Political: What about Hillary?

[BigAndTall]

http://www.issues2000.org/Profile_Mark_Warner.htm

Um... not sure what you were trying to say with this.

I know who Mark Warner is.

 

[BigAndTall]

The fact is thogh, if you think of liberalism as an attitude towards other people, it's almost impossible to think of a liberal idea in the last five hundred years that hasn't been finally accepted and become dogma today.

I have a question here that if you really (or at least me) really think about it. What makes an idea "liberal"?

 

[rgraham666]

I have a question here that if you really (or at least me) really think about it. What makes an idea "liberal"?

Any idea that starts the conservatives foaming.

And a conservative idea is one that engenders the same response in liberals.

 

[Boxlicker101]

This brings us to the part that puzzles me: I heard an evangelical minister on NPR defending the gay marriage ban by saying, "It's because Christians are tired of liberals trying to impose their values on us." How is it possible to impose gay marriage on anyone?

On left/right issues that come to mind, liberals have long been in the position of trying to stop moral judgements from being made into law, and defending the laws that exist to protect privacy and civil liberties.

Fighting school prayer doesn't stop prayer; it places one place off-limits to prayer so that it is not imposed on children who have no choice but to attend public schools. To impose our values, we'd have to fight prayer in private homes and churches and the countless places where people can pray without imposing their values on others.

Opposing a ban on flag-burning doesn't impose anything except the essence of the 1st amendment. If liberals passed a law that required "voluntary flag-burning" in the public schools, we'd be imposing.

Opposing a gay marriage ban, ditto. To impose gay marriage as a value on evangelical Christians, there would have to be a way to force Christians to send a wedding gift, at the very least.

Defending a woman's right to abortion? On the left, we impose our values on the fetus. At the stage affected by the morning-after pill, we impose our values on a fertilized ovum so new it hasn't attached to the uterine wall. On the right, there is a fervent desire to deny women the most basic human freedom: the freedom of our own bodies. At its most extreme, the right believes that stem-cell research imposes liberal values on in-vitro embryos that will be destroyed anyway; in other words, we're imposing our values on a dead embryo.

Whose values are being imposed in Oregon if the right succeeds in overturning the death-with-dignity law? I don't see liberals seeking the right to take that choice away from those who object, but the right isn't a bit shy about imposing six extra months of suffering on someone who can't stand it anymore.

The logic that sees liberals as the aggressor in even a single one of these cases is so twisted, it's a pretzel.

Sher, You have enumerated some of the differences between liberals and conservatives and I agree with the liberal position on those you have chosen to include. There are many other differences, however, and in these, liberals are imposing their values. Things like school busing, affirmative action, social promotion in school, telling parents how to discipline their children, requiring safety belts in cars, capital punishment, motorcycle helmets and some more that I will think of after I submit this.

In all of these things, liberals are trying to impose their wills on an unwilling population. The reason I say "unwilling" is that whenever one of these issues is put to a vote, the voters oppose the liberal position. Although most of these ideas have a beneficial end, the methods being used are seen as bullying.

Just as I believe conservatives should not be poking their noses into the sex lives of people, I think liberals should not be poking their noses into many other places.

 

[fifty5]

If you can't stretch your mind to see whre they feel attacked, none of it makes sense. If you can, then you can see it's an angry, scrared and Dangerous majority, ripe for the picking by Rove & the boys.

-Colly

That I can see. I am sure slave owners felt attacked - and many men by the prospect of women's suffrage (and property owners before that ceased to be a franchise requirement).

But why do they think that such 'attacks' - often by oppressed minorities - are a threat to them?

Is it simply that the majority are exposed as holding untenable positions?

Do I understand correctly that it's simply a matter of political pragmatism - if lots of people think that (it's OK to own slaves, etc) then you think it's unwise to make a contrary proposal?

If so, then how do we become a more civilised and humane society? Until there are a minority who propound such things, despite that pragmatic issue, then we won't progress.

Magna Carta, and the US Constitution were both liberal victories, despite entrenched viwpoints.

I'm afraid I feel I have to stand up and be counted as one who opposes such oppression, irrespective of whether that puts me in a minority - or angers the majority.

Someone has to.

Eff

 

[LadyJeanne]

I have a question here that if you really (or at least me) really think about it. What makes an idea "liberal"?

Every time I see one of your posts, BigAndTall, I am reminded of a big and tall friend whose luggage was lost in London. The hotel staff were able to help him with his big and tall dilemma by directing him to the "High and Mighty" shop nearby. Sounds so impressive when you say it that way. Leave it to the Brits!

(sorry - end thread nonsequitor)

 

[Colleen Thomas]

That I can see. I am sure slave owners felt attacked - and many men by the prospect of women's suffrage (and property owners before that ceased to be a franchise requirement).

But why do they think that such 'attacks' - often by oppressed minorities - are a threat to them?

Is it simply that the majority are exposed as holding untenable positions?

Do I understand correctly that it's simply a matter of political pragmatism - if lots of people think that (it's OK to own slaves, etc) then you think it's unwise to make a contrary proposal?

If so, then how do we become a more civilised and humane society? Until there are a minority who propound such things, despite that pragmatic issue, then we won't progress.

Magna Carta, and the US Constitution were both liberal victories, despite entrenched viwpoints.

I'm afraid I feel I have to stand up and be counted as one who opposes such oppression, irrespective of whether that puts me in a minority - or angers the majority.

Someone has to.

Eff

I'm going to give up and shut up for a while, to keep my sanity. I don't expouse the fucking views as my personal creed. I don't need an argument over which values are good, which are bad. I know where all you guys fucking stand. Everytime I try to explain why some people feel they way they do, someone goes off on me about why they are wrong. My point has not been to argue the virtues of the sentiment, simply to explain it.

You are all liberals, it's your board, your threads, have a blast.

-Colly

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Just for the record, the judges who upheld gay marriage weren't making up law on their own, nor were they imposing their own liberal values on Americans. They were interpreting the law as consistently as they could. Allowing gay marriage is a logical extension of the laws that prevent discrimination based on one's race, religion, or sexual orientation.

The law says that all citizens are entitled to the same rights. The legal argument is that, by forbidding homosexuals to marry, you're depriving homosexuals who want to wed of a fundamental human right.

If you can forbid homosexuals to marry, what's to stop you from forbidding African Americans or Episcopalians or any other group from marrying? If you accept that all people are created equal and have equal rights, then how can you deny marriage to some of them? That's the legal argument the judges were working from.

That's why the right wing's remedy to this problem is to go to the constitution, which is the wellspring of law. Any law they pass forbidding homosexual marriage is likely to be struck down by any reasonable court as a violation of the consitutional provision of equal protection, so they either seek to amend the constitution or to redefine the legal meaning of marriage.

You know what else? In 25 years or less, homosexuals will have the right to marry. It's inevitable, like every other liberal idea that teaches that people are people and not some sort of sub-human devient. And when that happens, we'll look back at these conservatives with the same kind of shame and embarrassment we feel today when looking at the slave-holders of 150 years ago.

---dr.M.

 

[Edward Teach]

I'm going to give up and shut up for a while, to keep my sanity. I don't expouse the fucking views as my personal creed. I don't need an argument over which values are good, which are bad. I know where all you guys fucking stand. Everytime I try to explain why some people feel they way they do, someone goes off on me about why they are wrong. My point has not been to argue the virtues of the sentiment, simply to explain it.

You are all liberals, it's your board, your threads, have a blast.

-Colly

This has been a contentious board for some time now and Colly has done very well supporting her views against sometimes unfair odds and attacks. You know, she agreed with much of the anti-Bush argument.

Now, she seems more interested in analyzing what happened than arguing, while some of us are having a little more difficulty making that transition.

For months, Colly took some lumps and gave a few in return . Let's give her a little rest and just listen to what she has to say for a while, guys.

The stark division in this country over this election and the Bush administration has given me a tiny bit of insight into something that has puzzled me much of my life; how brother fought against brother in the Civil War. I am beginning to understand.


Edward The Exhausted

 

[fifty5]

I'm going to give up and shut up for a while, to keep my sanity. I don't expouse the fucking views as my personal creed. I don't need an argument over which values are good, which are bad. I know where all you guys fucking stand. Everytime I try to explain why some people feel they way they do, someone goes off on me about why they are wrong. My point has not been to argue the virtues of the sentiment, simply to explain it.

You are all liberals, it's your board, your threads, have a blast.

-Colly

Colly, I'm very sorry to have offended you.

My conscience makes me want to attack bigotry, ignorance and prejudice, not Conservatism, except where the cap fits. And it fits Socialism and Liberalism (and pretty well every other -ism) too at times.

I am not trying to attack you - and I am ashamed of having hurt you as an individual.

Nevertheless, I come back to the old saw about "Democracy is a very bad form of government." etc. The majority may well be the best indicator we have available, but it hasn't been and probably never will always be right.

A minority who believe something in genuine conciense, but who keep quiet because of fear of the majority, is immoral and cowardly.

Shit! That was supposed to explain why I posted as I did, but you could so easily take it as another attack, but please don't: I am reacting to what you've posted, but I don't know everything (anything?) that you really feel inside yourself.

The same goes for me. You can only see what I post. I'm trying to be honest about my feelings - argue my case - but that's never enough. I'm still gunna keep trying. Please do the same.

Eff