Juan Williams on GOP, Dem mistakes

Liberals seem to think that they can make choices in a vacuum. That there will not be good and bad results from adopting a specific policy. Somewhat like a doctor who thinks that drugs don't have side-affects.

Conservatives seem to be unwilling to examine their basic assumptions, for instance, to ask what we have an economy for.

The problem with Liberals who call themselves liberals: social libertarianism

The problem with Liberals who call themselves conservative: economic libertarianism

Both: the rejection of culture and obligation in favor of the myths of individual autonomy and self-making

Both: attempting to temper the undeniable bad effects and centrifugal forces of these myths with, respectively, a sentimental and baseless solidarity and a mindless and aggressive nationalism

Liberals: Failing to recognize that sexual morality matters.... that the "if it feels good, do it" has great social and cultural implications, not to mention spiritual. (I know, we're not supposed to mention "spiritual" in a secular society, but I believe all our economic and political problems are, at heart, spiritual problems.)

Conservatives: Viewing "individual freedom" as a virtue in itself, instead of a neutral condition that can be used for good or ill, depending on the virtue of the individual and society as a whole. (To you people who call conservatives "just plain mean"... I find that preposterous. I know plenty of mean conservatives and plenty of mean liberals. Meanness knows no political boundaries...)

I don't know if I'd deem this the biggest mistake both sides make, but it's significant: Both liberals and conservatives can see and understand the nuances in their own motivations, but tend to ascribe blanket negative motivations to the "other side": stupid, selfish, immoral, hedonistic, hateful, racist, sexist, anti-Christian, etc., etc.

Forestwalker, FTW. Franklin Evans a close second.

Left -- being snobs; spitting down on their putative working-class and middle-class constituencies; spitting down especially on their putative constituent's Christianity and spitting down on their traditional social and cultural values derived from Christianity.

Right -- not defending and furthering the cultural tradition; not getting involved enough in the arts; not getting involved enough in the humanities; not getting involved enough in academia and journalism and education and the clergy; not getting involved enough in any of the "wordsmith" professions.

Liberals: belief that if only there were an equal representation of all genders and minorities in positions of power then every problem in the world would go away.

Conservatives: belief that if only women would go back into the kitchen and gays would go back into the closet then every problem in the world would go away.

Shorter Jillian: What's wrong with liberals is they naively think conservatives are decent people.

Jeez, I thought it would be a right-wing ideologue who would be first to say something like this. Shows what I know.

Even Shorter Jillian: God sux! I rock!

Some above have already made this comment. Liberals and conservatives act like there is no one else in the dialogue. Moderates are the majority and, assuming they assert their authority, control the agenda. I just get tired of this symbiotic struggle the two extremes are locked in.

Jillian is predictably wrong. But hey, at least she is consistent.

Here are my two:

Liberals: Assuming that government can fix things almost all problems and retaining the belief that humans are naturally good and in the notion of historical progress, despite all the historical evidence in the last 100 years to the contrary. Ignoring the connection between the sexual revolution, the breakdown of the family, poverty and other social ills.

Conservatives: Believing that things such as the war on drugs and "war against terror" don't count in expanding big government. Forgetting that cutting taxes while running deficits and racking up debt actually amounts to raising taxes in the long run. Ignoring the connection between unfettered capitalism, globalism and the breakdown of the family.

rr

Jillian and Crustacean are great examples of both side's greatest mistakes.

Liberals - An addiction to self-righteousness.

Conservatives - A total lack of self-awareness.

Mike

Conservatives - Holding to a dogmatic belief that cutting taxes and decreasing the size of government is the solution to every economic problem we face, and then demonstrating their hypocrisy when they come to power. Thus they can legitimately claim that their principles have never failed since they never have been truly tried.

Liberals - Assuming that negotiating and appeasing those on the far right will actually help them enact their proposals when, in fact, there is nothing that could persuade the extreme right to support anything remotely liberal. Thus liberals look weak, alienate those who could actually be convinced to support their proposals, and effectively fail to govern.

MBunge,

And you are a great of someone who thinks he is above the fray and therefore is even more mired in the fray than me or Jillian.

Also a great example of someone who thinks he is humble and therefore is not.

Conservatives - the *hard power* approach of imperialism and social engineering.
Liberals - the *soft power* approach of imperialism and social engineering.

Liberals are like the Sacajawea anecdote about how she carried her baby and he thought he discovered the Pacific (h/t, Bert Cooper). They fail to honor what made this country great and how it came to be this way. Every day is capable of being Year Zero for them (e.g., the World Began with the BHO Inauguration). Liberals always want to change the *country*, when they should rather focus on changing the govt instead.

Conservatives are bound to just as many interest groups and identity politics problems as they accuse liberals of, and they pretend they aren't. They are just as PC as liberals, but in a different way, where orthodoxy rules supreme (e.g., many folks' unwillingness to see how anyone could find Sarah Palin interesting).

No. 1 mistake American liberals make: Assuming that all Human problems can be corrected by either redesigning or eliminating flawed institutions through the use of State power.

Prosecution Exhibit 1: the “health care reform debate”.

Prosecution Exhibit 2: the “New Deal”;

Prosecution Exhibit 3: the “civil rights movement”.

In all three cases, the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in, with invariably nasty, messy results. The product of the “health-care reform” debate will be further consolidation of State power over the American economy and society through its de facto alliance with large-business interests. The “New Deal” produced a series of programs that have grown out of control and are now parasitizing the US economy. The “civil rights” movement has gone from a relatively straightforward movement emphasizing equality under law to a redistributionist coalition of power-grabbing groups based on stated “victim” status that undermines the very “equality” said groups claim to advocate.

No. 1 mistake American conservatives make: The uncritical acceptance of “capitalism” as being the same thing as the free market.

Prosecution Exhibit 1: “Pop culture”;

Prosecution Exhibit 2: The narrowing of acceptable public political discourse since (roughly) 1890.

Prosecution Exhibit 3: The continuing quasi-alliance of social conservatives with the Republican faction.

A free market involves a political liberty: the liberty of buyers and sellers to enter into transactions without restriction by State power. “Capitalism”, or, more accurately, “corporatism”, is the unequal restriction of a political liberty: the higher echelons of large economic bodies using and interacting with people in the higher levels of the agencies of State power to restrict or contort markets to the benefit of those large economic bodies, often in conscious alliance with those same upper-level members of the State elite.

By such actions, the currently-dominant large economic bodies attempt to hinder the development of independent concentrations of wealth, the owners of which might later become rivals for the favors dispensed by the political regime. They tacitly support political actors (Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, for example) who support expanded State authority—leaving their corporations/lobbying groups in a favorable negotiating/leveraging position vis-a-vis their smaller rivals.

By entering into political alliance with those large economic bodies under the GOP banner, social conservatives weaken themselves in two ways: they give tacit approval to the efforts made by corporate bodies to weaken institutions (such as families, religious groups and local communities) that might otherwise oppose or even thwart their activities. They also deprive themselves of public legitimacy in their criticism of corporate activities. The dominant position of corporate-imposed “popular”culture is strengthened thereby.

Let us remember that “popular”/”pop” culture is neither. It does not arise organically from the efforts and activities of individuals and families themselves but is imposed on those individuals and families from the outside. Therefore it is not “popular”. The ideals and concepts embedded in the products of the great corporations (hyperconsumption and the constant search for instant gratification) are sensate and directed to appeal to the body rather than the higher mind, real Human relationships, or even real Human activities. Therefore it cannot be described as “culture”.

To no small extent, the kind of “culture” the great corporations (and their allies in the State apparatus) espouse is the kind of culture one would expect to be produced in a laboratory: mental, physical and emotional disease. “Liberals” and “conservatives” alike would do well to remember that, and to take appropriate prophylactic measures.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

I'm gonna go with forestwalker.

Liberals: voting for Democrats, who are just going to sell out their ideals for corporate money and more federal power for themselves.

Conservatives: voting for Republicans, who are just going to sell out their ideals for corporate money and more federal power for themselves.

I differentiate between pundits (some of whom fall into the trap of producing “palatable journalism”) and ordinary people, some of whom do discuss shortcomings and perceptions much more candidly than big name spokesmen do. Based on public image, I would say the weaknesses – somewhat related but coming from different places -- are:

Liberals: failure to dig deeply and understand what lies behind some of the status-based concerns and anxieties of voters who aren’t like them. These are things that some voters often feel in an inchoate way (“Dad held a factory job and supported his family, how can I live up to the commendable standard of family responsibility he set and to which I aspire?”) Too often, liberals make fun of status anxieties because the people expressing them aren’t liberals. They fail to see the value of giving some thought to why some people worry about how they and their families fit in into a changing world. This blindspot can limit their ability to sell public policy proposals to voters.

Conservatives: Fear of dissent and over valuing of message discipline. Rejection of empathy and over-reliance on feminization of opponents as a means of undermining critics. (These first to two show up in the silence which has greeted John Derbyshire’s observation that the U.S. would be better off if women could not vote.) Disdain for “compassionate conservatism” of a type championed by former Bush aide Michael Gerson, who famously said this creates an image of party of shriveled hearts. Too often, conservative pundits offer a hypermasculine response which weakens them because it deprives them of communications tools from which they otherwise might benefit.

Adapted from Lord Kath:

"Obamaism, or, more accurately, “corporatism”, is the unequal restriction of a political liberty: the higher echelons of agencies of State power using and interacting with people in the higher echelons of large economic bodies to restrict or contort subsidiary institutions to the benefit of those agencies of State power, often in conscious alliance with those same upper-level members of the economic elite.

By such actions, the currently-dominant large State bodies attempt to hinder the development of independent concentrations of power, the wielders of which might later become threats to the favors dispensed to the State by the corporate regime. They tacitly support economic actors who further expanded corporate authority—leaving their agencies/lobbying groups in a favorable negotiating/leveraging position vis-a-vis their smaller rivals -- i.e. subsidiary institutions."

BillH:

Name a country that has had a positive experience in the last 100 years.

"Also, they seem incapable of acknowledging that we can learn any positive lessons from the experience of people who lived before 1950."
Ain't that the damned truth. They are also incapable of recognizing that they are destroying the most successful country ever on this planet.

The full Herbert quote:

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptable. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.

http://findquotations.com/quote/by/Frank+Herbert/1?sort_by=votes+DESC

I submit that it is not physical violence that deserves our attention here, but the violence inherent in the acquisition and use of power by way of competitive struggles between the rivals for that power. The rhetoric used by legislative majorities is illustrative.

Crustacean - "And you are a great of someone who thinks he is above the fray and therefore is even more mired in the fray than me or Jillian.

Also a great example of someone who thinks he is humble and therefore is not."

And where have I ever stated that I think of myself as humble? Seriously dude, if you're going to be a thin-skinned prig, at least come up with insults based on what I actually post and not your fevered fantasies about what you think I mean.

Mike

*We don't really need a third party to accomplish the return of this ethic. What we need is far simpler: The establishment of a "none of the above" slot on every ballot, and a law the declares no winner if NOTA has the highest vote.*

And then the same corrupt machines that put up the other two candidates will field yet two more puppets who will be beholden to the Elephant or Donkey and their handlers.

NOTA, while a nice salve for the conscience, does nothing to truly disrupt the problems inherent in the two major parties. The only way to truly change things within those parties is to build a credible third party candidacy and challenge them at the ballot box.

Of course, given the laziness of the average voter these days such a thing will likely never happen. It's far easier (and cheaper) to sit around and complain than to actually get out and do something about the problem. As we see every four years, it is only the zealots on both sides who truly commit the shoe leather and time necessary to build the two major parties. The idea of the average Joe or Jill going to an organizational meeting or two, or to a caucus meeting, or to even a neighborhood get together to explore a new party construct would go over like a lead balloon in most cases.

NOTA, IRV, and the like are valuable only after a credible third party (or two...or three) are active and flexing their muscle. Until then, they are bandaids over a cancerous tumor.

hlvanburen, your points are well taken. In my defense, I didn't intend to address those points.

As a first step, a NOTA provision takes away a portion of the power of parties to dictate "puppet" candidates. While I have a rather large head of contempt for the lazy voters, I also see another side of that: parties just don't have motivation to field candidates that will bring those voters to the polls.

It's a complex entity that cannot be fully covered in a forum like this one. NOTA is a step, not a solution. If it is seen and used as a solution, you are quite right that it can never be better than a bandaid. How it is applied can be critical: Sure, let the parties keep throwing puppets at the voters, but if they just respond with yet another NOTA rejection, at some point the parties will see third parties blossom, and I'm sure they will not want to let that happen like that.

*As a first step, a NOTA provision takes away a portion of the power of parties to dictate "puppet" candidates. While I have a rather large head of contempt for the lazy voters, I also see another side of that: parties just don't have motivation to field candidates that will bring those voters to the polls.*

Franklin, I would accept your premise if it were not for the fact that the presence of up to 10 other parties on the ballot does not seem to dissuade the "big two" from putting up puppets.

Back in '96, a friend was working locally for Alan Keyes for President. He was getting more and more frustrated as the campaign went on. One day I asked him why, and he said that he was having no trouble finding folks who agreed wholeheartedly with Keyes' message and proposals. But they would not commit to voting for him. Why? Because they felt he could not win, and therefore they did not want to waste their vote.

Wasting your vote. What in hades does that mean? It means that she sheeple have bought into the message of the two big parties: the OTHER FELLOW is a demon, and we cannot allow him to win! A vote for a third party candidate is, therefore, a wasted vote as it does nothing to defeat the demon the other party is running.

I saw this in the last election as well. Lots of people I know were far less than content with the candidacy of Obama. Yet they voted for him not because he was the best candidate on the ballot, but because he was not a Republican. Same for many folks who voted for McCain, saying that they saw Obama and the Democrats as the greater of two evils.

NOTA and IRV do little if anything to combat this mentality, and I would posit that it is this that is at the core of our problems today. Many people do not vote FOR the candidate of their choice, the one who best represents their values and beliefs. Instead they vote AGAINST the candidate they have been told to hate. And as a result we end up with incompetent boobs who are beholden to the party bosses instead of the electorate.

About the "heretic hunting" comment.

The recent sudden and massive leftward lurch by Congress - and we're talking about the last half dozen years or so, culminated by the current extremism on the left, has caused a lot of conservatives like myself to draw a "line in the sand" so to speak. If a politician begins to talking to Democrats and hinting they're willing to go further left, then they're just the same losers of pre-Obama unprincipled GOP leftward drift.

We're no longer interested in "arresting" or "slowing" leftward drift, we actually have decided that we need to move our direction. That is to actually move rightward on a wide range of issues. What we do know, is that if you're willing to jump into and approve of Cap and Tax, for instance, you're simply a radical leftist. Radical? of c ourse radical. The notion of the government claiming CO2 a climate danger... And that it has a moral authority to declare a limit and then profit from people's inability to survive within that limit is so radical, so absurd, so insane and such an anethema to a free people it can't called anything BUT radical. And dangerous, too.

So, while you like to call it "heretic hunting" most people are actually just trying to find someone who has more than just some expedient posturing about conservative issues.

It is completly pointless in electing people to the GOP, who are simply going to vote for the radical left agenda. We've gone too far, the nation is facing near immediate destruction from the pure insanity of the left, and it simply has to be undone. Not compromised on, not "just a little less" or "not quite as far as otherwise", but... reverse course until we reach some kind of sanity.

Oh, and why on earth do you ever listen to liberals? I mean, hear them and understand their insanity, but why on earth should you be influenced by them? They have nothing which can enlighten a human being.

"What the bleep are you talking about? If they enact a public option as a part of health care reform, that would certainly qualify as a "leftward" move. But outside of that, what leftist actions has the Congress taken in the last half dozen years that should get anyone excited? I ask because there's a heck of a lot of leftists who would love to know what your talking about so they won't feel so disappointed in Obama and the Democrats."

Higher taxes, concentrated power in DC, extreme regulation, Bailouts, the growth of pure insanity like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the funding by the billions, of leftist brainwashing efforts like Acorn and the scores of money wasters like them, and the list goes on and on.

I mean, seriously, you actually think we're not living in a country with totally runamock government? Both the states and the federal government are so extremely far beyond their boundaries it is a complete affront to even the idea of "certain inalienable rights".

What planet do you live on where you can't recognize the absolutely crushing leviathan of government on every level? Do you REALLY think that government and the cost of its regulations should consume the vast majority of everything to work to earn, and that is "normal"? Everything you buy has some huge portion of "government inflicted" costs built into it. Either it's direct, and you fork over the money, or its indirect, and you buy something imported from some place where manufacturing fled to escape the devastating crush of insane power-mad government.

Upper middle class people can't save a dime. We're actually DEBATING having the federal government force you to buy a very expensive service, without any option. Buy or jail. That's not liberal insanity??? Of course it is. In a sane era that idea would be so reviled that those who suggested it would be instantly deprived of power and possibly jailed, for suggesting such an oppressive notion so violently crushing to the notion of constitutional government.

We haven't lurched to the far radical left? Of course we have. The fact that it is actually a possibility that Obamacare or whatever name you might assign it can be written in Congress is absolute and unarguable proof of the current present radical extremism, coupled with the near absolute loss of freedom. The very idea it would have to be "debated" at all is proof positive that the country has wildly lurched left.

Back in the days when rationality governed the debate, the idea was laughed out of polite company for it's sheer stupidity. To their credit, the left has been persistent... Those on the left have devoted their entire lives and a political party to this extremism. Two generations of indoctrination in schools, almost complete extinction of rationality in the media, entertainment, and art worlds HAS extinguished the light of intelligence, and so dumbed down the average mind that they're now willing to be so bullied and controlled, and the controlling efforts started the all new level and stage a decade ago.

And now it is time for the right to be as dedicated, resolved, determined, and indeed, as forceful. It is time to extinguish the power of the insanity of the left and be replaced with some light of freedom. The kind that caused the building of this nation in the first place. The kind of light that inspired a statue in New York Harbor.

Sane US: "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,"

Insane US: "Give me free stuff!"

Insane politics: "Vote for me and I'll give you stuff someone else pays for".

"Higher taxes, concentrated power in DC, extreme regulation, Bailouts, the growth of pure insanity like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the funding by the billions, of leftist brainwashing efforts like Acorn and the scores of money wasters like them, and the list goes on and on."

1. What taxes have gone up in the last 6 years?

2. The current spurt of power concentration in DC started immediately after 9/11. Why did it take you several years to notice or be concerned?

3. I guess you can classify bailouts as leftist. But then you've got to embrace global economic and financial collapse as conservative.

4. Please tell me you're not one of those ignorant buffoons who think Freddie and Fannie were the cause of the housing market meltdown.

5. Although, I guess if you think ACORN is a serious problem and not an amusing sideshow, you may be one of those ignorant buffoons.

And by the way...

"Back in the days when rationality governed the debate"

When the bleep has rationality EVER governed political debate? Or do you just "before women and blacks could vote"?

Mike

Re: I had heard the Baucus plan would levy stiff fines against those who do not purchase insurance, but jail?

The Baucus plan fines are pretty nominal and large numbers of people would be exempt even from those, which is why the insurance companies are so upst. And no one would be sent to jail, unless they flat out committed contempt of court by refusing payment when they had the resources, which is true of every fine, even traffic tickets.