How Liberals Think by Jon Sinton

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The Common Good

How Liberals Think

by Jon Sinton | 20, Add your Comment | May 5, 2012

I recently served on a panel at the 64^th Annual Conference on World Affairs that was titled “How Liberals Think,” a question I’ve pondered as long as I can remember. Beyond the classic dictionary [New Oxford American Dictionary] definition, “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values; favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms; and (in a political context) favoring maximum individual liberty in political and social reform,” let’s address it as the more fundamental question: Which side of history do you want to be on?

I want to be on the side of the American Revolutionaries. Not the conservatives who sided with King George.

I want to be on the side of Lincoln and the abolitionists. Not the conservatives who were willing to spill their countrymen’s blood to preserve their ability to enslave their fellow man for economic gain.

I want to be on the side of the 21st Amendment that repealed Prohibition, not with the conservatives who passed the 18^th Amendment that created it.

I want to be on the side of the 19^th Amendment giving women the right to vote, not the conservatives who opposed it.

I want to be on the side of scientific fact, not with the conservatives who, 85 years after the Scopes “Monkey Trial” in Tennessee, just passed legislation in the Volunteer State weakening the teaching of evolution.

I want to be on the side that advocated entering World War II, not the conservative isolationist obstructionists who delayed it.

I want to be on the side of The New Deal that created social insurance so we would never again face bread lines and destitution, not the conservatives who opposed Social Security.

I want to be on the side of the Interstate Highway system, not the conservatives who opposed infrastructure spending.

I want to be on the side of The Great Society, which expanded social insurance to create Medicare. Not the conservatives who opposed it.

I want to be on the side of the Environmental Protection Agency, not the conservatives who opposed protecting our air and water from pollution.

I want to be on the side of self-determination, not the conservatives who traded guns for hostages to sidestep Congress and fight an illegal war in Central America resulting in the Iran Contra Scandal.

I want to be on the side of welfare reform, not the conservatives who would allow the poor to starve in the richest country in the history of the world.

I want to be on the side that opposed the Iraq War, not the conservatives who lied and ginned up evidence to push us into Iraq.

I want to be on the side of Ben Franklin who said, “Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.” Not the conservatives who created The Patriot Act.

I guess all that makes me an Eisenhower-Nixon Republican/FDR-LBJ Democrat. Eisenhower built the freeways, and warned against the military/Congressional/industrial complex; Nixon opened China and created the EPA. FDR saved the world (despite the isolationist Republican Congressional and business leaders who wanted no part of WWII), and created social insurance; LBJ fought for civil rights and enhanced social insurance with the creation of Medicare.

Republicans used to be communitarians like Reagan and Eisenhower, but neither of them could get through primaries now. They’re not doctrinaire enough. I don’t even recognize the Party of Lincoln, and wonder what a life long Republican thinks of what has become of the Grand Old Party.

Here’s what Thomas Mann, of the nonpartisan Brookings Institute, and Norman Ornstein of the very conservative American Enterprise Institute write in their new book, It’s Worse Than You Think:

However awkward it may be for the traditional press and nonpartisan analysts to acknowledge one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become a insurgent outlier, ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, scornful of compromise, un-persuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

By the way, I don’t have much patience for the Democrats as a party either. I guess I am an independent.

The entrenched, monied interests in Washington prosper when they keep us yelling at each other instead of at them. It is a great diversion. If we ever discover that so many of us who think we disagree actually agree, the game will up for them. But in the meantime, they promote the bickering and sniping, and hope they can keep us thinking the other side is unreasonable and even evil. The fact is we are mostly a centrist country whose common interests greatly outweigh our differences, but don’t tell anybody.

###

Photo of the thinker by David Yu from davidyuweb's flickr photostream and used under a Creative Commons license.

Jon Sinton

Jon Sinton is an Atlanta-based serial media entrepreneur and writer. He was the founding president of Air America Radio, is a radio syndicator, and co-founder of the nonprofit Progressive Voices Institute Inc, whose smartphone app, Progressive Voices, aggregates everything watched, read and heard in the progressive world, and puts it in all one place on the Mobile Internet. ProgressiveVoices.com @jonsinton @progvoices

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Noel Holston

Nice post, Jon. It’s similar to the kind of inventory I do when I have doubts about the wisdom and virtue of my position on this or that. I take stock of the opposition and then try to imagine which side they’d have been on on crucial issues past, such as civil rights or women’s voting rights. It’s invariably illuminating.
middleground

Actually, this is how most of “WE” think. The difference is that liberals do not manage money in a responsible way which ends up causing major, major suffering from those who they want to help. Due to miss management of available funds, you harm people as debt is a form of slavery.

Conservatives I know value having a rainy day fund so that when the rain comes, folks don’t suffer, and they are fighting to stop the economic slavery etc.
- Lee Leslie
  
  Yeah, that liberal George Bush wasted all the money saved by that conservative Bill Clinton. Thank God, that conservative Barack Obama was able to change the trajectory of Bush’s budgets or we would be in way worse shape.
  - Dr. Roberts
    
    That was sarcasm right? Obama has spent more money in 3 years than Bush spent in his whole term! Bush’s highest deficit was under 600 billion all 8 years except for his last year which includes TARP. Obama’s lowest deficit to date is 1.2 trillion. This whole article has many holes and nonfactual statements. I suggest more research being done before making outrageous claims on the opposing party. First off, you seem to forget that Eisenhower was a republican, not a liberal democrat. Secondly, democrats seem to forget the patriot act was extended with a democratically controlled Senate, House, and Presidency. I could keep going but I digress. If you’re going to write comparing opposing view points at least be correct on your facts.
    - http://likethedew.com Lee Leslie
      
      Sarcasm? Yes. But not all of it. The first year Obama was in office, he was managing Bush’s budget and Bush’s deficit -- including the $700 billion left on tarp, Bush’s wars and the Medicare prescription drug plan -- none of which were budgeted. Much of the deficit in all of the years continue (wars, medicaid prescription) to lie squarely on Bush -- because of the damaged economy, tax receipts were way down and expenses for unemployment, food stamps, etc. spiked. But some of it is Obama’s: the $425 billion in tax cuts; the $711 billion in stimulus (1/2 of which went directly to the states)
      
      The New York Times has a handy graphic:
Will Cantrell

Jon, I like this a lot…so much so that I have cut it out and pasted it on the wall next to the bathroom mirror as a reminder. Great piece. Will
Drill_baby

Progressive liberals perverse concept of “social justice” belies their false image of nobility. These plundering bufoons must be stopped at all costs before they ruin this country. By way of evidence, let us examine a few stars in the leftist progressive constellation.
1) Former EPA Region 6 administrator Al Armendariz. He viewed his role on the EPA as a “Roman conqueror” who would “go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.” By Turkish innocents Armendariz meant private-sector energy companies whose “sin” is providing valuable energy resources to productive Americans. Aremendariz resigned not because he was wrong on the law and the history, but because he spoke the public truth of liberal social justice – that is, extra-judicial confiscation and bureaucratic tyranny.
2) Dem Mass. Sen. candidate Elizabeth Warren who claims minority status to obtain a teaching position at Harvard. This fair-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed “Cherokee” claimed a special exemption as minority to gain admittance into Harvard who boasted of their “diverse” hiring practices in faculty journals. Social justice is in the eye of beholder, that is, a Democrat can say or do anything as long as they claim it’s for the public good. What type of lowlife claims minority status — particularly of the Cherokee — to obtain a position at an elitist institution like Harvard? A progressive with a strong sense of social justice.
3) John Edwards, former Democrat VP candidate. Words fail to describe the gutter whence this worm once came. An ambulance-chasing plaintiff’s attorney who once channeled a dead fetus to a jury rose to the Dem’s second highest spot on the ticket. Not to mention how he cheated on his cancer-striken wife and violated campaign finance laws to pay off the mother of his love-child, to whom he no longer speaks. The tort bar is indeed the Democrats’ holding company-- those noble souls with the strongest sense of social justice who shutter and boycott productive enterprises to plunder them, their plaintiff’s seeing nary a nickel while the tort bar guild its mansions on the shareholder’s nickel, providing nothing to society.
4) Sen. Robert “Sheets” Byrd, Democrat Senate majority leader and “In the early 1940s, Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to create a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan,” (wikipedia). In the 1980′s the Democrats elected him to their second highest legislative position in the national party. The Democrat party was the Klan caucus in the Civil rights era. Though now they claim to be the racial plunder Social Justice party — why should they be taken seriously when this klansman served unmolested by his past until he died in office a few years ago? Social Justice: it’s whatever a plundering incompetent can convince his comrades to believe is in their interests, without having to work for it.
- Lee Leslie
  
  WADR, there are drugs these days that can help you. Being afraid of someone because of their political party is not rational. Nor justifying your damning of the majority of Americans with four twisted anecdotes. Help is out there and I bet you could even find it from someone who shares your political affiliation.
  - Drill_baby
    
    Four twisted anecdotes indeed. These are/were leaders of the Democrat progressive left. Top-of-ticket candidates all. Help is out there indeed — for all of us, in November.
    - Lee Leslie
      
      It would be pretty easy come up with four leaders of the Republican regressive right (alive or dead) -- top of the ticket candidates all and make a similar claim. It is why labels and generalizations seldom lead to truth.
- Noel
  
  The “blundering buffoons,” as you refer to them, are the reason American society evolved into something more just and inclusive than it was at its beginning. I am perfectly willing to accept the arguement that not all well-intentioned programs have worked and that the liberal/progressive standard bearers aren’t always good about acknowledging what didn’t work. But the progressive impluse is crucial to the greatness of the United States. Without it, we’d be, among other things, a colony.
  - Drill_baby
    
    Cooperative and competitive enterprise are what made us great. Progressive liberals’ doctrine is to decide outcomes politically. They guaranty fairness when there is no such guaranty. To deliver on it, they take what is not theirs and sabotage enterprise with lawsuits, boycotts, regulation, indignation and taxation. Then they never deliver to the “little guy.” The strategy is a dodge to plunder and a power-grab to take by force what they cannot earn.
    - Lee Leslie
      
      There is no such thing as “Progressive liberal’s doctrine.” Unless, it is to think. There is no “guarantee” or “strategy” nor “boogyman” nor “Tinkerbell” nor “toothfairy” nor “someone out to get you” nor “someone who wants your stuff.”
      - Drill_baby
        
        That would seem to be opposed to Armendariz’ statements. What about the Idaho couple who had to sue the EPA all the way to the Supreme Court so they could build their house — is that not an extra-judicial “taking”? The government’s presumption that you cannot build on YOUR land until they say it’s OK but they refuse to act until you do. ObamaCare’s central tenet is forcing citizens to buy insurance. As the other poster pointed out, deficit spending is a taking through inflation and interest. And don’t even “Oh yeah… George Bush!” me — Obama’s $5 trillion gov’t spending, do nothing, handout economy crashes while he spent money twice as fast as Bush while ending two wars. On what? One day we’ll hopefully find out. (Maybe see those transcripts that got in him Columbia, too, but I won’t hold my breath).
      - Lee Leslie
        
        It must get so confusing when you label something liberal and don’t realize that it was the law being enforced in the manner of the intent of Congress; or when you hear someone talk who you’ve labeled that way and presume he speaks for all people you label that way.
        
        As to rest, the economy crashed before the new guy got there which pretty dramatically increased the number of unemployed and those receiving some kind of federal help -- increased spending that couldn’t and shouldn’t be stopped during the bad times. There were also two unfunded wars. Since he’s been there, one of the wars is over and the other is winding down -- sure, I’d prefer that he had ended them sooner. We also see the smallest federal government in decades. Still in his first term, he’s cut more taxes than any president in history. And we have a new law that will cut projected healthcare spending by $200+ billion in the next 10 years. Sure, some of the Tarp money that was paid back has been recycled back into the program for which it was intended -- seems smart to me -- what is your problem with that?
      - Drill_baby
        
        If Congress passes a law saying we all must pile our cash on the front lawn and burn it — like they do — that’s OK? Congress may have passed it but ObamaCare still violates the Constitution. Obama said that the mandate was not a tax, then sent his lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court that it is a tax. ObamaCare doesn’t save one damned nickel of anyone’s money and sends the country further over fiscal cliff. ObamaCare saves money by plundering MediCare and even you must be aware
        of CBO re-estimates. Even Obama doesn’t mention ObamaCare any more
        because it is an embarassment of legislative plunder: Cornhusker
        kickbacks, Louisiana purchases, and so on.
        He speaks to empty crowds and
        few Democrats facing reelection will be seen in the same county. President Obama was dealt a bad hand — and then he doubled down on it. Solyndra and the thousand projects like it: fail. GM: failing. No job-giving pipelines, ending fracking, etc. All the “Bush tax cuts” Obama approved expire at the end of this year.
        Capital gains taxes will soar sending investment plummeting. What a depressing list of failure and uselessness.
      - Lee Leslie
        
        Congress could pass that, but they’d have a tough time on enforcement. What you raise about the mandate is interesting (to me). In the House bill the language was “tax” and clearly Congress can tax, but in the conference committee they adopted the Senate language without the word “tax” out of fear someone in the Senate had promised Grover they wouldn’t vote for a tax. The healthcare bill does save hundreds of billions in concessions from the pharmaceutical and hospitals, plus much more longterm because of the preventive care.
        Also, the cornhusker kickback, Louisiana purchase, etc. , were all taken out of the bill before it passed.
        And then you get down to the Solyndra thing -- another leftover from the Bush Administration -- they had approved it and it was waiting for the new president when he took office -- clearly, they did continue to help when it looked like they need more capital, and clearly they were wrong, but go back and look at the history of SBA loans and government, like the private side, doesn’t always get it right.
        Raising capital gains is the only way to get things back to an even basis. We use to lower them for a few months to spur investment, but once they made them so low, it didn’t work anymore. Do you think someone who invests money deserves a lower tax rate than someone working for a living? I don’t either.
    - http://www.facebook.com/noel.holston Noel Holston
      
      Utter rubbish. Not that competitive enterprise contributed to our greatness — of course it did, and does — but that some tweaking and directing by an entity not out for profit hasn’t been necessary and beneficial. Without the trust-busting of Theordore Roosevelet and the policies of the New Deal, among other progressive interventions, we wouldn’t be arguing about growing disparity in wealth and pay. Plutocracy would just be the g rudgingly accepted reality. The weirdest thing about what you post here, Drill Baby, is that you keep assigning beliefs and intentions to liberals and progressives that virtually none of the thousands I know or have have known in my lifetime hold. I believe in the efficacy of a market system, just not one that’s completely unregulated. It’s a simple matter of checks and balances. You distrust politicians, and well you should. So do I. Why don’t you distrust bankers, brokers and corporate executives just as much?
Nettles_r_2000

In this essay you seem to define conservatives as those who wish to maintain the status quo. If this your definition it doesn’t apply to me or most “conservatives” I know. I don’t want to maintain a tax system that punishes hard work. I don’t want to maintain out-of-control regulatory agencies that cripple industry. I don’t want to maintain a monetary policy that protects big banks at the expense of our currency’s value. I don’t want to maintain a Federal spending level that will have us in Greece’s shoes within the decade. I don’t want to maintain Social Security or Medicare without the reforms necessary to preserve them. I don’t want to maintain a foreign policy afraid to stand up for human rights if it means pissing off the Chinese or Russians.

Just a few other points: The two biggest “liberal” Presidents in the last century were the only presidents in history to actually lock people in concentration camps.

The “Great Depression” was worsened and lengthened by FDR’s policies.

The “Great Society” along with a healthy dose cultural rot has all but destroyed the nuclear family thereby impoverishing further those it was purported to benefit.

We have “progressed” past God and morality and we wonder why our schools are failing and our streets are not safe and no amount of money we throw at these problems seems to help.

I am not a progressive or your version of conservative. I’m just a guy who is going to think for himself not because you think it is ok but because it is my God given right. I want to be able to make a living and raise my kids without having to ask permission from Washington to do it. And because I believe there are many more like m out there, I still have hope for the United States.
Don Spriggs

I just stumbled upon this article again as I wandered through earlier emails forwarded to me by misguided humans (at least they claim to be humans).
My response is short, simple, and accurate: Jon Sinton is wrong.
Nothing more needs to be said.

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