Conservatives and Liberals

[HooDat]

Not sure if I have been reading/hearing it more, or just paying more attention - but I am noticing a lot of discussion around the nature of being conservative versus liberal.

As afan likes to point out people are very prone to think they are one or the other, while allowing party allegiance to override their objectivity.

I will throw out a few definitions for consideration:

conservatives tend to value traditions, institutions and norms that society has developed over the long haul - seeing value that is hard to replicate in them.

liberals tend to value change and are driven by the belief that things can be made better than they currently are.

Both side NEED each other. Conservatives need liberals to point out things that can be improved. Liberals need conservatives to help them realize the things that should be preserved.

[HooDat]

so now the reason I started this thread -

the democrats have begun making noise about proposing two very new things:

- the elimination of the electoral college: which, as I understand their intentions, would turn our republic into a direct democracy that is essentially run by NYC, LA, Chicago and one or two other cities

- increasing the size of the supreme court: court packing hasn't been tried since the godfather of liberalism himself FDR packed the ever living daylights out of the court until he got the decisions he required to enact the policies he wanted.

What do folks think of these proposed changes?

I am not a big fan.

I think the republic nature of our governmental structure is an important check and balance on the swings in popular opinion that can lead to all sorts of bad things happening - plus I am not super keen on the idea of Wall St. and Hollywood making all our decisions for us as a country.

Talk of court packing actually scares me. Fascists are the one's who stack courts in their favor when they can't get what they want from the political system. I understand the dem's frustration - they thought with HRC's victory, they would have the court firmly on their side for the foreseeable future and the pendulum swung the other way. In an ideal (and naive) world, the courts are apolitical. But we don't live there, and so this raises an interesting question - how do we reign in the political nature of SCOTUS nominations?

[Trinity]

Mitch just “packed” the court with Gorsuch instead of Garland. What’s the remedy for that? The court has turned right while Americans vote more often for liberals.

Re—definition:
Two monkeys in a tree. Conservative monkey says to stay in the tree, it’s safe. Liberal monkey says, Let’s see what’s out there, maybe food. Who is right? Depends on where the hungry lion happens to be.

[HooDat]

That is not a real answer. There is a significant difference between stonewalling and seeing a window when you have power and cramming it down the country's throat.

If the GOP had decided to add three more conservative judges while they held the house and oval office, then sure that is the same.

[HooDat]

Re—definition:
Two monkeys in a tree. Conservative monkey says to stay in the tree, it’s safe. Liberal monkey says, Let’s see what’s out there, maybe food. Who is right? Depends on where the hungry lion happens to be.

quite right.

One would hope that the conservatives would say: let's set a watch while we get out of the tree to make sure there aren't any lions.

An open minded conservative needs to be open to the idea of improvement. Just like an open minded liberal needs to be open to the idea that some things are worth saving.

[Trinity]

It will remain a wound on the court for generations. I think it’s already driven Roberts to the center.

[foreverlax]

so now the reason I started this thread -

the democrats have begun making noise about proposing two very new things:

- the elimination of the electoral college: which, as I understand their intentions, would turn our republic into a direct democracy that is essentially run by NYC, LA, Chicago and one or two other citiesI am not ready to go that far, but I am good with canning winner takes all, for percentage of votes gotten

- increasing the size of the supreme court: court packing hasn't been tried since the godfather of liberalism himself FDR packed the ever living daylights out of the court until he got the decisions he required to enact the policies he wanted.Not a fan of the games they're playing, but...balance is good. I like 4/4 with a swing, I wish that is how they put them on the court.

What do folks think of these proposed changes?

I am not a big fan.

I think the republic nature of our governmental structure is an important check and balance on the swings in popular opinion that can lead to all sorts of bad things happening That's a fair reason - except we've had two elections in short order that suggests something may be wrong. Bad things happen - I view Trump winning as a bad thing happening, time well tell how bad.- plus I am not super keen on the idea of Wall St. and Hollywood making all our decisions for us as a country. I feel the same way, but clearly the top 10% of the top 1% like the way the money works just fine. It goes beyond Bankers and Actors - Will Freakin Ross is a prime example. Who are these people.. Broidy? Bunch of scumbags making money and taking us all down.

Talk of court packing actually scares me. Fascists are the one's who stack courts in their favor when they can't get what they want from the political system.Mitch and Trump have stacked the courts, at a record, pace per them. Away from the stacking of like minded folks, my real concern is how many of them are legal morons. I understand the dem's frustration - they thought with HRC's victory, they would have the court firmly on their side for the foreseeable future and the pendulum swung the other way. In an ideal (and naive) world, the courts are apolitical. But we don't live there, and so this raises an interesting question - how do we reign in the political nature of SCOTUS nominations?IMO, I think it's too late for our lifetimes.

I have to believe that our children will be solving these problems, since our generation can't....what do we tell the team when leaving the sidelines? - Leave it better than you found it. We FAILED!

[MDlaxfan76]

I'm a conservative, so I'm loathe to change the rules and norms.

That said, I'm furious about how the GOP has 'changed the rules and norms', just because they could, resulting in what is in effect court packing. Really, really crass partisan hardball.

But the answer isn't an increase in size of the court once the Dems get control, which they likely will in in 2020. It's instead what Roberts has been indeed doing, and then a run of Dem appointments. Restore norms.

It may be frustratingly slow, but it's better. On the other hand, if the Dems get control of the Senate but somehow not the White House, don't expect ANY appointments to get through. It'll be brutal. Payback.

On the electoral college, I'm also not for a direct majority vote. But it may well be time for some sort of adjustment to the allotment so that we don't get screwy results that so defy the majority vote. But it's not an easy thing to change at all, so all this hand wringing about some Dem pandering to their angry base is a bit of much ado about nothing.

Unfortunately, the GOP is no longer the party of 'conservatives'. That's been coming for awhile, but it's never been more clear than under this authoritarian. He may be a "right-wing" authoritarian, but expect left-wing' authoritarianism in response...if we don't figure out how to rebuke authoritarianism, not conservatism.

As you say, HooDat, we need both conservatives and liberals. Not authoritarians.

And yes, the money is a huge part of the problem. Especially where there's no transparency.

So is gerrymandering.

[a fan]

- the elimination of the electoral college: which, as I understand their intentions, would turn our republic into a direct democracy that is essentially run by NYC, LA, Chicago and one or two other cities

Not at all. All it affects is the Presidency. And as we have learned, the Senate packs the SCOTUS, not the President.

The only reason I like this idea is that i HATE the entire "this is a battleground State" horsecr*p where we are literally telling voters in non-battleground States that their vote doesn't matter. That's bad.

The reason I don't like it is: the Dems need to shut up and pick a better candidate. Obama got elected twice just fine. Quit whining.

increasing the size of the supreme court: court packing hasn't been tried since the godfather of liberalism himself FDR packed the ever living daylights out of the court until he got the decisions he required to enact the policies he wanted.

This is where little D's and R's get in the way of thinking clearly.

Plenty of conservatives on the board. Do any of you want to argue that Citizens United was ruled in a Conservative American's favor? Not everything is left-right, no matter how hard the D's and R's try and sell that notion to us....

The court has already burned R voters (fake conservatives), so the entire stick it to Gorsuch plan is already backfiring. As someone pointed out, that game moved Roberts further left. Whoops.

Not a fan of court packing. It won't solve any problems. The 1% run things, and that's who the court caters to, sadly. Having more Justices won't change that.

[ChairmanOfTheBoard]

so now the reason I started this thread -

the democrats have begun making noise about proposing two very new things:

- the elimination of the electoral college: which, as I understand their intentions, would turn our republic into a direct democracy that is essentially run by NYC, LA, Chicago and one or two other cities

- increasing the size of the supreme court: court packing hasn't been tried since the godfather of liberalism himself FDR packed the ever living daylights out of the court until he got the decisions he required to enact the policies he wanted.

What do folks think of these proposed changes?

I am not a big fan.

I think the republic nature of our governmental structure is an important check and balance on the swings in popular opinion that can lead to all sorts of bad things happening - plus I am not super keen on the idea of Wall St. and Hollywood making all our decisions for us as a country.

Talk of court packing actually scares me. Fascists are the one's who stack courts in their favor when they can't get what they want from the political system. I understand the dem's frustration - they thought with HRC's victory, they would have the court firmly on their side for the foreseeable future and the pendulum swung the other way. In an ideal (and naive) world, the courts are apolitical. But we don't live there, and so this raises an interesting question - how do we reign in the political nature of SCOTUS nominations?

while i dont care for labels- i do agree with the above.

i think that if a state (like Colorado) wants to cast it's vote based on something other than the will of it's people- that's fine. however, i think it can be argued that they are in danger of reducing their own power.

... and, if that election goes the wrong way... whoops. (see 2016)

[ToastDunk]

When I hear "I'm not for a direct majority vote" with regards to electing the President, I have to wonder why? I mean, winning by a majority vote doesn't appear on face to be an unfair or biased system for selecting a winner. It makes you wonder how we got this system of the electoral college in the first place...

Oh yeah, the history behind the electoral college which we all should find troubling.

http://time.com/4558510/electoral-colle ... y-slavery/

Suggesting a place with more people gets more votes than say, a place with fewer people sounds... logical. It's math.

[Brooklyn]

conservatives tend to value traditions, institutions and norms that society has developed over the long haul - seeing value that is hard to replicate in them.

liberals tend to value change and are driven by the belief that things can be made better than they currently are.

Both side NEED each other. Conservatives need liberals to point out things that can be improved. Liberals need conservatives to help them realize the things that should be preserved.

Today we often hear/see the word "socialism" bandied about by conservatives. In their minds, every change or improvement libs or progressives suggest is often said to be examples of "socialism". Right wingers know that this term generates fear and immediately provokes angry responses from others righties who are quick to denounce the proposals even if they are constructive. But they succeed only because of the ignorance of the population whose majority fails to realize these changes, these improvements, are not based on socialism but are based upon the teachings of our Founding Fathers. Consider the following, all of which I have discussed before on this and/or on our earlier forum:


No justice, no peace - Many of the right believe this is a Marxian motto which began with the 'power to the people' chants of the 1960s. Those of us who know our history, however, are aware that our Founders believed in it. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were based on it. The idea was not gleaned from Marx (who was born a generation later) but from the writings of Erasmus, of Cicero, and from the Bible in Isaiah 59:8.

Free education - Jefferson wrote about it long before Marx was born.

Infrastructural development via government financing - Washington's letters of 1770 to Maryland lawyer (and future governor) and Hamilton's Report On Manufactures.

Livable wage and social security - See Agrarian Justice by Thomas Paine.

Interstate commerce and regulation - many righties believe our Founders intended to have laissez faire capitalism unrestrained by Congress. In demanding this they are showing their ignorance as Congress has always had the power to regulate interstate commerce as shown in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the US Constitution.





Prior to the Great Depression, we had unrestrained capitalism in the USA. Because of this young children were forced to work and often got injured or killed such as in the horrible Triangle Shirtwaist disaster. The idea of unrestrained capitalism being beneficial to society and the world is one of utopian delusionalism. It was the preservation of this mysticism that led to the Great Depression with millions out of work and political atmospheres which gave rise to Hitlerism. Once FDR reforms were enacted (not real "reforms" but actually the implementation of old ideas which originated with our Founders) society emerged like the Phoenix from the depredations imposed by Hoover and his delusional cabal of right wing laissez faire capitalists.

In recent decades we have seen the economy stifle under laissez faire Republicans Bush I and Bush II. Luckily the economy immediately recovered under the more intelligent and more effective reform policies under Clinton and Obama. The latter two created policies that gleaned many ideas from FDR who in turn got his ideas from our Founders. This proves that preservation of ineffective policies demanded by righties will not work in society. Utopian delusionalism is an ideology best reserved for political cults such as the John Birch Society and the followers of Ayn Rand. In the real world these things do not and never will work. Only reform capitalism such as that implemented by FDR, Clinton, and Obama and which were created by our Founders will always work. This proves that it is the liberals/progressives or whatever you wish to call them that will always be correct and will always improve society.

[ChairmanOfTheBoard]

The eleven other states that have signed on -- California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state -- as well as the District of Columbia and now Colorado, make up the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. New Mexico, which has five electoral votes, sent a bill to the governor's desk to elect the president by popular vote and may soon join the group as well.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/16/politics ... index.html

[HooDat]

When I hear "I'm not for a direct majority vote" with regards to electing the President, I have to wonder why?

Tyranny of the majority - plain and simple. Direct majority vote means that NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston and one or two "swing CITIES" will decide the presidency. That doesn't sit very well with me. The electoral college pushes the presidential election toward the middle of the road (where it should be).

Folks may not like it, but when it came to a choice between HRC and Trump - Trump (in that moment) was closer to the middle of the road - and before your heads explode let me explain my reasoning: the middle of the road at the time was PISSED OFF at the establishment. No one has embodied the corrupt establishment better than HRC (at least in my lifetime which includes Nixon). Sanders would have trounced Trump - and that would have been the election that I think the "people" wanted: liberal and conservative anti-establishment. Many voters came away from the Dem primaries with the perception that the corrupt establishment within the DNC thwarted Sanders - and we got Trump.

In recent decades we have seen the economy stifle under laissez faire Republicans Bush I and Bush II. Luckily the economy immediately recovered under the more intelligent and more effective reform policies under Clinton and Obama.

I just don't know what to say in response to this, other than to say you and I have not been watching the same movie. I am not sure there has been a more laissez faire president than Clinton. The guy had the first openly Wall Street run presidency ever (Goldman Sachs in his case). Business didn't trust Obama, but his actual deeds did nothing to reign global corporations in, he just nudged them in a direction he wanted (for example Solyndra) - oh, and Obama was a tool of Citibank...

The Bushes sold out to the military industrial complex (Haliburton / General Dynamics) far more than they sold out to Wall Street....

[ChairmanOfTheBoard]

yes, yes, and yes.

TAATS

[Brooklyn]

I just don't know what to say in response to this, other than to say you and I have not been watching the same movie. I am not sure there has been a more laissez faire president than Clinton. The guy had the first openly Wall Street run presidency ever (Goldman Sachs in his case). Business didn't trust Obama, but his actual deeds did nothing to reign global corporations in, he just nudged them in a direction he wanted (for example Solyndra) - oh, and Obama was a tool of Citibank...

The Bushes sold out to the military industrial complex (Haliburton / General Dynamics) far more than they sold out to Wall Street....

Perhaps you forgot that Occupy Wall Street made many anti-Obama demonstrations before the right wing Tea B@ggers did. And yes, it is true that traitor Bush did sell out to the military industrial complex but note that it is owned by those same Wall Street capitalist manipulators.

[HooDat]

I just don't know what to say in response to this, other than to say you and I have not been watching the same movie. I am not sure there has been a more laissez faire president than Clinton. The guy had the first openly Wall Street run presidency ever (Goldman Sachs in his case). Business didn't trust Obama, but his actual deeds did nothing to reign global corporations in, he just nudged them in a direction he wanted (for example Solyndra) - oh, and Obama was a tool of Citibank...

The Bushes sold out to the military industrial complex (Haliburton / General Dynamics) far more than they sold out to Wall Street....

Perhaps you forgot that Occupy Wall Street made many anti-Obama demonstrations before the right wing Tea B@ggers did. And yes, it is true that traitor Bush did sell out to the military industrial complex but note that it is owned by those same Wall Street capitalist manipulators.

EXACTLY!!! but Obama put the Occupy folks in their place. Can't have real liberals running around - particularly outside Seattle or Portland.... But how does their anti-Obama rhetoric make sense if Obama and the DNC are the bane of the capitalists and Wall Street?

[Brooklyn]

HD,
you and I have not been watching the same movie

The one thing which you again fail to address is, did our Founding Fathers originate those concepts that I listed above? That while right wingers in their mysticism continue to believe these are Marxist concepts and call them "socialist", they are, in fact, American. That our country and its socio-political system was founded upon these principles. That instead of using these matters as excuses for attacking Bernie Sanders, liberals, BLM, and others, they are reasons for endorsing their ideas. That the reason why we had the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the Triangle Shirt Waist disaster, Hoovervilles, Reaganvilles, and homelessness is because we as a society strayed from those Founders concepts. That it was not Marx who came up with the idea that the unequal distribution of property is the cause of factionalism in society - that it was James Madison (4th president of the USA) who wrote about that in the 10th essay of the Federalist Papers.

Much (though not all) of our political division comes from the right wing's failure to admit that all this is not "socialist" but Americanist.

So now, let's see you address my question: are these concepts Americanist or Marxist (keeping in mind that Marx was born 40 years after they were first explicated by our Founders)?


All I want from you is a yes or no answer. So what is it: Yes or no?

[HooDat]

All I want from you is a yes or no answer. So what is it: Yes or no?

so, let me get this right - all you want from me is a "yes" or "no" response to a seven part question?!??!?

You are conflating political party with conservative and liberal concepts. You need to see grey for a change. And if that works, you can even try for colors.

The Constitution considered a laundry list of issues surrounding the governance of societies. The key over-riding principal that I see threaded throughout the genius of the Founding Father's work is the concept that power corrupts and that checks and balances must be put in place to allow the allure of power to self-regulate across various groups. Thus the three branches of federal government. Thus the republican mode of electing the president (which evolved into the electoral college). Thus the embedded tension between state's rights and federal powers. Political scholars could go on and on...

[Brooklyn]

Your failure to confront this simple question is one of the reasons why there is so much political discord in this society.

If only the right wing had the integrity to admit to the truth I wrote, much of that discord would end.