"Liberal or conservative -- so what?"

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

Here's a post I found on another forum. It was given the highest ratings by the readers:

"Both of these political philosophies have their merits and problems. But they're not as important as you think. And when you identify too much with one or the other, it can hide the real problem.

You see, the most important problems in this country aren't caused by the (liberals or conservatives). They're caused by the crooks, and it doesn't matter very much whether the current crop of crooks color themselves liberal or conservative.

Our leaders are letting their corporate sponsors run away with the store, and even though I plan to vote for a democrat, I don't believe that my vote will do anything to reverse this trend.

I'd vote in a conservative administration in a New York minute if I thought they would clean up our government and run it honestly. But I don't think that's in the cards. The Halliburtons, ADMs and Clear Channels of this country have a firm grip on the political process, and I don't believe that that can be changed. They will continue to manipulate the laws to favor themselves at everyone else's expense, then blame our problems on the liberals or conservatives."

[YNGW]

1. Heard It Many Times.

I've had conversations with mainly anarchists, anti-capitalists and Green Party supporters who feel this way. They'll say the right wants corporations to tell them how to live their lives and that the left wants big government to tell them how to live their lives, and they want nothing to do with either, they just want to be free.

[annak110]

8. I too have seen bullshit like this until I am absolutely sick of it!

Who the hell "on the left" would want big government to tell them what to do?

Please separate "Democrat" from "the left " (or from those of us who would like the Bill of Rights and the Constitutionaly mandated Balance of Power restored and the dictator and his keepers and collaborators booted out) and place it in the "rightwing ass kisser" category.

[el_gato]

that is pretty close to how i feel

[many a good man]

2. Power corrupts

I think its true that any party in any country that stays in power too long attracts corruption. This happens for many reasons, human nature chief among them. Its up to the people (and the free press!) to keep them honest.

"And when you identify too much with one or the other, it can hide the real problem."

This is true only insofar that party members turn a blind eye to the corruption within their own party for the purpose of maintaining power. This is happening right now to conservatives in this country who are too willing to go along with the reactionaries and crooks who bring so much power and electoral success to their side of the aisle. This has happened to Democrats who may have also sold out to monied interests to win a seat or get more campaign donations or other pecuniary benefits.

At this moment the choice is crystal clear to any thinking person about which is the more dishonest and corrupt party.

[info being]

4. That phrase has no purpose...

other than to justify corruption as "inevitable"...as a "flaw" in our humanity.

In a Democracy, leaders only have as much power as the people are going to give them. After all, our politicians work for us, right?

I don't know, the "power corrupts" argument just doesn't cut it for me.

[K-W]

3. Simply not true.

Conservatism as a political philosophy is founded on fundementally unsound principles. It also comes from an entirely different outlook on society. Writing both of them off is silly. Political philosophies are very important. They determine the nature of our society.

[info being]

6. I disagree

As a Green, I think I'm a Conservative.

- I want to protect our planet
- I want to protect authentic culture
- I want to fight government and corporate power, etc., etc.

Those are all "conservative" positions. There's nothing wrong with conservatism, but neo-conservatism and the Republican Party is a cancer of lies, deciept, radicalism, and corruption.

[K-W]

9. Regardless, political philosophy is important.

Well, it would help if you presented the definition of convervatism you are working with. Politcally charged words are constantly having thier definitions tooled with.

Regardless, what political philosophy a society uses to construct and run itself has a very important effect on the society, therefore we cannott, as this thread suggests, write off political philosophy as if they were all equal. It isnt only crooks who cause problems. Blaming things on people rather than the system is a terribly flawed way of looking at the world. The system and the people in it are both very much intertwined.

[info being]

13. True

It isn't all equal. Perhaps a more interesting categorization is "progressive" vs. "dogmatic"...where progressives seek effective solutions and dogmatists always seek what they previously believed in regardless of results.

I dunno...but I do think the terms Liberal and Conservative are kind of worthless because they cannot be defined.

[Cary]

5. He with the money, . . .

makes the rules. That is as it has always been, and as it always will be, with perhaps a handful of exceptions.

Follow the money. That's what Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein, isn't it?

[Westegg]

11. Yep. $$$$ Rules

Money corrupts, and absolute money corrupts absolutely. To quote the media kingpin Arthur Jensen in the great, prescient film "Network," from 1975:

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars."

[info being]

7. It isn't about Liberal vs. Conservative...

It's about "The rich and powerful vs. the rest of us."

The rich divide us with these terms so they can go on plundering the earth and screwing all of us.

[K-W]

10. Good point, conservative and liberal

as political philosophies have very little to do with the conservative and liberal parties we have right now.

[maggrwaggr]

12. agreed. We all need to join, and throw out the corporatists

The "Enron Republicans" and the "(put your corporation here) Democrats" ALL need to go.

This is what pisses me off about the current conservatives is that they're all so full of hate for Democrats that they are blind to the fact that their party has been co-opted by what can only be described as fascists.

If communists actually took over the Democratic party, do you think we'd actually support them? No, of course not, we're smarter than that.

But they take loyalty to such an extreme that they're all getting used.

[highlonesome]

15. we need to augment checks and balances

While I totally agree with your points I see the Democrats as pandering to their own set of "special interests." We don't often think of groups considered historically oppressed as having significant politcal clout, but in fact many organizations representing these groups do. It all too often seems that electing either party is just a trade off for which special interest gets in. Of course the truth is probably that they all get in regardless of who's in office.

What it comes down to is the money. When the Constitution was framed a fairly brilliant concept of checks and balances was one of its most important aspects, limiting the powers of each branch of government. And of course there was that most elegant of balances, the big states little states compromise that created a senate giving each state virtually equal representation and a congress giving each state representation tied to its population. I think this compromise is importatn to keep in mind as it is very reflective of how they viewed the world then and how they couldn't anticipate how it would be now.

To me the problem with all this big money -- whether it's corporate or political interest group -- is that it gives those people access to the governmental process that the rest of us don't have. It usurps the value of one person, one vote. But the framers could not have anticipated this because since in those days wealth came mainly from land, the amount of wealth that could be accumulated by one person or group of people had reasonable limits (think big states little states compromise). But today, there is virtually no limit on the amount of wealth on person or group can accumulate.

What we need are constitutional measure to build a system of checks and balances not only between branches of government but also against private sector money which can become its own driving force and branch of government.

[Cary]

18. Nice thoughts, but it's not going to happen.

Forget it. Money talks, b.s. walks.

This isn't the worst thing in the world. If we know the rules we can make them work.

The Democrats' traditional base is unions. Conservatives dislike unions because they are a legalized form of extortion. I can tell you from personal experience, there is merit to this criticism of unions. The conservatives' arguments against unions are well-taken, but the unions have played a critical role in leveling the playing field.

Again, it's about money. Unions want the benefit payments from the employer and they're relentless if they don't get it. They give money to politicians to influence legislation. They can also deliver votes. I'm sure I've missed a few thousand links here, but I think I've made my point.

Unions neglected service workers. As the economy shifts from high paying (thanks to the unions) factory jobs to low paying, abusive service employment, it's time for history to repeat itself.

I'm all for Hegelian dialectics, but I'm not sure where there's any room here for thesis-antithesis-synthesis. The best we can do is throw the bums out when it gets too bad, as I think it has.

[highlonesome]

14. each side has its own paradox

Conservatives espouse social determinism (ie traditional roles, "family values") and economic liberty (ie low taxation, fewer social welfare entitlements). Which is why republoicans would rather borrow than tax.

Liberals espouse social liberty (non-traditional families, same sex ,marriage, etc) and economic determinism. Which is why liberals would rather tax than borrow.

Of course neither of these is absolute in that conservatives don't truly believe in laissez faire capitalism nor do most liberals believe in economic determinism to the point of true socialism. But to me the paradox is this: when you live in a monetary economy, economic determinism limits social liberty and social determinism limits economic liberty.

To me the paradox began in the late 70's or early 80's because of the simple fact that for every action there is an equal and opposite re-action. During the mid 70's intellectual Marxism began to influence the left. That is, many issues -- economic and social began to be viewed from a Marxist perspective. That's when we began hearing arguments from the left like "men as a class oppress women as a class" or "white people as a class oppress black people as a class" -- very common now, but then it was a quite different way of looking at issues of equality under the law.

Then came Ronald Reagan. Much of the Reagan administration and philosophy came about as a response to this new intellectual Marxist paradigm. Ronnie surrounded himself with objectivist thinkers -- influenced by people like Ayn Rand -- and especially objectivist influenced liberterian economists like Milton Friedman.

To me the most basic problem of these competing and internally paradoxical paradigms is that the left and right almost never borrow substantial ideas from each other to synthesize into a truly robust vision for solutions to many of our country's problems -- which historically has been America's strength and national personality.

So what's the solution? Personally, I'd like to see this concept of the nature of the relationship between economic and social liberty as degrees of each other become an overt part of political discourse among regular folk and on boards like this one.

[highlonesome]

17. bump <eom>

[rman]

16. many repubs seem to like working with these crooks,

and the crooks call themselves republicans/(neo)-conservatives/capitalists.

hence the idea that there is an important difference between liberals and conservatives.