[Wolfman]

Liberals may or may not hate the traditional family, but they certainly cannot afford to put the traditional family on a pedestal like us conservatives. Liberal backing is from a variety of groups that tend not to be champions of the traditional family (homosexual couples, at-risk single parent homes, etc.), so it would be suicidal for liberals to come out and say that these "alternative" families are lesser.

Wanting equality for different groups is not the same thing as hating one group, or trying to get special privileges for another.

[finnbow]

Just to add to the confusion to those who may think that Conservatives truly are the party of family values:

There's a family-values divide between red states and blue states, two researchers say, but the differences might surprise people on both sides of the political spectrum. The states that voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections have the lowest rates of divorce and teen pregnancies. And the red states had the highest.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =126653602

[NYYS]

Wanting equality for different groups is not the same thing as hating one group, or trying to get special privileges for another.

I'm not sure they actually do hate the traditional family (although they certainly might), but they cannot possibly say, out loud, that they think the traditional family is better, as it risks alienating all the homosexuals and broken African American families and urban yuppies that vote for them.

Similarly, if I ran for national office as a Republican I would certainly not make a big deal out of birth control. I personally am strongly in favor of everyone using a lot of birth control (especially poor people), but I recognize that a good portion of my base either outright opposes birth control and doesn't use it or is at least a little weary of it.

[Drlee]

I'm not sure they actually do hate the traditional family (although they certainly might), but they cannot possibly say, out loud, that they think the traditional family is better, as it risks alienating all the homosexuals and broken African American families and urban yuppies that vote for them.

You know NYYS, you are really making our side look pretty bad. First of all there are not that many true liberals in the US. The term has been used by Limbaugh and his ilk to create a bogey man. They conveniently label anyone who opposes the death penalty or who believe that abortion is a woman's choice as 'lib'rals in a not to transparent attempt to create orthodoxy among their followers.

Sadly NYYS, the issues you mention, such as homosexuality, abortion or even birth control are just diversionary tactics. My old republican party (and democrats as well for that matter) has been systematically dismantling the American middle class in exchange for vast wealth for their corporate overlords and using these issues as cover.

I will borrow your term for a moment.

When the liberals question the patriot act Limbaugh and his bunch of mouth breathers counter with "that is just the Socialist Lib'rals".

When the liberals say, "you are exporting our jobs" the republicans counter with "you are attacking the sanctity of marriage by allowing perverts to marry".

When liberals say, "we attacked the wrong country in Iraq and are squandering our future trying to subdue some neanderthal farmers in Afghanistan, they say, "you are killing babies by supporting Planned Parenthood".

And NYYS, you and your friends have bought it hook, line and sinker.

Real liberals are capitalists who simply believe that the benefits of capitalism should extend to more people rather than fewer.

Hell NYYS. The first president to send national single payer health care to congress was Richard Nixon! Care to call him a liberal?

I would ask you to join me and a growing number of Republicans in rejecting the trailer park pundits like Limbaugh, Coulter and Beck and push aside these idiotic diversions. Its the economy stupid. The Clinton folks were right. We need to stop selling the US government to the highest corporate bidder and take it back. And if gay people want to marry?......If people were really against gay people having sex they would want all of them to be married.

[finnbow]

You know NYYS, you are really making our side look pretty bad. First of all there are not that many true liberals in the US. The term has been used by Limbaugh and his ilk to create a bogey man. They conveniently label anyone who opposes the death penalty or who believe that abortion is a woman's choice as 'lib'rals in a not to transparent attempt to create orthodoxy among their followers.......


Excellent post, Drlee. It reflects my sentiments very closely. OTOH, I've become so disgusted with the "trailer park pundits" and the GOP politicians who feel compelled to suck up to them (or regurgitate their rhetoric) that I've kinda thrown in my lot with the Dem's, even though it might be against my economic interests. That said, I've become pretty skeptical of nearly all Washington conventional wisdoms, including the one that says that the GOP is better with the economy. What's a guy to do? Move to New Zealand, I suppose.

[NYYS]

I have no idea what either of you are talking about, other than angry rants against corporate interests and the people that support them.

I made two points, which I see no one addressing other than to call them diversionary tactics.

1) A not-negligible part of the Democrats' base are people from non-traditional families.

2) Democrats cannot and should not risk alienating those voters by being cheerleaders for the traditional family.

This leads to the perception that Democrats "hate" the traditional family, because you have their opposing party, the GOP, spending so much time making the traditional family the correct and proper standard for American life.

also:

Real liberals are capitalists who simply believe that the benefits of capitalism should extend to more people rather than fewer.

We need to stop selling the US government to the highest corporate bidder and take it back.

cry me a fucking river

[Drlee]

1) A not-negligible part of the Democrats' base are people from non-traditional families.

News flash. A not-negligible part of the independents that the Republicans need to win an election come from non-traditional families.

2) Democrats cannot and should not risk alienating those voters by being cheerleaders for the traditional family.

Nobody should. The US is an inclusive country. We are a representative form of government. Get your head around that. No person should vote counter to his/her best interest. That would leave the Republicans with very few middle class votes.

cry me a fucking river

Really? Is that your attitude? Is it really? I express concern that corporations are exercizing too much influence on the political process and diluting the power of the people and you say, "cry me a river"? Are you all in or do you really not give a shit what others think? It is this 'let them eat cake" attitude that just fucking pisses off the working classes and will eventually hand the republicans their asses. This utter disdain for the working people of this country will not play very long.

I am a fairly well-to-do man NYYS but I would NEVER even think of having that attitude. And even if I did I would hope I had the 'class' to not say it. The republicans are about as subtle as an erection. Their diversionary tactics will not work in the long haul. They just lost an iconic conservative seat in New York because of their idiotic attitude toward Medicare. This was a seat they just couldn't loose. But they did.

Be very carefull fellow republicans. You have become a rag-tag army of so-called libertarians (many of whom are not old enough to vote) and tea party folks who have the passion to shout but not the intelligence to know what to shout about. We are headed for a crash of monumental proportions. And if you want to know why?

cry me a river.....

[NYYS]

News flash. A not-negligible part of the independents that the Republicans need to win an election come from non-traditional families.

Yes and no. There are obviously people on all sides of the aisle with nontraditional family backgrounds. However, they are concentrated on the left so the Democrats need to be more sensitive with their rhetoric around those issues than Republicans.

Nobody should. The US is an inclusive country. We are a representative form of government. Get your head around that. No person should vote counter to his/her best interest. That would leave the Republicans with very few middle class votes.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, it reads as if you're saying that all parties should be responsive to all voters. Obviously this is not the way any democracy works, certain parties attempt to court certain interests so that they can win public office.

Really? Is that your attitude? Is it really? I express concern that corporations are exercizing too much influence on the political process and diluting the power of the people and you say, "cry me a river"? Are you all in or do you really not give a shit what others think? It is this 'let them eat cake" attitude that just fucking pisses off the working classes and will eventually hand the republicans their asses. This utter disdain for the working people of this country will not play very long.

"Selling this country to the corporations" is a nonsense scare tactic designed to win votes from the people that get screwed by structural shifts in the economy.

What about "selling this country to female or minority interests?" In the last 50 years we've added 50% of the population (women) and 12% of the population (blacks) into the primary labor market, absolutely crushing wages for the people in the market before: white males. No one will ever whine about that, instead they'll make scary claims about shipping jobs overseas and how the corporations all got together and decided to keep your wage down.

What about the incredible increase in living standards seen by everyone since we started "selling the country to corporations?" I'd rather be middle class in 2011 than the wealthiest man in the world in 1950.

What about the at-work technologies that have replaced American jobs? Does anyone blame that? No. Because technology is seen as good (and it is), people need to create a boogeyman over in China that took your job, when in reality a computer did.

What about the proliferation of education? Every kid in America tries to get into our top-tier colleges now, simply leaving high school to work in a factory isn't a legitimate option for like 30% of the US - their parents demand college from day 1. Back in the day most people could support a family with a high school education and a 9-5 at the local plant, suddenly we've dropped millions of highly skilled people into the labor market; it shouldn't be a shock that a high school diploma isn't enough to compete.

so yeah, cry me a fucking river. You live in the wealthiest country in the world, have access to all kinds of awesome stuff, and a few changes in the economy mean your wife has to pick up some work as well, because your uneducated, unskilled ass isn't in demand like it used to be, before things got better. Boo hoo.

(I realize that's not your situation, it's just a hypothetical directed at the people that usually bitch about this kind of stuff)

I am a fairly well-to-do man NYYS but I would NEVER even think of having that attitude. And even if I did I would hope I had the 'class' to not say it.

I'm not a public figure, what I say doesn't effect anything. I'm just a guy tired of people looking for scapegoats for their ineptitude.

[finnbow]

I made two points, which I see no one addressing other than to call them diversionary tactics.

1) A not-negligible part of the Democrats' base are people from non-traditional families.

2) Democrats cannot and should not risk alienating those voters by being cheerleaders for the traditional family.

This leads to the perception that Democrats "hate" the traditional family, because you have their opposing party, the GOP, spending so much time making the traditional family the correct and proper standard for American life.

1) So what?

2) True, but is it anyone in government's role to cheerlead for traditional families? Why is it their business how you live your life? The flip side of this is that the GOP ridicules and demeans those in non-traditional values because it plays well with their base, despite having people such as Larry Craig and Ted Haggard in the ranks. What the Dem's are doing is representing their constituency. What the GOP is doing is hypocritical.

[NYYS]

True, but is it anyone in government's role to cheerlead for traditional families? Why is it their business how you live your life?

You say this a social liberal and probably a Democrat. Understandable that the Democratic party would then feed you what you want to hear, rhetoric like what you just posted, to win your vote.

The flip side of this is that the GOP ridicules and demeans those in non-traditional values because it plays well with their base, despite having people such as Larry Craig and Ted Haggard in the ranks. What the Dem's are doing is representing their constituency. What the GOP is doing is hypocritical.

No, they're both representing their constituency. You said it yourself, the GOP base doesn't care for nontraditional families, instead opting for two Christian, heterosexual parents and two or three Christian, heterosexual children. In fact, there is a good portion of the GOP's base that protecting family values is the one and only issue. The GOP represents this admirably, despite the occasional Craig situation.

[finnbow]

You say this a social liberal and probably a Democrat. Understandable that the Democratic party would then feed you what you want to hear, rhetoric like what you just posted, to win your vote.

While I am a social liberal, I'm not a Democrat - More of an independent with a libertarian bent.

No, they're both representing their constituency. You said it yourself, the GOP base doesn't care for nontraditional families, instead opting for two Christian, heterosexual parents and two or three Christian, heterosexual children. In fact, there is a good portion of the GOP's base that protecting family values is the one and only issue. The GOP represents this admirably, despite the occasional Craig situation.

Personally, I think it's fine to ascribe to any belief WRT to "family values." I just don't think it's the government's job to endorse any particular view in this regard. I happen to be a heterosexual in a traditional marriage with three heterosexual children. That said, if this lifestyle doesn't comport with someone else's life choice, I'm perfectly fine with that too. Life's too short for me to try to impose my social worldview on anyone else, particularly when I would need to enlist government to do this for me.

To answer the OP's question: Yes, I'm a social liberal, and no I don't hate my traditional family.

[Dave]

And this is why social liberalism is worthless, unlike economic liberalism which has some valuable points. Instead of considering the effects of social mores, they pretend they're a cultural choice no different than choosing what pizza to order. It's a very narrow-minded and harmful view.

When you support alternatives to the traditional family, you weaken the strength of the traditional family. Not surprisingly, the traditional family is in decline today. Do you ever stop to think about the social effects of this?

[Drlee]

When you support alternatives to the traditional family, you weaken the strength of the traditional family. Not surprisingly, the traditional family is in decline today. Do you ever stop to think about the social effects of this?

And this won't hold water Dave. What defines the traditional family? Two parents, one working, wife at home, children. (I will even grant that the liklihood is more children if there is a parent at home and not working.)

So tell me which parts of this the "alternatives are"

Two parents working are an economic fact of life. Except in the more affluent homes there is no option for the mother to stay home. Unless you consider social welfare payments part of the plan to save the traditional family. In 2010 the median personal income for a Male 25+ who had graduated from High School was $32K per year. This is certainly not enough to raise a family of four in anything like comfort and this family would absolutely NOT have any health care coverage. All of these families would be well below the poverty level in our urban areas. I know you will argue that if they can't afford families they shouldn't have any. We can't support a devastatinging low birth rate. It is bad enough as it is. By the way a Bachelor's degree family would only have $49,000 per year. Barely enough for two. Finally our economy could not survive the loss of 45% of its workforce as women stayed home to have children. Need I lead you on a discussion of these families providing for their retirement?

So the wife usually has to work. Goodby traditional family and hello new model. With her working then what comprises a traditional family? Sexual orientation?

The factors weakening the so-called traditional family are economic and have nothing to do with the sexual orientation of a vanishingly small number of married people. There are probably more homosexuals already in traditional marriages (still in the closet and married to the opposite sex) than there will be if we legalize gay marriage. Tell me Dave, how the fact that there is a married gay couple living next door to you whose children attend school with your children will cause your traditional marriage to go south?

The traditional family is in decline because of economic factors above all else. Now if we had national health care so women did not have to work to pay for health care then maybe we would see a resurgence of the traditional family. Perhaps then we could remove some of those women from the workforce driving up wages to the point that what I experienced in my childhood, father works, mother cares for and educates the children) would be possible. Do you support single payer national health care Dave? It would sure help forward your agenda.

The traditional family is dead. Corporate America killed it. So did consumerism.

As to Christianity. As a Christian I believe that the churches have failed to remain relevant. As soon as they became perceived as political forces and, joining with the Republicans, turned their backs on the poor and underclasses in favor of corporatism, they lost the majority of people who saw their work as "good".

You bemoan the death of the traditional family. It died 50 years ago when I was a child. It is a little late for the funeral.

[Dave]

Drlee, I have no disagreement with what you wrote. As you know, I am not a Republican and thus do not ascribe this all to hippies or some nonsense like that. I see the changes that occurred as having resulted from an alliance between business interests and progressives. Progressives hate the family and want women to be like men, corporations want to drive down labor costs and increase the number of consumers. Win-win--for them.

I do not support single-payer national healthcare, but it would be an improvement over what we have now. I support adopting Singapore's model.

A "married" homosexual couple is of course not a threat to the traditional family. I think that all the important battles in the Culture Wars have already been lost, and conservatives now focus on the irrelevant issue of homosexuality and take the wrong position on abortion. Homosexuals are little more than an annoyance.

I agree with you on the Churches, but I would also add that the mainline denominations have also abrogated their duty by embracing social liberalism in most respects. The denomination I was raised in, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, is busily engaged in importing African refugees to America and allows women to be pastors.

So while my views are not socially progressive at all, I am no Republican and no conservative.

There is no easy way out. Both our economy and our morality are ruined. Rebuilding either, let alone both, will take a generation of smart policies and hard work. We have no smart policies at all.

[Drlee]

^^

We have much common ground. I absolutely agree on the issue of women in the marketplace. We have completely lost the value of mothers in the home. Since my mother took time off to raise us when we were very young, school did not end at 3PM for me. I then went home and had the advantage of a college educated mother to help me with my studies and generally mentor and mother me.

As to churches I also agree that some classically liberal ideas have diluted the already very liberal message of Christ. If the churches were feeding our poor and conducting missions overseas they would be (albiet grudgingly) respected even by our more poisonous atheists. Your example of immigration is a classic. Simply not their job. There are plenty of souls needing saving and mouths needing food in the US for them to get into this nonsense. The Methodist church has an official position on pesticide use FGS.

I am a public heath person. Whatever system will cover everyone and provide for robust preventive care is fine with me. The key words are everyone and preventive.

I do not find homosexuals annoying. I am addicted to Bravo and my wife to James Bond so I suppose there is some gender-bending there. Nevertheless, the republicans and other conservatives are squandering their political capital on the issue of homosexual marriage (let them go ahead if they want to) and abortion (itis the law of the land and there is no way to get a constitutional amendment to stop it) so they should concentrate on the important issues we face.

Raise taxes on the wealthy (me included)
Cut the deficit.
Get out of the fucking wars overseas. Ignore them or nuke them but this endless squandering of the lives of our children is absurd. If they want to go to war then go to war. Be brutal, kill your enemies wherever they are and go home. That is war. The US military is not meals on wheels. I don't care about their hearts and minds.

[Dave]

^^

We have much common ground. I absolutely agree on the issue of women in the marketplace. We have completely lost the value of mothers in the home. Since my mother took time off to raise us when we were very young, school did not end at 3PM for me. I then went home and had the advantage of a college educated mother to help me with my studies and generally mentor and mother me.

That is excellent. I am much younger than you, but my mother also stayed at home. She isn't terribly bright, but she tried her best. She always prepared us three nutritious meals a day and kept our home a clean and beautiful place. She took time to listen to us and to discipline us. I can't imagine how awful it must be to be a latchkey kid.

We won't be able to restore this any time soon. We're going to need to reducing our material living standards while increasing our productivity to slowly edge women out of the workplace as wages and savings rates rise.

As to churches I also agree that some classically liberal ideas have diluted the already very liberal message of Christ. If the churches were feeding our poor and conducting missions overseas they would be (albiet grudgingly) respected even by our more poisonous atheists. Your example of immigration is a classic. Simply not their job. There are plenty of souls needing saving and mouths needing food in the US for them to get into this nonsense. The Methodist church has an official position on pesticide use FGS.

I am not sure if Christ's message was liberal or not, and I will confess to being an atheist. I don't think atheism is particularly noble or good though, so I don't talk about it. As far as I'm concerned it's good for people to have something bigger than this world to believe in, and we want to structure it so it has positive social benefits.

I am a public heath person. Whatever system will cover everyone and provide for robust preventive care is fine with me. The key words are everyone and preventive.

I am indifferent to covering everyone, but strongly in favor of robust and mandatory preventative care, high quality care, and cost control. Spending, what, 16% of our GDP on healthcare is an obscene waste of resources.

I do not find homosexuals annoying. I am addicted to Bravo and my wife to James Bond so I suppose there is some gender-bending there. Nevertheless, the republicans and other conservatives are squandering their political capital on the issue of homosexual marriage (let them go ahead if they want to) and abortion (itis the law of the land and there is no way to get a constitutional amendment to stop it) so they should concentrate on the important issues we face.

I used to be fairly indifferent but have gotten really annoyed lately by the push for homosexual "marriage". While rationally I realize it is not important, I feel like progressives are just trying to shove our faces in the dirt. It's clearly nothing that it is necessary, but rather something that is desired in the same way a child desires a toy. But like you said, it's a waste of political capital.

Conservatives if anything should be pro-abortion, since it cuts down on underclasses and minorities unlikely to ever vote for them.

Raise taxes on the wealthy (me included)
Cut the deficit.
Get out of the fucking wars overseas. Ignore them or nuke them but this endless squandering of the lives of our children is absurd. If they want to go to war then go to war. Be brutal, kill your enemies wherever they are and go home. That is war. The US military is not meals on wheels. I don't care about their hearts and minds.

These are all nice soundbites but need elaboration. All of those can mean a lot of different things.

[finnbow]

And this is why social liberalism is worthless, unlike economic liberalism which has some valuable points. Instead of considering the effects of social mores, they pretend they're a cultural choice no different than choosing what pizza to order. It's a very narrow-minded and harmful view.

When you support alternatives to the traditional family, you weaken the strength of the traditional family. Not surprisingly, the traditional family is in decline today. Do you ever stop to think about the social effects of this?

First, let me state I enjoyed reading your and drlee's exchanges - perhaps the civil and respectful I've seen on my short time on this board. My position is emphatically not against traditional marriage in that I'm in one. Thankfully, I earn enough that my wife hasn't worked since the first of our three kids came along 22 years ago.

That said, I think what gets my dander up a bit is nonsense like the thread title "Liberals: Do you really hate the traditional family?" What an inflammatory crock.

And then you, Dave, go on to say that someone who isn't an outspoken advocate of traditional marriage is the one being "very narrow-minded." This does not compute. The GOP needs to get off its family values high horse. It just makes itself look silly with the likes on Gingrich, Schwarzenegger, Larry Craig, etc.

[Drlee]

The GOP needs to get off its family values high horse.

Absolutely right. Clearly their 'business uber alles' approach to governing has contributed to the problem (to the extent their is a problem) more than the notion that two gay people who love each other should want to be married.

I think all three of us are annoyed by the 'one-over-the-world' solution to governing. The US and other democracies are founded on the notion that there is at least some leeway in how we might indivudually behave. We all clearly accept some variation in religious beliefs and those beliefs often inform our ideas of right and wrong.

The title of this thread got up my nose too though I am a moderate conservative. It is this kind of heated rhetoric that is killing democracy.

[rik]

Much has been said on this topic, which I won't repeat.

But I have one question...

Who between Liberals and Conservatives is trying to preserve America as it has been for centuries, and who is trying to morph it into something totally different?

My opinion is that Conservative views closely mirror traditional American views. While Liberals are forever pursuing alien ideas, because they actually hate America and age-old American ideologies.

The end result of Liberalism, is the complete dismantling, and demoralization of society.

[Drlee]

Who between Liberals and Conservatives is trying to preserve America as it has been for centuries, and who is trying to morph it into something totally different?

Well two centuries to be more precise. If you want to speak historically then the modern liberals are more in-tune with the notions of the founders than are conservatives. What is easily forgotten is that the constitution represents the best they could get done not the best they could imagine. For example the hot-button issue of slavery. There was considerable opposition to it. Read:

“I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery].”
—George Washington

It remained for American liberals to abolish it at the point of a gun some 70 years later then continue the struggle to give black folks complete civil rights for another century.

The founders believed in a secular state:

In 1773, the Rev. Isaac Backus , the most prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when "church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued."

Proof? The Senate ratified the treaty of Tripli unanimously which stated that the US was not a Christian state. 1797.

Liberals continue to push for the secular state completely in line with what the founders wanted.

The founders lived in states which had poor laws and social welfare. They fully approved. The only gripe they would have with the laws today is that the issue is federal and they thought should be a state responisbility. All liberals have done is take the notion that the country should do something and expand on it making it more compassionate.

I could go on to more issues.

My opinion is that Conservative views closely mirror traditional American views.

So as you can see above this is simply not true. American tradition would be offended by the notion of "faith based initiatives" by the federal government. The founders relied on the progress of liberal thinking. The ink had not dried on the original constitution before they began great liberal reforms of the very document in the bill of rights.

While Liberals are forever pursuing alien ideas, because they actually hate America and age-old American ideologies

Name them. I will give you gay marriage. Name the rest of them. Tell us what ideas liberals are pursuing that the founders would not have considered. Age old? The US is only about 2 centuries old.

When I was a child some publically funded schools excluded blacks and women. It was perfectly legal (and some states did it) to have different pay scales for women and men in the same jobs.

When my father was an adult black people were segregated in the military, and women could not claim property from a marriage in some states.

My grandmother could not vote until she was 23.

My Great grandfather's daddy owned people. Lots of them.

The end result of Liberalism, is the complete dismantling, and demoralization of society.

Unless you are a woman, black, elderly, disabled, homosexual, accused of a crime, out of work, ill, working for someone else, or.....you know what.....that would be all of us at one time or another.

The notion that "liberals" are harming this country is ignorant. Sometimes it seems that most arguments pitting liberals against conservatives devolve to money and sex. Conservatives are for money and against sex and liberals are for sex and against money.