Is America “really” conservative, or liberal?
by John Krehbiel on 9 March 2013
This problem has come up here before.
As I see it, there are at least three problems with trying to answer the question in the title.
First, just what is “liberal” and what is “conservative?” I know that I tend to ignore stands on issues I don’t care about when classifying someone. I’m guessing that most people do the same.
Second, what are the public’s real views? Simplistic questions play into the biases we hear in the media. We’ve been hearing for 35 years or more how bad it is to be a liberal, so nobody wants to admit to that, do they?
Third is the public relations mindset of the terminology used by politicians and the press. Republicans can’t seem to call their opposing party by the correct name, since they can’t bring themselves to say that they are opposing “Democratic” ideas. Anyone who suggest any kind of restrictions on abortion is “anti-women.”
Anyway, this article was very interesting. Apparently when you ask people about their actual views, they are consistently more liberal than the press or the politicians who claim to represent them think.
-- 2013-03-09 » John Krehbiel
9 March 2013 @ 2:37 pm
I would say that by definition the country is neither liberal nor conservative, and that “liberal” and “conservative” have to be defined as deviations from the mean.
The idea that the media assumes the country is more conservative than it is seems delusional to me.
9 March 2013 @ 2:49 pm
“We’ve been hearing for 35 years or more how bad it is to be a liberal, so nobody wants to admit to that, do they?”
Hearing from whom? The media? Hollywood? The academic establishment? They’re on the Left. Do you mean that conservatives say it’s not good to be a liberal? Why would they say otherwise? When was the last time you said “three cheers for the Right”?
Incidentally, how do you describe yourself? “Liberal” doesn’t seem appropriate. “Progressive”, maybe, in the sense of the early progressives?
You have a particular constellation of beliefs on philosophy, politics, economics, and of course you have a multi-headed conspiracy theory which still surprises me. Your views aren’t as unusual as they should be, IMHO, but the groups that I can think of who share most of your views — socialist workers parties — aren’t ones I’m comfortable lumping you in with.
(For one thing, they tend to have rather more concrete views about who’s running the conspiracy than you’ve committed to. Your dabbling in WWII-intervention revisionism made me a little concerned, but you’ve never actually come out and said you think the plutocrats like bagels and lox, so I’ll hope for the best.)
9 March 2013 @ 5:33 pm
Greg, if “conservative” and “liberal” mean anything at all, then they can’t simply be relative to some average. That road leads to dictionaries defining “literal” as meaning it’s own opposite.
Oh, wait…
DSM, the complaints about “liberal bias” have been pretty constant since Spiro Agnew talked about
“nammering nabobs of negativism” or whatever. The media have responded by giving credence to wildly counter-factual statements in the name of “balance” and calling obviously un-serious “economic plans to reduce the deficit” “serious.”
Dad used to say that he “never met a true liberal,” by which ne meant a person who holds all of the beliefs of liberals (whatever they may be). The thing is, no thinking person agrees completely with any particular platform, ISTM.
And no, I don’t think that a Jewish Cabal is running things. It has a great deal more to do with wealth than culture and/or religion. The wealthy have been fighting against the idea that government ought to make the vast majority better off, and nobody destitute, for a century or more.
But that is really off topic. The point is, that if you define “liberal” and “conservative” in terms of a constellation of beliefs, as I think they must be, then the American public is nowhere near as conservative as the press and the politicians think they are.
9 March 2013 @ 6:15 pm
I would guess that the majority of politicians do not spend their time talking to a statistically valid cross-section of their constituents, spending more time with people who make large campaign contributions. I would guess that, in general, those people are conservative (as they would tend to be happy with the status quo). And what about those “persons” which are corporations? I wonder how those were counted in the study you reference… I would assume that they were ignored, and that they are generally more conservative (and influential) than the average living and breathing “person”.
9 March 2013 @ 6:23 pm
There certainly is a selection process going on. People who are motivated to complain may very well be leaning more one way than the other.
As to those “persons who are corporations,” I’ll believe that a corporation is a person when Texas executes one.
10 March 2013 @ 11:56 am
John, certainly there is some value in defining the American culture according to some objective kind of criteria. For example, the Chinese are supposed to be more conservative (in the sense of sticking with tradition) than western democracies are.
But I keep getting stuck on the words “moderate,” “left” and “right.”
I think those terms have to be defined against the mean. You have to be left or right of something, after all.
“Liberal” and “conservative” may have a meaning apart from demographics, although it’s hard to define exactly what that would be, since the group of values that define “conservatism” or “liberalism” has changed a lot.
10 March 2013 @ 11:57 am
>As to those “persons who are corporations,” I’ll believe that a
>corporation is a person when Texas executes one.
BTW, I’m assuming that you like to say that because it’s funny, and not because you think it has anything at all to do with the legal issues.
10 March 2013 @ 1:06 pm
A person, in a sensible definition, is a single human being with certain other characteristics. The trouble is, that there are certain rights that corporations need to have to function in society in the way we want them to. So we have this inappropriately named “personhood” assigned to corporations.
But if they have rights, they ought to have offsetting obligations. Trouble is, one major motivation to incorporate is to avoid liability. (After all, LLC means “limited liability corporation”)
So what would capital punishment for a corporation look like?
First, all of the corporate asserts are seized and auctioned off to mitigate the harm done in the capital crime. (the BP oil spill, for instance) All stocks in the corporations are declared valueless. The persons responsible for the corporations operations are prohibited from working in the same industry ever again. If it is a foreign corporation, none of its products may ever be sold in the United States again, and American stockholders lose the value of their shares.
That pretty much removes the motivation to harm others in seeking profit, don’t you think?
And yes, I am completely serious. If you can”t do business without unacceptable harm, you can’t do business.
Period.
10 March 2013 @ 3:10 pm
I agree in principle with the idea of capital punishment for corporations, and I agree that those responsible for bad behavior, would ideally not work in the same industry in the future.
But I’m wondering about your statement that those with “rights” should have “corresponding obligations.” For example, if a person has a right to free speech, does he have a corresponding obligation? What is the obligation? To whom is he or she obliged?
The Declaration of Independence of the United States holds that we have certain inalienable rights, and that these are self evident, and that they are endowed to us by our Creator, and not doled out to us based on “corresponding obligations.”
10 March 2013 @ 3:25 pm
Although I didn’t mean a precise 1 to 1 correspondence of obligations to rights, a person exercising free speech has the obligation not to incite riot, make false reports of danger (in the sense of shouting “Fire!” in a theater, for instance) and other sorts of restrictions.
And people asserting rights often claim that they are “self-evident.” That doesn’t necessarily make it so. We have the rights we assert and defend. Nobody gives them to us at all.
10 March 2013 @ 3:42 pm
I agree that actions should have consequences, so let’s apply that to your proposed solution.
What if the consequence of the change you’re suggesting is that businessmen decide it’s better to go invest in Canada, Mexico, Ireland, China, etc., jobs dry up and the economy tanks. Would we be better off having won the battle against “corporate personhood”?
Of course I’m exaggerating the probable effect, but the point is that ideas have consequences. Companies are already taking their business elsewhere because our regulatory environment is tough. If you make it even harder to do business in America, what will happen?
Is there another country in the world that has a system like what you’re proposing? Has it worked anywhere?