Isn't it Amazing?

Selfishness: Liberals believe in ZERO personal responsibility.

That's not true in the slightest, and if it were, it wouldn't indicate selfishness....

Liberals believe that society should work for the opportunity of all, not the few. That is altruism, not selfishness and it certainly doesn't indicate zero personal responsibility.

Prejudice: Liberal issues are predicated on class and separation by class, which requires prejudice.

Liberal issues are predicated by need, not class. There is a fundamental difference. If someone who was born into a wealthy family falls on hard times, the liberal notion of welfare will help them get back to their feet just as readily as if the person were born poor. This is far better than the conservative position that they should be left lying on the floor with their social Darwinist approach.

Regressiveness: The opposite of "progressiveness" which is a matter of viewpoint and perspective. What you think is progressive, I might find regressive, and visa versa.

Regressive means a desire to return to a mythical age when they consider society was at its ideal, rather than finding new solutions to social problems, it is a characteristic of conservatives from Cato to the modern day.

Intolerance: Liberals are intolerant of God, any mention of God, people who believe in God, or any policy based in the morality held by faith in God. One need only look at the "tolerance" displayed for my words here, to find evidence of liberal intolerance.

No, that is atheists. You know perfectly well from these boards that there are many liberal voters who believe in the religious baloney.

Compare that to the intolerance of conservatives over something that has no effect on them, like gay rights... (no effect unless they are Ted Haggard..:))

Hankering for a return to a mythical 'golden age': Like the mythical time when marriage was same sex, and killing your baby was in vogue?

Your use of pathos makes your argument weak. Gay rights and abortion rights are liberal issues and liberals don't pretend there is a golden age to return to.

In the US, it is conservatives who wish to return to a golden age of deference to religion and to social status, to the time of unfettered capitalism, as they percieve the founding of America to be like....

economic social Darwinism: Not sure what "economic social Darwinism" is.

You don't know what social Darwinism is?

Social Darwinism is the belief that human's should act only in their own selfish interests, that they should act as nature, 'red in tooth and claw'. It is the belief that a person should be left to survive alone, the belief in economic survival of the fittest.

Liberalist economic policy is certainly a challenge to Darwin's theory that man has evolved.

What a bizarre statement. Explain how?

Socially, I can't think of anything more barbaric than sucking a partially-born baby's brain into a jar.

Partially-born means that the mother is in labour, and that the baby is half-way out of it's mother. Your use of this term is merely pathos to put off the legitimate debate over abortion...

Yet this is besides the point with reference to conservative social Darwinism....

Now you know what social Darwinism is, explain how conservative economic values don't resemble social Darwinism...

I think you'd do better to argue from a firm foundation of honesty and integrity, rather than trying to apply your own personal determinations about conservatives, and hope it goes unchallenged. The things you tried to attribute to conservatives, are subjective opinion, based on your biased thoughts. ...This is also known as "intolerance".

Not just subjective opinion IF SUBSTANTIATED. If you don't think they are conservative traits, argue against them. Of your replies, four... selfish, prejudice, intolerance, and golden age, you haven't argued against my points but presented strawmen comparisons for liberals, one you have admitted you didn't know what was meant by it (fair enough) and another where you haven't attacked my arguments but sideswiped them as subjective opinion.

If you want to be a little more successful at debating, attack the arguments used to support assertions, it is far more effective.

Simply presenting pathos laden strawmen arguments doesn't work on people who understand how arguments are formed....
 
"Liberals believe that society should work for the opportunity of all, not the few. That is altruism, not selfishness and it certainly doesn't indicate zero personal responsibility. "

Unfortunately they consistently confuse government with society and thus are misled into thinking that it means the government must be the tool by which one works to help their community.
 
Unfortunately they consistently confuse government with society and thus are misled into thinking that it means the government must be the tool by which one works to help their community.

Government is A tool of society. Granted, there are others, but when they fail, government tends to be most effective.

There is no problem provided the people, and government, know who is servant and who is master...

They don't call it Civil Servant for nothing....
 
AnyOldIron said:
Unfortunately they consistently confuse government with society and thus are misled into thinking that it means the government must be the tool by which one works to help their community.

Government is A tool of society. Granted, there are others, but when they fail, government tends to be most effective.

There is no problem provided the people, and government, know who is servant and who is master...

They don't call it Civil Servant for nothing....
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Right, as long as you believe that the best way to handle things is through government there is "no problem".

There is a fundamental disconnect in our belief systems that simply won't let you see my side of things. Government is one of the most inefficient tools rather than the best tool for society to use.
 
Right, as long as you believe that the best way to handle things is through government there is "no problem".

There is a fundamental disconnect in our belief systems that simply won't let you see my side of things. Government is one of the most inefficient tools rather than the best tool for society to use.

In the last year I have moved from working in management of a large private company to the Civil Service, the two don't compare when it comes to efficiency.

Private industry's notion of efficiency is based entirely on prudence, cutting costs to the bone, so that prices can be driven down. This has a severely adverse effect on the service provided only compensated by the fact that the rest of the market, to compete on prices, must drive down their standards too. It is a race to the bottom.

The Civil Service doesn't operate like that. We still maintain economic viability, 'protecting the public purse' as the catchphrase goes, but rather than the race to the bottom, the service itself is the prima facto, best practice prolification replaces cutting costs.

When dealing with essential services, the markets just don't cut the mustard, because they are driven by profit motives. For luxury items, this is fair enough, but for essentials to people's lives, market forces simply aren't good enough...
 
AnyOldIron said:
Right, as long as you believe that the best way to handle things is through government there is "no problem".

There is a fundamental disconnect in our belief systems that simply won't let you see my side of things. Government is one of the most inefficient tools rather than the best tool for society to use.

In the last year I have moved from working in management of a large private company to the Civil Service, the two don't compare when it comes to efficiency.

Private industry's notion of efficiency is based entirely on prudence, cutting costs to the bone, so that prices can be driven down. This has a severely adverse effect on the service provided only compensated by the fact that the rest of the market, to compete on prices, must drive down their standards too. It is a race to the bottom.

The Civil Service doesn't operate like that. We still maintain economic viability, 'protecting the public purse' as the catchphrase goes, but rather than the race to the bottom, the service itself is the prima facto, best practice prolification replaces cutting costs.

When dealing with essential services, the markets just don't cut the mustard, because they are driven by profit motives. For luxury items, this is fair enough, but for essentials to people's lives, market forces simply aren't good enough...
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It depends on the industry and what the goal is. This is oversimplification and a logical fallacy. "I worked for three companies and they acted this way, so all companies act this way!" It is rubbish and a bit beneath you.

However, even companies can be and sometimes are inefficient. There are other organizations that can help people without the same inefficiencies. Sometimes they actually work on root causes rather than symptoms... Like Step 13 here in Colorado...
 
What Iron is pointing to is not just the inherent contradiction between making a profit and how that occurs and with providing a service and how that occurs. But with the very ways in which so-called efficiency is defined between the public and the private sectors. It is the main reason why private education run by publicly traded companies will never succeed in America. It is also one of the main reasons why publicly traded companies in the business of providing prisons for felons will not succeed ultimately. The word "efficiently" actually means two quite different things in these two situations. In fact, no matter what you say, Damocles, it cannot be any different. Publicly traded companies have a legal duty to provide the best possible return to their stock holders. Not to the consumer not to the user of product but to the stockholders; and that is why CEOs get the big bucks and the workers get the golden showers. There is nothing in the law that says they have to do the best they can by their employees. That is optional but profit for the stockholders is required by law!
 
Prakosh said:
What Iron is pointing to is not just the inherent contradiction between making a profit and how that occurs and with providing a service and how that occurs. But with the very ways in which so-called efficiency is defined between the public and the private sectors. It is the main reason why private education run by publicly traded companies will never succeed in America. It is also one of the main reasons why publicly traded companies in the business of providing prisons for felons will not succeed ultimately. The word "efficiently" actually means two quite different things in these two situations. In fact, no matter what you say, Damocles, it cannot be any different. Publicly traded companies have a legal duty to provide the best possible return to their stock holders. Not to the consumer not to the user of product but to the stockholders; and that is why CEOs get the big bucks and the workers get the golden showers. There is nothing in the law that says they have to do the best they can by their employees. That is optional but profit for the stockholders is required by law!
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Once again, you are lost on the company... I suggested that there were other organizations that are efficient, designed to actually work on the problem rather than generically inefficient and attempting to work on every problem or attempting to make money from it....

I guess selective reading is your forte today.
 
I even specifically talked about company inefficiencies and suggested they too were not the best way to deal with societal issues.
 
Damocles, before we can go forward you must define what you mean in this context by the words "effiency" and "inefficiency"!
 
It is inefficient to treat symptoms rather than root causes. Much like just paying for apartments for homeless people doesn't solve a problem (program in Denver right now).... Government often treats symptoms that way rather than even looking for the root cause. Often it is too unPC to look for the root cause. We pretend that dominant addiction isn't a problem for homeless people, for instance. We take the rarest of the group and pretend that they are the whole of the group and then work to "resolve" the symptoms of their problem.
 
It depends on the industry and what the goal is. This is oversimplification and a logical fallacy. "I worked for three companies and they acted this way, so all companies act this way!" It is rubbish and a bit beneath you.

On a technical point, it isn't a logical fallacy, it is inductive logic, inductive logic is, after all, the basis of deductive....

I could also point out that stating that private industry is more efficient than government is inductive logic, but you beat me to it and qualified this...

So can we agree that society should use the best tool available, be that government, industry or other?
 
AnyOldIron said:
It depends on the industry and what the goal is. This is oversimplification and a logical fallacy. "I worked for three companies and they acted this way, so all companies act this way!" It is rubbish and a bit beneath you.

On a technical point, it isn't a logical fallacy, it is inductive logic, inductive logic is, after all, the basis of deductive....

I could also point out that stating that private industry is more efficient than government is inductive logic, but you beat me to it and qualified this...

So can we agree that society should use the best tool available, be that government, industry or other?
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No, it is. It is the same fallacy as, "I saw two Native Americans walking in single file, so all Native Americans always walk in single file!"

It can be Argument By Generalization:

Which is.... drawing a broad conclusion from a small number of perhaps unrepresentative cases. (The cases may be unrepresentative because of Selective Observation.) For example, "They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese." So, by generalization, there aren't any Chinese anywhere. This is connected to the Fallacy Of The General Rule.

Or it can be called a subset of that one:

Argument From Small Numbers:

An example:

"I've thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can't lose." This is Argument By Generalization, but it assumes that small numbers are the same as big numbers. (Three sevens is actually a common occurrence. Thirty three sevens is not.)
Or: "After treatment with the drug, one-third of the mice were cured, one-third died, and the third mouse escaped." Does this mean that if we treated a thousand mice, 333 would be cured? Well, no.
 
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It is inefficient to treat symptoms rather than root causes. Much like just paying for apartments for homeless people doesn't solve a problem (program in Denver right now).... Government often treats symptoms that way rather than even looking for the root cause. Often it is too unPC to look for the root cause. We pretend that dominant addiction isn't a problem for homeless people, for instance. We take the rarest of the group and pretend that they are the whole of the group and then work to "resolve" the symptoms of their problem.

In the UK we take a different approach. In the Dept. for Work and Pensions, we alleviate the symptoms (dole payments / housing benefit) but reciept of these is conditional to criteria, you must demonstrate what you have done to find work, if you need basic skills help (literacy/numeracy/IT literacy) you must attend training and you must attend work trials. If you have been unemployed for more than six months, you are allotted an advisor who works through a strict action plan to get you into employment. If you fail to attend, or show sufficient willing, you lose your benefits until you do.

Dealling with the cause needs to work alongside dealing with the symptoms...
I can see no other social tool that could deliver such a supportive, yet goal driven set-up, across the nation, other than a government agencies.
 
No, it is. It is the same fallacy as, "I saw two Native Americans walking in single file, so all Native Americans always walk in single file!"

Mate, it's inductive logic....

"Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is the process of reasoning in which the premises of an argument are believed to support the conclusion but do not ensure it. It is used to ascribe properties or relations to types based on tokens (i.e., on one or a small number of observations or experiences); or to formulate laws based on limited observations of recurring phenomenal patterns. Induction is used, for example, in using specific propositions such as:

This ice is cold.
A billiard ball moves when struck with a cue.
...to infer general propositions such as:

All ice is cold.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Anything struck with a cue moves. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_logic
 
AnyOldIron said:
No, it is. It is the same fallacy as, "I saw two Native Americans walking in single file, so all Native Americans always walk in single file!"

Mate, it's inductive logic....

"Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is the process of reasoning in which the premises of an argument are believed to support the conclusion but do not ensure it. It is used to ascribe properties or relations to types based on tokens (i.e., on one or a small number of observations or experiences); or to formulate laws based on limited observations of recurring phenomenal patterns. Induction is used, for example, in using specific propositions such as:

This ice is cold.
A billiard ball moves when struck with a cue.
...to infer general propositions such as:

All ice is cold.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Anything struck with a cue moves. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_logic
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However Argument by Generalization is a logical fallacy, and it was used here. "I worked for some companies, therefore they all work the same way." is Argument by Generalization, as given in my examples. Pretending you are not using logical fallacies is just being disingenuous now. I even gave examples and definitions and why it was a fallacy.

Just as with "I saw two indians walking in single file, therefore all indians walk in single file" is Inductive reasoning but still a logical fallacy.
 
However Argument by Generalization is a logical fallacy, and it was used here. "I worked for some companies, therefore they all work the same way." is Argument by Generalization, as given in my examples. Pretending you are not using logical fallacies is just being disingenuous now. I even gave examples and definitions.

So did I... Inductive logic is the correct term, though it can also being known reductionism...

All deductive logic is based on inductive logic by the way.....

In fact all knowledge is based on inductive logic...
 
AnyOldIron said:
However Argument by Generalization is a logical fallacy, and it was used here. "I worked for some companies, therefore they all work the same way." is Argument by Generalization, as given in my examples. Pretending you are not using logical fallacies is just being disingenuous now. I even gave examples and definitions.

So did I... Inductive logic is the correct term, though it can also being known reductionism...

All deductive logic is based on inductive logic by the way.....

In fact all knowledge is based on inductive logic...
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Once again, inductive reasoning can be used to produce logical fallacies. Both terms are accurate.
 
Take for example the deductive syllogism:

P: Night is dark
P: Now is night:
Ergo Now is dark...

All fine, formally valid and sound...

But the first premise 'Night is dark' is based on the inductive reasoning that every night I've seen is dark.

The fact that we rely on our senses for a prioriori knowledge results in inductive logic being the basis of knowledge....
 
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