The Maelstrom of Violence

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-05-2017, 08:08 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: What's your (the liberal) view of the world? Is it realistic or dream like?

Good questions.

In many ways, I strive to be one of balance.  You have to be realistic, yet calling yourself a Whig you can't let the basic Enlightenment values go.  Democracy, human rights, sharing risks and costs, helping one's fellow man, all that fits in.  A government works for the common welfare, not for the few.

There is also a notion that there is always a rich elite, that no matter how much they have they want more, that they always strive to control the government, and that only occasionally will the many get upset enough to contest the rich getting richer.  Often in the sequence of S&H Anglo American crisis, a new elite favoring a new technology will align with the working guy to push Whig values.  This is not coming together well this time around, at least not yet.

Nast's vile stereotype of Tweed might stand as a base for how I am ready to view the rich and few as natural enemies of the working many.  I do remember when our high school band doing an exchange concert placing me with a richer family.  It was a tradition, giving members of one band and chorus an opportunity to meet their opposites.  "Oh, let's go visit my father's hanger, and tour his collection of historic airplanes."  No one was as fat as Nast portrayed them, or Marx explained them.  Still, there is an assumption that there are traditional historic bad guys, tempered by an impression of how ordinary the seemed to be, or at least how ordinary they could look on the surface.

I guess Reagan's vile stereotype of the black pregnant welfare queen, treating government generosity as a way of life, might stand opposite Nast's Boss Tweed.  Balance means not getting too obsessed with either, yet trying to take the precautions to prevent the worst abuses coming from anywhere.

Regarding war, I am personally concerned with Powell's questions.  If we are going to go in, let there be well identified goals, a way to achieve them, and a way out.  Bush 43's war demonstrated how much resistance a sole superpower and wannabe neo colonialist will meet, the problems with insurgent war, and how easily unintended consequences leak in.  In short, I am very dubious about foreign intervention.

And yet containment, the domino theory, isn't entirely bogus.  You don't want to give autocratic governments a free and easy expansionist path.  The choices aren't trivial and easy.

And there is the basic balance.  We have a huge division of wealth, which implies the ability to increase taxes.  One party pushes military spending, the other domestic.  Yet, if our military is to be of a certain size, shouldn't they be funded well enough for proper maintenance and training?  Do we want the rich getting richer?  Can we afford a floor, something like UDHR 25's protection so we won't let our own slip below a certain level of basic food, clothing, shelter and health care?  

I don't think I need explain or defend the basic liberal view on most of that.  For the most part, I'm leaning blue.

And the above is before getting into the urban - rural divide.  I’m afraid I can’t give you a short answer.  Please accept the basics, ask questions, and re-read a few of my old posts.

(09-05-2017, 08:08 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As a general rule, I don't have issues defending my values because most people are able to identify them and share them and don't attack them. I spend more time brushing off liberal stereotypes (both vile and ignorant generalizations) than I do defending values.

I might go a step further.  As a liberal in Massachusetts, I seldom have to brush off stereotypes or defend values.

This forum seems to have different rules.  It seems you are supposed to test values, to push against others.  Conversations that involve strange values and vile stereotypes are far more common than in real world.

This almost makes me reluctant to answer your question.  I expect strawmen.  I half expect someone to come in and say no, I lie, all liberals believe (insert absurd vile easily defeated argument here) and (insert the defeat of the easily defeated argument.)  The idea that the opposition might have though things out and be fighting for worthy cause can seem strange to many people.

Do you (or does anyone else) have an equivalent set of opposing values?  Can you critique my values honestly without going into strawmen?

And then, the way you asked the question reminds me of...

Ted Kennedy Wrote:And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again. And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

I am a part of all that I have met
Tho much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are–
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.