Thanks to Professor Douglas, I found this article on Conservative Resources, an(other) attempt to place political ideology into graphical form. I have some problems with it, problems which have, in part, surfaced in the discussion sections of this poor site.
The author, Patrick Sean O’Sullivan, recognizes some of the problems from the start:
The right wing vs left wing debate has its historical origin in the French Revolution, and many people question whether the terms right and left are relevant today. Indeed, it is nearly an impossible task to explain the right wing vs left wing division to the satisfaction of everyone involved.
I’d suggest that this is a problem for several reasons:
- People in general, and not just behavioral scientists in particular, want to be able to pigeonhole things, to be able to define them neatly, and be able to predict future events from the historical record.
- Many people, certainly including myself, like then to use these neat classifications for political purposes, to push for the policies we favor and against those we dislike. Thus, we tend to personify the notion from quantum physics that the act of observation of a phenomenon has an effect on the phenomenon.
- Because the political leaders being “quantified” into the neat pigeonholes are human beings, they frequently take unexpected turns from what we think are their political philosophies as expedience pushes them.
What caught my attention was Dr Douglas use of Mr O’Sullivan’s three charts in the article. In what I think is a weakness in Dr Douglas’ article, the three diagrams are put together, where Mr O’Sullivan has them separately, with special explanations. Mr O’Sullivan begins with:
Elaboration of the Political Spectrum
Everyone disagrees about what the political spectrum should look like. In my own view, if we were to contrast the right wing vs left wing division on a diagram, it would look roughly like this:
Mr O’Sullivan’s graph has the virtue of simplicity, though I am uncertain as to his placement of “Anarchism” beneath both political ends of the spectrum, and ignoring anarchistic tendencies in the middle. It could be that he sees both ends as exerting maximum political control over the individual, and thus the ones which have the greatest reductive force on anarchy, but, if so, we ought to see anarchy listed toward the center as well, in stronger terms.
Correspondingly, if we were to include government types on a right wing vs left wing diagram, the political spectrum would resemble the following:
The center of the political spectrum is occupied by liberalism, a word used very curiously in American political discourse. Properly understood, liberalism is a temperate philosophy concerned with both freedom and equality. Liberalism generally includes what Americans call “conservatism” as well as modern liberalism. Liberalism as a whole is best seen as a standing argument on 6 fundamental principles.
Democracy as the West understands it can exist only within the narrow liberal band at the center of the political spectrum; thus, the post-industrialized West is largely comprised of liberal democracies. The dead center of the spectrum represents the liberal ideal of perfectly balancing freedom and equality. While the realization of such an ideal is impossible given that everyone disagrees as to what such a balance entails, moderates nevertheless occupy the space on the spectrum closest to center, between the two divergent liberal philosophies.
On the right wing vs left wing diagrams above, socialism and libertarianism fall outside the realm of democracy. Whereas modern liberalism and American conservatism are best seen as heuristics (decision-making shortcuts), socialism and libertarianism are ideologies which invariably lead to tyranny. In the next section, we will examine why.
Mr O’Sullivan’s last paragraph above can onl;y be understood with reference to his third and fourth ones from well above:
At the heart of the right wing vs left wing debate is a very crucial concept, which many people simply refuse to accept: A society can either be free or equal, but it cannot be both. Certainly, in the center there can be some semblance of compromise, but any such bargain will tend to lean unhappily left or miserably right and human nature is such that even the most temperate, well-balanced state of affairs must inevitably provoke anxiety and discontent.
While it is true that certain forms of freedom and equality are connected, such as equality under law and freedom of opportunity, freedom and equality are more frequently at odds. And yet, for most people in the West, the ideas of liberty and equality are inseparable; so much so that they are frequently confused with one another and even used as synonyms. But elementary common sense suggests that where freedom is to be promoted, inequality must result and where equality is to be established, freedom must be curtailed.
I have problems with that, however. Socialism must involve the curtailing of freedom, as people who wish to opt out of the socialist policies, morés and requirements cannot be allowed to do so; opting out means, inter alia, the possession of private property, the disposition of personal resources in ways which may not be beneficial to the social whole, and the attempt (which may succeed or fail) to accumulate wealth disproportionately from the social norm. If the attempt succeeds, the result is someone wealthier than the norm — something we see as our friends on the left decry what they see as unjustifiable salaries and rewards for top executives — and if the attempt fails, the result may be someone who is poorer than the norm, who requires more assistance from the socialist polity without having contributed his proportional share to the economy. Such a person falls outside of William Bradford’s famous rule, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat,” because the polity sees to it that he does get fed.
Libertarianism, on the other hand, does not “invariably lead to tyranny,” unless the assumption of unequal results is defined as tyranny, which would be wholly inaccurate. The man who fails in a libertarian society may go hungry, may even starve to death, but that does not mean that the others in a libertarian society are exercising political control over him.
This can best be illustrated by the example of the rural family. If a farmer has no neighbors who can help him with food and supplies if his crops fail, he exists in the ultimate libertarian economy: he is by himself, and succeeds or fails based on his own efforts, along with luck from the weather. Yet there is no great political authority over him, because there is no one present to exercise it.
This example points out the inherent flaw in Karl Marx’s socialist theory: socialism was the unity of the workers, in economic cooperation, which would lead to the withering away of state control. But it requires, among other things, an urban environment where people have the opportunity to live under a socialist/ collectivist/ equal distributionist system. The further away from the urban areas people live, the more rural the setting, the less physical opportunity one has to participate in socialism. Herr Marx, living and writing in London, was part of a nineteenth-century urban lifestyle, and thought in terms of urban society.
This weakness was exposed when the Bolsheviks attempted to impose the economic adaptations of Marxist theory by Vladimir Ilich Lenin. The essential socialist philosophy — from each according to his ability to each according to his needs — worked far more poorly in an economy in which so many people were very widely scattered. Josef Stalin attempted to address this through the forced “collectivization of agriculture,” an attempt which led to the deaths of millions as Soviet agents confiscated food from the farmers. This was the extension of the political control of socialism over the agrarian people, but without the economic benefits flowing back to the farmers. Because this was top-down directed socialism, the collectivist agents often took so much of the farmers’ produce that he was left with too little on which to survive. The “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs” idea did not work because, outside of the urban setting, there was too little communication as to what the needs of the people were. (That the collectivist agents didn’t really care what the farmers needed simply compounded the problem.)
Under a libertarian society, the rural families would not have starved, as long as they could have produced enough food for themselves, and there would be no ability of government to seize the necessities of life from them. They could, of course, either choose not to sell their excess produce to others, or might not have sufficient excess produce to “export” to the cities, but that is not a curtailment of freedom. Mr O’Sullivan errs on this point.
I do have another problem with Mr O’Sullivan’s second chart:
Note that the two extreme wings are oppositely defined in control, with the extreme left, totalitarianism, defined as “All Over One,” and the extreme right, fascism, defined as “One Over All.” That might be consistent with the words of the Communist leadership, but in practice it was never thus: Communist dictatorships were never dictatorships of the proletariat, but one-man-rule states, indistinguishable from fascism in that regard. The Communist states — for a long time, only the Soviet Union — put a lot of effort into Marxist/ Leninist propaganda, to persuade weak minds that all of their efforts were being made for the good of the people, and that they were busy creating a “workers’ paradise, far more effort into philosophical persuasion than the overtly fascist governments ever did, but such made Communism no less one-man rule than the fascism of Benito Mussolini or Francisco Franco or Adolf Hitler. At least the fascist states never really pretended to be anything but one man dictatorships.
I think that Mr O’Sullivan recognized this weakness, because he came up with a third graph, one which I think comes a little bit closer to reality, but still has its flaws:
The Right Wing vs Left Wing Circle
Another possible representation of the right wing vs left wing division is to redraw the political spectrum as a circle:
Right wing vs left wing: the political spectrum as a circle
The advantage to such a depiction is the inclusion of theocracy, which is hard to place on the standard political spectrum given that the virtue assumptions of the religious often differ from those dominating the left and right. Religion does not occupy a fixed position in the right wing vs left wing debate, and must therefore be married, often awkwardly, to alien positions on the spectrum.Theocracy represents the complete absence of freedom and equality. In a proper theocracy, in contrast to how the term is used in popular discourse, the ruler elevates himself or herself to a human god, diminishing his or her freedom by assuming the burdens of godhood and introducing a stark moral inequality among citizens.
With this graph, Mr O’Sullivan begins to solve the problem of totalitarian control over the ends: both ends use very similar methods of political control, and from that point are nearly indistinguishable: both used secret police services and political prisons or concentration camps as methods of political punishment, along with just enough public knowledge of those methods to use the fear of them as a method of political control.
But he errs with his emplacement of Theocracy, because he misdefines it. Theocracy can be as he stated it, where the ruler is deified, as was done in ancient Rome, but that has little in common with today’s world. Theocracy today is much more a system of government run by clerical rulers, citing religious texts as their authority than it is of deification. More, in actual practice, the most theocratic state in the world, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is far more democratic than the dictatorships of Communism or Fascism. Iran just had a presidential election, which may or may not have been fairly run, but the administrative leadership of Iran is subject to at least some democratic authority.
Theocracy, at least in its modern form, would be far more reasonably compared to socialism. Both stress the greater good of the polity, and simply differ on what measures the greater good. For socialists, the greater good of the people is the widespread and even distribution of economic, temporal rewards, while for the theocrats, the greater good is the widest possible distribution of salvation, and rewards in the afterlife: obedience to the rules of religious law replaces obedience to the rules of economic distributionism.
Mr O’Sullivan’s circle seems to me to be a circle of conventional wisdom: democratic political liberals are more opposed to fascist notions, and are placed directly opposite from them, while current-day conservatives are seen as more opposed to dictatorships purporting to be from the left. Yet, with the emplacement of “Anarchy” in the center, Mr O’Sullivan indicates that this is a graph about political control, not political philosophy. That exposes the flaw in separating Communism/ Totalitarianism from Fascism/ Monarchy. Assuming by monarchy he refers to absolute monarchy, the simple fact is that, in practice, all use the same methods of political control. Totalitarianism is not a philosophy, but a method of political control.
It could be argued that, were this a graph about political philosophy, there is some real difference between Communism and Fascism, but even that suffers in experience: while the political philosophy of Fascism has been put into actual practice in many states, the philosophies of Communism, as stated by theorists and professed Communist governments have never been put into practice. They are simple fantasies, ideas which make no sense because they fail to take into account that people are human beings, who do not all respond identically to the same situation. Herr Marx Communist Manifesto was based on the notion that working conditions under capitalism were such that all workers would respond to them uniformly, with one mind, and that plainly ignores reality.
On CSPT in particular we have seen this division. Much has been made in the comments sections as to whether President Obama is a Fascist or a Socialist or a whateverist. This problem stems from a lack of common understanding of what is being addressed. In an economic sense, it seems to me that our President is drawn more to the socialist philosophy, that “shared sacrifice” and attention to a common economic result is desirable. However, the political methods by which he hopes to achieve this, which fall neatly into line with the quote from il Duce that Mr Warner gave us, look like fascism (note that I did not capitalize it) because those methods are not greatly distinguishable from those of the communist states. The Unites States Treasury now owns 60.8% of General Motors. From an economic standpoint, that means that the ownership is shared with the minority owners; from a control standpoint, President Obama has — if he chooses to exercise it — majority operational control over the corporation. That is technically different from the notion of communism, where the state owns the means of production, but indistinguishable in practical effect.
In the end, the difference is in the graph that Mr O’Sullivan did not give us, and in the error he made in his circular presentation. Anarchy is not in the center between socialism and libertarianism. Rather, individual liberty is opposed to social control, and to support individual liberty over social control is to accept greater levels of anarchy in the system: people with greater liberty do not always use it identically.
Mr O’Sullivan did get it right early on in his article: “A society can either be free or equal, but it cannot be both.” At least on this site, the conservatives are more concerned about greater freedom, recognizing that such leads to greater inequality of outcomes, while our friends on the left — especially the Phoenician, who has cited, many times, indices of greater economic outcome disparity with disapproval — appear to me to be much more concerned with equality of outcome.
The linear representation of ideology is utterly inadequate to define a concept that has at least three dimensions.
The terms are also used with a great deal of imprecision. As the USSR was creaking towards disintegration, the hard-line Marxists were deemed to be ‘conservatives’ and the liberty-minded reformers the ‘liberals’. In the 19th century, English Liberals were those who would put the industrialist on a political par with the landed and titled gentry. On this side of the pond, ‘Liberal’ tends to define ‘Nanny Statist’ and the politics of envy.
In terms of economic freedom, the former Crown Colony of Hong Kong looks great but this is just one dimension.
There is libertarian vs authoritarian aspect to any ideological spectrum that must be included. This can get complex. Many of our domestic Liberals are enthusiastic about political correctness as well as pornography. The lives of mass murderers are to be protected but the unborn are mere collections of disposable cells.
Interesting piece, Dana, including your commentary.
I like O’Sullivan’s circular graph, because it shows associated mixtures of political philosophies that can have a bearing on policy, as well as providing a continuum which enables one to predict political movement depending on the outcomes of current governance policies.
With that in mind, I would place George W at about 2 O’clock, since there were elements of theocracy in the way he openly applied his Christian beliefs to political decisions. Also, he implemented elements of fascism in the control that he and his lock-step Congress invoked in order to control this country, in secrecy, with deceipt, especially wrt foreign policy. So I think Mr Warner’s categorization belongs more to Bush than to Obama. In his domestic policy, Libertarianism was more evident, as in his deregulation/laissez-faire policies.
I would place Obama at about 8 O’clock, as he responds, driven by necessity, to the severe economic downturn we are in. His approach is actually a continuation of the Bush Treasury policy from Sept 08 to the end of the Bush term. As the economy recovers, I expect Obama to move toward 6 O’clock, which is where resorting to compromise is a high priority to be used to legislate policy and law. If the economy does not recover, I would expect Obama’s response to be a gradual move toward 9 O’Clock in response to the continued decline of our country.
I would place George W at about 2 O’clock, since there were elements of theocracy in the way he openly applied his Christian beliefs to political decisions
Does Obama’s religious beliefs influence his political decision-making? Did Bill Clinton’s?
I could never put Bush in the category of a theocrat.
The real bullies in this continent are the militant atheists who push their agenda with the aid of other ‘culture crackers’. One can ignore the ‘bible thumpers’ with their enthusiasm for mindless literalism.
Interestingly, it was ‘bible thumping’ that help bring down LBJ-crony Billy Sol Estes. His campaign against ‘sinful’ school dances got him into a pissing contest with a doctor who was rather to the right of center on some things. An attempted sexual smear of the doctor backfired. Billy Sol went to the Big House.
Perry wrote:
I’m wondering just how you get 2 o’clock for President Bush. First of all, the 2 o’clock position comes between Fascism and Libertarianism, but that’s a strange place to adjoin things: Fascism has always meant strict government control, and libertarianism is the antithesis of that.
Fascism has also meant a one man or one party dictatorship, and sham elections. Yet President Bush was “hampered” in his one-man dictatorship by a Congress which was not always compliant, and which had at least one chamber under the control of the Democrats for 3½ years of his administration. Add to that the federal courts, which threw other roadblocks in the path of President Bush’s “dictatorship.” Finally, President Bush willingly subjected his Administration to the will of the voters, in free elections, something anathema to Fascists.
When I look at President Bush’s social policies, I don’t see anything approaching libertarianism or Fascism. He asked for, and received, the largest single expansion of the entitlement system since the creation of Medicare, the Medicare prescription drug benefit. He asked for, and received, a large expansion of the federal role in education, with a concomitant increase in spending thereon. In economic policy, President Bush might have been said to have a libertarian impulse, in that he favored lower taxes, and he favored less regulation of private enterprise, but got little done in that area; the most he was able to accomplish was to order as restrictive a philosophy as possible in regulatory power.
I suppose that you are looking at the invasion of Iraq as proof of Fascism, but that is certainly questionable. He attacked a Fascist dictatorship with motives which were at least stated to be altruistic: to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. I understand that you might not believe that his motives were what was stated, but his Iraqi policy was consistent with what his stated goals were; he didn’t try to set up Iraq as a subject colony for the US.
It’s a little unfair to place President Bush on any single point on that circle. His social policies would probably be placed dead on 6 o’clock, in that he expanded some social entitlement programs, but was moderate on the whole. His economic policies I’d place squarely on the Classical Liberalism position, due to varying tendencies between libertarianism (his tax policies) and his refusal to cut spending even for liberal programs. His foreign policy was interventionist, but motivated by a distinct faith in democracy. While some of his policies had a religious motivation behind them, theocratic — ruled by religious authorities — simply doesn’t apply.
President Obama? Well, we don’t know yet. It seems to me that his instincts are more toward socialism, at least in motivation — a desire to see greater economic equality — but he has a caution toward the limitations of the possible. His method of seizing control of a huge industrial corporation, and setting some limits on bailed out financial institutions, falls squarely within Signor Mussolini’s definitions in Fascism, but I don’t think that was his intent.
The definition of theocracy is a bit vague.
Quite a few European countries have crosses in their flags as well as an established religion with taxpayer support. I do remember a picture from an old history book that showed a couple of priests on their way to execution in Sweden.
Turkey through off the worst aspects of theocracy under Attaturk. This included a ban on veils. The Shah took a similar stance. The country has gone back few centuries under the Mad Mullahs
Yet there are domestic Deophobic twits who claim that their little ones will swoon at the hearing of something resembling a prayer in school. The worst was Marxist hustler Madalyn Murray O’Hair who exploited her son while he was a high school student in Baltimore. They lying bitch made a lot of money at the professional atheist game but her ill-gotten gains got her murdered. Hell may be the worse for her entry.
I have problems with that, however. Socialism must involve the curtailing of freedom, as people who wish to opt out of the socialist policies, morés and requirements cannot be allowed to do so; opting out means, inter alia, the possession of private property, the disposition of personal resources in ways which may not be beneficial to the social whole, and the attempt (which may succeed or fail) to accumulate wealth disproportionately from the social norm.
In the same sense that capitalism must involve the curtailing of freedom, as it allows people to be bought and sold as slaves. “Socialism” does not equal “Communism”, Dana.
However, you’re being parochial in your characterisations. “Right” and “left” existed in communist countries as well, and the policies hardly mapped. The better terms for that dimension are “reactionary” vs “progressive” and can be considered as psychological responses to political change.
My issue with O’Sullivan’s representation is he has no way of explaining modern conservatism, which combines economic libertarianism with a high degree of social authoritarianism. Placing
I’m still a bigger fan of the two-axis system that places economic freedom/equality on one axis and social freedom/conformity on another. Perhaps the best representation of that is at Political Compass (which includes a little quiz you can take to find out where you are – I’m at (0.00, -7.68) where the first coordinate is economic and the second is social). In that representation, Quadrant I is modern conservatism and Quadrant III is modern liberalism. The libertarians are in Quadrant II, despite how the axes are labeled on the site. It requires a strict division between economic and social policy, but I think there are fair ways of doing that. I’d also posit that since foreign policy is important to most peoples’ political views, we should add a third axis – pacifist/warhawk. But that would make it tough to draw
..as it allows people to be bought and sold as slaves….Pho
This is a rather quaint belief.
During our Civil War, the capitalist and industrialized North supported abolition. Obviously those capitalists were not interested in buying and selling slaves. How many slave laborers perished in the Gulag? Probably more than were imported into North America?
Are the nations where slavery still exists capitalists with a free economy? Where is the stock exchange in Sudan? What is the daily trading volume?
The more I look at that chart the less meaningful it becomes. Two dimensions are inadequate.
Anarchy tends to be unattainable and remains only a reference point. In revolutionary societies, it is the gateway to total authoritarianism. It is akin to a radioisotope with a half life measured in nanoseconds. Blink and it goes away.
Art, I think that’s why most liberals are suspicious of conservative economic policy. To a liberal, the choice is between giving up power to the government or to corporations – and one of these is at least responsible to the people being affected.
One more interesting thought – what to make of economic policies that both economically left and right people disdain? An example is oil subsidies. Left people don’t like them because they benefit corporations at the expense of the everyday person, and thus exacerbate inequality. Right people don’t like them because they’re an unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer dollars. So does that make “corporate welfare” a product of the middle?
Jeff wrote:
I’d hardly call it social authoritarianism. At best, social conservatives are opposed to granting same-sex couples the definition of marriage, but you’d have a difficult time finding more than a small percentage of people who would impose criminal penalties on homosexual activity. Social conservatives are very willing to say that certain things are just plain wrong, but far less willing to make them illegal. I’d call it disdainful tolerance.
THe chart does have some problems in that social conservatives and economic conservatives may not be conservative at all on the other axis.
Jeff wrote:
Is that a statement of helplessness or hopelessness? A corporation is really interested in one thing: making money. As long as you buy their products, corporations really don’t care what else you do.
A corporation is really interested in one thing: making money. As long as you buy their products, corporations really don’t care what else you do.
And this is why capitalism generally works, Dana.
However they also make money by getting the government to subsidise them, by dumping costs on the public, by ignoring the greater social context in which their actions take place, and by stifling competition. And this is why capitalism often fails, Dana.
You can basically sum up politics this way:
Left = evil (Marxism, communism, atheism, etc.)
Conservative/libertarian = Good (true to America’s founding values, limited gov’t, free markets, Judeo-Christian based morality)
You can basically sum up politics this way
No, you can. But you’re not as smart as, say, your average 12 year old.
Dana, I’d posit that there is a great deal of social authoritarianism among conservatives. Conservatives are far more likely to grant extra police powers and look the other way when the Fourth Amendment is violated, far more likely to start a book-banning or anti-flag burning campaign, or be in favor of tougher drug prohibition than are liberals.
Jeff, I believe you are conflating conservative ideology with the Christian Right and libertarianism with this accusation. They are vocal, but they hardly make up the majority of the conservative movement.
Your earlier comment illustrates your confusion more clearly…
This describes the coalition that makes up the Republican Party; not conservative ideology. Further, Classical Liberalism is in no way, shape, manner or form libertarianism. Foreign affairs and national defense has also been left out of the discussion.
You are not alone in conflating political parties and their factions with a political ideology. These social conservatives you are talking about are doing just that with the Republican Party.
Finally there are many policies promoted by Liberals that appear very authoritarian to others. Can you give me an example where the policies promoted by Classical Liberalism has resulted in an authoritarian government?
PG, the coalition I’m referring to is what most people think of nowadays when they hear the word “conservative.” The definition of the word has changed over time – fifty years ago, there wasn’t the social-conservative dimension to conservatism that exists today.
You’re right to say that there’s a difference between modern conservatives like Huckabee, Palin, Limbaugh, etc. and classical liberals who used to be the bulwark of American conservatism. But I’d argue that the former group have been in the ascendancy in the movement for a while now.
Fill me in, though – what’s the difference between classical liberalism and libertarianism? Both are based around limited government, individualism, and encouragement of free markets, right? What am I missing?
Sure, Pho. I’ve worked with cutting edge aerospace technology. You stack books for a living.
Now, who’s as smart as a 12 year old?
Sure, Pho. I’ve worked with cutting edge aerospace technology.
Uh-huh. Is in the sense of the way a mechanic works with automative engineering, or are you simply suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect?
You stack books for a living.
I should be so lucky. At the moment I’m screwing around with RDA and its application to a controlled vocabulary.
Well that explains the anal-pedantic part of your personality. I guess the unending tediousness of the work explains the hostility in your make up. Still it is useful work.
I was teasing all this time when I called you a “Grammar Clerk”. I will be darned if that’s not what you be – Phooey! LOL Keep up the good work!
Jeff asked…
I just noticed this Jeff. I am out of time right now. I shall try to give you a considered response tomorrow if I may.
Jeff wrote:
I guess it depends on what you mean by “when the Fourth Amendment is violated.” If you mean when the police find one thing but were looking for another, a lot of people would say that plain common sense would make the found contraband admissible; some don’t see it that way. Some people would say that if you intercept foreign telephone calls, even without a warrant, and those calls indicate some sort of terrorist plot, we can act on them; some people disagreed.
Book banning? While I’m sure the “Heather Has Two Mommies” stuff comes to your mind, I’d point out that the books people are most likely to want banned from the public sphere are the Bible and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It normally isn’t social conservatives who want to ban those books.
Jeff wrote:
Well, that’s certainly true enough, but the reason, of course, is that fifty years ago the social conservative morés were the general societal morés. Social conservatives, including me, think that our society worked a whole lot better then.
Well, that’s certainly true enough, but the reason, of course, is that fifty years ago the social conservative morés were the general societal morés. Social conservatives, including me, think that our society worked a whole lot better then.
Let the record show that Dana is a straight, white, middle-class male…
By the way – I note the Economist today talking about banks buying back shares from the government, $68 billion being spent on reprivatisation without any government objection. Will we hear any comments from those screaming about “socialism” and “Barack seizing control” stating that they were wrong?
Yeah, I wasn’t alive 50 years ago, but I personally would rather live in 2009 than in 1959. Perhaps that’s the core difference between the social liberal and the social conservative – the former looks to the future, the latter looks to the past…
Phoe – The Economist has been behind the bailout and government takeover of the banks from the start. This is no great surprise.
Oh, and nice job against Spain there for your Kiwis – 6-0 would have just been embarrassing
2008′s most challenged book: And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. Followed by the pro-atheist His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.
Social conservatives, including me, think that our society worked a whole lot better then.
I agree. And let the record show that this Dana is a straight, brown, middle-class female…
No, although the mechanics who worked on this stuff were no slouches, either. And certainly a lot smarter than your average 12 year old, your sneers to the contrary aside.
Oh, and I wouldn’t sneer at today’s auto mechanics, either. With all the technology that goes into modern cars, you have to know a hell of a lot about electronics and computer engine controls. It’s no longer a job of just turning a wrench and fiddling with the timing any more.
That’s fine, just so long as the former also learns from the past, and honors the traditions that made modern society what it is. The future may be freer and more exciting (especially with technology), but it also seems to be ruder, cruder, less polite and less conducive to civilized living.
When we were kids, we could roam around all day long, and play pretty much where we wanted. Nowadays that would be unthinkable. Me and my buddies lived in a Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn kind of world, which, sadly, seems to be gone forever ….
other Dana: “I agree [that Social conservatives think that our society worked a whole lot better then]. And let the record show that this Dana is a straight, brown, middle-class female…”
Dana, I was alive 50 years ago, a grown man then. With all due respect, you, given a choice, are much better off now than then. Racial segregation was rampant at that time, in the North as well as in the South, not to mention the much lower glass ceiling that existed then. Be happy for the progress regarding opportunity for “a straight, brown, middle-class female”, and bright too!
Perry, I think there is a distinction: for all the “progress” that has been won, it came at a very significant price. While of course I agree that the obvious changes and progress are without disagreement by most of us, and were historic, necessary, and made our country a more honorable place and one actually representative of ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness‘ for all, I do believe that there is a flip-side to some of those changes that have not been for the better, and in fact have weakened our country. I would put near or at the top of that list: the freedom to abort full-term very viable babies. I would also add that the multi-generational life of welfare systems has been an enormous failure. I believe that the philosophy behind said changes (and others) is why we have now elected a president like we have. And that to me is a very dangerous bit of progress.
(I’m sorry to be scattered and brief but I’m attempting to simultaneously getting ready for work and gotta run.)
sad to see how much nonsense this article carries
Oh, and I wouldn’t sneer at today’s auto mechanics, either.
Definitely the Dunning-Kruger effect then…
Oh, and nice job against Spain there for your Kiwis – 6-0 would have just been embarrassing
Shuddup.