<p>Driver,
I was being thoughtful. When the content of the article is meant to show how Democrats are stubbornly caught in a time warp and aren’t open to hearing the other side, I react with anger, not petulance. The article is just more of the same of what you dish up in just about every political post you make - defend to the death your President while making the opposition look stupid, inept, stubborn, insert negative adjective here. It seems all the more valid because you are educated, well read and articulate but it doesn’t disguise the obviousness of what you do. There are times when it is so relentless that I wonder if you are not a paid political operative. </p>
<p>There is just something wrong at a very deep level when a party that has complete power has to obliterate the opposition so completely and on so many levels. </p>
<p>Tsdad, It’s like March, at least in Minneapolis - warmest January on record.</p>
<p>I like you. I REALLY like you, all of you. The fact that we may disagree doesn’t change that. I think that most of the time, when we CC posters look inept or stupid, we do it to ourselves [edit: see below]. It even happened to me once. I’ve been accused of being Lynne Cheney, Ann Coulter, Mrs. Karl Rove, you name it, but in fact I’m just a parent like you, with my own opinion. I am involved in politics–as I’m sure many of you are–but not paid for it, unfortunately. Karl has flat-out rejected my idea for a “College Confidential Strategy,” the fool. Being the resident Cruella DeVille in political threads isn’t as easy as it looks, but it’s worthwhile. College parents should experience the same diversity of opinion they claim to want for their kids. :)</p>
Don’t you just love a statement like that? The author graciously allows that neither the private nor public sector is always the right answer, but smugly asserts that his own personal assessment of the correct balance between the two is right, and that those smelly “lllliberals” are “excessively distrust ful” and “overly confident” and “exagerate… failures” and “overstate success.” How about I just claim that I am right, that I know the right balance, and he is the one who “exagerates” and “overstates”? Seriously, do any of you righties out there honestly think that liberals actually “assume that government power will always be administered with wisdom and benevolence?” Are you willing to concede that there just might be the slightest overstatement there? C’mon, Driver - whatya say?</p>
<p>But it gets better:
Doncha just love the spin? Those cartoonish limosine liberals want to force “others” to have their health care decisions made for them by *government<a href=“hisss!%20boo!%20%20bad%20government!%20%20bad%20liberals!”>/i</a><br>
The idea that liberals might just want the “others” to have a chance at getting any health care at all before they show up at the county hospital ER apparently never occurred to this smug genius. And apparently he hasn’t heard that most people who do have health care have their decisions made for them by an HMO which makes the DMV look like, well, an HMO.</p>
<p>But my favorite sound bite is saved for last:
What a noble guy! Let those individuals make those decisions! Rah, Rah! My money, My Choice! </p>
<p>I will agree with this guy on one thing. I actually do believe that government can be trusted to make a better decision than individuals sometimes. The decisions I’m talking about are decisions about stuff like how much of an individual’s money he should spend on building levees in a state 1000 miles away, funding the Centers for Disease Control, the FDA, the USDA, the SEC, the grants for basic research, wars not every individual approves of, and stuff like that. You know why I trust government to make better decisions about how to spend individuals’ money on stuff like that than I trust individuals to make those decisions? Because individuals will choose not to spend any of their money on that stuff. Paying for those “general benefit” government expenditures only happens when govenrment has the power to override individuals’ choices about how their money should be spent. And I think that the real issue is how much of the individual’s money should be taken for those expenditures - whether the individual feels like contributing or not - and how much left for him to spend on stuff he’s really interested in. But apparently that’s “1968” thinking. Mea culpa.</p>
<p>I don’t concede that point at all, Kluge. I think that modern liberals see themselves, acting through their elected representatives, as the “Philosopher Kings” and “Guardians” from Plato’s “Republic.” Smarter and better than those over whom they will rule. HillaryCare was a good example.</p>
<ol>
<li> I am a modern liberal.</li>
<li> I don’t think that way.</li>
<li> If you really thought “modern liberals” think that way, you’d be a fool. But of course, you’re just “having a little fun”, right?</li>
</ol>
<p>Kluge, here’s where I differ with you and so many other Philosopher Kings:</p>
<p>We are fortunate enough to live in a truly modern society. Despite the fact that sources of sustenance and even wealth abound, there will be those who, for whatever reason, will fail to avail themselves of their opportunities. A moral society will provide the basics for them. But a moral society–an effective society–won’t impose collectivism on the entire population, just so some fantasized notion of “egalite” can make a portion of the elite population feel better.</p>
<p>Driver, then what is the responsibility of government?</p>
<p>What specifically do you want government to do? What don’t you want it to do?</p>
<p>Would you end social security?
End government subsidy of higher education including Pell Grants?
End minimum wage?
Keep things as they are?
What do you specifically want changed?</p>
<p>Driver, here’s where I differ with you: I know that projecting opinions onto others and then attacking them for those falsely ascribed beliefs is dishonest. You’ve never tried to respond to the actual opinions I hold and express, you instead project a cartoon version of “liberal thought” on me (and all “liberals”) and then attack that straw man - just like the author if the “1968” piece did.</p>
<p>Maybe if you paid attention to what real liberals really think you’d learn something? Nah - too much work.</p>
<p>Kluge,
You’re really not being fair. I ascribed nothing to you. You sat there in your sandbox (post#43) glopping lefty muck all over yourself, and then you blame me for pointing it out! As I said to Liz, above:
</p>
<p>dstark: What is it with you and your lists?</p>
<p>OK, DS;
Get your pencil and green eyeshades out.</p>
<ol>
<li>I don’t hate liberals (or anyone else.)</li>
<li>I accept the fact that liberals exist, and don’t really sweat it.</li>
<li><p>Education is very important to me. I think many government schools fail, and I wouldn’t put my kids in them. It bothers me that so many parents, who don’t have my resources, are stuck with their kids in bad government schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Social Security is a farce as currently conducted. It needs to be changed. There are many ways to do that.</p></li>
<li><p>I support government aid to disadvantaged students who show promise, whether that be trade school or college.</p></li>
<li><p>Ambivalent about minimum wage.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“1. I don’t hate liberals (or anyone else.)
2. I accept the fact that liberals exist, and don’t really sweat it.
3. Education is very important to me. I think many government schools fail, and I wouldn’t put my kids in them. It bothers me that so many parents, who don’t have my resources, are stuck with their kids in bad government schools.”</p>
<p>Your first 2 responses aren’t really consistent with many of your posts including the first one in this thread.</p>
<p>So how would you change 3.?
Do you want federal government involvement in this issue? Right now, education is primarily funded at the local or state level.</p>
<p>My sister is a teacher and a very good one. She hates “No child left behind”. Says it hampers her. She has been teaching for over 20 years and now she is not only being told what to teach, but how. </p>
<p>As for social security, it was meant as an insurance policy, not as an investment vehicle. </p>
<p>I don’t want to put words in your mouth. So how would you change education and social security?</p>
<ol>
<li>There is nothing in my OP that remotely suggests hatred.</li>
<li>Nothing in my OP suggests that I am worried that liberals exist.</li>
<li>How would I change education? Getting into this subject, yet again, would allow you to hijack the original point of my thread: Hatred of liberals, and resenting the fact that they exist. Joke. It’s a huge subject. I like what private schools do, and don’t see how the public schools can catch up until they’re held to the same standards. You get what you pay for, when you control what you pay for. If the unions MAKE you pay for it, you don’t control it. Capeesh? (pardon my bad Sicilian). Public schools need to be more like good private schools. And no, some of the kids will never fit in to the better schools, and will be in reformatories, where they belong. So they don’t ruin the school experience of the other kids.</li>
<li>NCLB. Interesting subject. We don’t worry about it at our private school. Our local Emperor has no clothes hyper-expensive public school bureaucrats don’t like it. Interestingly, African-American families in a very fine system (Princeton Township) liked it, because it pointed to the fact that their kids were being left behind. I reposted the article a couple of days ago, you can find it by searching my SN.</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s a great question, and probably a proper subject for another thread…we’ve done it before, many times. The subject here is how stuck in the sixties some people are.</p>
<p>“1. Anti-Communism was a greater menace than Communism.
2. The planet could not possibly support the population increases that would take place by the end of the twentieth century.
3. Conservatives stood in the way of progress for minorities.
4. Government programs were the best way to lift people out of poverty.
5. What underdeveloped countries needed were large capital investments, financed by foreign aid from the rich countries.
6. Inflation was a cost-push phenomenon, requiring government intervention in wage and price setting.”</p>
<p>This is another case of a conservatives telling people what liberals think (or thought) and then trashing them.</p>
<p>Not very constructive.</p>
<p>Nixon was the one that gave us wage and price controls.</p>
<p>Just for the record, W & P controls are vestiges of WWII–and the reason we now associate “health care insurance” with employers. Offering it was how employers got around W & P controls. Goes back to Truman and Eisenhower. Nixon was indeed a very big government guy, no conservative by any means.</p>
<p>On the left rear bumper of my yellow VW Beetle, I have a blue and white sticker that has pic of the statue of liberty, and it says “Remember Democracy? Kind of nice, wasn’t it?” On the right is a black one with a picture of Munch’s anguished man on the bridge from “The Cry” and it says “Four More Years.”</p>
<p>But I really covet this one, the sticker on the car of a fellow-commuter-into-DC:</p>
<p>Driver,
There you go again, dismissing ID’s honest opinion of Cheney as “boilerplate”. </p>
<p>I was open minded enough and without sufficient enough background information of Cheney to think he would add weight (no pun intended) and experience to the Bush admin. I didn’t vote for them either time and needless to say my image of Cheney has changed. </p>
<p>This bumper sticker sums up my feeling: Impeach Cheney First!</p>