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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mac Con Ulaidh who wrote (340)	1/11/2001 3:33:53 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 82486

but cats are carnivores. all of them, yes? Chooseanother, I started all this this by making an observation regarding a post from Rarebird to Jorj where Jorj had said he didn't think the government should fund the arts and Rarebird asked why not. I recognized the difference between their points of view as the classic difference between a liberal and a libertarian approach. So I popped in, gave a pithy (and, I thought, pretty obvious) statement of the salient difference between the two perspectives, and then popped out thinking I had performed this clarifying service for the thread. Well... As I reflect on your message, it would have been better had I said "liberalism" rather than "liberals." Maybe that wouldn't have come across as so personal. But I do think that using government to solve problems is a key characteristic of liberalism as practiced today in the U.S. Political philosophy is not like race or sex. We're born into those groups. People choose to affiliate themselves with a political philosophy and apply that label to themselves based on a more or less common understanding of what that group stands for. If you eat only plant food, you call yourself a vegan. If you also eat eggs and dairy, you call yourself a vegetarian or an ovo-lacto-vegetarian. If a guest in my house calls himself a vegan, he won't find bacon and eggs on his plate. Yes, there are screwy people in the world who say "I'm a vegan but I also eat fish and strawberry yoghurt." But people pretty much use the label that fits them. I definitely do assume that anyone who calls himself a liberal is in favor of using government programs to solve societal problems as I stated. Possible responses to my statement might include: -Yeah, and damn proud of it; -Karen, I think you're mistaking X for Y here and what you're really getting at is Z; -Magazine.com just ran a story of the various characteristics of liberalism. Here's the link. I (don't) think they included your characteristic; -That's been true in the past but there's a movement afoot to...; or -Provide your own characteristics of liberalism like Rarebird did today. Or write me off as someone with hopelessly pre-conceived notions about what a person thinks. I would hope it wouldn't be the latter. Karen