Defining "Liberalism"

[TemplarKormac]

And [MENTION=41417]Dragonlady[/MENTION]

Need I remind what the Democratic Party more closely resembles (although they deny it):

http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/319919-defining-liberalism-10.html#post8037348

 

[Cecilie1200]

One concept which conservatives have completely failed to grasp is that the tide of progress that raise SOME boats and swamps others, is a destructive force. Since Reagan introduced right wing economic policies in the 1980's, poverty has increased, necessitating increased social spending to counter its effects.

Reagan's response was to blame the poor for their plight and right wingers have continued to do so to this day. Wages for the working class stagnated, spending on public education hasn't kept pace with inflation which lead to the quality of education at schools in low income districts to deteriorate, all of which is blamed on the poor themselves.

The quality of life in the US for 80% of the population continues to decline and still the right blames social spending for that decline, rather than tax cuts and loopholes which benefit the top income individuals and corporations.

As long as average citizens and small businesses are unfairly bearing higher tax rates than top corporations and high income individuals, wealth will continue to flow upward and the US will lose ground in quality of life, infrastructure and education to those countries which continue to finance the health and education of their populations, and who put people and families ahead of corporations and profits.

. . . And now I'm waiting for the corroborating evidence for all these sweeping, vague claims, since it certainly didn't appear in this delusional post.

 

[Billy000]

PoliticalChic, are you incapable of forming your own opinions? It seems all you do is parrot garbage fallacy written by other people.

I know its much easier to assume ALL liberals think the same way, and that the ideology can be simplified down to terms a 4 year old Glenn Beck can understand, but believe it or not, it is much more nuanced than that. In fact, most things are more nuanced than that.

You are really embarrassing yourself with this thread.

 

[Rinata]

Whittaker Chambers wrote in his book WITNESS that liberals are/were incapable of ever effectively fighting Communism because they did not see anything in Communism that was antithetical to their own beliefs. In short, Liberals are Communists and Communists are Liberals.

Why are you so impressed with this man?? Because The Heritage Foundation seems to just worship him?? They should call themselves The Liars Foundation. But I'm sure YOU believe everything they say.

Have you ever read Chamber's biography? It is a fascinating read because he has not only studied Communism as deeply as any person has done, but he lived it for a good long time. He died 12 years before the Heritage Foundation was founded.

Chambers, through his own logic and reason and not via influence by any other, came to see Communism for what it is and he rejected it in favor of capitalism. And even though he died in the early 1960's, he had already seen that the U.S. was rushing headlong into the same kind of flawed thinking that made Communism so unpalatable to him. But he did believe Communism, due to its willingness to be totally ruthless and merciless, would conquer us all.

Still quoting from the book Witness he wrote:

“Like the soldier, the spy stakes his freedom or his life on the chances of action. The informer is different, particularly the ex-Communist informer. He risks little. He sits in security and uses his special knowledge to destroy others. He has that special information to give because he once lived within their confidence, in a shared faith, trusted by them as one of themselves, accepting their friendship, feeling their pleasures and griefs, sitting in their houses, eating at their tables, accepting their kindness, knowing their wives and children. If he had not done these things he would have no use as an informer.... I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.”

No, I didn't read it. It's not something that would interest me. Also, I said that The Heritage Foundation just seemed to worship him and his work and ideas. Whether he himself was involved with them, I had no idea.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Why are you so impressed with this man?? Because The Heritage Foundation seems to just worship him?? They should call themselves The Liars Foundation. But I'm sure YOU believe everything they say.

Have you ever read Chamber's biography? It is a fascinating read because he has not only studied Communism as deeply as any person has done, but he lived it for a good long time. He died 12 years before the Heritage Foundation was founded.

Chambers, through his own logic and reason and not via influence by any other, came to see Communism for what it is and he rejected it in favor of capitalism. And even though he died in the early 1960's, he had already seen that the U.S. was rushing headlong into the same kind of flawed thinking that made Communism so unpalatable to him. But he did believe Communism, due to its willingness to be totally ruthless and merciless, would conquer us all.

Still quoting from the book Witness he wrote:

“Like the soldier, the spy stakes his freedom or his life on the chances of action. The informer is different, particularly the ex-Communist informer. He risks little. He sits in security and uses his special knowledge to destroy others. He has that special information to give because he once lived within their confidence, in a shared faith, trusted by them as one of themselves, accepting their friendship, feeling their pleasures and griefs, sitting in their houses, eating at their tables, accepting their kindness, knowing their wives and children. If he had not done these things he would have no use as an informer.... I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.”

No, I didn't read it. It's not something that would interest me. Also, I said that The Heritage Foundation just seemed to worship him and his work and ideas. Whether he himself was involved with them, I had no idea.

That's frigging hilarious. If you only knew just how badly you stepped on your johnson here, even you would be embarrassed.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So am I, and proud of it.

Whittaker Chambers wrote in his book WITNESS that liberals are/were incapable of ever effectively fighting Communism because they did not see anything in Communism that was antithetical to their own beliefs. In short, Liberals are Communists and Communists are Liberals.

Why are you so impressed with this man?? Because The Heritage Foundation seems to just worship him?? They should call themselves The Liars Foundation. But I'm sure YOU believe everything they say.

Do you know who Whittaker Chambers was?

Short version: he was the Paul Revere of the FDR era.

Check it out.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Why are you so impressed with this man?? Because The Heritage Foundation seems to just worship him?? They should call themselves The Liars Foundation. But I'm sure YOU believe everything they say.

Have you ever read Chamber's biography? It is a fascinating read because he has not only studied Communism as deeply as any person has done, but he lived it for a good long time. He died 12 years before the Heritage Foundation was founded.

Chambers, through his own logic and reason and not via influence by any other, came to see Communism for what it is and he rejected it in favor of capitalism. And even though he died in the early 1960's, he had already seen that the U.S. was rushing headlong into the same kind of flawed thinking that made Communism so unpalatable to him. But he did believe Communism, due to its willingness to be totally ruthless and merciless, would conquer us all.

Still quoting from the book Witness he wrote:

“Like the soldier, the spy stakes his freedom or his life on the chances of action. The informer is different, particularly the ex-Communist informer. He risks little. He sits in security and uses his special knowledge to destroy others. He has that special information to give because he once lived within their confidence, in a shared faith, trusted by them as one of themselves, accepting their friendship, feeling their pleasures and griefs, sitting in their houses, eating at their tables, accepting their kindness, knowing their wives and children. If he had not done these things he would have no use as an informer.... I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.”

No, I didn't read it. It's not something that would interest me. Also, I said that The Heritage Foundation just seemed to worship him and his work and ideas. Whether he himself was involved with them, I had no idea.

"No, I didn't read it."


Dang!
I should have listed anti-intellectualism as a hallmark characteristic of Liberals.

 

[Dragonlady]

Dang!
I should have listed anti-intellectualism as a hallmark characteristic of Liberals.

Have you read The Smug Majority by Pierre Burton? Or the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein? Have you read the New Testament?

People read that which interests them, or re-inforces their point of view. I have never read Marx because I don't believe in communism and I think it's a failed economic model. There are always those whose talents and work ethic will cause them to rise in prosperity, given the opportunity and a stable, well-regulated economic climate. Those people should be able to keep the bulk of their net income for themselves. Otherwise why strive?

I haven't read Ayn Rand because I have no interest. The philosophy of greed and selfishness is abhorent to me and runs against my Christian principles. Jesus was no friend of the wealthy. He urged his followers to sell all of their belonging and follow him, saying it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He told the story of the Good Samaratan who helped the man he found at the side of the road without question, paying for his care from his own pocket with no thought of repayment.

I do read papers and articles which espouse a right wing point of view, in order to find out what the right is thinking, but the attitude of entitlement and greed I find there is appalling to me. I also watched Fox News on the night Obama was re-elected. It was so entertaining to watch Karl Rove completely melt down, and the level of confusion and denial when it turns out that the polls weren't skewed after all, there really are more people voting Democrat than Republican.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Dang!
I should have listed anti-intellectualism as a hallmark characteristic of Liberals.

Have you read The Smug Majority by Pierre Burton? Or the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein? Have you read the New Testament?

People read that which interests them, or re-inforces their point of view. I have never read Marx because I don't believe in communism and I think it's a failed economic model. There are always those whose talents and work ethic will cause them to rise in prosperity, given the opportunity and a stable, well-regulated economic climate. Those people should be able to keep the bulk of their net income for themselves. Otherwise why strive?

I haven't read Ayn Rand because I have no interest. The philosophy of greed and selfishness is abhorent to me and runs against my Christian principles. Jesus was no friend of the wealthy. He urged his followers to sell all of their belonging and follow him, saying it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He told the story of the Good Samaratan who helped the man he found at the side of the road without question, paying for his care from his own pocket with no thought of repayment.

I do read papers and articles which espouse a right wing point of view, in order to find out what the right is thinking, but the attitude of entitlement and greed I find there is appalling to me. I also watched Fox News on the night Obama was re-elected. It was so entertaining to watch Karl Rove completely melt down, and the level of confusion and denial when it turns out that the polls weren't skewed after all, there really are more people voting Democrat than Republican.

Hey, DumbLady.....have you read the United States Constitution?


"Separation of Church and State is in the US Constitution which is why Democrats wanted references to God removed from the platform."

You wrote that, didn't you.
Still lookin' for it?

 

[Foxfyre]

Why are you so impressed with this man?? Because The Heritage Foundation seems to just worship him?? They should call themselves The Liars Foundation. But I'm sure YOU believe everything they say.

Have you ever read Chamber's biography? It is a fascinating read because he has not only studied Communism as deeply as any person has done, but he lived it for a good long time. He died 12 years before the Heritage Foundation was founded.

Chambers, through his own logic and reason and not via influence by any other, came to see Communism for what it is and he rejected it in favor of capitalism. And even though he died in the early 1960's, he had already seen that the U.S. was rushing headlong into the same kind of flawed thinking that made Communism so unpalatable to him. But he did believe Communism, due to its willingness to be totally ruthless and merciless, would conquer us all.

Still quoting from the book Witness he wrote:

“Like the soldier, the spy stakes his freedom or his life on the chances of action. The informer is different, particularly the ex-Communist informer. He risks little. He sits in security and uses his special knowledge to destroy others. He has that special information to give because he once lived within their confidence, in a shared faith, trusted by them as one of themselves, accepting their friendship, feeling their pleasures and griefs, sitting in their houses, eating at their tables, accepting their kindness, knowing their wives and children. If he had not done these things he would have no use as an informer.... I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.”

No, I didn't read it. It's not something that would interest me. Also, I said that The Heritage Foundation just seemed to worship him and his work and ideas. Whether he himself was involved with them, I had no idea.

Perhaps if you were more interested, you might understand why he is sometimes quoted by the Heritage Foundation as well as many others who are impressed by competent analysis and perception.

For that matter have you read the essays and analysis that the Heritage Foundation offers? Or is that not of interest to you either?

On Chambers, this reads like something that blongs in a spy novel thriller, but in fact it is entrenched in American history:

The wave of publicity about Robert Hanssen, a veteran FBI agent who became a master spy for the Russians, brings to mind a far different man--Whittaker Chambers, a veteran Soviet spy who became, in William F. Buckley Jr.'s words, "the most important American defector from Communism." This April marks the 100th anniversary of Chambers' birth.

In August 1948, Chambers, an editor at Time, identified Alger Hiss, a golden boy of the liberal establishment, as a fellow member of his underground Communist cell in the 1930s. Hiss, a former assistant to the Secretary of State and former General Secretary of the United Nations founding conference at San Francisco, and then president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, immediately denied Chambers' allegation.

A great deal more than the reputations of the two men was at stake. If Hiss was innocent, anti-Communism--and the careers of those closely associated with it, like Richard Nixon, a prominent member of the congressional investigating committee--would be dealt a deadly blow. If Hiss was guilty, anti-Communism would become a permanent part of the political landscape, and its spokesmen would become national leaders.

It took two protracted trials (Hiss reluctantly sued Chambers for slander), but Hiss was finally convicted of perjury for denying his espionage activities and sentenced to five years in jail. Hiss went to his grave more than 40 years later still protesting his innocence--and still lauded by many on the Left. But the Venona transcripts of secret KGB and GRU messages during World War II (released in the mid-1990s) confirmed that Alger Hiss had been a Soviet spy not only in the 1930s, but at least until 1945.

In 1952, Chambers published his magisterial, best-selling autobiography, Witness. The work argued that America faced a transcendent, not a transitory, crisis; the crisis was one not of politics or economics but of faith; and secular liberalism, the dominant "ism" of the day, was a watered-down version of Communist ideology. The New Deal, Chambers insisted, was not liberal democratic but "revolutionary" in its nature and intentions. All these themes http://www.usmessageboard.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=8046411

 

[Foxfyre]

Why are you so impressed with this man?? Because The Heritage Foundation seems to just worship him?? They should call themselves The Liars Foundation. But I'm sure YOU believe everything they say.

Have you ever read Chamber's biography? It is a fascinating read because he has not only studied Communism as deeply as any person has done, but he lived it for a good long time. He died 12 years before the Heritage Foundation was founded.

Chambers, through his own logic and reason and not via influence by any other, came to see Communism for what it is and he rejected it in favor of capitalism. And even though he died in the early 1960's, he had already seen that the U.S. was rushing headlong into the same kind of flawed thinking that made Communism so unpalatable to him. But he did believe Communism, due to its willingness to be totally ruthless and merciless, would conquer us all.

Still quoting from the book Witness he wrote:

“Like the soldier, the spy stakes his freedom or his life on the chances of action. The informer is different, particularly the ex-Communist informer. He risks little. He sits in security and uses his special knowledge to destroy others. He has that special information to give because he once lived within their confidence, in a shared faith, trusted by them as one of themselves, accepting their friendship, feeling their pleasures and griefs, sitting in their houses, eating at their tables, accepting their kindness, knowing their wives and children. If he had not done these things he would have no use as an informer.... I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.”

No, I didn't read it. It's not something that would interest me. Also, I said that The Heritage Foundation just seemed to worship him and his work and ideas. Whether he himself was involved with them, I had no idea.

Perhaps if you were more interested, you might understand why he is sometimes quoted by the Heritage Foundation as well as many others who are impressed by competent analysis and perception and/or that which contributes to our understanding of our own history.

For that matter have you read the essays and analysis that the Heritage Foundation offers? Or is that not of interest to you either?

If you did, you would find credible research and thoughtful, well informed non partisan commentary on a broad range of subjects. You will find biting criticism of errant Republican policy every bit as emphatic as criticism of Democratic policy. The tone is decidedly libertarian and does not take sides as much as it seeks to inform on all sides of an issue.

On Chambers, on what would have been his 100th birthday, this reads like something that belongs in a spy novel thriller, but in fact it is entrenched in American history:

The wave of publicity about Robert Hanssen, a veteran FBI agent who became a master spy for the Russians, brings to mind a far different man--Whittaker Chambers, a veteran Soviet spy who became, in William F. Buckley Jr.'s words, "the most important American defector from Communism." This April marks the 100th anniversary of Chambers' birth.

In August 1948, Chambers, an editor at Time, identified Alger Hiss, a golden boy of the liberal establishment, as a fellow member of his underground Communist cell in the 1930s. Hiss, a former assistant to the Secretary of State and former General Secretary of the United Nations founding conference at San Francisco, and then president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, immediately denied Chambers' allegation.

A great deal more than the reputations of the two men was at stake. If Hiss was innocent, anti-Communism--and the careers of those closely associated with it, like Richard Nixon, a prominent member of the congressional investigating committee--would be dealt a deadly blow. If Hiss was guilty, anti-Communism would become a permanent part of the political landscape, and its spokesmen would become national leaders.

It took two protracted trials (Hiss reluctantly sued Chambers for slander), but Hiss was finally convicted of perjury for denying his espionage activities and sentenced to five years in jail. Hiss went to his grave more than 40 years later still protesting his innocence--and still lauded by many on the Left. But the Venona transcripts of secret KGB and GRU messages during World War II (released in the mid-1990s) confirmed that Alger Hiss had been a Soviet spy not only in the 1930s, but at least until 1945.

In 1952, Chambers published his magisterial, best-selling autobiography, Witness. The work argued that America faced a transcendent, not a transitory, crisis; the crisis was one not of politics or economics but of faith; and secular liberalism, the dominant "ism" of the day, was a watered-down version of Communist ideology. The New Deal, Chambers insisted, was not liberal democratic but "revolutionary" in its nature and intentions. . . .
Whittaker Chambers: Man of Courage and Faith

 

[Dragonlady]

I have read papers published by the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute in Canada. In regards to the Fraser, I have found their study and survey methods suspect and their results tainted as a result.

The Heritage Foundation is funded by big oil and multi-nationals and their papers reflect a point of view which reflects the aims and goals of their financial backers.

Neither organization has the best interests of the citizens as their primary goal and both are in thrall to the ideas promulgated by Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Dang!
I should have listed anti-intellectualism as a hallmark characteristic of Liberals.

Have you read The Smug Majority by Pierre Burton? Or the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein? Have you read the New Testament?

People read that which interests them, or re-inforces their point of view. I have never read Marx because I don't believe in communism and I think it's a failed economic model. There are always those whose talents and work ethic will cause them to rise in prosperity, given the opportunity and a stable, well-regulated economic climate. Those people should be able to keep the bulk of their net income for themselves. Otherwise why strive?

I haven't read Ayn Rand because I have no interest. The philosophy of greed and selfishness is abhorent to me and runs against my Christian principles. Jesus was no friend of the wealthy. He urged his followers to sell all of their belonging and follow him, saying it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He told the story of the Good Samaratan who helped the man he found at the side of the road without question, paying for his care from his own pocket with no thought of repayment.

I do read papers and articles which espouse a right wing point of view, in order to find out what the right is thinking, but the attitude of entitlement and greed I find there is appalling to me. I also watched Fox News on the night Obama was re-elected. It was so entertaining to watch Karl Rove completely melt down, and the level of confusion and denial when it turns out that the polls weren't skewed after all, there really are more people voting Democrat than Republican.

We're not talking about a cable news channel, a fiction author or some obscure niche of politics or economics. Not knowing who Whittaker Chambers was requires one to be totally ignorant of a major chunk of 20th century American history . . . and to be utterly unqualified to speak on the subject of liberalism's connection to Communism in modern-day America.

And the fact that you erroneously think you've drawn valid analogies here tells me YOU have no idea who Whittaker Chambers was, or what his significance is to this topic, and that you should ALSO sit down, shut up, and learn from your betters.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I have read papers published by the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute in Canada. In regards to the Fraser, I have found their study and survey methods suspect and their results tainted as a result.

The Heritage Foundation is funded by big oil and multi-nationals and their papers reflect a point of view which reflects the aims and goals of their financial backers.

Neither organization has the best interests of the citizens as their primary goal and both are in thrall to the ideas promulgated by Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics.

Here's one question you forgot to answer while you were rushing to dismiss anyone who isn't affiliated with your personally-approved causes: are they correct?

You can tell me all day long that you don't even bother to read papers by the Heritage Foundation because you don't like their backers and therefore assume that they're biased, but I really doubt you'd actually be able to show me exactly WHERE they're wrong, mistaken, or skewed.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

Meanwhile, whatever "They're conservative, so everything they say is WRONG, and I can't even know WHAT they say because of it!" prejudices you have against the Heritage Foundation, it doesn't change anything about the man they quoted, Whittaker Chambers, or whether or not he knew what he was talking about.

So tell me: was Whittaker Chambers correct? Why or why not? (Yes, this will require you to look him up on Wikipedia and finally figure out who he is.)

 

[Dragonlady]

I just said that I DO read articles and papers published by the Heritage Foundation, as well as other right wing publications.

Not all right wing positions are wrong and not all liberal positions are correct. Both sides have ideas which have merit.

 

[TemplarKormac]

I just said that I DO read articles and papers published by the Heritage Foundation, as well as other right wing publications.

Not all right wing positions are wrong and not all liberal positions are correct. Both sides have ideas which have merit.

You do realize you just completely contradicted yourself, right?

 

[Dragonlady]

I just said that I DO read articles and papers published by the Heritage Foundation, as well as other right wing publications.

Not all right wing positions are wrong and not all liberal positions are correct. Both sides have ideas which have merit.

You do realize you just completely contradicted yourself, right?

I said I have no interest in reading the books that the right wing posters here have suggested but that I do read articles and papers from the Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation among others. There is no contradiction in those statements.

 

[Foxfyre]

I have read papers published by the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute in Canada. In regards to the Fraser, I have found their study and survey methods suspect and their results tainted as a result.

The Heritage Foundation is funded by big oil and multi-nationals and their papers reflect a point of view which reflects the aims and goals of their financial backers.

Neither organization has the best interests of the citizens as their primary goal and both are in thrall to the ideas promulgated by Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics.

Perhaps you could refer to us to an actual example of something from the Heritage Foundation and/or the Frazier Institute that would suggest that they do not have the primary goal of the best interest of the citizens?

How about your child's sixth grade history book? Does it have the best interest of the citizens as its primary goal?

Or is the text book as well as such foundations more interested in delivering good research and solid information so that their readers can use it to inform themselves? And THAT is their primary goal? Do you think good information or flawed information is more in the best interest of the citizens?

 

[Dragonlady]

The stated mission of the Heritage Foundation is "to formulate and promote conservative public policy based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense".

Good research doesn't start with an agenda. It starts with a question and is open to any answer. Heritage starts with an answer and skews the questions to elicit the correct response.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The stated mission of the Heritage Foundation is "to formulate and promote conservative public policy based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense".

Good research doesn't start with an agenda. It starts with a question and is open to any answer. Heritage starts with an answer and skews the questions to elicit the correct response.

You have spent three whole posts doing nothing but talking about yourself and what you do and don't read and what you do and don't think. Amazingly enough, NONE of those things was actually what I asked you, but you mysteriously managed to make one minor, passing remark about yourself into the entire sum total of my post while managing to ignore the actual questions asked.

Were you just trying to avoid answering questions the answers to which you knew would make you look like a jackass, or are you just really that self-absorbed? Or both?

And while we're asking questions, let me repeat the ones that got lost in the mass of your ego: Is the Heritage Foundation correct or not? If not, can you show me exactly where and how? And was Whittaker Chambers correct or not? If not, can you show me exactly where and how?

Oh, and did you ever get around to checking Wikipedia to get a clue as to who he even WAS?