Right. Everyone in the world is a leftist except for you and Hawkeye. It must be lonely.
Well, there you have it. Couldn't have put it better myself. If that's not an ideology, I wish someone would show me one. And what was that about "realism?"
That is becoming less true every day. Big government and big business are both part of the same trend toward the centralization of power. I don't consider either one to be my friend.
That kind of broad generalization just doesn't hold up. For every George Soros there's a Richard Mellon Scaife. Sure, plenty of poor and middle-class people are conservative. And plenty aren't. This country is about evenly split on the left/right axis, as the last few elections have demonstrated. What you worry about is the people who inflame and exploit these divisions in order to get and hold onto power.
Every one so far has consisted of "it is because it is." Maybe you could do better.
Well put. If I may elaborate, the "negotiation" is how we balance the tension between individual liberty and the common good. The "law of the jungle" is pretty much what you get if conservatives get their way. Of course, it's not much nicer if the other side gets their way.
IOW: If you're not over here on the far right with me, you must be on the far left. Real helpful and illuminating.
The man you refer to said essentially that liberty is a worthy goal in itself, not a mere means to an end. Just so happens, however, that liberty also works. When people are free, they tend to make self interested decisions which result in a very efficient economy, making just the right amount of goods and services available. It is a self regulating system. This statement is based on an understanding of human nature, and observations of human history and tradition. No one invented this system. We observed it in place and saw that it worked. Has worked from time immemorial. So how is that ideological? It wasn't an idea first, which then needed to be implemented with a government program, thus, by definition, its advocacy is non-ideologically rooted. Liberty, and free markets (liberty's natural outgrowth), are simply what happens when there's no tyranny. This is as non-ideological a conclusion as is imaginable. So what the blank are you talking about?
Make sense, man!Ok, I went back and read his post. You could be right. When he said, "This is an end in itself," it looked to me that the "free market" was the "end" to which he referred. Still makes sense to me, since he called the free market essentially the result of people being free to make their own decisions. If he is saying that the free decisions are the worthy goal, and the free market is its result, then what does that mean? Are two or more businesses "free" to conspire to hide market information from consumers? Then the consumers are certainly not "free" to make the informed choices that a free market depends on.
The problem is that a market consists of sellers and buyers. The "self interested decisions" of one are definitely NOT in the best interest of the other. And who exactly "observed it in place?" There has never been a self-regulating, "free" market. Can you show me one? Can you find me one in the historical record? No, you may think that observation preceded the idea, but you are mistaken. The ideas came from Smith and some other Enlightenment thinkers, who imagined an ideal market that has never existed.
If you would actually read those fellows, you would see that they write about human nature, and observed human behavior. They are not proposing free markets as something that needs to be brought into existence by government action. What they are saying is that free markets are what happen when you get government out of the way, and that they are self regulating.
They lived and breathed, my friend. They lived and breathed.
I'm trying to be kind here, but you sound like Jimminy Cricket. And calling me names doesn't help any. I'm asking you to produce an example, and since you can't come up with one, I'm the one who can't see something?
I'm sorry, I assumed you knew you were a leftist.
"As Tocqueville astutely saw, libertarianism and centralization -- mirror images of one another -- are not so much enemies as allies in the vanishing of a spirited public life and in the diminution of humanity."Caimlas said:
Uh, no.ML said:
IOW, I can't find an example of any place where my "reality" based beliefs have actually ever existed in reality, so I'll just throw an insult and end with the usual idealist's argument, "It's so because I say it's so."
More free-market religion. A simile does not make an argument.
Duh. Buffet was directly responding to those people who accuse anyone who questions the worst excesses of our economic system of formenting "class warfare." So when he uses the term in his response, you call him a leftist for using the term. Nice debating tactic there. Can't lose that way.
Now you're changing the terms of the debate. No one is arguing whether markets function or whether human beings respond to them (though your implication about how they respond debatable, also.) You argued in the OP that "Conservative/Libertarian" beliefs arise from an observation of nature and are not an ideology. You somehow are trying now to argue that because market forces are real that it automatically supports conservatism. What you can't do is offer an example of any real life observation that supports your beliefs. That is nothing but an ideology, ie., based on your fervent beliefs and not on reason.
Nonsense! Let me set you straight. My assertion was that conservatism is non-ideological. The fact that conservatism considers, in its analysis of economics, how human beings actually respond to market stimuli, is my proof. To a leftist, on the other hand, how human beings actually respond to market stimuli is irrelevant. All that is relevant to leftist economics is whether a particular assertion is consistent or inconsistent with leftist theories of economics, i.e., leftism is ideological in character.
Well, now you're trying to side-step again. You're conflating "conservatism" with the whole broad subject of market economics. As I said in my first post:
I think this represents the "conservative" wing of market ideology. Art disagreed with that assessment eloquently, but when I look at political issues in this country, I see those who are considered "conservative" opposing every attempt to regulate any aspect of the economy. You seem to agree with my assessment, but to disageree over whether it constitutes an "ideology." It is obvious to me that the value judgements that you and other self-styled "conservatives" apply to market economics renders it an ideology. There is nothing inherent in recognizing the reality and power of market forces that stratjackets you into your rigid belief that those forces should be unfettered. It is a belief system, plain and simple. Evidenced by the fact that you insist on calling me a "leftist" because I believe there are times and situations under which it is desirable to regulate the market.
If by "leftist" you mean Communist ideologues, I agree. That still doesn't mean conservatives aren't ideological. I also question whether your use of the word "leftist" has much rigor. On the one hand you seem to be describing Communists, then you use it on me like an epithet because I disagree with the most extreme example of market economics.
