[besson3c]

A good starting place for me would be remembering to use an apostrophe where appropriate, like in the subject of this thread.

Yes, I'm easy to please!

[besson3c]

I think you are creating a false dichotomy.

There will never be an ideal world where people all think exactly like, the world will always be comprised of disparate, individual thoughts and beliefs. I don't agree with everything that the Democrats say and believe, and I don't think it is healthy for any citizen to resign themselves to just going along with whatever the Democrats come up with.

Are you really trying to ask: what are the ideals of the Democratic party? Or: what would Democrats do if they were in power now and had unfettered access to make any political change they desired? Or: what common ground do liberal supporters have among themselves?

Answering the last question will be highly personal and different depending on who you ask, but if you asked me I might say, as an example: to have discussions like this very one we are having in a very open and including way.

[budster101]

"What is a Liberal's ideal world?"

How was that? I even capitalized the Noun in the sentence for you. No thanks necessary. I punctuate for food.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by budster101

"What is a Liberal's ideal world?"

How was that? I even capitalized the Noun in the sentence for you. No thanks necessary. I punctuate for food.

You're just overflowing with intelligence today, aren't you? Mmmmm..... keep it up, and maybe I'll be funny some more!

[budster101]

How dare you accuse me of being intelligent.

[spauldingg]

[inner dialogue] Shut up, Spauldingg, you're gonna get baninated, shut up shut up shut up[/inner dialogue]

[besson3c]

Let me add:

If this thread was fueled out of the Right's frustrations with the Left....

We need each other. A democracy cannot thrive with one government that has unfettered access to make the political changes it wants. This quickly leads to corruption, and... well... not democracy.

We desperately need to find common ground and work together in a bipartisan way. We desperately need to get over being a shill for our own party, in turn playing to their strategies, and forming unconditional alliances with whatever party matches up closest to the issues that are important to us at that moment.

We may never agree upon the reasoning behind the war, the weapons, the threat, and all of that stuff that took place months/years ago. Like any relationship gone bad, sometimes it is best to just let things go. However, we can work together to demand that our government is being as forthright, honest, and as transparent as possible with us. We are all being affected, and history has proven time and time again that a government (even a government that our instincts say is trustworthy) is perfectly capable of corruption. We need to guarantee that our government is doing the right thing and making wise decisions that will benefit us and the rest of the world in both the short and long term.

I'm not trying to insinuate anything here, but simply encourage us to stop lobbing partisan explosives at each other (e.g. liberals have their heads in the sand, Neocons are a bunch of liars that only care about the rich, etc.)

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

Is "agressors" the only thing you right wingers can think about ?

Certainly not, but "we" (few right-wingers would count me among their ranks, but then, neither would most left-wingers) don't believe that they can simply be ignored, nor assumed that they will somehow cease to exist. Most left-wingers construct ideologies which require that everyone follow those ideologies, because dissent inevitably breaks the system.

The ideals of the French Revolution are today -liberty, equality, and community (expanded from the original fraternité, but only slightly)- held up in one form or another by most political parties, but the problem is that they are inherently incompatible. If you have absolute freedom, people will do things which place themselves above or below others (compromising equality) and they will do things which are not necessarily optimal for society (compromising community). To achieve absolute equality, you must limit people from making "bad" choices (compromising freedom) and take from those who achieve while giving to those who do not, which breeds resentment and thus compromises community. To bring forth absolute community, you must prevent people from ever doing things which are not optimal for the community (compromising freedom), but you must also set up systems of power whereby certain people hold vast amounts of power over others in order to enfotce this, compromising equality.

Modern Democrats are trying to bring about the most disastrous result: maximizing all three. Because maximizing any one requires restricting the other two, to "maximize" all three you must restrict all three, which is utterly counterproductive. The Democrat Party tries to appeal to as many people as possible -it's the only way they stand a chance of regaining power, after all- but as a result they cannot afford to emphasize any of the three, and this keeps them in a state which many people even among their own numbers call 'disorganization'.

Modern Republicans have a different problem. It's not that they haven't decided which ideal to emphasize: from the start, freedom has always been their core ideal. However, they've become infected with a reactionary faction which rejects all three ideals. To be honest, I hope this results in a schism, with a bunch of Republicans defecting to the Libertarian Party. The LP could use the influx of financial and psychological strength, the (ex-)Republicans could use the return to their ideological roots, and the theocrats will be left to rot.

Many modern liberals outside the US -particularly in Europe- have rejected emphasizing freedom. This is not entirely without reason; they consider it a failed method of bringing people happiness, because it allows people to do things which make others unhappy. This frees them somewhat from the Democrats' problem, allowing them to present a more unified front, but they're still trying to maximize both equality and community. This will fail, however, because of the incompatibilities I've mentioned above, and we can already start to see the cracks in modern liberal systems such as the EU, which can be deceptively exclusive when it comes to letting new members in. Ultimately, I don't think these systems will completely collapse, but they will have to choose between equality and community, and I believe they will choose equality, as community may be the stated goal but it seems to be the weaker link.

This puts me at odds with modern liberals, because I believe that of the three, freedom is the proper ideal to emphasize, because it is the only one which can work without requiring everyone in 'the system' to believe in it. I find equality-orientation and community-orientation to be dehumanizing because in order to work they require indoctrination (and that's putting it charitably) to ensure that there will be no significant dissent, because dissenters can quickly drain an equality-oriented system's resources or foment resentment among factions in a community-oriented system. I believe that free will is a central part of the human condition -indeed, that which sets us apart from other animals- and so robbing people of that will is robbing them of what makes them human. Of course, we've all seen community-orientation work on smaller scales than a nation; many people live in cooperatives and communes which apply this on a small scale. In a freedom-oriented system this works out fine, because people can enter or leave these communities as they see fit; you lose a fair bit of freedom by entering the community but you can regain it by leaving. Scale the community-oriented system to nation size, however, and freedom collapses: leaving ceases to be an option for most.

As for equality-oriented systems, I find them to be the most dehumanizing of all. Not only must the citizens be indoctrinated, but the consequences of their actions -and therefore mastery over their own lives- must be taken from them. Good results are "redistributed" to those who have not earned them, and bad results are "cured" or "healed" without much if any need for intervention from those who have brought misfortune on themselves, as though they were uncontrollable diseases. In a community-oriented system, one might still see some consequence from his or her actions, but an equality-oriented system must by definition not allow for it. Stripped of what it means to be human, people become cogs in the machine; the government cannot afford to treat them like people. End result: Harrison Bergeron.

But I'm ranting, and I'm sleepy. I doubt I've gotten everything across terribly well. I just need to vent.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Let me add:

If this thread was fueled out of the Right's frustrations with the Left....

We need each other. A democracy cannot thrive with one government that has unfettered access to make the political changes it wants. This quickly leads to corruption, and... well... not democracy.

Hear, hear. Despite my recent venting, I do not think that virtues such as equality and community should be completely abandoned. As such, those who would emphasize them are a necessity, because they do have arguments which need to be brought forward. I think it is dangerous for them to come into power, but of course in a freedom-oriented system that possibility can't be erased, for to do so would compromise freedom.