| You're a liberal if ..… |
| …you believe that Republicans are waging class warfare -- on behalf of the rich, and that they favor corporations over the middle class. …you want new corporate regulations and tougher enforcement of existing laws …you have either not been affected by the Bush tax cuts or your taxes have actually gone up. …you prefer a universal healthcare system that's run by the government and financed by taxpayers as opposed to the current private, for-profit system. …you favor making it easier for people to buy prescription drugs from Canada or other countries at lower cost. …you want government to mandate higher fuel efficiency in cars …you are critical of US government trade policy, including NAFTA and the China trade deal. Source: "Debunking 'Centrism'" by David Sirota - The Nation - 12/16/04 …you believe in Social Security. …you believe in Medicare. …you believe in workers' rights. …you believe in equal rights for women …you believe in equal rights for blacks (and other minorities.) …you believe that someone who works full time should earn a living wage. …you believe that a woman should have the right to choose when she will carry a child to term. …you believe that the quality of the air we breathe, the soil we grow our food in, and the water we drink and farm fish in is more important than some corporation's or some rich person's money. …you believe that it's smarter to provide child care at the beginning of life than to provide prison space farther on in life. …you believe that the people who have the most should pay the most tax. …you believe that peace is better than war. …you believe that our true strength comes from our reputation around the world rather than the size of our fist. …you believe that we are safer when we make peace with other nations rather than war. …(add your own below) Two scholars, Philip E. Tetlock, professor of management and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Gregory Mitchell, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, have done provocative and useful work analyzing the pluses and minuses of liberalism and conservatism. In “Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Justice: Conflicting Psychological Portraits,” Tetlock and Mitchell argue that the liabilities of conservatism include the following: “Conservatives are too prone to engage in zero-sum thinking (either I keep my money or the government takes it). They fail to appreciate the possibility of positive sum solutions to social conflicts.” Conservatives hold “the laissez-faire ‘minimal-state’ view that, although we have a moral obligation to refrain from hurting others, we have no obligation to help others. Conservatives cling to the comforting moral illusion that there is a sharp distinction between allowing people to suffer and making people suffer.” “Conservatives fail to recognize that even if each transaction in a free market meets their standards of fairness (exchanges between competent adults who have not been coerced or tricked into contracts), the cumulative results could be colossally unfair.” “Conservatives do not understand how prevalent situational constraints on achievement are and thus commit the fundamental attribution error when they hold the poor responsible for poverty.” “Conservatives overgeneralize: From a few cases of poor persons who exploit the system, they draw sweeping conclusions about all poor persons.” “Chance happenings play a much greater role in success or failure than conservatives realize. People often do not control their own destinies.” Source: :"What the Right Gets Right" By THOMAS B. EDSALL - NY Times - January 15, 2012 |
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| Comments | Contributor | Date Submitted |
| Sign me up! (And to think some people try to make "liberal" into a dirty word.) | Linda Denton |
9/14/2004 |
| ...you think that you are endowed with the right to take other peoples hard earned money and spend it for "social" progams | 9/16/2004 | |
| You forgot the most important part. You want to surrender to our enemies because you just know that the terrorist will echo your thoughts. Come let us reason. | 2/26/2007 | |
| What makes the Iraqis our enemies? | Webmaster Spinshield |
2/27/2007 |
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