4 ms·

Puzzles for Liberals

26 points by dsego 10y ago

chillacy 10y ago
This was a longer read but it was very interesting. Some time ago I stumbled upon an article analyzing the rationale behind conservative dislike of abortion, which argued that abortion allows a woman who engages in premarital sex to get out of the "punishment" of bearing a child out of wedlock. That seems to fit within the theory presented here. Also a sidenote that the two stories about the different families reads like material for the first and second Bioshock games, respectively. Andrew Ryan being objectivism and triumph of the individual gone wrong, and Sophia Lamb representing socialism gone awry.
exolymph 10y ago
Should be re-titled "The Worldview Problem for American Politics" since "Puzzles for Liberals" is just the first subsection.
norea-armozel 10y ago
I can say as a former conservative that the author is right in that political ideologies have their own lexicon for common words. It's probably why I'm not a conservative (or in most instances not a liberal) anymore since I tend to speak plainly. Even when I was a "born again" I honestly thought that gay marriage was none of my business and the State should just recognize them since it handles the marriage licenses anyways. That got me quite a bit of flak from other conservatives, but my point was if the State manages one kind of marriage then it must have the sovereignty to manage the other kinds whether we personally like them or not. To me it wasn't about promoting life styles, it was about what is the rightful, legal authority of the State. It seems that theoretical framework was lacking from conservative ideologies (probably still is) of the time. Plus, liberals have the same sort of ideological black holes in terms of selective policy stances (anti-drug-war, but pro-gun-regs) which immediately turned me off to them after I left my conservative views behind.
- wodenokoto 10y ago
  seems like you are what in european parlance is called a "liberal".
  - norea-armozel 10y ago
    I'm center left in most global political ideology tests. I subscribe to some form of Mutualism (Prodhoun). But I'm not sure that would classify me as liberal by most left party standards.
paulddraper 10y ago
One I would add to puzzles for conservatives, that continues to puzzle me: Liberals seek to limit or even outright ban firearms, because they are related to many injuries and deaths each year. But they do not advocate banning alcohol, which is the cause of far more injuries and deaths every year. This seems inconsistent. Why is it not?
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  > But they do not advocate banning alcohol Don't they? I'm pretty sure liberals already tried and succeeded at banning alcohol back in the 1920's. They gave up on the idea when it turned out to be a complete disaster.
  - exolymph 10y ago
    As a fairly classic liberal who would prefer more gun control (though not outright banning) but doesn't think alcohol should be banned, here's my rationale: I'm interested in outcomes more than principles. Like TheCoelacanth said, banning alcohol worked out terribly in practice. But based on the example posed by Europe, stricter gun control could have a positive effect on America.
    - paulddraper 10y ago
      Outcomes-over-principals approach is exactly why I compared the two exercise of freedoms on their empirical effect on violence. With that in mind, would you support more alcohol control, analogous to whatever level your desired gun control is? (Perhaps registering containers of alcohol, prohibiting felons from owning alcohol, consumption permits requiring background checks, etc.?) --- PS Using Europe as a model of legal gun restrictions is a convenient choice. Mexico or many South American countries would be less convenient examples.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

26 points by dsego 10y ago

This was a longer read but it was very interesting. Some time ago I stumbled upon an article analyzing the rationale behind conservative dislike of abortion, which argued that abortion allows a woman who engages in premarital sex to get out of the "punishment" of bearing a child out of wedlock. That seems to fit within the theory presented here. Also a sidenote that the two stories about the different families reads like material for the first and second Bioshock games, respectively. Andrew Ryan being objectivism and triumph of the individual gone wrong, and Sophia Lamb representing socialism gone awry.

exolymph 10y ago

Should be re-titled "The Worldview Problem for American Politics" since "Puzzles for Liberals" is just the first subsection.

norea-armozel 10y ago

I can say as a former conservative that the author is right in that political ideologies have their own lexicon for common words. It's probably why I'm not a conservative (or in most instances not a liberal) anymore since I tend to speak plainly. Even when I was a "born again" I honestly thought that gay marriage was none of my business and the State should just recognize them since it handles the marriage licenses anyways. That got me quite a bit of flak from other conservatives, but my point was if the State manages one kind of marriage then it must have the sovereignty to manage the other kinds whether we personally like them or not. To me it wasn't about promoting life styles, it was about what is the rightful, legal authority of the State. It seems that theoretical framework was lacking from conservative ideologies (probably still is) of the time. Plus, liberals have the same sort of ideological black holes in terms of selective policy stances (anti-drug-war, but pro-gun-regs) which immediately turned me off to them after I left my conservative views behind.

wodenokoto 10y ago
seems like you are what in european parlance is called a "liberal".
- norea-armozel 10y ago
  I'm center left in most global political ideology tests. I subscribe to some form of Mutualism (Prodhoun). But I'm not sure that would classify me as liberal by most left party standards.

paulddraper 10y ago

One I would add to puzzles for conservatives, that continues to puzzle me: Liberals seek to limit or even outright ban firearms, because they are related to many injuries and deaths each year. But they do not advocate banning alcohol, which is the cause of far more injuries and deaths every year. This seems inconsistent. Why is it not?

TheCoelacanth 10y ago
> But they do not advocate banning alcohol Don't they? I'm pretty sure liberals already tried and succeeded at banning alcohol back in the 1920's. They gave up on the idea when it turned out to be a complete disaster.
- exolymph 10y ago
  As a fairly classic liberal who would prefer more gun control (though not outright banning) but doesn't think alcohol should be banned, here's my rationale: I'm interested in outcomes more than principles. Like TheCoelacanth said, banning alcohol worked out terribly in practice. But based on the example posed by Europe, stricter gun control could have a positive effect on America.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    Outcomes-over-principals approach is exactly why I compared the two exercise of freedoms on their empirical effect on violence. With that in mind, would you support more alcohol control, analogous to whatever level your desired gun control is? (Perhaps registering containers of alcohol, prohibiting felons from owning alcohol, consumption permits requiring background checks, etc.?) --- PS Using Europe as a model of legal gun restrictions is a convenient choice. Mexico or many South American countries would be less convenient examples.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]