One example: he said that he would make government transparent. He’s done exactly the opposite. The health care bill is being worked out behind closed doors and nobody knows what’s in it. How can they? It’s 2000 pages long! It is being worked out by a partisan gang of political hacks against the wishes of a significant majority of the American people and hurried through in the middle of the night. Only a bunch of arrogant fools who’ve deluded themselves into thinking that they know what’s best for everybody else, would try to shove that tremendous wad of pork down our throats. Perhaps that’s what “having a more expansive understanding of ‘the general welfare’” means. You decide you’re going to help people whether they want it or not, of course using money you stole from their pockets.

Since you’re in the business of “assigning more responsibilities to the government” perhaps you could describe where that stops, or do you think there’s no limit? And what makes you think that government can do any of that better than free people themselves left to their own devices? Those policies have always failed in the past, is there any reason to think they’d succeed now? Look what happened with the “Great Society.” While the civil rights legislation was necessary and long overdue, the welfare component did little more than destroy the black family. You can see the results today, gangland violence, drug infested neighborhoods, out-of-wedlock births in the upper 70% and frightful incarceration rates. That’s what happens when government is convinced it’s doing good.

You have been finding me a questionable character from the very start, so there is no development there. Given what you have persuaded yourself of regarding Obama’s character, I’m not egotistical enough to imagine you should think any better of me.

Yes, I was being arch – and I also believe in all those laws and declarations. Life operates on multiple levels like that.

I do not say that I am not most liberals in order to curry favor from conservatives like you; I say it because I am an individual human being who thinks for himself, as all people should do, as I – you will not believe this – try to teach my students to do. You appear to be having trouble with me because you cannot put me in the box into which it seems I could more easily put you.

I will not pursue the particular issues you raise here in such loaded language because it seems clear that I could enter a wormhole death spiral with you, emerging at the other end – you looking I know not how – with my coccyx sticking out of my mouth and still not have persuaded you that I am not about to admit the ACORN Marxist Mafia through the backdoor of the White House.

As a liberal, of course, I have a more expansive understanding of “the general welfare” than do you, and thus assign more responsibilities to government than do you. If you care to read more of my blog, including recent posts and the many available from the horizontal drop down menu, you will get an idea of my thinking. Then, if you wish to engage me, instead of the liberal-Marxist straw man with whom you love to argue, we could have a discussion.

Now if you were a leftist you’d say that ‘liberal democracy’ was a sham, that the only kind of real democracy would be the dictatorship of the proletariat or whatever contemporary leftists like Amy Goodman thinks democracy should be defined as. That way has been tried and the tyranny of a self-selected group of thugs ruling in the name of ‘the People’ is not democracy. It looks like this is very much what liberals in the Obama administration are aiming for. These days it appears that most liberals are in agreement with the leftists on issues like the environment, ’social justice’ and notion that their opposition is too ill-informed to have an opinion. Remember that in the past Obama has kept company with communists, leftist loons and racist Chicago politicians, not liberals. It’s getting hard to know the difference anymore between wild-eyed radicals and moderate liberals. Perhaps that’s why they like to use the term ‘progressive’, to blur the distinction.

I know you’re going to say that you are not most liberals. In which case perhaps it would be good for you to clarify your differences with the current iteration of overheated liberalism. Since you have not denied it, I am assuming that you have no opposition to the endless expansion of government into the economy and people’s lives as long as it’s for one or another of the liberal do-gooder causes, such as making life fair for people, redressing old grievances of various victim groups, and destroying liberty in the name of saving the planet. All, of course, without the slightest idea of how it’s going to be paid for. But it it’s for people’s own good, who would consider cost?

Jay, I appreciate the debate, and your willingness to discuss these issues. But I’m beginning to suspect that you’re a slippery character. I still don’t get a sense of where you stand on many of the issues of the day or how you feel about other, more radical, members of the progressive movement. The best I can get is that you feel sorry for generations of American Indians in times past but you seem to have little to suggest as actual policy to express that feeling.

Regarding those charges of “Big Government” being levied, perhaps you should listen to them in context–most broadcast means of communication are terrible at conveying more than a brief thought to more than a few people. “Big Government” is shorthand for a more complicated notion, intuitively understood by many citizens. Think of it as “BigGER Government beyond what can be effectively kept within bounds by the citizenry”. Or “Big-ENOUGH Government to establish an uncomfortable level of control over the details of our lives”. After all, we seemingly agree that there is some degree of governmental power beyond which freedom is irretrievable.

This might also get to the heart of the reaction to your focus American Indian history. Your beliefs are viewed by some (including myself) as laying the philosophical groundwork for specific governmental actions that could take away specific material freedoms, without which we are helpless before the Leviathan.

I could have written all twenty-five principles in a single sentence. (I could.) You can read James, Joyce, and Faulkner on your Kindle. You’re stuck here with Hardy.

I believe in the Constitution of the United States, the Magna Carta, the Solonic Laws, The Declaration of the Rights of Man, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – Wait. I may be going too far.

I’ll be sure to incorporate them all into any revision of the principles.

Neil,

I understood the spirit of the questions. Quick answers. I agree that 23 can apply to the size of government. I acknowledged that in this post, but perhaps too briefly. I recognize nothing more than the tendency of any bureaucracy to grow bloated and slow on the fat of its own processes. I do, however, recognize other social ills equally. Of course, it is true that many adherents of limited government know well the parameters of those limitations that they believe in. It is also true that much political discourse levies empty, reflexive charges of “big government” at any new government initiative. I am against all forms of reflexivity. Make that principle 27. I believe that all government powers, over the economy or any other area of our lives, need be checked by law. And I believe mightily in the creative, entrepreneurial power of free enterprise. I also believe that markets and capitalism contain inherent and human-bred excesses that must be checked by government. We are all fierce warriors with a bullet in the shoulder holding guns on each other.

I realize that you meant 23 to apply only to foreign relations, but I think it also applies to domestic policies. If you do not agree that governmental power over the economy carries its own interests and inertia, then congratulations, we have found our point of departure.

You said:
“In part, 22 was meant to challenge the automatic rejection of “big” government without a clear understanding of what (too) big is and what jobs there are that government should appropriately be performing.”

That’s a bit of a straw man, there.

There are numerous long and detailed expositions on precisely this topic in center-right literature. Most libertarians will gladly admit that government is good for many things. So there is no disagreement there. There is disagreement about what, exactly, government is good for, and how far it may go without becoming a menace.

Those on the right believe that the government’s power over the economy and the interest in self-perpetuation of governmental agents creates a dynamic which must be strictly limited, lest it destroy the people’s freedoms. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you agree, then how much economic power is too much for government to have? Is there any limit?

That is where I find fault in your ‘principles,’ it’s about what you omit. You don’t seem very interested in the founding principles of our nation, it’s emphasis on liberty, the limitation of government power, and the right of citizens to live their lives with the least interference possible. Perhaps you just didn’t bother to list those. But liberals these days believe that there is no limit on the size or degree to which government might interfere in the lives of the people if it is judged to be to their benefit. As a concrete example this incredibly costly health care bill has now lost support of a significant majority of the people, yet liberals are determined to ram it down people’s throats because they (the liberals) have decided it’s for their own good. This sort of arrogance is the hallmark of liberalism these days. Maybe you don’t share that attitude but you don’t seem eager to condemn it either.

If, indeed, the point of departure were one level up from the principles I offered, we would still have taken a step forward in identifying the origin of our differences. As I say in this latest post, we need to know where we are together to recognize how we separate. However, I believe I have identified, based even on the history of these very discussions – see Morton’s comment – some principles that we do not all accept. Also, I don’t think 23 contradicts 22. Twenty two does not argue for big government without any concern for the dangers of big government. I refer in 22, regarding government, to “the responsibilities judged to be appropriate to it.” Where conservatives and liberals tend to disagree is in the matter of what those appropriate responsibilities are, and what responsibilities, assumed by government, might prove to be ineffectively carried out, in contrast to actually being dangerous to the people in their very assumption. In part, 22 was meant to challenge the automatic rejection of “big” government without a clear understanding of what (too) big is and what jobs there are that government should appropriately be performing.

Morton,

My answer to your question is principle 8, which you cite here. If there are living (ongoing) consequences, then we need at least consider whether society, in any number of forms, but most likely through the government, can play a useful role in addressing them. By this principle, the “should,” for me, is a given. No living consequences answers your concern with how many generations we go back. My belief in principle 8 is entailed by principle 6: nation’s are driven, among other things, profoundly by their pasts. What you consider a “fixation,” an “obsession,” even a “dysfunctional” approach, I consider basic political science: geography, resources, and history. Look at just about any conflict around the globe. It is so clear. Consider a conflict now, perhaps (cross fingers), almost over for good – that in Northern Ireland. People died in Belfast in 1995 because of decisions made by Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century. What to do and how we do it is always up for discussion, but to ignore the continuing consequences of past policy is ill-shaped future policy. On the other hand, when many were roundly rejecting my belief in this responsibility for past policy – arguing, as you do here, in essence, that these assignments for responsibility could be made almost ad infinitum – I asked a question, several times, that was never answered. What are the determining elements in deciding that and when a nation is no longer culpable for its past acts?

Jimmy,

I don’t disagree with you. My principles were not meant to end discussion, but to begin many.

Flash (commenting on the original post),

Ming tells me to inform you that I did say I was speaking for myself, while also calling myself a liberal, and that the mistake you are making is in believing that there is no range of specific principle or even policy difference within the philosophy called liberalism. Specifically regarding the area in which you originally took issue with me – generally speaking, national defense – I’ll point you to a document I referenced in a blog post of a couple of days ago: the Euston Manifesto. This document, written and signed by people of the left generated some fair share of debate back in 2006, when it was written, particularly in England, where it originated. It drew a line of distinction in just some of the areas that concern you. Some of the authors and signers even supported the Iraq war, and all adamantly assert their left political orientation.

I did this excercise a couple of years ago. I wrote down statements of belief, but then I challenged myself to explain in a few senrtences why I held that belief. Here’s an example:

“I believe citizens of nations have responsibilities to one another, but only those that they collectively choose. There is a social contract in effect but it is worthless if it is not entered into willingly. We do owe every person the opportunity to better their lives. (I call it a level playing field.) But they, in turn, owe it to society to make the effort. Providing help to those unable to improve their circumstances because of health or other legitimate reasons is best done by private charity, religious groups, and individuals, not the government. The Federal Government is too large and impersonal to adequately oversee such efforts. The closer the charity is to the end user, the more likely that it will get to the person who needs it and that it will end when the person no longer needs it.”

When you explain why you hold a belief, it makes it easier for others to understand where you’re coming from. Admittedly, most of us could write a book about what we believe and why, but it tightens your thinking if you explain yourself in a few sentences.
It also focuses the debate.

Just a suggestion.

I am consistently struck by Jay Adler’s fixation on the past, and specifically on his obsession with past grievances.

For example, in 8 he asserts that “The animating determinant of historic national responsibility is in the living consequences of past acts”. This is, at best, only partially true. One can argue about the magnitude of importance one might attach to a governmenta’s responsibility viz. “the living consequences of past acts” vs. the responsibility a government bears towards its people based on the promises embodied in its constitutional pact. To the extent that a government fails to fulfill this responsibility is the exact extent to which that government can be thought to have succeeded or to have failed its people.

Mr. Adler’s approach seeks to revisit the past to inform today’s actions, and he seems to attach so much importance to this function that he appears to ignore this other, (and to me) far more important aspect of historical governmental responsibility.

I consider this approach dysfunctional on many levels, not least because there is virtually never an end to the slights and “injustices”, both real and imagined, which one can adduce when looking backward. This is doubly true when one looks backward with a jaundiced eye determined to avenge the supposed crimes of yesterday.

Jay, I appreciate your laying out your fundamental principles for us, but I think the consensus was that most folks largely accept those principles. The point of departure appears to be at least one level up from the basics.

Where we differ is in prioritizing those principles in their application to any particular question. For example, principles 23 and 22 are apparently contradictory (or comprise a balancing act, if you prefer) in application–the two are distilled in the saying “a government that has the power to give you everything has the power to take everything away”. Perhaps you could illustrate how you apply those principles to a particular issue of your choice?

One thing I am moved to comment on is Shrinkwrapped’s assertion that “one clear difference between Liberals and Libertarian/Conservatives resides in just this fact, the Libertarian/Conservatives do believe there is an absolute basis for distinguishing good and evil.”

This kind of talk is common and to me it is projection.

For example I believe that torture is wrong. It violates every tradition of moral reasoning — religious and secular. Torture is woven into our definition of the word ‘evil.’ And yet for conservatives it has been a practice they can easily rationalize if not endorse.

I would say that the difference between contemporary conservatives and liberals is that for conservatives moral reasoning is a means of controlling other people whereas for liberals it is a means of evaluating one’s own conduct.