Describing Democrats and Liberal Values

A writer at The Other McCain acknowledges and comments upon my recent “entry” into their contest to describe the Democratic Party:

The Liberal Values Blog (which title, one could argue, is an oxymoron), offered this entry into the Describe the Democratic Party in 20 Words or Less contest:

People with a wide variety of beliefs who oppose the authoritarianism and incompetence of recent Republican rule.which entry affords me three words to append “opting for worse”

Their appendage of “opting for worse” is clearly a matter of opinion. This phrasing does seem to sound like an acceptance of the description of Republicans.

Many conservatives show their lack of understanding of  both politics and morality (or values) as they believe that only they have values. In the case of conservatives such as Robert Stacy McCain, holding values comes down to following what they believe is the word of God as I discussed here. Only such conservatives would fail to recognize these liberal values as values (regardless of whether they agree with them):

  • Support for individual liberty
  • Support for a free market economy in which everyone has the opportunity to succeed based upon their own actions
  • Tolerance of others living a life style different from your own
  • Support for a sensible foreign policy which defends the country while respecting principles such as the Geneva Convention and follows international law opposing the use of  torture
  • Making health care accessible to all, as is the case in every other industrialized nation
  • Taking care of the environment which we all depend upon
  • Support for basing political decisions based upon empiric data as opposed to religious belief
  • Respecting the rights of all to worship or not worship as they choose, which can only be guaranteed by respecting the goal of the Founding Fathers to establish a secular government
  • Respect for science as the best way to understand the universe

12 Comments

  1. 1
    Fritz says:

    Good God — “The Other McCain” blog is well-nigh unreadable.  Is it just me or is the writing there horrifically frenetic?

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Careful Fritz, they are now going to think you are a liberal Democrat.

    It is understandable how McCain would confuse me for a Democrat in some of his responses to my posts as there is a fine but very real line between being an independent supporting the Democrats at the moment because the Republicans are intolerable and being a true Democrat. Now you’ll also be lumped in with them 🙂

    As for the blog, it often does look at the parodies we sometimes see liberals write pretending to have conservative blogs. Unfortunately I really think those guys over there are serious.

    (On a related thought, I remain undecided as to whether Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck really believe anything that they say or if they just see it as an act which bring in lots of money for them.)

  3. 3
    Fritz says:

    Ron — don’t worry, I’m not a whim-worshipping muscle mystic, so I won’t be lumped in with the Democrats.   Of course, I also won’t be mistaken for a Republican.

    I was commenting on the writing style.  I think the author (A Professional Journalist!  Please Tip Me!) has confused ADHD for hipness.  At least he likes pictures of almost-nekkid women.  But that’s not enough to make me want to pay him.

  4. 4
    nomoreGOP says:

    My Favorite Blogs

    Hot Air
    Instapundit
    Michelle Malkin

    Thats about all I needed to know..

  5. 5
    Eclectic Radical says:

    Many Republicans see Ann Coulter as someone who ‘makes a lot of noise and draws attention to their issues’ and therefore deserves respect, but not someone to be taken seriously in all she says. I believe she deliberately exaggerates to make her points, but I don’t believe she does it as often as some Republicans would like to think. More importantly, I don’t think her biggest fans understand that she is exaggerating at all. I think the same is probably true of Glenn Beck and Bill O’Riley.

    Limbaugh and Hannity, I honestly have no idea.

  6. 6
    smitty1e says:

    At the URL is a lengthy response to this post.

  7. 7
    Ron Chusid says:

    Lengthy yes. Coherent no.

    It is ridiculous enough when many conservatives launch attacks on liberals based upon distortions of liberal beliefs. It is even more ridiculous to respond to a liberal correcting this misconceptions with arguments which come down to arguing that we don’t believe what we say we believe but what you say we believe.

    Your accusation of straw men on my part especially ridiculous, coming in a post which is essentially a long straw man argument. This blog, among other sources, has multiple posts on these topics to support these statements, but why let facts get in the way. I hardly expect to see anything resembling rational thought from a creationist.

  8. 8
    Eclectic Radical says:

    I read smitty’s posting, and my brain still hurts. His heavy use of sarcasm appeared desperately eager to avoid any necessity of actually responding to any of Ron’s points. In fact, he never really responded to any of them. He attempted to give a history lesson about ‘classical liberalism’ (which is very different from modern liberalism), proceeded to respond to each point with sarcasm, and then gave his rant about science and religion and his  snappy little delcaration of the concern for the Constitution expressed at CPAC and the Tea Party rallies.

    What bothers me is his gross mischaracterization of secular beliefs about science. While there are some people who view science as their religion, these people tend more towards totalitarianism than any kind of liberalism, classical or modern. I certainly don’t see science as an existential explanation of the meaning of life, I see it as a means of understanding the world around us here and now.

    I particularly enjoy the irony of his claim that conservatives respect science after his length dismissal of science.

  9. 9
    Ron Chusid says:

    Normally I might respond in detail to such a “response” but there wasn’t really anything coherent to respond to. If I wasn’t so busy this weekend I might go through this in detail but it hardly seems necessary, especially considering the lack of any meaningful arguments. I was confident that any readers from here would easily note the irrationality of his response (including his comments on science after his support for creationism).

    As you note, nobody sees science as as providing an existential explanation of the meaning of life but the scientific method, as opposed to following religious dogma, is the best way to study and understand the universe. The meaning of life is a matter for philosophers–preferably those who think independently as opposed to blindly following religious beliefs. Of course I wouldn’t mind that the religious right has such irrational beliefs if not for the fact that they are also attempting to use the power of government to impose their beliefs upon others.

    I would take his statement of concern for the Constitution more seriously if conservatives actually supported it. I’m referring to  movement conservatives of the far right–I’ve often quoted other conservatives who do respect the Constitution and civil liberties in opposition to the Republican Party and current conservative movement.

    When they ignore the checks and balances on Executive power, violate civil liberties, and promote a revisionist history which denies the importance of separation of church and state they are hardly showing any respect for either the Constitution or the views of the Founding Fathers. Instead they pick and choose ideas they like and pretend they are following the Constitution.

    Dammit. I had planned on avoiding wasting any time on this. You had to get me started…

  10. 10
    Eclectic Radical says:

    Well, if anything is clear about me by now, it is that I sometimes have a problem keeping my opinion to myself. 🙂

    There was just no way I could not let that monstrosity pass by without some comment. It was all I could do to remind myself that I don’t post nasty flames on other people’s blogs, that I only post if there is something worth arguing with. 🙂

  11. 11
    Ron Chusid says:

    I’m surprised that you didn’t hit him on health care. “Who is denying you health care?” is hardly a meaningful answer to the health care crisis. Nobody is denying me health care because I make enough money to afford the outrageous premiums (as well as insurance coverage for my employees). That doesn’t mean plenty of people cannot afford this. Then there’s the problem of people who have coverage but get dropped when they wind up needing the coverage, or losing their coverage when laid off. Many companies which offer coverage are also dropping it as a consequence of the recession.

    Incidentally my response was to the claim that liberals do not have values. Disagreement with liberal values does not support the claim that liberals do not have values.

  12. 12
    Eclectic Radical says:

    I had too good an actual intelligent argument with Jenn Q Public on her blog on the health care topic to submit to the urge to waste time flaming idiots on the topic. Though I was really tempted to tell him /exactly/ who is denying me health care.

    Health care and the EFCA are the two topics I write about most right now, I suppose I could just post a bunch of links to his posting as commentary…

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