Just Another Political Post.

[--Pete]

Hi,

What I will say is that, while I don't agree with your blanket characterization of 'what it means to be liberal'[right][snapback]89631[/snapback][/right]

See my reply below to Nystul.

If you wish to use 'liberal' to mean 'my basset puppy when I have to spank it for making a mess on the floor', then you, along with Humpty Dumpty, are indeed entitled to let a word mean exactly what you wish it to mean, nothing more nothing less. That I would prefer to use a more 'established' definition of the word and not dilute its meaning with a crapload of neologisms reflects more on my desire to communicate than to argue.

--Pete

[Minionman]

Justice needs to hold people equally accountable for their transgressions.  It seldom does, but that is the ideal that we strive for.  Rehabilitation is a modern concept.  Back in the good old days, most often prison is where you went to suffer a death of negligence and disease at best and torture at the hands of sadistic guards at worst.

If you want to focus on reducing crime you are looking at the wrong end of the horse.  Try the feeding side where you educate the disadvantaged, provide jobs for the unemployed, and hope for the hopeless.
[right][snapback]89728[/snapback][/right]

Not necessarily. I could look at both ends and the sies of the horse if they effect crime. Providing jobs effects a lot more than crime, and there are plenty of reasons to do that already. However, things such as the court system and punishments probably also effect crime rates, and as there is not much more else they effect, I don't see why they shouldn't get some attention for lowering crime rates if they have an effect as well.

Since this was a death penalty sub thread, I used death panelty for its crime effects. If this were a homelsssness sub thread and someone brought up crime, I'd add something on homelessness.

[Minionman]

Hi,

See my reply below to Nystul.

If you wish to use 'liberal' to mean 'my basset puppy when I have to spank it for making a mess on the floor', then you, along with Humpty Dumpty, are indeed entitled to let a word mean exactly what you wish it to mean, nothing more nothing less.  That I would prefer to use a more 'established' definition of the word and not dilute its meaning with a crapload of neologisms reflects more on my desire to communicate than to argue.

--Pete
[right][snapback]89730[/snapback][/right]

Even if everyone used the same definition for "liberal", very few will follow that definition to the letter, because other things get in the way. What words get used to describe combinations? There don't seem to be many, and its hard to say "70% liberal, 30% other", as that doesn't say what parts of liberal the person is. You can try and use a more "established" definition, but that ignores how words change over time and get used in different ways. If it makes sense, and it has so far, that's fine.

Doing the same thing in politics is pointless also in a way. Taking a definition of, say, "liberals" as "supporting a pearticular group of laws , tax policies, etc.", the only people who are "true liberals", are ones who follow that to the letter. Some of the laws are probably bad ideas overall, but anyone who doesn't support them gets put down as not being a "true liberal", and if they aren't a "true (something)", it sounds as if there is something wrong with them. That's probably why these words aren't used with such small definitions.

Of course, these are just definitions, this sub thread isn't actually arguing over what they effect.

[Doc]

All of the founding fathers of this country were "liberal."

Why is that such a bad word?

[kandrathe]

Not necessarily.  I could look at both ends and the sies of the horse if they effect crime.  ...
[right][snapback]89744[/snapback][/right]

Or, relieve unemployment by providing jobs running prisons... The rich can get richer employing the middle class to police and guard the poor.

Prisons vs. Schools
A new study blasts state spending priorities
by Jennifer Gonnerman

New York State now spends more money locking up criminals than educating students at its public universities. This marks a dramatic shift in priorities. According to a report released this week, more than $761 million has been added to New York's prison budget over the last decade, while spending for higher education has been cut by $615 million. Today, New York spends $275 million more to run prisons than state and city colleges.

This is the same trend in my State and I would surmise most. These are mostly urban poor people of color that are being incarcerated at record high rates, and most as non-violent POW's in the "War" on drugs. I'm not sold on the idea that tough sentencing reduces crime. Most sane criminals believe they will not get caught, or worse that getting caught and serving time is a right of passage.

[eppie]

Or, relieve unemployment by providing jobs running prisons...  The rich can get richer employing the middle class to police and guard the poor.

Jep indeed, also described more or less in this book http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...438348?v=glance

You see Kandrathe, I also start using links now :) . (Quite an acomplishment for a computer illiterate as myself.)

[Doc]

Or, relieve unemployment by providing jobs running prisons...  The rich can get richer employing the middle class to police and guard the poor.

Prisons vs. Schools
A new study blasts state spending priorities
by Jennifer Gonnerman
This is the same trend in my State and I would surmise most.  These are mostly urban poor people of color that are being incarcerated at record high rates, and most as non-violent POW's in the "War" on drugs.  I'm not sold on the idea that tough sentencing reduces crime.  Most sane criminals believe they will not get caught, or worse that getting caught and serving time is a right of passage.
[right][snapback]89748[/snapback][/right]

And some people actually want to go to prison to really learn the ins and outs of the game. Sort of like Artful Dodger.

There is a lot you can learn in prison that they don't teach you in your local community college.

[Occhidiangela]

Cars are given air bags, seat belts, people are taught to drive safer, etc.  to prevent car crahes.  Same thing about getting sick, that's another possible "life is tough" example, that's what doctors, water treatment, etc. are for.  If someone could magically prevent car accidents, they probably would do it, unless it causesmore serious problems in the process.  Accidental death penalties are really easy to prevent, just drop death penalty.

As to 'poisoning the cat", the point of the poison is not to show the pests that poison is there, or to make them writhe in pain, the point is to keep the pests away.  If mousetraps work, than mousetraps get used for some of the poison.  If leaving less crumbs around keeps pests away, that's also useful as well.  In terms of death penalty, the most important question is whether it reduces crime.  If not, that's twelve or so preventable pointless deaths a year, not a good system.
[right][snapback]89715[/snapback][/right]

I don't care how you justify to yourself why you oppose the death penalty. I am for it. I have yet to find an argument worth a sh** that could come close to getting me to change my mind.

Capisce? We disagree on it, which is fine.

Occhi

[Minionman]

I don't care how you justify to yourself why you oppose the death penalty.  I am for it.  I have yet to find an argument worth a sh** that could come close to getting me to change my mind.

Capisce?  We disagree on it, which is fine.

Occhi
[right][snapback]89762[/snapback][/right]

What exactly makes you support it? If you wish to put down people who are against it, let's here why it's so useful.

[kandrathe]

I'm not sure why we try so hard to determine which basket a person belongs
in, but I fear many people use or misuse the terms liberal, socialist, and
progressive interchangably. And, if you are like I am, or most people, you
would have opinions on various subjects that span the gamute of ideologies.
In our two party system, I don't feel particularly represented by
Republicans (labeled as Conservatives), or Democrats (labeled as Liberals).
I would suppose it is a way to expediantly catagorize and then dismiss the
views and arguments of those who are not in your basket. *Sigh* Such is
the sad state of political discourse.

Even within the baskets I claim as my own (moderate libertarian somewhere
between individualist and socialist), I don't feel comfortable being in
there with the extreme (imho) views of objectivists like Ayn Rand or
socialists like Noam Chomsky.

I do know that I am pro-Locke and anti-Hobbes. :D

[--Pete]

Hi,

This is the same trend in my State and I would surmise most.
[right][snapback]89748[/snapback][/right]

Let's be careful of the inference we make on the basis of this datum. The cost of everything is going up. Schools have two (actually more) sources of income: tuition and tax base. Prisons do not. So, while it is possible to pass more of the cost of education to the students, it is not really possible to pass the cost of incarceration to the prisoners. Since a combination of inefficiency and corruption has made running the states more expensive, and since the legislatures of the states are ball-less when it comes to increasing taxes to keep up with inflation, the states have to 'do' more with less income. Services which are perceived as 'unnecessary' by the general population (welfare, mental health, medical care for the poor, etc.) are slashed not least because those directly effected are typically not voters. Services which are perceived as more necessary (police, fire, roads, etc.) are cut as much as possible without bringing on an uproar from the voters as they watch their houses burn down and their tires explode. Services which are considered essential (like protecting the general public from those dangerous marijuana users, taggers, and shoplifters) have to be fully funded lest the politician preaching rational moderation be voted out of office for being "soft on crime". The pie is only so big. Popular issues (i.e., those that get the politicians re-elected) get big pieces. Neutral issues (and in our "I didn't make it past high school, so why do my kids need college" society, education is at best a neutral issue) get little pieces. And the rest get none at all. That is the end result of trying to run a Jeffersonian democracy with a Madesonian population.

Besides, our school system does a better job of preparing people for prison than for university. Make sense to spend the money where it will be used ;)

. . . sane criminals . . .

Looks like an oxymoron to me.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

And, if you are like I am, or most people, you
would have opinions on various subjects that span the gamute of ideologies.[right][snapback]89768[/snapback][/right]

Exactly why I feel that we need words like 'liberal' and 'conservative' in their general and unpoliticized form. Once we allow someone to make the 'liberal is only Democrat' or 'conservative is only Republican' association, we have both robbed the language of the ability to discuss philosophies outside of group mentality and 'forced' opinions onto people who may not agree with those specific opinions.

Without access to the unpoliticized words, I do not know of a concise way of expressing, "I am liberal in what should be mandated and conservative in how it should be enforced."

--Pete

[jahcs]

I've tended to notice that Liberals (the capital "L" style ;) ) tend to view people as victims. Then they rightly or wrongly assign blame to one group or another (frequently white male upper middle class/upper class folk).

It's just an observation but I'll don my Nomex suit just in case. :lol:

[Minionman]

Hi,
Exactly why I feel that we need words like 'liberal' and 'conservative' in their general and unpoliticized form.  Once we allow someone to make the 'liberal is only Democrat' or 'conservative is only Republican' association, we have both robbed the language of the ability to discuss philosophies outside of group mentality and 'forced' opinions onto people who may not agree with those specific opinions.
[right][snapback]89772[/snapback][/right]

These two words have come to mean so many different things that they have become kind of pointless without some other way to describe them. I, say, I "dress conservatively", that either means I walk around in suits all the time, or have lots of plain clothes, or get cheap for their quality clothes. Fooling around with definitions for other non political things gets even more nutty.

Edit: I made up a rule on the Amazon basin that said "When people get to arguing over definitions, the argument's over". I guess this thread is kind of drying up.

[Roland]

All of the founding fathers of this country were "liberal."

Why is that such a bad word?
[right][snapback]89747[/snapback][/right]

Because they're "conservative" by today's standards? ;)

Mayhap it's because the meanings of the words have changed so much over the years, Doc.

[--Pete]

Hi,
Who the hell are you talking to? Or are you just farting in the wind? If you can't be bothered to actually hit the 'reply' button in the post you are replying to, at least quote enough of the post to give those of us not blessed with ESP a clue.

All of the founding fathers of this country were "liberal."

Bull. John Hancock was a merchant and a smuggler who felt that he could do better business under an American government that need his services than under a British government that prohibited his enterprises. Alexander Hamilton felt that the common people were totally unfit to rule themselves and proposed a constitution that was much more 'aristocratic' than the one that was ultimately compromised upon (and which only gave people a direct vote for their Representatives, the weaker of the two houses of Congress). George Washington was mostly neutral in outlook. On the few occasions (e.g., The Whiskey Rebellion) when he actively took a part, his part was inconclusive, both enforcing the law to the limit, and then pardoning the lawbreakers after they were found guilty of treason.

Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from the Southern states were persuaded to join the revolution because of the British anti-slavery attitude (England declared slavery illegal sometime before 1820 and stopped and seized on the high seas any ship carrying slaves). Assured that the new United States would permit them to keep their chattel indefinitely, they reluctantly (England could supply goods that they needed and that the North could not yet produce), joined the revolutionary cause. Hardly 'liberal' as I understand it, even in the culture of the day.

Why is that such a bad word?
[right][snapback]89747[/snapback][/right]

Because in the post WW II era, many stupid things were done under the banner of 'liberal'. Many policies (including school policies), many programs, were instituted by people who had the same attitude toward, and no better understanding of, the bulk of the population than had their 'patron saint', Thomas ("I never get my hands dirty") Jefferson. And the reason that those policies and programs were so attractive to that population that were adults after WW II was tha tthey had been greatly exposed to Jeffersonian ideals by FDR. However, FDR was smart enough to know, unlike Jefferson himself and unlike the idealists post WW II, that in applying ideals, a healthy dose of reality must be mixed in.

Don't worry, the antics of the Republicans since Bush the First will make 'conservative' a term of opprobrium soon enough. In some circles it already is.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

Edit:  I made up a rule on the Amazon basin that said "When people get to arguing over definitions, the argument's over".  I guess this thread is kind of drying up.
[right][snapback]89775[/snapback][/right]

Yeah, a lot of people think that arguing about semantics is a waste of time. However, if we cannot decide just what it is we are arguing about, then that is precisely when the argument becomes a waste of time. If one of us uses 'liberal' to mean 'rabid pro-choice advocate' and the other to mean 'rabid anti-religion advocate' and we don't inform each other of our respective definitions, then we are not having a conversation. We're merely carrying on two simultaneous monologues.

--Pete

[Chaerophon]

Don't worry, the antics of the Republicans since Bush the First will make 'conservative' a term of opprobrium soon enough. In some circles it already is.

If you are going to ignore ordinary usage, then you ought to realize that the notion 'conservative' as it is applied to many Republicans today is, at least as regards economic policy, little more than a direct translation for 'old liberal'. Old-style British conservatives or "Tories," in the traditional British sense (read: not Maggie Thatcher and her ilk) have very little in common with the modern American conservative. They were statist and often anti-market. What they did hold in common with modern conservatives was a stultifying and unjustified conviction in their own moral superiority.

Hayek was an 'old liberal' of your preferred type (what some people would now call a libertarian). Now he is worshipped in 'conservative' economic dogma. Modern liberals with their sometime emphasis on state involvement in the economy for the sake of social welfare hold beliefs on the economy that would be more acceptable to an 'old Tory' than the modern laissez-faire of Republican conservatives.

Conservatism is a phenomenon, not a set of concrete beliefs. It is defined in a society with relation to the phenomena which it protests against. It is not by definition 'pro-market, anti-statist and religious'.

Liberalism is not one particular ideological variant on the notions of liberty and equality or another; it is a continuum of interpretation. It is a set of beliefs based on different interpretation of the same principles, namely: liberty, equality, progress, individualism, property, democracy, etc. Some liberals value individual liberty in a way that entails equality of opportunity among a society's members and envision progress in such terms. Others believe the goal of progress to be best fulfilled by a less intrusive state, and this too is an interpretation of equality in terms of 'equality of right'.

I believe that liberals are identifiable according to such indicators and not in terms of the fact that "Locke is sometimes called the first liberal, so all liberals have to be like Locke." Why would that have to be the case? Second-generation commentators on Locke such as J.S. Mill, T.H. Green, and Hobhouse believed in the fundamental values that Locke espoused, but felt that a Lockean variant was insufficient to the realization of those values. Mill's work ended up almost immediately becoming a more dominant interpretation of liberal values, but other commentators on him have taken different paths in delineating their interpretation of the same fundamental values. Same values, different hierarchy of belief/interpretation among/of such values.

Thus, Friedman and Rawls, despite their disagreements, might still both be considered liberals. A liberal need not endorse abortion in order to be a liberal. It is all about HOW they define their beliefs.

I agree, we must define our terms in order to discuss things coherently. What I don't agree with is your blanket contention that liberalism 'is and has always been' one particular thing. Liberals can be criticized by other liberals based on what the latter believe to be the flawed interpretation of liberal principles carried out by the former.

[Occhidiangela]

What exactly makes you support it?  If you wish to put down people who are against it, let's here why it's so useful.
[right][snapback]89764[/snapback][/right]

Do you want to HEAR why it is so useful?

It kills evil people. That is a good thing, in and of itself.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

Hi,
Let's be careful of the inference we make on the basis of this datum.  The cost of everything is going up. ...
[right][snapback]89771[/snapback][/right]

Yes, good point. I'm sure part of the disparity is due to what you describe, but I still hold that incarceration rates and length of terms have risen. And, exponentially with regards to drugs crimes.

As one might expect, the number of people disenfranchised reflects to some extent the number of people involved in criminal activity. But the proportion of the population that is disenfranchised has been exacerbated in recent years by the advent of harsh sentencing policies such as mandatory minimum sentences, “three strikes” laws and truth-in-sentencing laws. Although crime rates have been relatively stable, these laws have increased the number of offenders sent to prison and the length of time they serve.

In California, for example, more than 40,000 offenders have been sentenced under the state’s “three strikes” law as of June 1998. As a result of the law, 89 percent of these offenders had their sentences doubled, and 11 percent received sentences of twenty-five years to life. Only one in five of these were sentenced for crimes against persons; two-thirds were sentenced for a nonviolent drug or property crime. Seventy percent of the sentenced offenders were either African American or Hispanic.

The impact of changed sentencing policies is readily apparent from Department of Justice data. For example, persons arrested for burglary had a 53 percent greater likelihood of being sentenced to prison in 1992 than in 1980, while those arrested for larceny experienced a 100 percent increase. The most dramatic change can be seen for drug offenses, where arrestees were almost five times as likely to be sent to prison in 1992 as in 1980. In addition, since the number of drug arrests nearly doubled during this period, the impact was magnified further. Over this same twelve-year period, the rate of incarceration in prisons rose from 139 to 332 per 100,000 U.S. residents. Eighty-four percent of the increase in state prison admissions during this period was due to incarceration of nonviolent offenders.

Human Rights Watch - The sentencing project

And, as far as sane criminals... :) I get your point, but I was trying to draw a distinction between anti-social behavior of choice and sociopathic personality disorders. Or, more simply there are people in our society who knowingly commit crimes by choice, and those who are insane who cannot control their behavior.