Speaking of Liberals

[Fly Rod]

How do U go from being a liberal left to a conservative????

UUUU were young once....

[buckman]

Get a job where you have to pay taxes
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Jim in CT]

When I was 16, I worked as a cashier at a grocery store. I remember every month when welfare checks and food stamps came out, there were rules as to what things you could buy with that aid (things like food). Every month, large numbers of the same exact folks, would try to use that aid to buy things that were not allowed (makeup, cigarettes, tabloid magazines, beer). Every single month, the same exact people would try the scam. Some of them drove cars that were much nicer than my parents' beat up station wagon. And every single one of them was furious that they couldn't use welfare to purchase that crap, they were appalled that 'The Man' would tell them what they could do with 'their' money.

Made me sick. That was the first time I started leaning right. Then as an adult, I became more and more Catholic.

In the 1960s, the national Democratic party threw its hat in with every radical movement it could find (sexual revolution, the anti-Vietnam revolution, Black Panthers, abortion fanatics), and it hasn't looked back. Not a great cultural leap forward in my book, but I'm a wee-bit old fashioned.

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by Fly Rod

How do U go from being a liberal left to a conservative????

UUUU were young once....

Ain't that the truth! My nephew went to American University a very liberal college in Washinton DC and majored in Political Science. He became as liberal as they come arguing every issue with the leftist lean ad nauseum.
At age 45 he started his own business which through a lot hard work, working 16 hour days 6 days a week, he has become a very successful business man. He now employs 30 people and increased his sales 20% over last year, but because of Govt.regulations and taxes his profits dropped 8%. Guess who became a Conservative.

[spence]

And yet you have successful business people who lean left. Go figure. Perhaps it would make sense to define what a liberal is.

-spence

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

And yet you have successful business people who lean left. Go figure. Perhaps it would make sense to define what a liberal is.

-spence

"And yet you have successful business people who lean left. Go figure"

Easy to figure. They are (1) not that bright when it comes to things outside their sphere, or (2) want to make it as hard as possible to be as successful as they are, keeping the club more exclusive.

"Perhaps it would make sense to define what a liberal is."

Right, because we don't know what it is when we see it. I would define a liberal as someone so opposed to having an honest discussion, that they claim to not know what a liberal is, in order to avoid a debate that they know they cannot win.

[justplugit]

Great story on why Charles Krauthammer, Spence's favorite, . went from Liberal to Conservative in an hour long interview with Brett Baire last night.
Krauthammer, an Oxford/ Harvard Grad and Pulitzer prize winner was paralyzed in a diving accident while studying at Harvard but within weeks continued his education in his hospital bed and received his MD degree.
A true Liberal who worked and wrote for "The Republic " he believed in Socialism but had a conversion to Conservatism during the Reagan's Presidency after seeing the light.
Quite a guy, still living in a wheel chair, and one of my favorites as he mixes his intellect with common sense, a rare bird now a days with all the pseudo intellectuals most of which never worked or overcame obstacles in the "real world".

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

And yet you have successful business people who lean left. Go figure. Perhaps it would make sense to define what a liberal is.

-spence

pretty sure Eben already covered this....someone who fancies themselves, better, smarter, more compassionate, less hateful and likely more highly educated therefore better equipped intellectually and emotionally to make good decisions for others.... all emanating from their high minded political leanings and despite the lack of any actual evidence to support the feelings of superiority

[buckman]

Originally Posted by scottw

pretty sure Eben already covered this....someone who fancies themselves, better, smarter, more compassionate, less hateful and likely more highly educated therefore better equipped intellectually and emotionally to make good decisions for others.... all emanating from their high minded political leanings and despite the lack of any actual evidence to support the feelings of superiority

And I would say the vast majority of their success comes on the backs of others , under the disguise of helping those same people that provide them with their success .
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[spence]

Originally Posted by buckman

And I would say the vast majority of their success comes on the backs of others , under the disguise of helping those same people that provide them with their success .
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

The vast majority of all success comes on the backs of others. Nobody does it alone...

-spence

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

The vast majority of all success comes on the backs of others. Nobody does it alone...

-spence

Perhaps it would make sense to define what "on the backs of others" is

[basswipe]

Originally Posted by spence

The vast majority of all success comes on the backs of others. Nobody does it alone...

-spence

That is an asinine statement.I can personally introduce you to several people who became very successful because of their own blood,sweat and tears.None of that success was attained on the backs of anyone.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

The vast majority of all success comes on the backs of others. Nobody does it alone...

-spence

Some are successful doing it standing or sitting . . . and there is masturbation

On a more serious note, the idea that nobody does it alone is closet circular reasoning. Obviously, there are things that one does alone. What "nobody does it alone" needs in order to make sense is to finish the thought--"nobody does it alone in society" for example.

Ergo, doing something in society requires a society in which to do the something.

The assumption proves itself. But when "nobody does it alone" is used as a political mantra, especially one against the idea of individual accomplishment and against a political system that depends on the concept of individual freedom and responsibility . . . when it is used, rather, to promote collectivist ideology, it usurps any notion that individuals are capable of doing something alone.

No sane believer in individual freedom and individual accomplishment would deny that those concepts need a society to give them meaning. Without other people, individualism has no meaning. To accomplish something in society not only requires society, it requires the individuals that "do" things. And if the individuals are free to act as individuals, then the doing will be in cooperation with others, but if they must act not as individuals, but as collectives and are only allowed to achieve through the collective, they lose their individuality, and society can work in the harmony of a bee hive, as Woodrow Wilson envisioned for his ideal of a progressive political system. Though he forgot to add that the hive requires mostly drones to maintain the power of the queen bee. That might make his desire for an unhampered all powerful central government somewhat less attractive.

So the difference between individual freedom to do and collective necessity to do is coercion. If you are free to do, or not do, your choice, your individual choice, is the motivating factor and prime mover of accomplishment. If you require collective coercion to do something, it is obvious that you are no longer free nor any longer an individual.

And so, when an individual is credited for doing something on his own, in a free society, it is obvious that the cooperation of others in society, and in the individuals use of past experience, is a part of the accomplishment. But when that obvious glue between individual and society is used to lower the value of the individual and raise that of the collective, it leads to, as Hayak said, the road to serfdom.