Liberals

[Lil' Hannah]

Originally posted by Betarulz!
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Good post...I agree 100%, but didn't have time to type it out.

[SilverTurtle]

Thanks you for articulating exactly what I was thinking.

I come from a lower-middle class family and a rural school district. Not an inner city school district or the poorest school district, just and average one. And because my parents both have worked hard, they were able to help me pay for college. But since I also paid for college (and will be for a looong time with my loans) that meant I had jobs all through school. That meant I didn't get to take some sweet internships because they didn't pay or didn't pay enough for me to pay for school and eat. Opportunities are very drastically limited when you don't have a lot of money. I've earned my college degree, and I still struggle to pay all of my bills and loans every month.

Originally posted by Betarulz!
The problem with this "logic" is that when comparing it to the real world and the point you are trying to make, you fail to take into account the difference in conditions that make poor areas poor and affluent areas rich.

I know of no liberals who are for the equality of success. There is a dire need however in terms of equality of opportunity. I know this because I can look at myself and realize that I've been given a lot of chances to succeed not because of the work I've done, but because I live in an upper middle class suburb. My HS friends parents are all lawyers, doctors, and engineers. I'd say probably a good 15% own their own successful small business, and I'm willing to bet that probably 75% of them have degrees beyond a Bachelors degree. I look at my HS and I realize that it's only been open for 10 years. I know that when I went there, each classroom had at least 1 computer and many had 3, 4, or 5. We had 3 very large computer labs. I had new textbooks in at least one class every year, and I got the chance to do all sorts of unique things. Compare this to an inner city school, or that of a small rural school district like so many of the people I've met in college and there is no comparison. They didn't have computers in every classroom, they had art and music programs cut, they had to learn using older textbooks that didn't have the most recent history or discoveries covered in them. And this is just in my experience. I look at my little brother, and he's going to a HS that opened just last August, and every student there got a free palm pilot, the 1/2 the classrooms have these white boards that are called "smart boards" that when you use special markers they will change and edit powerpoint presentations. When they read a novel in english, they don't receive the book in print, they get it beamed to their palms and they read it on that.

Knowing this, does it surprise me that I had no problem getting into college, and if I had wanted to go into debt that I could have gone practically anywhere? And all this is only a discussion of the physical, tangible assets my school had. Compare the fact that the average salary for a teacher in my former school district is in the top 5 in the state of Kansas, we also got the best teachers, the ones who had multiple job offers because of their skills.

All this adds up to show that I got opportunities that other kids didn't. I didn't have to work nearly as hard to get to college as many of the people I've met in college. Where the vast majority of the people I graduated with went to some sort of 4 year school, I talk to friends from rural nebraska where they were among only a handful of students that even left the town. They tell me stories about going home to find out that 4 more girls they graduated with are having their second kid.

I know for a fact that there many kids who worked 1000x harder than I did in HS to get good grades and do the right thing, but they didn't get the opportunity to go to college. They worked harder than I did, but simply because of where I grew up, I got the advantages, and people I grew up with who didn't work at all have gotten farther than some of those kids.

Everyone wants to think that the US is a meritocracy, where you are rewarded by the amount and quality of the work that you do, but until everyone can start out on a far more equal setting then that idealization will never, ever come true. It is that chance to become more equal, where the life that people live is truly determined by the choices they make, that Liberals are working for. Only then will youre little analogy be true to the real world in the United States.

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by swissmiss04
That's a very astute observation. I think the misconception that many people have about liberalism is that they're all about free handouts and making everyone the same in pseudo-Communist fashion. This is not the case. It's stupid to think that everyone can be successful and influential. On the other hand, it's wrong that people are denied opportunities because of their race, religion, or SES. What people choose to do with the opportunities given determines their success. I am all for offering equal opportunities for everyone. I am not for bailing people out because they blew it and chose to do drugs or commit crimes.

Saying that all liberals are for free handouts is like saying that all conservatives are against helping poor people.

I think that misconceptions about liberalism arise from people, in the US, who call themselves "liberal." Most are ignorant about what liberalism really is. Australians have a Liberal Party, and its for free (liberal) markets, and a minimal involvement in peoples lives. Its kind of like a moderate version our Libertarian Party, but with more foreign involvement. Europeans are also far more accurate with the label of "liberal."

Most people who I know IRL, and on this board, who call themselves "liberals" are social-democrats. They tend to have illiberal attitudes that become quite apparant when one is aware of the tenetts of classical liberalism. There's an old saying that "most macro-liberals are micro-fascists." This rings more true in the US where most self proclaimed liberals, really aren't.

One day I'll do some homework and find out exactly when, and why, the American definition of liberalism became so contorted. It seems to have occurred sometime in the first third of the 20th Century, and the change seems to have been driven by a Marxist reconstruction of linguistics to meet political agendas, the very act of which is profoundly illiberal.

So, I wouldn't call people's impressions of liberals, in this country, so off base. If most "liberals" actually knew what classical liberalism was, and honsetly labeled themselves, these misconceptions would go away.

[swissmiss04]

Excellent post Russ! I did some Googling and found a really nice link that explains classical liberalism. Towards the end of the first section it explains/theorizes why the American definition of liberalism changed (it was around WWI). Interesting read, if you have a few minutes.

See this

One thing I have learned in my 23 years is that the more you earn, make, etc. the more is expected of you. Basically, you have more responsibility to others and to yourself. With this said and taxation being discussed (not grades, necessarily), if you make $200,000+, then you have worked hard to gain a certain place in life and you expect to be respected for your attainment, right? I would guess yes. Why can't someone expect something of you? People expect those of us who have college degrees to not act like dumb idiots. The minute you gain a respected position in life or $200,000+ does not mean social and personal responsibility flies out the window.

The more you gain, the more responsibility is given.

[valkyrie]

What's the point of arguing politcs?

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Taxes are an unfortunate part of life. In New York, you work from January to the middle of May for the government. I remember when I figured out that I worked all day Monday and until about 2:30 Tuesday in order to pay my taxes. I was pretty shocked.

[Rudey]

When I make enough money for this to be worth it, most of my income will be moved offshore.

-Rudey

[Kevin]

Originally posted by ztawinthropgirl
One thing I have learned in my 23 years is that the more you earn, make, etc. the more is expected of you. Basically, you have more responsibility to others and to yourself. With this said and taxation being discussed (not grades, necessarily), if you make $200,000+, then you have worked hard to gain a certain place in life and you expect to be respected for your attainment, right? I would guess yes. Why can't someone expect something of you? People expect those of us who have college degrees to not act like dumb idiots. The minute you gain a respected position in life or $200,000+ does not mean social and personal responsibility flies out the window.

The more you gain, the more responsibility is given.

You state that as if it's just the way things are. That may be the way that you perceive them to be, but it's definitely not a unanimous perception.

For someone to "expect" me to give them money because I make a lot isn't really fair to me. It's certainly not just. If some of my friends who decided they'd rather have kids in HS than diplomas expect me to pay their food, rent, etc., and I say no, does that make me a "dumb idiot"?

Social and personal repsonsibility should rest with the each individual. It should be primarily to themselves. That's where our philosophies primarily differ.

[cashmoney]

Originally posted by ztawinthropgirl
One thing I have learned in my 23 years is that the more you earn, make, etc. the more is expected of you. Basically, you have more responsibility to others and to yourself. With this said and taxation being discussed (not grades, necessarily), if you make $200,000+, then you have worked hard to gain a certain place in life and you expect to be respected for your attainment, right? I would guess yes. Why can't someone expect something of you? People expect those of us who have college degrees to not act like dumb idiots. The minute you gain a respected position in life or $200,000+ does not mean social and personal responsibility flies out the window.

The more you gain, the more responsibility is given.

You got it all wrong...its not the more you gain, it's the more power you have the greater the responsibilty becomes. Just because you make 200,000+ a year doesnt mean you have the power. I can be a millionaire and have less power that a $25,000 a yr state represenitive has. And just because you have a college degree doesnt mean people expect you to not act like an idiot. Every year when Florida plays Florida State in the state rivalry football game, I expect there to be massive amount of idiotic FSU fans running their mouths all the time.

[cashmoney]

Originally posted by Rudey
When I make enough money for this to be worth it, most of my income will be moved offshore.

-Rudey

But you'll still be taxed unless you do it under the table and in that case the IRS will catch up with you eventually.

[Rudey]

Originally posted by cashmoney
But you'll still be taxed unless you do it under the table and in that case the IRS will catch up with you eventually.

Not really. Your income outside of this country is taxed differently, hence the rapid rise of accounts in the caymans.

And even if I just didn't declare it, that's nothing new. Immigrants are largely into cash businesses that are undeclared - hence why they often refuse to accept credit cards. The government wouldn't even know where to start.

-Rudey

[cashmoney]

Originally posted by Rudey
Not really. Your income outside of this country is taxed differently, hence the rapid rise of accounts in the caymans.

-Rudey

My parents thought about doing this but decided against it. My dad's mom worked for the IRS. You wouldn't believe how much they know about you're finances and where they go and what you declared or didnt. There's always a paper trail.



But yea, if I had enough money...I'd pack up and leave and then open accounts in Zuerich.

[cuaphi]

Okay, I really don't want to go into this too intensely but I think when you say "I don't want people mooching off of my riches" you sound like a sheltered rich kid who has no idea what it's like for the millions who live paycheck to paycheck. Just because you (and I) were born into relative affluence doesn't give us the right to judge those who didn't. I indirectly work for the department of human services. Do you know how little you have to make to get food stamps, how little that helps and how many restrictions there are on them? It's not a handout, it's basic subsistance.

This isn't about giving stuff to people who screwed up their lives, it's about not letting people starve and die of perfectly cureable diseases in the midst of the richest nation in the world.

Please don't flame me, I won't fight back. I just needed to say this.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by cuaphi
Okay, I really don't want to go into this too intensely but I think when you say "I don't want people mooching off of my riches" you sound like a sheltered rich kid who has no idea what it's like for the millions who live paycheck to paycheck. Just because you (and I) were born into relative affluence doesn't give us the right to judge those who didn't. I indirectly work for the department of human services. Do you know how little you have to make to get food stamps, how little that helps and how many restrictions there are on them? It's not a handout, it's basic subsistance.

This isn't about giving stuff to people who screwed up their lives, it's about not letting people starve and die of perfectly cureable diseases in the midst of the richest nation in the world.

Please don't flame me, I won't fight back. I just needed to say this.

It depends on where you are.

There are plenty of folks on the welfare roles in my state who are doing fine financially. They get most of their income as unreported cash and then turn around and collect benefits. They'll never be caught because the caseworkers in my state are overloaded and undereducated (you only need a bachelor's in anything to be a social worker).

If someone screws up their own lives, they should be given more incentive to make things work. Not incentive to have a basic subsistance provided for them without them having to do anything. As for dying of certain diseases, I'd say it completely depends on what the disease is. Sometimes, I feel that people should have to suffer the consequences of their own stupidity -- it's called natural selection.