Hello dmb, Would love to discuss this over adult beverages.
<snip> dmb > I'm with Arlo here and while Mel is reflecting a common point of view it is actually a very distorted picture. If one were to represent the full spectrum of political ideologies, with Marxism on the far left and free-market conservatism on the right, Liberalism is exactly halfway between them. Sadly, in the USA, all our political debates completely ignore every position left of that center. If you look at thee philosopher of Liberalism, John Rawls, it's very clear that Liberalism is the attempt to balance equality and liberty. (Guess what I've been reading!) This kind of balance is the central idea in our Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution, neither of which had anything to do with Marxism. m You are right about the distorted picture. Inside the US we have a 'bell jar' curve of politics rather than a bell curve. It doesn't tail. We have such a narrow spectrum of discussion that we've already dismissed marxism, euro-socialism (mostly), and the centralized pseudo-paternal, totalitarian, and etc. worlds of thought beyond our borders. It's part of why we can't comprehend the much of the Arab, Islamic, African, and Asian societies. Americans tend to be politically about three nines the same, most don't know it though. dmb As Jefferson said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" and "Governments are instituted among men in order to secure these rights". It's as American as Apple Pie. Sorry to be so blunt, but it's just plain ignorant to confuse liberalism w > ith genuinely leftist ideologies. m It is not ignorant, but it is uncomfortable. To "change scales" and include non-American politics in the same narrow band as the US system's discussion is at best confusing. dmb It is in the middle, which means it is to the left of some things and to the right of other things. Leftists want to abolish capitalism while liberals simply want capitalism to be regulated so that it doesn't crush people or violate their rights and freedoms. It simply puts people over profits and that's only fair and decent. How such a very, very American thing ever got demonized is beyond me. m The politics of demonization is largely a function of two sides that to outsiders are impossibly too close together to distinguish, so the sides have to invent more appearance of dispute than really exists. > dmb > Or think about it from the Pragmatist's perspective. We've tried this unregulated free-market stuff for thirty years. What are the results? Obviously, we need to try something else. We haven't seen poverty and inequality like this since the Great Depression. Roughly speaking, liberalism doubled the size of the middle class and conservatism cut it in half. We need to move back toward the center or we really will be a nation of serfs. > m I would think the reasonable man would look at the issue differently. Since decades of regulation did not work and decades of de-regulation did not work then maybe we were focussed on the wrong thing. Regulation that imposes severe methodology for how organizations behave, opperationally, or that specifies structure and process in a narrow way can and do kill creativity and add drag on the enterprize. These kinds of regulation destroy responsibility. De-regulation to the point of removing notions of criminality, accountability, fraud, and responsiveness to anyone outside the organization, similarly can destroy the enterprise by encouraging it to become a criminal gang, a den of thieves. So, the real question becomes, which kinds of regulations do work and which kinds of regulations don't work. If you are an owner, or a customer, or an employee you have a reasonable expectation of fair treatment, whether you call yourself Liberal or Conservative... It will always remain a dynamic negotiation between the three, but there have been times when a smothering bureaucracy can successfully crush owner, and customer, and employee. So, we need to get it right this time. Which kinds of regulations work. Unless everyone is focused on that it just becomes a scrum. Tanks for the help got to run thanks--mel Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
