Left & Right: Liberals/Conservatives

Now hold on there, buddy! You have some points mixed up. You say: “One of my biggest problems with Liberal ideology is that government must somehow assume the responsibilities that should rest with the individual.” This is not true. I am a big supporter of personal responsibility. I think in order for a society to function well, the individual must be responsible for his or her actions and at the same time take into consideration other citizens as well. This being said from a liberal, the government does not assume the responsibilities of the individual. Liberals see government as a vehicle to help people and better society. Putting aside obvious problems that we see today for a moment, consider this:

A family is poor and the mother and father are trying to make ends meet for their children who are school age. Despite the parents working really hard to bring in food and pay rent for their apartment, the family is still struggling. The government provides them with welfare. Even though it is not enough to live on without a job, it helps pay some of their rent, the family spends less money because they have food stamps, and the public school educates their children for free. Public school education is excellent in NY (I personally can attest to that). The parents are personally responsible. They are trying to take care of their kids and make ends meet. It is not their fault that they are in this position. The government helps them by giving them a boost. It is not that the parents want to be in this situation or want to live like this for the rest of their lives and flush personal responsibility down the drain. They want to get out and make their lives better and more productive. If we lived in a total “libertarian paradise” as a friend so eloquently put it to me, that family would never survive. People would assume that they were never responsible enough and this is their punishment. Even when someone is personally responsibly, things happen to them that are out of their control. As a result there would be no food stamps, no money to pay for their children’s private school education, no shelter, and no help. If we lived in such a society, charity would not exist because people would only assume that everyone is perfectly responsible and for those who are not, why should others care about them? A libertarian society focuses on the individual so why should citizens care about other citizens?

As you can see, that is what a liberal government would do. There are problems with the welfare system. For example, people claim welfare checks for a living. They become dependent on the government for housing, food, income, etc. Those people are not personally responsible and are bleeding valuable money that could be used to help people in the situation that I mentioned above. I think that those individuals who “steal” money should be kicked off and face serious consequences. Anyway, liberals don’t want government to assume your responsibilities, we want government to lend a helping hand to those who are personally responsible but who are in scenarios where help is required.

Lets address your next point about the role of state and federal governments. Firstly, the federal government is supreme. The states are 100% submissive to the rules and regulations of the federal government. We are 1 country, not 50 states in a confederacy. No state is better than the other and no state will “stick it to the man” if you will to show how strong they are. State governments are a localized extension of the federal government. They should implement the laws and policies that the federal government makes. States governments are designed to work for their constituents only in that state. New York may have money and want to create a better transit system from upstate to downstate, while Kansas would use that money to build tornado resistant houses. So clearly state governments do things that relate to their state’s needs. Ultimately, they will obey all rules and regulations of the federal government.

You say: “Society should be self-regulating in that the individual should be responsible for their own behavior and how it affects others.” I couldn’t agree more with you. The creation of a federal government with representatives elected into office by their constituents is self-regulating. No outside people are governing the US. Police forces around the country is another example of self regulation. Those police officers are US citizens. They go home every night (or every morning depending on what shift they have) to their house or apartment located where the rest of the citizens live. There is no special “governmental living” for people. So to imply that people who work for the government are a different kind of people is wrong. Unless I misunderstood your point and you implied that there should be total elimination of the government, which doesn’t lead to self-regulation. It leads to no regulation and anarchy, which then leads to a vacuum of power, which leads to a dictatorship to reign in all the craziness of a lawless population. But then, according to your line of logic, the citizens would never allow a dictator to take hold so they would stop it. Which then would mean that they all think the same way and which then means the government implanted mind devices in their heads to indoctrinate them to believe in self-regulation and the only person who could do such a thing is a dictator!

Obviously I am being silly here. My point is that we are self regulating. The form of government that we see today is self-regulating. It is not perfect, but still self-regulating. Your point about firearms requires its own debate topic, but I will say this: Ideally, no one should own a gun. In today’s society, why do we need it? Do we not trust each other? You speak of self-regulation and personal responsibility so why do we need a gun then?

The rest of your points you bring up are not core liberal ideology. Those are examples of the government exhibiting poor logic.

You say “Conservatives generally believe that a strong family (with two people raising children) is best. Studies have shown that two parents raising their children results in kids who do better in school, have higher attendance in college, get in trouble less, and do better in their professional and personal lives…” OK…your point is? Liberals believe that too.

Then you say: “Liberals would tell you this is absurd and one parent can do as good of a job as two can.” Which liberal says that? Rush Limbaugh? Glenn Beck? Sean Hannity? They certainly are liberal with the way they make crazy accusations. I don’t really know where you are going with this, but ok.

You say last: “Liberals like to feed into the myth that whatever a person thinks they are able to do they can do.” What is wrong with a little positive reinforcement?

You say: “Conservatives also believe that people policing their own behavior is a better route to societal prosperity than the government policing people. Liberals think that the more laws they pass the better they make society. Having a basic set of laws is necessary however the more government regulates the individual’s behavior the more dependent people become on being told what they can and cannot do and the less they do for themselves.” Once again, you seem to think that the government and the citizens are two different kinds of people. According to the Constitution, the people pick the government. The government workers are US citizens. They are not from some alien land forced upon you. Liberals don’t think that passing more laws makes society better. That is not liberal ideology. Its like a businessman who thinks that throwing more money at a problem will make it go away. It doesn’t.

As for you last point, I think most people know what they can and cannot do for themselves. As I mentioned in the beginning of my argument, liberals see government as an effective vehicle to help the citizens of the country when in need and to provide services to make the quality of life better throughout the country. If people are dependant on the government for support when not in a time of need, then society slows down and progress comes to a halt. Fortunately, this is not the case in the US.

You say: “My issue with Liberals is they refuse to put the onus back onto the individual and instead seek to “remedy” any given problem with a new set of laws.” Once again, failure of government to use better logic where logic is necessary.

You say: “The failure of Conservatives is not their ideology so much as their presentation of it. Often times Conservatives come across as mean-spirited. There are the extremes from both sides…” Here is comes…I AGREE!!!

Then you say: “to be sure, however placing the responsibility back onto the individual for regulating their own behavior instead of relying on a set of laws to tell me how I should act or what I can do or what I can own or not breeds a culture of irresponsibility as people will constantly be looking towards the government to bail them out, as was recently the case when Democrats tried to force banks to re-write the terms of their mortgages because people could not afford their homes (never mind the average U.S. consumer is $8,000.00 in credit card debt).” OH NO!! And I thought we were going to agree for once! It appears that you are advocating to get rid of laws. Actually, it sounds very funny. The ridiculousness of that statement explains itself. Jon Stewart would love to see this content.

As for the mortgage crisis, I believe due to the deregulation of the banking industry, private bankers made risky deals that caused for this collapse. Should all of those people who’s mortgages foreclosed fall into the cycle of debt and bankruptcy or should they get some help? Should the banking industry continue to make the risky deals that caused this economic crisis or should someone be there to prevent it from happening again? This here is the function of the government. When operated correctly, the government can be very useful and effective.

Your last point: “We have only to look at three of the worst off states – Michigan, California, and New York – to see what Liberal “leadership” as produced.” Not true. I believe thanks to the extensive issues the Bush Administration caused combined with the fact that states cannot go into deficit spending (which Republicans advocate for), States cannot cope well enough with the economic crisis. These issues that you see are not caused because of liberal leadership, they are caused by the failures of the previous administration, which led to this economic crisis. To fix the problem conservative ideology is the last thing you need. That only works when the country is in a surplus, no debts to anyone and people are doing very well economically. I believe after Clinton we saw that. Then came Bush with his “conservative values” and here we are today. It’s Obama’s fault now! Just to be clear, that last sentence is sarcasm.