Cool beans def of a liberal:

[detbuch]

[QUOTE=spence;694272]Reading online I generally see (and according to the dictionary) it's clear (to me at least) that values are the building blocks of principals. I do see some sites that reverse it, so clearly people do read it both ways.

Did you not also say that values and principles are used interchangeably by most people? So brick and house are interchangeable? So one can refer to a whole by one of its parts?

[QUOTE=spence;]Regardless, you're just mincing words, it's what you believe that's important. And to think that in this very thread you were accusing me of trying to nitpick on a single point in invalidate an argument. That didn't take long...

So is it mincing words if I #^&#^&#^&#^&er over whether to call my home a brick or a house? So what really matters is whether I "believe" it's a brick or a house? I didn't accuse you of trying to nitpick on a single point to invalidate an argument. I said your comments seemed to nitpick at some of RR's langauge and I picked a half dozen examples. It was Scott W., not me, who mentioned the method of attacking a single, insignificant point to invalidate an entire argument. My focus on your nitpicking was actually a demonstration that the great bulk of your response was incorrect and that you did not even engage the real points of RR's post. Nitpick was actually a mild, rather kind, choice of words to describe your deceptions.


[QUOTE=spence]That's because it's not a value, it's a principal concept, made up by people, that was meant to set limits on the Federal Government. The limit (i.e. principal) is based on the value of liberty which can't be changed if it's given from God.

Is a principal concept a principle? Could RR have said "the principal concept of "all not surrendered is retained"? Is the VALUE of liberty equal to or the same as the CONCEPT of liberty? Is concept also interchangeable with value and principle? And what are the building blocks of concept if it can be interchanged with principle? What, indeed, are the building blocks of VALUE if values are the building blocks of PRINCIPLE? If a value is the "unalterable belief" can belief be interchanged with value and is principle also an unalterable belief when it is interchanged with value? Same for concept? So how could RR have reversed value and principle if they're interchangeable?

[QUOTE=spence]In your example the value would be thrust[/I], and jet propulsion would be a method of achieving that thrust.

Is thrust an unalterable belief? Can thrust and jet propulsion be interchanged? Why are the values I mentioned of no merit and only your "thrust" is THE value? Are you straining to discredit my example of a principle? The PRINCIPLE of Jet Propulsion IS in the lexicon. It is SCIENTIFICALLY recognized as a PRINCIPLE. And are you saying ("value is the unalterable belief and a principal would guide how the value was applied") that the PRINCIPLE of Jet Propulsion cannot be applied? That a principle cannot be applied? I guess it can be applied when it is interchanged.


[QUOTE-spence]Take equality as a good example. That is a value that our Founding Fathers jumped on as pretty important. A conservative is likely to interpret this strictly as it was written, that we are all equal at birth and what happens after that is up to you.

[QUOTE=spence]A progressive, who also believes in the value of equality might argue that since the world is a complex system with overlapping generations that equality should extend beyond birth. A good example might be the progressive tax system. I believe it was a principal exposed by Karl Marx, but perhaps based on different values. Some, like Ted Kennedy would argue that if not for it we might not have had the rise of the middle class and the economic engine that it created. Personally I feel there's some merit to this and don't discount the idea simply because it shares socialistic roots.

[QUOTE=spence]But neither has changed the fundamental meaning of equality. For the most part all Americans believe in applying equal rights via citizenship to everyone born on our soil.

But are we mincing words? It's what you believe that's important. If a conservative believes "that we are all equal at birth and what happens after that is up to you." And a liberal believes equality should extend beyond birth and in the progressive tax system, they certainly believe equality to be a DIFFERENT value, concept, principle.
And their beliefs are not interchangeable.

[spence]

Are you trying to parody yourself

This is becoming all very clear to me know. The liberal position has no strong foundation because they don't know which words to use to describe it!

-spence

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

Are you trying to parody yourself

This is becoming all very clear to me know. The liberal position has no strong foundation because they don't know which words to use to describe it!

-spence

Naw (unless you and I are interchangeable) I'm just demonstrating your absurdity with absurdity by extending your language and logic to its absurd conclusions. Wait . . . that would be a parody of you!

Actually, diction that shifts, changes, interchanges, (a mark, in my opinion, of much liberal argument) IS a sign of weak foundation. A strong foundation, in argument, evokes clear, direct, unambiguous language. Ambiguity, lack of clarity, shifty words, bespeak uncertainty. Such words are often used to cover up lack of proof or merit. Politicians have to be masters of weak, unfounded diction. You should run for office, or consult for and write for them.

By the way, did you notice in my previous reply that it was not me that accused you of nitpicking a single point to invalidate an argument? The "straw man" is, of course, a common way to create a false or non-existent foundation to an argument. You're also adept at that--turning my demonstration of your SEVERAL nitpicking nonsequiturs in response to ReelinRoc against me by implying that I was doing the very thing of which, you say, I was accusing you--trying to nitpick on a single point to invalidate your argument--when, of course, I never made such an accusation, scottw said that, not I, nor was I doing such a thing.

You do the same to ReelinRoc in your response to scottw when you say that you agree with a lot of RR's post, but "what I don't agree with is outright demonization of liberalism based on rejection of moral relativism. This I do believe is a bunk argument." ReelinRoc did not do that. His main contention, to which you hardly respond, is that a liberal/progressive is dangerous because of liberal redefinition of "rights" and the lib/prog (Obama's) view that negative rights "exceptions to powers not granted" is a fundamental flaw of the Constitution, and that a Bill of Rights should also be included declaring what the Government CAN or should do for you. He NEVER mentions moral relativism. He may not even imply it. It was ME who injected that phrase in a response to you. It was MY OPINION that the concept of "principles" IMPLIES (among other implications) counterintuition to moral relativism. Yet you debunk the remainder (to that which you agree) of his post on the count of what he never said.

You do the same again in the ABSOLUTELY NAILS IT thread (the article by Hanson). You say "the author is clearly trying to make the same moral relativism argument against lilberalism as was made in the other thread" ??? Again, Hanson was not speaking about liberalism. He was speaking STRICTLY about OBAMA. Three posts earlier in the same thread, you said "his core argument, that liberals don't care about lying because all truth is relative, is pretty silly." I pointed out, in reply, that Hansen was speaking about Obama, not liberals.

You persist in seeing what you want rather than what is there, setting up straw men to knock down, shapeshifting words, using phrases like "I don't know anyone who believes". You're relentless, you are a MASTER.

[scottw]

EERIE.. DE JA VU

Here are several quotes from Mises’s Bureaucracy, first published in 1944, but holding relevance for today.


“The characteristic feature of present-day policies is the trend toward a substitution of government control for free enterprise. Powerful political parties and pressure groups are fervently asking for public control of all economic activities, for thorough government planning, and for the nationalization of business. They aim at full government control of education and at the socialization of the medical profession. There is no sphere of human activity that they would not be prepared to subordinate to regimentation by the authorities. In their eyes, state control is the panacea for all ills.” (p. 4)



“America is faced with a phenomenon that the framers of the Constitution did not foresee and could not foresee: the voluntary abandonment of congressional rights. Congress has in many instances surrendered the function of legislation to government agencies and commissions, and it has relaxed its budgetary control through the allocation of large appropriations for expenditures, which the Administration has to determine in detail.” (p. 5)



“Today the fashionable philosophy of Statolatry has obfuscated the issue [of tyrants versus popular government]. The political conflicts are no longer seen as struggles between groups of men. They are considered a war between two principles, the good and the bad. The good is embodied in the great god State, the materialization of the eternal idea of morality, and the bad is the ‘rugged individualism’ of selfish men. In this antagonism the State is always right and the individual always wrong. The State is the representative of the commonwealth, of justice, civilization, and superior wisdom. The individual is a poor wretch, a vicious fool.” (p. 76)



“The fading of the critical sense is a serious menace to the preservation of our civilization. It makes it easy for quacks to fool people. It is remarkable that the educated strata are more gullible than the less educated. The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism are the intellectuals, not the boors. (p. 108)



“The main propaganda trick of the supporters of the allegedly ‘progressive’ policy of government control is to blame capitalism for all that is unsatisfactory in present day conditions and to extol the blessings which socialism has in store for mankind. They have never attempted to prove their fallacious dogmas or still less to refute the objections raised by the economists. All they did was to call their adversaries names and to cast suspicion upon their motives. And, unfortunately, the average citizen cannot see through these stratagems.” (p. 111)



[The Middle Way] “The most detrimental outcome of the average citizen’s repugnance to a serious concern with economic problems is his readiness to back a program of compromise. He looks upon the conflict between capitalism and socialism as if it were a quarrel between two groups – labor and capital – each of which claims for itself the whole of the matter at issue. As he himself is not prepared to appraise the merits of the arguments advanced by each of the parties, he thinks it would be a fair solution to end the dispute by an amicable arrangement: each claimant should have a part of his claim. Thus the program of government interference with business acquired its prestige. There should be neither full capitalism nor full socialism, but something in between, a middle way.” (pp.117-118)