goes to the military.
In European countries with far more robust forms of social assistance to the unemployed than we have ever had, unemployment is nevertheless relatively low. Why is that? Why doesn’t everyone just take off from work and live big on state handouts? Because they can live better when working. Sure, you can live off of welfare if you want, but you can live better if you work. That’s still an important incentive and it prevents the sort of economic meltdown you have in mind. Sure, I do buy a lot of conservative criticism of welfare as it was before it was reformed in the 90’s, but it was never in danger of becoming a way of life for anything but a tiny minority of unfortunate people who were hardly living it up on the tiny amounts of money they got from Uncle Sam. Welfare reform, when combined with appropriate training programs, etc., has helped a lot of people to a better, more productive life (though in many cases it has failed because of lack of proper welfare-to-work support — which is quite unfortunate).
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For those of you looking for good ammunition against liberals, I very, very strongly recommend
Bill Whittle’s Eject! Eject! Eject!
Without a doubt the best set of political essays I am familiar with.
In particular, if you want to deal with the “Bush=stupid” meme, I strongly recommend
Seeing The Unseen
(the “Bush ain’t stupid” part begins with the header “War of the Bumper Stickers”.
In general, the links off to the side:
TRIBES
SANCTUARY (part 1)
SANCTUARY (part 2)
DETERRENCE (part 1)
DETERRENCE (part 2)
STRENGTH (part 1)
STRENGTH (part 2)
POWER
RESPONSIBILITY
TRINITY (part 1)
TRINITY (part 2)
MAGIC
VICTORY
HISTORY
CONFIDENCE
COURAGE
WAR
EMPIRE
FREEDOM
HONOR
Are all worth reading, As well as
FORTY SECOND BOYD AND THE BIG PICTURE (Part 1)
Note that they ARE essays — don’t sit down with them when you want a quick 3 minute read.
Bill’s output is erratic — he sometimes goes for six months and more without putting anything of significance up. But when he does, it’s usually a doozy worth the wait.
> One thing to keep in mind here is that the United States has *always* had one of the lowest levels of welfare of any industrialized nation – even before welfare reform. The percentage of the national budget spent on full-time, permanent welfare (i.e., AFDC), even at its height, was only 1 percent. Yes, ONE percent. Even if you add in programs like Medicaid, school lunches, pensions of military veterans, etc., the total before welfare reform was only 12 percent. By contrast, 43 percent of the Federal budget goes to the military.
Sorry, Mitsu, I call “Bullshit!”
Cite your sources.
I’ve seen the federal budget broken down by areas, and the amount of money going to HEW has been a massive percentage of the federal budget ever since Clinton went into office, and shifted the so-called “Peace Dividend” from the end of the Cold War into Welfare-type wealth transfer programs
(“Cut taxes?!? Yeah, right. What are *you* smokin’!?!?”).
> In European countries with far more robust forms of social assistance to the unemployed than we have ever had, unemployment is nevertheless relatively low.
Again, I call “Bullshit!”
Here
In all cases, EU unemployment is substantially worse than US unemployment.
I quote:
In Europe, a 7.2% jobless rate is celebrated as an historical record low (see chart above).
In the U.S., a 6.0% unemployment rate in 2003 was condemned and criticized as a “jobless recovery” during the economic expansion that started at the end of 2001.
Note: There are complaints in the comments which claim this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Read for yourself and see if even the difference cited by the commenters supports your statement, either way.
Be sure to note that Dr. Perry did an update as a result of the comments showing “adjusted rates” to make it apples-to-apples are *worse*, not better.
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