I'd like to write a new Manifesto for liberals - kind of like what your favorite employer calls a vision statement, but with teeth and claws.

So, if you consider yourself a liberal, what is it, exactly, that you stand for?

If you're not a liberal, I've already heard what YOU think we are a zillion times, so don't go saying the same old "tree-hugging hippy" bullshit - or I promise to hold up your comments as examples of why we need a new liberal manifesto in the first place.

edit: i think we need an equivalent statement for conservatives, damien. just as many conservatives think liberals are tree-hugging hippies, many liberals (probably most of them) think that all conservatives are self-serving rich old white men with nothing on their minds except getting re-elected and passing legislation to help their frat buddies get even richer.

This message has been edited by CatKnight on May 28, 2001 at 10:14 PM

quote:

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Originally posted by CatKnight:
i think we need an equivalent statement for conservatives, damien.

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Er, you do NOT want me to write it considering I'm biased in the opposite direction Why don't you start a "Conservative Manifesto" thread, and we'll compare notes or just have a nice flamewar later

quote:

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just as many conservatives think liberals are tree-hugging hippies, many liberals (probably most of them) think that all conservatives are self-serving rich old white men with nothing on their minds except getting re-elected and passing legislation to help their frat buddies get even richer.

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I don't think ALL conservatives are like that - but I do think that conservatives earned that stereotype just as much as liberals earned the "tree-huggin' hippy" one. Republicans have long embraced the religious right, and Democrats have long embraced the (often rowdy and rebellious) environmentalists.

FYI, the '96 election was a pretty good year. Bob Dole would've been a good President... I just didn't trust his party enough to vote for him.

Anyway, start a conservative thread... hopefully we can have a much more productive debate that way without having to resort to the hideous name-calling that pervades other threads.

I'm more on the liberal side than conservative. I believe that the government is supposed to help level the playing field for all people, so that they can succeed or fail on their own. I don't think the government is ment to let people sit on their asses all day, doing nothing and getting paid for it. At the same time, I think the government should help those who start out at a disadvantage, such as the poor and/or minorities that don't have the same reasourses as others, such as rich and/or white people. That's why I don't believe in school vouchers because all they server to do is make the devide between rich and poor people even wider. Instead of leting the middle class kids leave public schools, we should be finding a why to make public schools compete on the same level as the private schools. It's possible, we just need to figure out how. Anyway, that's what I believe, more or less. I'm more than happy to clarify any of my views, expand, or answer any questions.

might want to think that one over..

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Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at.
-
"Never play pool with a man who brings his own table." -- Erik Baker

quote:

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Originally posted by damien_s_lucifer:
and thank you, demonk, for a well-stated point of view. and you, sithee, never one for beating around the Bush, are ya?

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oh no, im definitly for beating the bush. beating it a lot. with a big stick.

quote:

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Originally posted by SimplyModest:
isn't writing a manifesto for liberals kind of contradictory... i mean, isn't part of being liberal, NOT being bound by anything (such as tradition, or even perhaps... what other people say "being liberal" is ?)

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I view it more as have a set of rules and guidelines that can evolve and change over time. A rule or guideline that makes perfect sense right now, might be pointless or even counterproductive 10 years from now. So why should we follow guidelines from a time that had not possible way of invisioning situations that we have in the present? In a way, your right, and wrong at the same time. we follow rules when they are applicable, and when there are no rules for our situation, we make new ones or modify old ones. Much like our Consitution which can be changed to accomidate newer ways of thinking and/or doing something. Does that answer your question?

the communist manifesto is a menifesto, however. but it can't be changed, so you're wrong. either that or i am very confused

quote:

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Originally posted by CatKnight:
i am very confused

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There's a statement we can all agree with.

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Radio Dj: so now that your not on saturday night live what are you gonna do?

Jim Bruer: I dont know.. fight mexicans or something.

FUHAOHB2IPDEFCIPUDQNFQFYLOEGOGB

I, too, think that a government by, for, and of the people is one the main ideals of liberalism. It's also where we have a VERY big disagreement with conservatives - consider how often we're accused of supporting Big Government, with all the sinister images that conjures up.

But of course we want a big government. By, for, and of the people means that it's not us vs. Government - we are the Government.

On the other hand, we don't want reams of red tape on everything either. I'm with the conservatives when they moan about beaurocracy. On the other hand I STRONGLY disagree with them that gov't regulation is bad. More on that later.

And let's not forget that a dictatorship is a government of one - so obviously, smaller is not necessarily better.

This message has been edited by damien_s_lucifer on May 29, 2001 at 12:07 AM

quote:

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man·i·fes·to : A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature

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Yep. That's what I want - a public declaration of "Here's why we're liberal, here's what we think liberals stand for, here's why we think liberalism is a good thing."

These kinds of things are important... especially when the fascists have been so horribly successful in their FUD campaign.

Yes, I do think the religious right are fascist, and no, I won't give them a more moderate-sounding name... these people burn books, records, CDs; they run sites like "GodHatesFags.com," and they have a lot of sway in the conservative community.

I ain't talking about you, ck, or askheaves... I'm talking about the right wingers who want to dismantle the "socialist" public school system, do away with the theory of evolution, etc. Those are the people who came up with vouchers, and those are the people who have been coming up with a lot of other Republican policies lately.

They've also managed to turn the word "liberal" into a bad thing, like "nigger" or "faggot" - another scapegoat. They've been so successful that a lot of liberals have been going by the wuss word "progressive."

What I want is a document that makes people who are liberal (which I think most Americans are, really) stand up and go "yeah, that's me, that's what I stand for, hell yes I'm a liberal and all you right-wingers can fuck the hell off."

quote:

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Originally posted by CatKnight:
our constitution is not a manifesto

the communist manifesto is a menifesto, however. but it can't be changed, so you're wrong. either that or i am very confused

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quote:

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man·i·fes·to : A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature

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Yes, you are confused. In a sense, the US Constitution is manifesto since it is a public declaration of our policies and in someplaces ur intentions. And in another way it is a contract between the people and our government. Our Declaration of Independence is very much a manifesto since it is nothing but policy, principles, and intentions. It did nothing more than explain very clearly that the 13 colonies where independent of England and listed why we did it. Manifesos are not by nature "evil" or "communist" in nature. The word abviously existed before there was even communisim.

quote:

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Originally posted by demonk:
Yes, you are confused. In a sense, the US Constitution is manifesto since it is a public declaration of our policies and in someplaces ur intentions. And in another way it is a contract between the people and our government. Our Declaration of Independence is very much a manifesto since it is nothing but policy, principles, and intentions. It did nothing more than explain very clearly that the 13 colonies where independent of England and listed why we did it. Manifesos are not by nature "evil" or "communist" in nature. The word abviously existed before there was even communisim.

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what catknight is saying is that the constitution is not a manifesto.. and he is right...
the constitution, is just that, a constitution which sets LAWS.. amnifestos do not and can not set laws.
they can only say things that the authors want to do. but their (manifestos) actual ability to accomplish anything is nill..

and you're still being contradictory. you can't set guidelines for liberal people, because any guidelines you set will become standards.. thenthe idea of something being liberal is changed..

writing a manifesto for liberals is like writing a manifesto for ancharcy. its stupid, and only accmoplishes changing the original definition of the term you are trying to set guidelins for.

if you were truly 'open to new ideas' you wouldn't cling only to the things which steadfastly oppose republican and conservative ideals, you'd give THOSE ideas a chance too. since obviously they would be NEW TO YOU.

you're not a liberal, you're a dogmatic democrat who's using a good word with a good meaning for your own fundamentalist gains.

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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost

kuru, you are demonstrating the same sort of simple-minded logic that has been a hallmark of the (very successful) Conservative FUD campaign. Mangling my words to call me "a dogmatic democrat" isn't any more true than if I called you a fascist pig - which I didn't.

I did call a certain FACTION of the Republican party fascist, because they are.

The straw man and absolute, literal interpretations are two of the conservative FUDer's favorite tricks - and unfortunately a lot of people fall for them. Get this, people :

Liberals are NOT so stupid as to think that ALL dogma, traditions, beliefs, etc. is bad. What we think is that those things need to be questioned by individuals, rather than blindly accepted.

The Liberal manifesto is something to be thought about, interpreted, argued for, argued against, you name it. Someone who zealously parrots ideals without thinking is a reactionary - and BOTH sides of the fence have those.

Conservatives have the doctor-killing, teetotaling religious right; liberals have tree-spiking Earth First! anarchist hippies. This doesn't prove a damn thing, other than "you can find weirdos anywhere."

Look, I don't hate all conservatives. My roommate is a Republican. He's also a really cool guy. He hates the religious right as much as I do - unfortunately I can't convince him to jump parties

Republicans and other conservative organizations have fallen into the same trap the liberals did many years ago. We got into power, we made a lot of progress - and we tried too hard to please the extreme end of our spectrum. We had plenty of otherwise smart people advocating some very dumb but nice-sounding ideas, and we got trounced for it. The past 20 years or so have been very good to the conservatives.

It's time for us to rethink liberalism - to figure out what are fundamental ideals are, and then look at all of our policies and say "this is cool. Here's why. This is not cool. Here's why."

If you can explain how that is dogmatic or fundamentalist, I'm all ears.

quote:

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Originally posted by damien_s_lucifer:
...I'm all ears.

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So you're a Perot fan?

Sorry, I couldn't resist. It was probably the greatest line to ever come out of the '92 Presidential Debates.

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When 1337 hax0rs start impaling each other with swords and typing code with a hook on one hand, then they can modify the term "pirate."

quote:

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Originally posted by CatKnight:
and waste fucking billions of dollars.

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*cough* ballistic missile defense *cough*

and kurus thing about being open to new ideas, thats trickery, because shes basically saying, "you wont listen to our ideas, that makes you close minded, the only way you can be open minded is to agree with me" argument : null and void.

and damien, you are one of the coolest people i know. i completely agree with everything youve said, and i like how you havent resorted to mudslinging, like i have .

demonk = cool also.

conservatives are not inherently bad. just like liberals are not inherently bad. in fact, i dont believe anyone is really inherently bad. thats really a heart of darkness discussion though. the point is, extreme leftists can be just as detremental to our society as extreme rights. except more often than not, the leftists go about their ways in more peaceful ways. right wingers have a hitlist of abortion doctors. you dont see left wingers with a hitlist on religious leaders or anything. when it comes down to it, left wingers are all about what THEY believe will give EVERYONE a fair chance at a good life. right wingers(extreme, not necessarily ck, or kuru) are all about having things perfect for themselves, and that means everything helping them and being the way they like it. that means taking away choices from women, and taking away chances from minorities, because most, if not all right wingers are religious fanatics who believe in the nuclear family, and the father figure being in control of everything. let me make this absolutely clear: when it comes down to it, left wingers are concerned with everyone, right wingers are concerned with themselves. almost no one actually falls into the extreme cases, but the spectrum is there, and thats how it is.

note: if there are mistakes, or this doesnt make sense, its because im tired beyond all reason, and im trying to make sense even though my brain is pulsing.

Well, it's a (very) old school liberal idea... before we split into today's liberals and < libertarians. >

Honestly, I think most of the "conservatives" here are more Libertarian than Conservative :

lib·er·tar·i·an n.
One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.

con·ser·va·tive n. One favoring traditional views and values.

Both the Democrats and Republicans hold out libertarian ideals. Both of them also like regulations, they just regulate different things.

Democrats tend to regulate businesses. They do this through things like pollution control, environmental laws, minimum wages, etc. They usually shy away from legislating morality, although there are some glaring exceptions.

Note to the Democratic Party : You really don't know what the fuck you're doing, so please get off the "let's regulate the Internet!" bandwagon. Also, while we know a lot of you were nerds in high school and it's cool to play with rock stars, stop sucking RIAA dick. The People have obviously reserved the right to copy things.

Republicans tend to legislate morality by passing laws (i.e. gag orders on abortion, pushing for prayer in schools, etc.) and removing restrictions that force businesses to act politely (anti-discrimination laws etc.)

Note to the GOP : liberals would have a lot more respect for you guys if you'd stop sucking aristocratic dick. And there are a lot of voting liberals out there...

Back to our regular programming. Try not to let it become trash TV.

This message has been edited by damien_s_lucifer on May 29, 2001 at 09:58 PM

quote:

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when it comes to wasting the US's money, reagan is, and probably will always be king. no president besides reagan have ever muliplied the debt by 5. this makes your argument null and void.

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if you had even a tiny little bit of foresight sithiee you'd realize that the economic prosperity we had throughout the 90's was due to reagon and bush's economic plans. they were thinking ahead. unlike clinton, who was just thinking with his head.

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except more often than not, the leftists go about their ways in more peaceful ways.

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oh yeah, thats true. oh wait, no it isn't. i forgot about the hundreds of riots and thousands of injuries due to "just causes" by hippies and other liberal morons.

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right wingers have a hitlist of abortion doctors.

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that was done by one of those extreme rightist groups you were talking about. moot point, since we are talking about the majority, not a few rare nutcases.

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right wingers are concerned with themselves

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again, moot point. conservatives are concerned with the good of the country as a whole.

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if you had even a tiny little bit of foresight sithiee you'd realize that the economic prosperity we had throughout the 90's was due to reagon and bush's economic plans. they were thinking ahead. unlike clinton, who was just thinking with his head.

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quote:

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oh yeah, thats true. oh wait, no it isn't. i forgot about the hundreds of riots and thousands of injuries due to "just causes" by hippies and other liberal morons.

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quote:

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that was done by one of those extreme rightist groups you were talking about. moot point, since we are talking about the majority, not a few rare nutcases.

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quote:

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again, moot point. conservatives are concerned with the good of the country as a whole.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sithiee:
minorities (read: non-whites, women, gays).

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Dunno about the USA, but in the UK there's more like 52\% of the population is female.

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LETS SEE SOME FUCKING PROOF!

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well it worked in the 30's...need more proof?

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im gonna have to keep going with common sense

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there's a thing called natural perceptions. this was the basis for ptolemy's entire book. look where it got him.

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how about some examples? like greanpeace and their ever violent ways? or the treehuggers who chain themselves to trees to stop them from being cut down? oh man, thats so violent!

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wto, greenpeace (in germany, they tried to de-rail a train carrying low-level nuclear waste), etc

quote:

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work to make sure their friends have more money

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again with the liberal dogma bullshit...what is it with you

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It's not that i'm celibate, it's just i don't give a fuck.

nah

quote:

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Originally posted by CatKnight:
dude you just totally proved my point

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??? I hope you don't mean I proved this point :

quote:

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if you had even a tiny little bit of foresight sithiee you'd realize that the economic prosperity we had throughout the 90's was due to reagon and bush's economic plans. they were thinking ahead. unlike clinton, who was just thinking with his head.

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since I pointed out that politicians don't have mucb to do with it.

By the way, I got the figures a little mixed up. About 18\% of the nation's GDP goes to the government in the form of taxes. Bush's tax cut will reduce this to about 16\%. There's the 2\% I was talking about.

Anyway, an extra seven hundred bucks or so a year isn't going to stimulate the economy nearly as much as shaving 0.5\% off the prime rate. Take the refund money and run with it... but don't believe the tax-cut hype.

A 12\% reduction in spending money for the government is gonna cut some nice gov't programs, though. And they always seem to cut the good ones while leaving the crap intact.

/me calls change_subject_gracefully()...

Do we really need Star Wars as much as we need to pay teachers more? Teachers don't make shit, which ensures that

- 90\% of teachers are peoplw with some specialized training that couldn't get a job somewhere else, for whatever reason.

- 9.5\% are whacked-out tree hugging hippies who feel guilty about making $$$ at the "expense of society" and therefore are perversely proud of being poor.

- 0.5\% are wealthy enough to teach because they want to teach

yes, I made these figures up, but you see my point. In business, you get dedicated workers by 1. paying them well, and 2. treating them fairly. So why is it that we expect teachers to make only slightly more than a janitor??? Hell, I say we pay 'em ๖K / year, and hold them to high standards.

sorry, demonk, but you're really missing the point.

damien is saying one thing and doing another. the only policy he's looking at with a skeptical eye is *republican* policy. the only things he wants to examine are *republican* beliefs.

he's every bit as biased as the people he's attacking, and he won't admit it. i find it absolutely hilarious how steadfastly he clings to the creedo of his dogma "if it's a republican ideal, it's wrong."

he says he likes his roommate, yet he wants him to change political parties. what it sounds like is him saying that he'll like people who think and speak and live like he does.

instead of bringing up anything positive that democrats have done, he bashes republicans.

it's time for damien to examine what the hell he really believes, and why he's believing in it so blindly.

as for the statement that women are a minority, i really hope you don't mean that women need help because we're disadvantaged. nothing could be further from the truth. if women *are* being kept down by anyone, it's by the people who keep calling them a victim group and claiming they need special help.

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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost

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"I am not a Marxist." -- Karl Marx

kuru, can you shut off part of your brain for a minute - the one that screams that I am blindly dogmatic etc. etc.? it's getting in the way of your formidable intelligence. go back and read what I've written and note that I said that a little mudslinging is okay. I've bashed on Democrats as well as Republicans, and liberal extremists as well as right-wing ones.

Yes, I am biased. I never claimed not to be!!! Nor have I attacked anyone else for being biased. The notion of "objectivity" in politics or any other human process is ludicrous, simply because there's more than one way to skin a cat.

and so far no one has said anything that hasn't been a biased remark except for icon0, who made an intellegent and seemingly well edjucated argument.

so until his argument gets rejected by another intellengent and educated statement, i'll consider what he said the end of the discussion (which is just getting ugly, and no one is even talking about the thread topic).

------------------
Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at.
-
"Never play pool with a man who brings his own table." -- Erik Baker

and when it comes to pay, thats really the problem. they dont pay these teachers enough to make it worth it. i have a lot of teachers who deserve way more than they make, but they dont get it. and the departments are underfunded. the art department gets 650 dollars a year. 650 dollars! paint is 6 dollars a bottle. i doubt film or cameras and whatnot are cheap. and they fill these classes past their capacity. my art class had like 30 people last year. when a kid comes to school and they dont speak much english and they cant fill up their schedule, yknow where they go? art. and yet, only 650 a year. schools are way underfunded, and yet the standards are going up. this is a major problem. and now, if vouchers get implemented, not only will the standards be higher, but if they dont meet them with the piddly amount of money they have, theyll lose more, and still have the higher standards to meet. WTF KIND OF LOGIC IS THAT?!?!? most of the money (as far as i can tell) goes to the IB and AP classes. this is the kind of thing i think kuru was complaining about. i dunno if they had IB or AP when you were in school. here, they put all the smarter kids in these classes, and its really challenging, i dont know anyone who doesnt have a challenging schedule who wants one, so thats not a problem anymore.

This message has been edited by demonk on May 30, 2001 at 05:01 PM

yeah, the school vouchers thing is a doozy. It's right up there with Jerry Brown's (Democratic gov. of CA, 1976-80) idea to slash highway funding so more people would take public transportation, there would be less traffic, and life would be better all around. What happened is the roads fell apart, traffic got worse because there were more accidents, and we wound up having to pay a lot of money to get the damn roads fixed.

The school voucher thing is this idea with a few labels switched around. The theory is that if you give people vouchers so they can choose public or private schools, the newfound competition between public and private schools will make BOTH of them better.

What will happen is that we'll end up with a whole mess of crappy schools, public AND private.

Privatizing the public school system has been tried before in some districts - they handed over management to a private company that claims to specialize in such things. Once in place, the company slashes costs it deems "unnecessary" - things like janitors, cafeteria workers, landscapers, health benefits, salaries, etc. Teachers left in droves, and the company replaced them with people who were barely qualified to wake up in the morning, let alone teach algebra. Attendance dropped dramatically. So did test scores. Eventually, the school districts had to pay out $millions to take their own schools back.

Back to vouchers - what you'll wind up with is a bunch of schools, public AND private, who try to run things as cheaply as they possibly can. If you think that's a wonderful thing, tell you what - go out and get the cheapest computer you can find. With a little looking, you can probably get one for free. Then come back and tell me how well it does what you want it to do.

If vouchers are passed, the only kids who will get even a halfway decent education will be the ones whose parents have enough $$$ and enough caring to pay for it. If you think that's a good thing, think about this : in 18 years or so, you will have an awful lot of very stupid and very poor barbarians expressing their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

so the state revoked the charter.

bummer for the students who went to turner to get a better education.

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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost

I was talking about school districts that gave up and let XYZ Corp. come in and run the schools. (I can find the names of districts and possibly to company, if you want - but the book is tucked away somewhere in my parents basement)

We can settle the whole economy issue once and for all by saying the economic boom of the 90's and beyond had little to do with Reagan, Bush, or Clinton.

Just because virtually all politicians think they have a ton of control over the economy doesn't mean that they do. Politicians ALWAYS take credit for the good times, and blame the opposite side for the bad ones, because they want you to vote for them.

They can ramble on all they want, but the truth of the matter is that TAXES account for about 2\% of GDP. (The site where I found this info is down right now - please remind me to check it & post the link. Anyway, it's not very big.)

The group that has REAL power is the Federal Reserve Bank, who manage the nation's money supply. The Fed was formed in 1913, mostly as a way to keep politicians and other unqualified people from managing the economy.

After a few failures - i.e. the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 70's - the Feds are finally getting the hang of it, if for no other reason than they're gaining experience. They've got to the point where they do a pretty good job of keeping things running smoothly, and everyone wants to take credit for it.

Tax cuts may be welcome to some people, but - and yes, this is cynical - when politicians say they're doing it for The Economy, they're lying thru their teeth.

Both parties are guilty of this, by the way... I've heard more than one Democrat say that "reduced government spending" contributed to a recession.

I'd like to point out that something like the FRB is very definately a Socialist type of idea. But socialism can work hand in hand with capitalism - indeed, the two often complement each other and protect us from the extremes. I certainly don't want public ownership of everything (can you imagine the gov't writing an OS?), but I don't like laissez-faire capitalism either.