Okay, fine, tell me how I'm *a little* wrong... I was just trying to debate the hardliners.

As to liberalism being dead, I partially agree. I'm pretty annoyed at those on the left who are trying to popularize the term "Progressive" instead... I'm a proud liberal and I think ceding ownership of the word to the right wing was about the stupidest thing we ever let happen.

As for whether it SHOULD be dead or not... this is where I've a bone to pick. I feel conservative "answers" are easy to sell and don't actually work. Liberal approaches take thought and time and a measure of pragmatism which simply has no place in the current political climate.

Ok, I'm not really a hardliner but I will humor you until either BD or another of them summons up the courage to confront you...as to being a little wrong...

BD said..."(liberalism) has overtaken our court system that now measures crime in pragmatic examples of perception instead of having the same and "equal" punishment handed out to all, regardless of social position"

and you responded..."That's also not really true, given the current incarceration rate, I'd say that punishment is handed out both unevenly and frequently."

What am I missing here?

You say "that's not true" and then you appear to agree with him considering he says "instead of same" and you say "is uneven".

__________________
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."

Pat Paulsen for President

Well, in so much that I think you and I agree on most things, I was having issues coming up with a topic.

Personally, I think "Progressive" is what most liberals are today. Progressivism believes that the government should be used to make people equal (which means that people are not treated equally), as opposed to classical liberals who believed that the government should be required to treat people equally.

I have always viewed myself as a classical liberal, but it is so hard to find people who understand what this means I usually just call myself libertarian.

Ah, a fair point. I suppose I would have to clarify by stating that I may have falsely assumed that BD was arguing from the conservative viewpoint (i.e. Hardcore criminals all get away scot free while hard-working americans are unfairly persecuted for not being Politically correct.)

If my assumption was correct, my statement stands in terms of such a high population of poor minority offenders and low population of white-collar criminals. In a sense, I'm agreeing its unequal, but not in the way I'm assuming BD means.

If however BD is equally appalled at dispreportionate arrest, conviction, and sentancing rates of poor and/or minority offenders, then I don't actually disagree. But I also don't really see what liberalism has to do with it... good liberals tend to advocate preventative and rehabilitative justice over emphasis on hard time, so I don't see how one could lay dispreportionality in the prison population at our feet.

And as for you Takuan SoHo, I'm not sure if you're a true libretarian or not. While I admire libretarians for their consistancy (government out of EVERYWHERE, including the bedroom) I don't tend to agree with their viewpoint, since I believe government can be a positive force in a great many things. At least certainly more than conservatives and libretarians tend to give credit for.

True libertarian? No, I like public sidewalks. Again I am a classic liberal. I believe that the government should be blind when dealing with people. This allows for a lot of government interaction as long as the government treats people equally.

Though I do believe as little government is generally better than more government. In this I would be a libertarian.

I think it would be more fun for you if you stated someone of your beliefs that are capable of being attacked. This would give us a starting point rather than just "say something".

Okay, I'll start some new threads to that end.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Looking forward to it, I might try some devil's advocate because I think it would be instructive to go up against you, so bear with me if my counters start off slow. If I am being a DA, I will state it up front.

Ah...now we are getting to the problem with such a premise as your thread and the prior one of BadMutha's...that is to assume that the terms liberal and conservative actually provide quantifiable absolutes and that further, it is safe to assume that all parties agree on what they are.

Since I cannot speak for BD, I shall leave clarification to him.

All I will say at this time is that our justice system is a joke and much of it is based on who you know and that has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative.

__________________
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."

Pat Paulsen for President

While I would agree that "who you know" is important in terms of the upper-class getting away with things, for those of us in the bottom 99% I think justice is still uneven for a few different horrible reasons.

For one thing, private prisons give well-funded lobbiests the ability to advocate for tougher, easier prison sentances on the behalf of that industry. Essentially the law changes to incarcerate more people because it is more profitable to do so.

Also the political cost of opposing anything that strengthens sentancing. If you don't want there to be a rediculous three strikes law, you must be soft on crime is the obvious attack. If punishments can only get harder and harder and harder, there's a problem.