The Liberal Borg

[aneerkoinos]

Why is the so-called liberal elite so much hated, feared and despised on the polical map of America?

Let's pass ignorance, propaganda and such, sure they are factors. But there are real issues too.

I think it boiles down to the attempt to legislate morality (the liberal version) through Federal level that makes many Americans so suspicious of the word Liberal. American ethos is about personal responsibility, local community and suspicion of nanny state, wich are IMO healthy values and in no way contradictory to progressive values, which include or shoud include respect of difference and "leben und leben lassen" attitude.

The most visible issues are gun laws, abortion and now gay marriage. Averadge American voter knows these are divisive issues where various groups have very different opinions. There would be lot to say about how these issues have been defined in fragmentary way in public discussion, but that's another discussion.

The politically, tactically and even morally important question is, should these issues be legislated on federal level at all? Why not leave it to states to decide? If not anything else, Dean understood this about America, mainstream America is anti-federal in many ways, perhaps because they share the healthy suspicion of founding fathers towards strong federal state? I say, if progressive forces can once again become proponents of state rights and steal that image from right wing, they win the people on their side.

I'm from Europe, and allthough I'm strongly pro-choise and sex-education, it doesn't even cross my mind that EU should dictate to Ireland and Poland about their IMHO horrible anti-abortion laws. With freedom of movement, it is not too big problem to go to other state to have abortion. Same for other issue.

In short: defend your values, persuade people with your better arguments, but make these state issues, not federal.

[Redleg]

1. What are liberals trying to force on anyone?

We don't want to force Americans to be homosexual or to have abortions but many of us feel that Americans should have the right to make those choices. It is the conservatives who seek to impose their religious values on everyone else- even if our behavior doesn't directly impact them.

Some issues should be federal rather than state issues. Imagine if we had left it to the individual states to determine if they wanted to protect civil rights. Imagine if we had left it to the individual states to determine if labor unions would be legal. And so on...

[MatrixEscape]

2. To me it is ...

thou shalts versus thou shalt nots.

Liberal to me means that you can do what you want if it does not harm others or interfere with their persuit of happiness. I can't help it if the exersising of my rights is an affront IN THE MIND of another without any causal relationship.

More freedom to more people in more ways! That's pushing something ON someone?

[AndyTiedye]

3. It is not as if caving in to them will make them go away.

You accuse "liberals" of "legislating morality", yet what you actually
propose is to let the religious right do so unopposed.

> make these state issues, not federal.

In the case of gay marriage, it is the right wing that is trying
to pass a Constitutional amendment to ban them nationwide.

In the case of abortion, you are suggesting that we consent to the
overturning of Roe v. Wade. The majority in this country is still
pro-choice, but the politics of the situation is that nearly every
state would ban abortion if they could. Many still have abortion
bans on the books that would go into effect immediately if Roe is
overturned. Many women would have to travel a thousand miles or
more to get an abortion. Then, of course, there would be the push
to ban it federally. Perhaps the Supreme Court would do it all in
one go.

Once they've got abortion banned, they'll get the new abortion laws
interpreted in such a way as to ban birth control as well.

[aneerkoinos]

4. Oh ye of little faith!

Either you believe in the supriority of your arguments or don't. Either you believe in people or don't. Democracy means right to do horrible mistakes and taking responsibility for the consequenses. It means accepting that everything is bloody relative, there are no absolutes, and accepting that the fundamentalists believing in absolutes can be majority.

In essence, democracy is faith in people and human progress, there is no option of semi-democratic liberal nanny state, which is just fascism in different form. Ask yourself this, why is it that libertarians (the great undercurrent of US political thinking) still vote rather for Bush than liberal? Because their perception, rightly or wrongly, is that Bush's party is more liberal than the "liberal" party, and the difference is not only economics. Start standing up proudly for social liberalism (marijuana, gun laws, choise, science) but leave it to states, and libertarians (who are not closet fascists) run out of excuses to join progressives.

Letting the X'ian fundies legislate morality unopposed? Shees, you really don't know me. I wan't to win, not to loose, that's why I'm preaching about picking the field of battle that gives us best advantage; and in US that field is States, not Federation.

[wickerwoman]

5. But we live in a republic, not a democracy.

And the founding fathers were careful to guard against the tyranny of the majority. That's why they came up with the Bill of Rights. They believed some things were too important to trust to the whim of the mob.

The right of women to decide what they do with their own bodies is too important to leave up to the whim of the mob.

The right of gay people to enjoy the same liberties and partnership benefits as straight people is too important to leave up to the whim of the mob.

I'm not going to get into gun control as I think it's a different kind of issue than the two above.

Some rights are federal in that they are integral to the vision of the founding fathers for *all* Americans no matter where they live. Gay people shouldn't have to move to Massachussets or California to enjoy the same rights as straight people.

[aneerkoinos]

6. Fuck the US constitution!

Look what it makes you do, Democrat calling We the people "the mob"! Democrats schmemocrats, what about democracy? If you have so little faith in people and rather think of them as the enemy, the mob, no surprise they return the feeling and are suspicious of you.

I'm used to hearing "the mob" arguments from the right, because they fear the whimsical mob might choose socialism if given chance. First time i hear Democrat being so openly afraid of democracy, but it figures, that's the attitude I was digging out.

Democracy is tyranny of the majority, tyranny of Constitution is, in your case at least, plutocracy, not democracy.

So, whose whim should decide, if not the mobs? Some enlightened tyrant's? Mr. Founding Father's, who wasn't even aware there is such an issue as gender - or skin colour - equality?

I bet I'm more pro-choise than you. I bet I'm more pro-gay rights than you. But I refuse to hate even stupid X'ian fundie Satan worshippers and deny them right to define life differently from me or right to give word 'marriage' religious holy meaning. I want to win over the mob, not rule them.

The mob is petty, hatefull, prejudiced. I'm the mob. We, the mob, have the potential to evolve. US system is broken because your Constitution is few hundreds of years old, far from the frontline of human evolution. The fucking Constitution had no problems with considering people property, no problem with segregation and opression based on skin colour. Mob changed that, the mind and basic beliefs of the mob were changed. And Roe-Wade? It's fucking judicial decision, it's not in the outdated Bill of Rights, it has no democratic mob legitimicy at all, mob never fought for it, never voted for it, never committed to it by voting for it in mob decision.

And BTW, if you really wan't to pass for civilized people on Federal level in euro eyes, you make ban of capital punishment number one priority Constitutional/Bill of Rights amendment and get the mob accept it and commit to that value, court system failed allready.

[wickerwoman]

8. There's an election winning slogan if ever I heard one!

I must have missed the "mobs" of people in the majority (whites) who ended segregation and oppression. The change in attitude in that case followed legislation and judicial decisions forcing schools to accept black students, forcing employers to hire minorities and fining businesses which discriminated.

I don't think the mob is the enemy. I was simply pointing out, as our founding fathers did, that it has a tendency to make irrational and unfair decisions and to be easily swayed by cheap rhetoric at the expense of substantial argument.

I have to live in a country where my religious beliefs are at a varience with 75% of the population. Most of those people would like to control what my children learn in school, whether or not I can get a job, where I live, what I say and think in public etc. And a "democracy" that lets them decide that for me simply because there are more of them is a democracy without freedom- an empty shell.

I never advocated forcing Christians to believe that abortion is moral or that gays should get married. My point is that in a just society (which is what the U.S. aims to be- last time I checked) their morality ends at my vagina. Their definition of "marriage" ends at my checking account. You can believe any damn thing you like but when you impose your beliefs on others, when you take away their freedoms you are acting unjustly and unconstitutionally. And the only reason anyone accepts government in the first place is that it gives them a perception of a more abstract justice.

The Constitution doesn't explicitely forbid slavery or segregation. But it also admits that it is not all inclusive and that additional rulings may be made in the spirit of the constitution. And it was judicial rulings based on that same constitution that ended slavery, segregation and anti-choice laws.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that the U.S. is a democracy. If you don't want to live with the consitution we have, move somewhere else. Either way you're doing "Democrats" no favors here.

[magellan]

9. If you were within kicking distance

you'd be in the middle of next week right now, courtesy of me.

The Constitution is not the problem. It has proven to be a remarkably adaptable document through our history. It evolves as we do to grant and protect rights. I can think of only one time it was amended to restrict rights: prohibition. If there's any Constitutional "problem" then it lies with its interpretor -- the Supreme Court. Their eyes aren't always impartial.

The true problem is with our two political parties, who have become increasingly self-interested over the last century -- to this country's detriment -- as they feed ever more hungrily from the corporate trough. Neither party can sustain itself now without this corrupt and bloody symbiosis with Big Money. Corporate America IS our government. The "free press" is owned, the voice of the people is owned...WE are owned. And let me point out, FEW realize this. Mob rule, as you put it, is actually corporate rule. The majority of Americans -- some 60% by a political science study I recently heard -- DO NOT REALIZE they're being manipulated. They watch the nightly news and believe what they're being told because they aren't hearing true debate of important issues; they're hearing what the government and its corporate interests will allow them to hear.

That is why mob rule is an unreliable way to run a country, and our Founding Fathers foresaw it and tried to minimize the danger by instituting the Electoral College. (Of course, that went hand in hand with the belief that those who ran for office were sufficiently educated and virtuous to run the country without driving it into the ground, intentionally or not.)

Unfortunately, the last time the Electoral College was updated was back around the time of the Civil War (at least I read so recently).

The current sorry state of our country is wholly down to the abuse of and flagrant end-runs made AROUND the Constitution by successive administrations as they handed over more and more power to corporate lobbyists during the latter half of the 20th century. In 2000, the neoconservatives, under Bush**, were simply at the right place at the right time to consolidate that power.

And here we are.

BushCo has the "mob rule" backing them, a populace that WOULD rise up if they knew the truth. And it will happen. But until it does, the current "mob" is at worst as self-interested as the government, and at best apathetic. WE cannot win them over...Their indoctrination into corporate rule has gone too far. I don't know what it will take to wake them up, to make them start asking questions again, but it's coming. And when it does we'll need the Constitution more than ever.

So take your 'fuck the Constitution' attitude back to your home country. If we could get rid of everyone who thinks that way, particularly in our government, we'd be a hell of a lot better off!!

[AndyTiedye]

7. Faith? After THAT Election?

> Either you believe in the supriority of your arguments or don't.

I believe in the superiority of our arguments, but not in the ability
of superior arguments to carry the day. Surely the recent election
campaign demonstrated the futility of rational argument when the other
side has a megaphone thats 1000 times bigger.

> Either you believe in people or don't.

Please define "believe in people", and I may be able to answer that one.

> Democracy means right to do horrible mistakes and taking responsibility for the consequenses.

Sometimes it means making horrible mistakes and pushing all the
consequences onto whatever group is least popular at the moment.

> It means accepting that everything is bloody relative, there are no absolutes,

I don't see how that supports your argument.

> and accepting that the fundamentalists believing in absolutes can be majority.

Which is, of course, the problem. If a fundamentalist majority wants
to condemn "heretics" to death by stoning, should we just accept
that? This is not a theoretical question.

> In essence, democracy is faith in people and human progress, there
> is no option of semi-democratic liberal nanny state,

You are using loaded terms here to demean the idea that minorities
might need some protection of the sort that is provided in the
Constitution.

> which is just fascism in different form.

I think the current alliance of fundies and robber barons fits
that description better.

> Ask yourself this, why is it that libertarians (the great
> undercurrent of US political thinking) still vote rather for Bush
> than liberal?

Because those libertarians care more about economics than civil liberties.
They are opposed to all social programs, and that trumps everything
else.

> Because their perception, rightly or wrongly, is that
> Bush's party is more liberal than the "liberal" party, and the
> difference is not only economics.

Libertarian is not liberal. Liberals believe in a social "safety net",
while libertarians do not.

> Start standing up proudly for social liberalism (marijuana, gun laws, choise, science) but leave
> it to states, and libertarians (who are not closet fascists) run
> out of excuses to join progressives.

Why would libertarians want to see Roe v. Wade overturned?
Why do you want it overturned?
Since a majority still support the right to choose, why do you think
we should cave in on this issue?

In practice, that means not opposing the Dominionist Supreme Court
justices that Bush will appoint. They'll overturn Roe all right. That will only be the beginning.
The Bush* court will be with us for the next 30 to 40 years.

In the case of medical marijana the "conservatives" are making a
Federal issue by trying to overturn all the state laws allowing it.
They are also doing so with gay marriage, by pushing a Constitutional
amendment.

We already caved in on the gun laws. Caved in and bent over so far
it was postively embarassing.

> Letting the X'ian fundies legislate morality unopposed? Shees, you
> really don't know me.

No, I don't. I can only comment on what you have written.

> I wan't to win, not to loose,

What you propose does not look very much like winning. It looks
more like surrender to me.

> that's why I'm preaching about picking the field of battle that gives us best
> advantage; and in US that field is States, not Federation.

Only in the blue states, but we will always be subject to Federal
preemption on anything and everything.
And it will suck even worse to live in a red state.

You invoke democracy, yet you want us to cave in on issues where
the majority supports our position because it is a losing position
politically. That should be a sign that something is badly wrong
with our democracy right now, why you hear talk about "tyranny of
the majority, and why our Constitution is so precious to us.

[quaker bill]

10. The concept that "better ideas" win is fairly lame

Perhaps they do eventually win, but there is no guarantee that you or even your grandchildren will live to see the day.

It took over 100 years to abolish slavery.

Were segregation taken on one state at a time, it would still exist in many places.