Are your really a libertarian?

The CATO Institute finds 9 to 13 percent of the US population are libertarians in the Gallup surveys, 14
percent in the Pew Research Center Typology Survey, and 13 percent in the American National Election Studies.

The latter is generally regarded as the best source of public opinion data.

However, the libertarian movement is fragmented. There are different kinds on both the left and right side of the GOP. And these libertarian groups are not contiguous on a political spectrum 

There are Anarcho-Capitalists, Civil Libertarians:, Classical Liberals,Fiscal Libertarians, :Geolibertarianis, Libertarian Socialists, Minarchists,  Neolibertarians, Objectivists; and Paleolibertarianins.

Steve Kangas has written that liberals and libertarians were one group when the nation was founded. His view is present minded. The term libertarian appeared when Ayne Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead and she stated her objectivist school which was a reaction to Soviet collectivism. Rand was born in the Soviet Union. 

Rand's ideas were never really accepted by academics. In the 1960s her books were popular on college campuses. 

Many people think they are libertarian because of an online test called the Political Compass that was organated in the UK. If you were to take this test, you would end up in one of these quadrants

Rightardia finds this test simplistic because the political spectrum has many shades of gray that the terms "authoritarian" and "libertarian" really don't define. Authoritarians on the left are usually called Marxists or communist. Authoritarians on the right are called fascists. 

However, how did the political compass authors determine "libertarian" is the opposite of 'authoritarian?"

The antonyms for authoritarian is democratic or liberal and there are far more liberals and progressives than libertarians.

Rightardia suspects the authors of the Political Compass have a libertarian bias. 

Rightardia believes the opposite of authoritarian should be democratic.You would then have one lower quadrant marked liberal and the other libertarian. 

Until the Political Compass fixes its model, we discourage people from taking this test. Classifying people only as authoritarian or libertarian is clearly erroneous. 

Rightardia suggests the lower left quadrants should be labeled liberal and the lower right libertarian. Liberalism is not a philosophy of the left, it is centrist. In the US most libertarians are on the extreme right. These changes would work in he US, but perhaps not in other countries.

It would also be useful to break up the X and Y axis in thirds: on the X-axis, authoritarian, centrist and democratic,. Likewise on the Y-axis, left. center and right.

The Political Compass model is flawed and has a libertrain bias. It confuses liberalism with libertarianism.  

sources: 

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/uscivillibertie1/p/libertarians.htm

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa580.pdf

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Not every one can be a progressive

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What do these advertisers have in common?

Uploaded by campusprogress on Mar 13, 2012

More than 140 companies have pulled their ads from Rush Limbaugh's radio show. 

Learn more:http://campusprogress.org/articles/apology_not_accepted_more_than_140_compani...

Standard YouTube License

source: MoveOn.org

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The progressive view of Obama

The GOP plans to use Obama's own words against him. Obama made plenty of promises in 2008 and he did not keep a lot of them.

This is how Politifact is rating him.

Rightardia's biggest disappointment was Obama's failure to get rid of the Bush tax cuts.

source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/

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Robert Reich: Progressives v.Regressives

Robert Reich

"Progressives believe in openness, equal opportunity, and tolerance. Progressives assume we're all in it together: We all benefit from public investments in schools and health care and infrastructure. And we all do better with strong safety nets, reasonable constraints on Wall Street and big business, and a truly progressive tax system. Progressives worry when the rich and privileged become powerful enough to undermine democracy.

Regressives take the opposite positions.

Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the other tribunes of today's Republican right aren't really conservatives. Their goal isn't to conserve what we have. It's to take us backwards.

They'd like to return to the 1920s -- before Social Security, unemployment insurance, labor laws, the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid, worker safety laws, the Environmental Protection Act, the Glass-Steagall Act, the Securities and Exchange Act, and the Voting Rights Act.

In the 1920s Wall Street was unfettered, the rich grew far richer and everyone else went deep into debt, and the nation closed its doors to immigrants." 

Rightardia: Sound familiar? But the people during the depression understood the politics of the day. Many Americans today seem willfully ignorant today about the real causes of American problems. 

Mitt Romney wants the evil empire back with a large overseas military presence. Herman Cain is pushing a regressive tax plan. John McCain wants to protect   the 40 per cent increase in defense spending since 911 which is pushing the nation into insolvency.  

Many economists suggest that more than 90 per cent of the deficit was caused by an assortment of nearly 60 wars and contingencies the US started since World War 2. 

See the rest of the article at: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/gop-ideals_b_1014396.html

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WIN: Organization calls for progressive tax system

5/18/2011 

---

Mazher Ali: “To start taxing money made from money the same as money made from work is a commonsense measure that could generate significant revenue. And we think we should tax wealth like work.”

United For A Fair Economy’s Mahzer Ali says their Responsible Wealth campaign wants America to return to true progressive taxation as an alternative to huge budget cuts that hurt the most vulnerable.

The Responsible Wealth campaign includes many upper income individuals who advocate higher taxes on investment income as an alternative to slash and burn budgets that shred the social safety net. Taxing wealth like work could generate more than $80 billion a year in federal revenue. Mazher Ali said:

The wealthiest people in this country are paying tax rates that are ultimately lower than most middle class families. Because of this special treatment of capital gains and dividends we’re losing $84 billion in revenue that could be used to avoid budget cuts. It could be used as federal aid to states so that we don’t have to put education and health care on the chopping block.

There’s overwhelming public support nationally for taxing the rich more. A national McClatchy-Marist April poll found 64 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year.

Most taxes that Americans pay are regressive. This includes municipal taxes like real estate and state sales taxes.  The most regressive tax in the US is the Social Security part of the FICA tax. With the $106,800 cap, this tax has a minimal affect on affluent Americans.

The Republicans finally woke up about this and this is probably why Paul Ryan targeted Medicare for cuts. 

The Republicans like to make a big fuss about federal income tax because it is one of the few progressive taxes in the country. However, the GOP has flattened the tax rates for affluent Americans and their tax rate for the wealthiest Americans is only nominally higher than for the middle class.

The most affluent Americans makes money by investing, not by by working. Therefore, most of their income is from capital gains. Of course, the capital gains tax is only 15 per cent and the Bush tax program was extended by president Obama to 2012 after the 112th GOP-controlled congress was seated.

As Steve Kangas has mentioned, many billionaires become wealthy because they underpay workers and slash benefits. Progressive taxes take back some of these excesses in personal income and reinvest it back in society.

This was the model that was used for 50 years after the Great Depression. In 1980, Ronald Reagan came into office with his dubious supply side economics and suggested America would prosper by cutting taxes for the affluent.

Microsoft is a good example of  how small corporate elites becomes wealthy. The company had a reputation for underpaying workers and providing Microsoft stock as an offset. One in three Micro Softies was a temporary worker with no benefits until these workers challenged Microsoft in federal court.

Today Bill Gates is giving his money away. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF or the Gates Foundation) is the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates according to Wikipedia.

We know today that Reaganomics and supply side economics don't work. There are only a handful of American economists who are advocates for supply side economics.

Supply side economics, deregulation, and Wall Street greed led to the Great Bush recession that started in 2007.

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The difference between progressives and conservatives.

by Rightard Whitey

During the holiday season I saw a Star Trek move that I had never seen before that was excellent: it was Star Trek Nemesis that was  made in 2002 and had Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes , Brent Spiner , LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis.

This was the premier Star Trek cast. the only other Star Trek shows we ever watch in the office is  Star Trek: Enterprise with Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer.

Middle Class Warrior, my boss, thought Gates McFadden was one of the most beautiful women on television in her time. She hid an excellent figure under her Star Trek tunic.

However, Marina Sirtis had put on some weight and she looked amazing in the movie, too.

The plot on Star Trek Nemesis centers around Shinzon who has been cloned from Jon Luc Picard, the captain of the enterprise. The dialogue between Shinzon and Picard explains the difference between conservatives and progressives.

Shinzon: Surrender, Captain.

Picard: Give up your anger, Shinzon. Think of what a better person you could become -- a great and noble and respected man, just like me.

Shinzon was raised on the slave planet, Remus, and was created for a single in-the-box purpose, to destroy the Earth. That was all he cared about.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard uses a progressive argument. Get out of your box.You can more than the destroyer of the earth. You can be a better person.

His comments are alien to Shinzon as are progressive ideas to conservatives.

Conservatives like the status quo. They like the box because the box is safer than the threatening world outside of the box.

Progressives are out of the box types. they want to experience new things .

This is clear in the opening title sequence of most episodes of Star Trek:

These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Latin: to boldly go where no man has gone before.

In fact, the Star Trek captains always refer to themselves as explorers rather than warriors. Conservatives prefer to the warrior title.

There are explorer genes in humans. In 1999 scientists observed that populations who migrated farther in the past 30,000 to 1,000 years ago had a higher frequency of 7R/long alleles.

They also showed that nomadic populations had higher frequencies of 7R alleles than sedentary ones. More recently it was observed that the health status of nomadic Ariaal men from Northern Kenya was higher if they had 7R alleles.

 A meta-analysis of 11 studies also find that another polymorphism in another gene, the -521C/T. It showed an association with novelty seeking.

It's the progressives that move society forward and have given women, minorities and gays civil rights. it's progressives that understand that the US can be a greater country than it is.

Conservatives live in the past and try to convince Americans that we are already the greatest country in the world.

With the conservative mindset, there is really nothing left to improve, is there?

Conservatives think the Founders had already figured everything out more than 200 years ago.

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RDT: The two American Dreams

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Liberal spotted: Don't let them out of your sight

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Wikipedia: Progressivism in the United States

Progressivism in the United States is a broadly-based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century. It is generally considered to be middle class and reformist in nature.

It responded to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large corporations and railroads. It reacted to the fears of corruption in American politics.

In the 21st century self-styled progressives continue to embrace concepts such as environmentalism and social justice. Social progressivism, which states that governmental practices ought to be adjusted as society evolves, forms the ideological basis for many American progressives.

It can be contrasted with conservatism which beleives that American values are etched in stone and unchanging since the Founders penned the US constitution. 

One historian defined progressivism as the "political movement that addresses ideas, impulses, and issues stemming from modernization of American society.

Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century, it established much of the tone of American politics throughout the first half of the century."

In the United States there have been several periods where progressive political parties have developed. The first of these was around the turn of the 20th century. This period notably included the emergence of the Progressive Party, founded in 1912 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

This progressive party was the most successful third party in modern American history. The Progressive Party founded in 1924 and the Progressive Party founded in 1948 were less successful than the 1912 version.

There are also two notable state progressive parties: the Wisconsin Progressive Party and the Vermont Progressive Party. The latter is still in operation and currently has several high ranking positions in state government.

Today, most progressive politicians in the United States associate with the Democratic Party or the Green Party US.

In the US Congress there exists the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is often in opposition to the more conservative Democrats, who form the Blue Dog caucus.

Some of the more notable progressive members of Congress have included Dennis Kucinich, Barney Frank, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, John Lewis, and Paul Wellstone.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism

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Usenet: Some thoughts on philosophy and major US political parties

On 07/05/2010 12:03 PM, Mark Sebree wrote:

I was thinking recently about the way what the US political parties tend to try to present themselves as being opposite of one another on many issues, as well as the adjectives that they are often attached to themselves.

If Democrat is the opposite of Republican:

Democrats are often viewed as being liberal and progressives.

Liberal is defined as (by Dictionary.com)

1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression
6. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant
7. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.

Progressive is defined as: 1. favoring or advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are, esp. in political matters
1. making progress toward better conditions; employing or advocating more enlightened or liberal ideas, new or experimental methods, etc.
2. characterized by such progress, or by continuous improvement.
3. going forward or onward; passing successively from one member of a series to the next; proceeding step by step.

These are seen or should be seen by most people as being positive traits.

Opposed to the Democrats are the Republicans, who are generally viewed as being conservative. Conservative is defined as:

1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2.  Traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness

However, since they supposedly the opposite of Democrats, that means that they are also the opposite of being progressive. Which means that they are regressive.

Regressive is defined as:
1. regressing or tending to regress; retrogressive.
2. obtained from or characterized by backward reasoning.
3. Tending to return or revert.
4. Characterized by regression or a tendency to regress.

So, rather than moving forward like the Democrats, Republicans want to move backwards, and return to the days of bigotry, discrimination, and oppression of women, blacks, latinos, homosexuals, non-Christians, and just about everyone else that does not kowtow to their dictates.

In summary, given that the major US political parties like to be seen as opposites, their "labels" become very telling.

Democrats are liberal and progressive. Republicans are conservative and regressive.

Which groups would you rather be associated with? Those that move forward and try to better the world, or those that try to move backward to a less developed and less free world?

--Mark Sebree

Regressive, counter-revolutionary and reactionary are all words that describe conservative political ideas.


Republican tax ideas are, in fact, regressive. Flat taxes and fair taxes are regressive. The only taxes the GOP complains about are the progressive ones: Income Tax and the Estate Tax.


The Republican philosophy is, indeed, regressive.  Their political tactics are reactionary: attacking every piece of Democratic legislation coming out of the House and Senate.

source:

Path: news.usenetmonster.com!spoolset.readnews.com!nx02.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!69.16.185.11.MISMATCH!npeer01.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!postnews.google.com!u26g2000yqu.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail
From: Mark Sebree <sebree@infionline.net>
Newsgroups: alt.abortion,alt.politics
Subject: Some thoughts on philosophy and major US political parties

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The Conservative majority?

by Rightard Whitey

I recently ran into another political blog called the 'Conservative Majority.” First of all the name is a misnomer. There are more moderates than conservatives according to Media Matters. According to Gallup, one in five Democrats is conservative. These Blue Dogs usually vote down the middle but they are hardly the far right ditto head the Republicans call conservatives.

John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira, fellows at the Center for American Progress.America. There study shows political views are evenly divided Between Progressives/Liberals And Conservatives/Libertarian.

For years, traditional public opinion polling has broken down Americans’ political ideology into three distinct groupings: liberal, moderate, and conservative. Based on this simplified categorization, there has been remarkable stability in ideological orientation with roughly one-fifth of Americans identifying themselves as ‘liberal’ and about 4 in 10 classifying themselves as ‘moderate’ or ‘conservative’, respectively, according to Gallup polling from 1992 to 2008.

Two new studies conducted by the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress break down the electorate on a new 5-point scale of political ideology that reflects the primary approaches people ascribe to today. Under this schematic, 34 percent of the country self-identifies as ‘conservative’, 29 percent as ‘moderate’, 15 percent as ‘liberal’, 16 percent as ‘progressive’, and 2 percent as ‘libertarian’.

After moderates are asked which approach they lean towards, the overall ideological breakdown of the country divides into fairly neat left and right groupings with 47 percent of Americans identifying as progressive or liberal and 48 percent as conservative or libertarian and the rest unsure.

As Media Matters has indicated, many moderates hold progressive views. A nation that is evenly split in its political identity is decidedly center-left in its policy orientation:

• By a margin of almost nine to one, Americans agree that “government investments in education, infrastructure, and science are necessary to ensure America’s long-term economic growth,” (79 percent agree, 12 percent neutral, 9 percent disagree).


• More than three in four Americans (76 percent) also agree with the president’s argument that “America’s economic future requires a transformation away from oil, gas, and coal to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.”


• Nearly three in four Americans believe that “government regulations are necessary to keep businesses in check and protect workers and consumers,” (73 percent agree, 15 percent neutral, 12 percent disagree).


• Nearly two in three Americans (65 percent) agree that “the federal government should guarantee affordable health coverage for every American.”

Complementing this agenda are significant demographic shifts that favor progressives. Between 1988 and 2008, the share of minority voters in presidential elections has risen by 11 points, while the share of increasingly progressive white college graduate voters has risen by four points.

But the conservative share of white-working class voters, who have remained conservative in their orientation, has plummeted by 15 points. The overt racism of the GOP will continue to bring more blacks and Hispanics into the Democratic Party.

Regardless of what Americans call themselves, the Democrats had a huge political victory in 2008 due to the incompetence of the Bush administration on a variety of issues such as the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, Social Security, and the financial meltdown. The US came close to being pushed into another Depression by conservative experimentation with deregulation and US financial institutions.

The problem with conservatism in the US is that it has become extremely authoritarian and ideological. Because conservatives are inflexible, they desire to maintain the status quo by being the 'party of no.' In these tumultuous times the Republicans left in their wake, pragmatism and flexibility are essential.

Rightardia has long maintained that libertarians are an insignificant utopian political movement in the US. Ron Paul (R-TX) was never taken seriously by the GOP in the 2008 Republican primary. The 2 per cent of Americans identifying themselves as libertarian seems to prove this.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/11/halpin-teixeria-progressive-study/

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Are you tired of the 'party of stupid's' attack on public education?

The right has been described as anti-intellectual. This anti-intellectualism is personified by Rush Limbaugh who uses emotional rants with few facts in his diatribes. Limbaugh was enrolled in college for two term but failed every course including ballroom dancing according to his mother.

This is a party that seems to embrace ignorance for ignorance's sake, as if "facts and figures" are inconvenient annoyances better left to eggheads who read books. Stephen Colbert's parody of modern Republican leaders rings true for good reasons.

Nicholas Kristof noted that Obama's election, among other things, may mark the end of "the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life."

In August, Paul Krugman had a fairly devastating piece identifying the GOP as "the party of stupid." As the Nobel Laureate explained, "What I mean ... is that know-nothingism -- the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there's something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise -- has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party's de facto slogan has become: 'Real men don't think things through.'"

According to Steve Benen f the party is sincerely looking for a way out of its self-dug ditch, taking facts, reason, and evidence seriously again would be a good start.

GOP ideology

To make matters worse, the party that is the least equipped to deal with Americans educational problems has been tinkering with it. Because of the GOP ideology about privatization and deregulation, the GOP has experimented with corporate Edison Schools which are private schools funded by the state. It has also tried magnet schools which have a specialized curricula like art, music or accelerated classes.

Charter schools are similar to Edison Schools but they are locally organized and not affiliated with a corporation like Edison schools. Charter schools receive startup funds but after the initial year, they are funded identically like public schools by the state.

Funding is the key issue. Whether the school is public, Edison or a charter school, the funding is the same and the educational outcome is very similar for all of these schools.

The Florida Example

Because many Republicans leaders have spent their careers in corporations, they believed that schools could be more effective if they were evaluated. In Florida Governor Jeb Bush got funding for a new test called with The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® (FCAT). There are many educational assessment tests that could have been taken off the shelf. Undoubtedly some happy conservative institution got the contract to reinvent the wheel with the FCAT.

The FCAT was too long and too hard for Florida students. After a couple of years the test was shortened and 'dumbed down.' Even worse teachers started to teach the test, particularly English and math teachers, because they were being evaluated based on their classes performance on the FCAT.

The governor also decided that the 'good teachers' needed to be paid more than the average teachers. Unfortunately when Florida tax revenues crashed after the real estate meltdown, many of the 'good teachers' lost their jobs because they were making too much money. This was the supreme irony in the grand GOP experiment with education in Florida.

To make matters worse, young people are moving from Florida to states with better pay and better schools. As a result of the declining school enrollment, Florida is closing public schools as well.

State senators had approved a $428 million four-year corporate income tax break after it had given out more than $1.5 billion in tax breaks since Jeb Bush's election in 1998 .

Charlie Crist, the current Florida governor, hasn't done much better. He fiddled with real estate taxes which produced an even worse deficit once the sub prime mortgage crises hit Florida. At one time Florida was advocating removing the school system from funding by local real estate taxes. Fortunately Florida voters defeated this bad idea.

Florida was ranked 29^th in the nation in 2006-2007 school year. It is likely its ratings will fall in the next Morgan Quinto rankings because of teacher lay offs and school closures. The real problem with Florida schools is funding. In the 2003-2004 school year Florida spent $8,084 and was ranked 36^th in the nation. The latest per pupil statistic indicated funding is now $6,056 and Florida's rank has dropped to 44^th in the nation.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that the there is a crises in Florida schools and that cannot be resolved with corporate style management or standardized tests. More spending is needed to fix the state school system. It is unlikely that the 'party of stupid' will fix the problem. This is why Florida needs to start electing progressive leadership that will fix the state's school system. Spending more on students is essential in Florida. 

resources:

http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015591.php

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Taking apart a conservative rant

You really didn't learn everything you needed to know in kindergarten: Liberals love to think of themselves as sophisticated, nuanced intellectuals, but the truth is they have a kindergartner's view of the world. If it has been defined as "nice" to people they like, they're for it. If it has been defined as "mean" to people they like, they're against it -- and that is about as deep as it gets. Unfortunately, that lack of adult perspective isn't so cute in political leaders who are making life and death decisions that may still have ramifications fifty years from now.

Most progressives and liberals have attended or graduated from college. According to Lawrence Kohlberg, a Harvard psychologist, post-conventional or liberal thought doesn't develop until 'thirty something.” The closest thing to a kindergarten president was George W. Bush who many academics considered to be anti-intellectual and whose presidency was described as a failure by 90 per cent of presidential historians.

"Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can't stand the competition." -- Ann Coulter: Somewhat ironically, given the hostile relationship that has developed between the Left and Christianity, liberal beliefs have more in common with religious doctrine than a political agenda. There is no significant debate on the Left about the aims of their agenda -- and the only "sins" believers can commit against their religion are no longer being politically useful, deviating from doctrine, or worst of all, cooperating with conservatives in some fashion. No matter how much evidence piles up that big government doesn't work, that welfare destroys families, and that socialism doesn't bring prosperity, it makes no impact on liberals because their dogma is based on faith, not logic.

It is peculiar that a person like Coulter is suggesting the left is more ideological than the right. Religion is based on faith and doctrine. The Democrats won the 2008 election because voters rejected GOP ideologues and wanted more pragmatism in government. The Democratic Party is a big tent that contains progressives, moderates and conservative Blue Dog Democrats. Big government is hardly a feature of the left. Bush was involved with a huge expansion of the federal government when he nationalized airport security and created Homeland Security.Liberals and progressives respect the first amendment. We believe the US is secular state and religion should be kept at arms length from politics.

"It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it." -- Denis Diderot: There is no dream more eternal in the liberal heart than completely remaking human nature. If we could all just care about the person across the world as much as we do our families, we could live in a utopia! Unfortunately, in practice, human nature tends to be quite a bit more difficult to subvert than in the liberal imagination. That's why, despite more than 5,000 years of human civilization, very little progress has been made in this area - but, oh, the Left is still trying. One day, if they just spend enough money on the right government programs, all the wars will end and everyone will be living in identical million dollar mansions while we spend our days humming tunes from the latest Woodstock Tribute Album.

Progressives don't advocate a Utopian vision. We just want a better deal than what we are getting from conservatives who think they own America. US health care is ranked 37th in the world by WHO. Our health care costs twice as much as the other nations of the world. We have weak labor laws. Our social security system is inferior to the Canadian.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive." -- Sir Walter Scott: Like freaky religious cults, liberals have become adept at hiding their more abhorrent views from the public until it's too late. It's common to see liberals adamantly deny that they hold a position over and over again only to completely switch sides the moment they have one more vote than they need to pass legislation. Whether it's lying about their opponents or what they believe, honesty is certainly not considered to be the best policy on the Left.

Yada, yada, yada. How about at least one example of these 'abhorrent views' or please just shut up.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye." -- Matthew 7:3-5: Despite the fact that liberals love few things better than to cry "hypocrisy," there is a rather bizarre disconnect between what modern liberals seem to believe about themselves and how they behave. Liberals believe that they're compassionate, but only with other people's money. They tie themselves in knots trying to come up with valid reasons why terrorists hate the United States, but they never give a moment's thought to whether the people who dislike them might have a point. They pat themselves on the back for helping minorities, but never stop to consider that liberal policies have done more damage to black Americans in the last fifty years than the KKK could have done in a millennium. Somehow, stunning hypocrisies of this sort, which are too numerous to recount without doing a whole other column, never seem to be bother anyone on the Left.

I think progressives understand the basis of Middle Eastern disdain for the US. We have co-opted Middle eastern governments. Iran is a good example. We also have that 'special relationship.' Regarding American minorities blacks once voted Republican because Abraham Lincoln freed them. But in the Great Depression, FDR helped black Americans and they became Democrats. Did you ever wonder why blacks and Hispanics vote Democrat? Your party threw away the black vote because of Republican apathy.

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." -- Benjamin Spock: It's great to have a healthy self-image, but there's not much to be said for thinking you're smarter than the collective wisdom and traditions passed down through human history just because you happen to read the Daily Kos. Unbecoming arrogance of this sort permeates modern liberalism. The most grave of decisions are undertaken by the modern Left without the slightest regard for the potential consequences. Past disasters created by similar bouts of whimsical thinking, of which there are many, are treated as acts of God untethered from mere human decision making and prompt no self reflection whatsoever. That's because to the modern liberal, the real world results of their policies are secondary in importance to the amount of positive self-esteem generated by supporting that policy.

More right wing Kool-Aid. The Democratic Party is far less authoritarian than the GOP. John Dean recently wrote an essay that indicated that Goldwater conservatism had morphed into simple authoritarianism under the leadership of Newt Gingrich when he was the Speaker of the House.when I hear of past disasters I think of Hurricane Katrina and the 'bang up' job that Bush did with that disaster. "Way-to-go, Brownie!"

My suggestion to the writer, John Hawkins, would be to take some American history courses so he can better understand what really has been going on in the US since the 1900s. Take a hard look at the Great Depression and it causes. Read some articles in Wikipedia and find out what real experts think. This guy is a ditto head.

Source: rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/05/my_latest_townhall_column_the_20.php

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