OK, I'll bite. I know you're just trying to poke a little fun, but, since I believe that I am a liberal and think most of your statements are wrong then I'll stand up for those of us who choose to wear the title.
First, there is a growing constituency of people who are liberal socially and conservative fiscally. There is an excellent economics book written for non-economic types by Alan Blinder called "Hard Heads and Soft Hearts" that generally explains how to be intelligently liberal.
Second, let's address your laundry list of items:
1. ..business's create oppression and governments create prosperity.
This is obviously ridiculous. Why you would assign this idea to liberals is beyond me. Maybe socialism if you wanted to stretch it.
2. ..the same public school teacher who can't teach a 4th grader how to read is quailified to teach them about sex.
There is certainly much wrong with our public education system, but, I would argue that most of the problem stems from trying to teach children who are out of control, have no respect for authority, and come to school ill-prepared to learn. Teachers can't be responsible for raising society's children and shouldn't get the blame when they get absolutely no support on the home front.
Whether they should be teaching sex education is an entirely different issue, but, once again - if they parents at home were more involved in their children's lives and not out screwing around and having kids they can't afford then maybe sex education could be given the position of lessor importance that it has had in the past. If the parents don't teach it somebody has to. Otherwise we will never stem the growing tide of teenage mothers that is growing to ridiculous proportion.
3. ..trial lawyers are selfless heroes and doctors are overpaid.
People in professional positions should, and do, get paid whatever the market will pay. I can't see how a conservative would disagree with that.
4. ..capitol punishment is bad, but abortion on demand is good---in short, you support protecting the guilty and killing the innocent.
I'm for capitol punishment in principle but against it in economic terms...it is more expensive to go through all the mandatory appeals than it is to just lock them up for life.
Abortion is not the flip-side of the capitol punishment coin and I'm really tired of this kill-one-but-not-the-other routine. Why is it that you want less government until it comes to shoving your nose in other people's private lives? You can't have it both ways. Keep the government out of the damn way. Once again, an idea that conservatives should agree with.
5. ..guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese.
Guns in the hands of law-abiding U.S. citizens has never been a problem...it's the criminals using those weapons that cause the problem. And just in case you forgot - handguns have killed an infinite number more of us than have Chinese nuclear weapons.
6. ..global temperatures are affected not by cyclical, documented changes in the brilliance of the sun, but by yuppies driving SUV's.
Really? How long have we had the sophisticated equipment needed to measure this? Thousands of years? Last ice age? I'd love to see the data to support this. Remember we are talking geologic history here not last week.
7. All the rest:
gender roles/sexuality - who cares. Once again, keep out of people's private lives. I don't see how a conservative could argue with that.
self esteem - This isn't spouted by liberals this is spouted by egalitarians of which I am definitely not one.
military/politicians - trust me we're not any happier with the corrupt politicians than you are - and that goes for Clinton too.
NRA/ACLU - to be honest I could do without both of them.
AIDS - I can't tell you what this has to do with being liberal other than maybe your paranoid about your sexuality - which would seem to be so since your brought up sex ed, homosexuality, aids as focal points
standardized tests - I'm a math junkie and am always in favor of reviewing ways to make tests more universally applicable. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that.
quotas - quotas based on anything are stupid. Once again, this is NOT an egalitarian society. The best applicant should be chosen always. Once again, I don't think you can disagree with that.
conservatives/liberals helping blacks or not - I personally think too much is made of race issues these days. While I think racism is a problem and needs to be dealt with, most studies show that differences in behavior, attitudes, tendency to become criminal, etc are based in economic circumstances not racial circumstances. This is just an extension of the quota argument which I have already said I disagree with. So, once again we agree.
Interestingly enough on the left column of the WSJ today is an article that mentions the growing constituency to which I refered earlier: "'There's a constituency out there that's both compassionate and antibureaucratic,' says Joel Kotkin, a public-policy professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. 'Whichever party gets to it first is going to win.'"
Take care,
mc |
