What Non-Liberals Dislike About Liberalism (restored)

Politics and religion
366

Yes, I read the edit, but I still think it’s wrong. Liberals don’t fail to take into account the existence of zero-sum economic outcomes when they set policy. They are explicitly responding to the existence of zero-sum economic outcomes when they set policy.

Basically, people on the right say that there are always winners and losers, and we should for the most part just accept that; while people on the left say that there are always winners and losers, and we should do something to minimize the misery which comes from losing.

Similarly, people on the right say anyone can win, and people who don’t win are to some extent to blame for the outcome; while people on the left say that some people are dealt a losing hand from the very start of life, and can’t be blamed for their poverty.

Of the two views, only one of them looks self-serving, and only one of them is self-contradictory. If there are always winners and losers, then not everyone can win, and boot-strapping can’t work for everyone, and we will be left with a bunch of the losers to deal with. So the choice is, we let losers starve, or we figure out a way that they can eat. That’s what it ultimately comes down to.

367

As an example, conservatives say this about people who they don’t even know; people with circumstances about which they similarly know nothing. How well should it go over?

368

I don’t disagree with anything in the paper you linked. Nor does it refute my point that effort matters. Nor does it refute your point that luck matters.

What probably matters more is that I agree with the 5 items they suggest for policy makers, although the prescriptions are so general that doesn’t say much. But that doesn’t really matter (nor does your opinion) because the actual policy debate on these issues tends to exist in the extremes, and the actual policy change tends to be on the margins.

370

It appears I have completely failed to make my point.

Original post: What Non-Liberals Dislike About Liberalism.

Another try for response: The liberal need to be politically correct gets in the way of important discussions around competition at risk of offending. As a result, hard realities are downplayed and glossed over.

I’m pretty sure I messed that all up and suck at this.

371

You see, this is just a pejorative. It’s an insult about liberals, and a way of blaming them for the absence of policy solutions to mitigate poverty. Yet the liberals want policy solutions to mitigate poverty, and the conservatives don’t, and that’s the blindingly obvious reason policy is so bad, not any alleged liberal ‘need to be politically correct’.

I don’t think that at all. I think you’re making your point clearly; it’s just a bad point.

372

I don’t think you’ve failed at all, at least not with your second try. You’re making a point relevant to the OP, others aren’t interested in the spirit of the OP.

373

For my part, I’d like to see an example of where a country achieved full employment and that achievement triggers spiraling inflation which wrecked economy economy. I don’t say there aren’t any, but I can’t think of one.

The Fed claims to have two mandates: Keep unemployment low and keep inflation low. The problem is that their idea of ‘low’ unemployment is something like 4-5%, and their definition of ‘high’ inflation is something like 2%. So at the best of times we have 4-5% unemployment, less than 2% inflation, stagnant wages, growing inequality, and the erosion of the middle class. This is the design intent of the policy.

374

Discussing conservative criticism of liberalism isn’t the spirit of the OP? Or does ‘discussion’ in this case mean ‘advertisement’?

375

I love this thread so much. I don’t read it closely anymore but revel in how it answers the original postulated question.
It also confirms the evidence that liberals are consistently worse on the ideological Turing test.

376

I did misunderstand your point. That’s not your fault. Sorry for the derail.
Edit: Deleted the post with the links.

377

I hate what Scott keeps doing to this thread. I wish I could mute him.

378

I’m actually curious if you have specific examples of this. Most liberal attempts to redress poverty have to do with leveling the playing field: Head Start, free school lunches, subsidized childcare, S-CHIP, SNAP, Medicaid, universal education. These are programs that make at least some attempt to ameliorate the hurdles that kids who grow up in poverty face. Couple that with unemployment insurance, jobs guarantees, some sort of UBI, and you’re looking at policies aimed at keeping families together, because two-parent families are–in many cases–preferable to single parent ones. To me, these policies actually are based on a couple of conservative ideas: everyone deserves equal opportunity and nuclear families are the cornerstone of a robust social culture. I’m not sure how liberals’ penchant for “political correctness” (a somehow pejorative term which means “using someone else’s own preferred modes of address rather than imposing your own”) gets in the way of this. I mean there probably are ways this is so, but I can’t think of them. Liberals (especially white liberals) do tend to trip over our own feet sometimes.

379

Yes, but they fall squarely into that ugly territory, so I would prefer not.

I don’t know how to quote multiple posts :(

@scottagibson The whole point of the thread is “things that non-liberals don’t like about liberals” and I have done my best to add to that based on my own experience.

“You see, ths is just a pejorative. It’s an insult about liberals…”

It follows that insults would be generated around things that people don’t like.

Poverty was just one example. Based on your reply, I really don’t think you did understand my point, or are trolling me. If so, that’s OK. Trolling can be fun, I suppose, until somebody gets hurt. I thought it would be neat to just use elipses between letters in a quote to say anything wanted. Something like “s… u…n…i…o…j”

Anyhow, carry on. I’ll add if it is appropriate and fits.

380

Just to be clear, the whole intent of this thread was to learn and discuss things that non-liberals dislike about liberals even if those views are wrong, un-nuanced, stereotyped, overbroad, strawmen, etc. I did not title the thread “completely legitimate and factually proven things non-liberals dislike about liberalism.”

Also, in order to avoid the non-liberal voices getting shouted down and to encourage non-liberals posters to voice their views, in the OP I asked for liberals not to attack the non-liberal posters.

I was trying to open up a thread with actual discussion. Unfortunately the gravitational pull of “someone is wrong on the internet!!!” is too powerful. Perhaps my hopes for this thread were just as Pollyanna-ish as my initial views on not banning gman.

Early on, I feel like I did learn some useful things about non-liberals and their views on liberalism.

As the thread has morphed into a more attack and debunking type of thread, I’m still learning things, but in the way Wahoo describes. I’m aware that I myself can be somewhat shouty from a liberal POV and this thread is enlightening me about ways to tone that down and communicate more effectively.

I guess this is part of the QT3 experience: the posters are gonna have far more control over the direction of a thread than the originator and one discussion can more into another (and another and…)

381

#NotMyLiberalism

But yes, some of us are the equivalent of leftist Sean Hannitys.

382

That whole winning and losing thing is directly related to life and death. Racism looms there and many of the big bad uglys that will cause gnashings of teeth and way worse. It was really really hard to deal with them in my marriage.

That being said, I know that my wife and I are better for going through that. We don’t agree on quite a lot, but some of the more egregious stuff, we have moved on.

End of day, if you start basic, like you did, you could probably get somewhere on this board. If you start jumping to specifics, which people want to do, not so likely.

383

…as long as no actual discussion broke out.

Edit: No, this is too terse and will surely lead someone to say I’m just being difficult, so let me explain.

@Sharpe, I fail to understand what sort of discussion you want to have, and I ask that you take the time to explain it to me. Specifically, can you confirm that what you want is:

  • for no one to ask for examples of a particular complaint about liberals (as I have done and as @Matt_W has just done on the exact same point);
  • for no one to ask for clarifications about a particular complaint about liberals (as I and several other people have done)
  • for no one to challenge the truth value of a particular complaint or claim (as I have done and as several other people have done)
  • for no one to offer any discussion at all which signifies disagreement with or doubt about the particular complaint.

Does that sum it up? And, if so, what is in bounds other than agreement with the complaint?

384

At the risk of piling on a bit, just wanted to say “thanks” for this. It’s very useful in helping me understand where some of my more conservative friends are coming from in their comments.

FWIW, I would find a more in depth discussion of how to untangle that knot effectively to also be useful, but to Sharpe’s point, that sort of thing is a derail from this thread.

385

I’m probably going to regret this, but as an non-affiliated voter for my entire voting life, what I don’t like about liberals is they can’t focus. What I mean is that there are so many grievances and so many problems, they feel like they have to tackle them all and they have zero ability to prioritize.

All they want to do is add one more program.

And in doing so, they proclaim to speak for me and I must be an enemy if I don’t agree with ALL of their demands.

As illustrative to my point, I give you the 99% group from 6 years ago. Most references / websites to this group are now defunct, the wikipedia page points to several dead links and I was finally able to find the list of their demands.

I should probably quote it under a summary b/c it could be a dead link itself any time.

This list is indicative to how I perceive liberals. A well meaning grievance (and I’ll paraphrase to how I interpret it was the 1% held way too much influence over the other 99% of people). But as with most things liberals touch, while there was a lot of truth and passion around this, they are unable to focus. When the list came out, I just laughed and to use Ronald Reagan’s famous quip “there you go again”. I refuse to even count how many things they demanded, but it was excessive. My eyes glazed over very quickly.

Locally, I see the same thing. I’m in Oregon, and since I’ve been here, I’ve lost count of all the programs that continue to get funded. Heck, even our shitty crappy governor, Kate Brown, after only 18 months, proclaims the “18 accomplishments she’s done”, when she has yet to move the needle on the single biggest problem Oregon has and that is PERS, our underfunded retirement system for public employees.

Coming from a business background where I managed medium sized groups (70-80 people with a budget of ~$10-15M), we would never even think of going to our VP with more than 2 or 3 things to fund the next year, and 3 would be pushing it.

This forces people to prioritize. What is really important? How would you rank them? Can you get to a top 3?

My guess is that no liberals could get to a top 3 and that is my biggest dislike about Liberalism.

386

I think this is a fair criticism.

Do you mean … well, what do you mean? Top 3 list of things that need to change?
Sounds like a fun thread. (Not sarcasm.)