

Occupy goes to TechCrunch Disrupt - dnetesn
http://harpers.org/blog/2014/12/battlefield-worth/

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justizin
"millenarian" politics. Nice.

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devindotcom
I'm not a fan of SV culture myself, but I found this banal and unoriginal.

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fidotron
Potential tangent, but it annoys and amazes me in equal measure how self
professed liberals always seemingly have an axe to grind about libertarianism.
This also relates to people accusing the actions of someone else as
"ideological" as if their own are not.

Ultimately things like this remind me of Matt Stone's "I hate conservatives,
but I really fucking hate liberals."

~~~
jnbiche
Since I left the Democratic party 5 years ago, and ceased considering myself a
"liberal" about 3-4 years ago, I've become increasingly aware at how
exclusionist and provincial most liberals -- particularly liberal Democrats --
are about other political ideologies. I find it very interesting that even
though many libertarians have more in common with civil libertarian liberals
than they do with big government conservatives, only the former treat
libertarians as an anathama to humanity, and stereotype every libertarian as
some kind of Ayn Rand acolyte (few of the libertarians I know care much for
Ayn Rand).

Ultimately, that kind of failure to find common bonds holds back political
progress for us all. But it's become pretty clear to me that liberals are more
interested in supporting their "team" than in making political progress for
the average struggling American.

And yes, I know this rant doesn't belong on HN. I'll take my lumps without
complaint.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not sure why that's surprising to you.

One characteristic that's common to both mainstream conservatives and
mainstream liberals, though heavily more emphasized in the latter, is the
deeply-held belief that government exists not just to create and enforce laws,
but to establish and enforce social norms. Of course, one side wants to
promote social norms discouraging racism and sexism, and the other side wants
to promote social norms discouraging drug use, but they are on the same page
about whether it's legitimate for government to be getting involved in any of
that.

Libertarians almost universally reject the idea that government should be in
the business of promoting social norms, which is distressing to liberals and
conservatives alike. Conservatives, however, tend to get along with
libertarians to the extent that even if they disagree on the function of
government, they often desire the same ends. Lower taxes, less business
regulation, etc.

Liberals, on the other hand, don't even share common ends with libertarians,
with the exception of a few niche issues like civil liberties. Libertarians
don't have a recipe for how limited government will end sexism in corporate
America or fix the educational gap between black and white children. Worse of
all, libertarians attack the very principles underling cherished liberal
policies.

Take, for example, the Civil Rights Act. I imagine very few libertarians would
disagree with the goal of eliminating racism in commerce, but the means
Congress used to achieve it was pretty anti-libertarian: sweeping
interpretation of the Commerce Power to regulate very personal sorts of
private conduct. If you own a restaurant, and so much as a potato traded in
interstate commerce end up in your soup, Congress gets to tell you who you
have to invite into your private establishment.[1]

[1] Libertarians and liberals alike cite with disdain Gonzales v. Raich, where
the Supreme Court held that growing marijuana fell within the Commerce Power
because the drug trade involves interstate commerce. Nobody mentions Daniel v.
Paul, a case where the Supreme Court held that a recreational park in Little
Rock (located about as far from an interstate border as you can get in
Arkansas), had to serve black people because, among other things, "three of
the four food items sold at the snack bar contain ingredients originating
outside of the State."

~~~
comex
So, I'm relatively young; at 22, I've been old enough to halfway understand
politics for at most a decade. Nevertheless, I did a double take at "more
emphasized in the latter", and perhaps there is an advantage to looking at the
short term. In that time span, in terms of big mainstream issues, on
Democrats' side in favor of _less_ government control of social norms (for its
own sake rather than to effect another policy), we have:

\- gay marriage legalization - not that the ideology has had much to do with
the role of government, but treating would-be spouses equally gets the
government out of the picture

\- abortion - quite explicitly with "women's bodies" rhetoric

\- stem cell research

\- marijuana legalization

\- immigration, sort of, in the sense that acceptance of illegal immigrants is
a social issue in addition to an issue of laws

\- euthanasia (not a big issue)

On the Republicans' side we have:

\- opposition to affirmative action

\- opposition to education centralization - but No Child Left Behind was
signed by Bush

\- gun rights - gun violence, obviously, directly hurts other people, in
contrast to most of the issues on the other side, but the proper role of guns
also a social issue

Maybe I just have a bad memory, but the first list has a lot more in the way
of hot-button and clear-cut issues than the second.

~~~
rayiner
Those issues incidentally happen to involve getting rid of particular laws--
there is no ideological opposition to involving government. For example, many
liberals aren't happy with the idea of getting government out of marriage
entirely, they want the normalization of gay relationships that comes with
accomodating gay marriage within the existing government sanctioned framework.
Also, many liberals support laws against discriminating against gays. Many
liberals want active government support of stem cell research. With regards to
immigration, the liberal position isn't "get the government out of
immigration." I.e. They're not in favor of open borders. What they really want
is normalization of existing undocumented immigrants, so they can access
government services.

