And we have Bush, the Religious Right and Fox News to thank for this. Way to go, guys!
Americans have grown more concerned about the gap between rich and poor. Support for the social safety net has grown too, while our military appetite has shrunk, according to a recent Pew survey of public opinion.
More Americans agree with the assessment that “today it’s really true that the rich just get richer while the poor get poorer.” Today, 73% feel that way, up from 65% five years ago.
It follows that more of us believe the government should take care of people who can’t take care of themselves. Fifty-four percent of Americans say the government should help more needy people, even if it adds to the national debt, compared to just 41 percent in 1994.
Just five years ago, 43 percent of of us identified as Republicans, and same for Democrats. Now 35 percent identify as Republicans, and half the country as Democrats.
In other words:
Americans are getting in touch with reality.
“Fifty-four percent of Americans say the government should help more needy people, even if it adds to the national debt, compared to just 41 percent in 1994.”
I wonder what the percentage would be if they asked the responsible question which would be: ‘Do you think the government should help more needy people, even if YOU have to pay more in taxes?”
Let’s see how many will bite from this rediculous political trolling!
A trend like this proves the US is well and truly doomed.
Amazing how average Joe or Jane Blow can’t grasp the concept of the government as an essential part of a civilized society and see past the cheap propaganda of the right that keep scaring them sh*tless with caricature images of “bad bad bad” feds etc. Yeah, let’s go back to anarchy and government-less social order of primitive ages. The answer is not government, big or small, but how good and functional it is and who it serves.
If that’s true, then how come the new liberal, Democrat congress has lower approval ratings, and higher disapproval ratings, than President Bush, right now?
Oh, I see the article is from Mother Jones. Never mind…
waaahahahahahaha!
#2 – Patrick, I can’t answer for anyone else, but YES! Even more so if I think there’s a chance of getting nationalized health care. That’s what liberal means, generous. The opposite of liberal is stingy. The opposite of conservative is progressive.
Oh, and it’s also possible to be both liberal and fiscally conservative. It just means that such a person, like myself, understands that in order to be generous the bills must be paid.
Actually, the “tax and spend” liberals are more fiscally conservative than the borrow and spend republicans who just keep leaving the bills for the next poor schnook to come along.
I think we’re still paying interest on the billion dollars Neil Bush stole in the savings and loan scandal that Papa Bush borrowed all that money to bail out, rather than making any attempt to get the money back from the thieves, including his son.
#6) Please engage brain before engaging your mouth (or at least check the news). The latest polls have shown that Congress is at its highest approval rating for quite some time. Congress’ approval rating is currently at 40%, up from only 25% before the elections last fall. Needless to say, Congress’ approval rating is higher than Bush’s low to middle 30s rating.
http://tinyurl.com/yse7u4
Oh, I see the comment is from Frank IBC. Never mind…
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Why is that thong lying on a table? It should be worn by some 19 year old female college liberal. Maybe a svelt latina!
Sure, that’s the only option left isn’t it? Couldn’t possibly be any other form of political options.
#5, what can you possibly be talking about. The average dolt Bush supporter is just as much a big government supporter as you are. Have you been watching the last 6 years?
# 12 I am curious what kind of logic you used to come to a conclusion that I support a big government?
Since when was it cool to be associated with either establishment?
Honestly, the story sounds like a puff piece to try to get liberals to feel good about themselves… something that isn’t going to happen any time soon.
#8, you really have no clue do you? The term liberal has always been used in reference to liberty. It does NOT have anything to do with being generous. The term “liberal arts” in education has to do with educating people to live in a free society. Jefferson was a liberal, and there certainly is nothing bad about being one. It’s the progressives who co-opted the word for themselves that have made people like me, who don’t agree with their agenda, view it in a negative sense. Maybe you should read some about classical liberalism vs. neo-liberalism before you start telling us what words mean.
But thank you for being generous with the products of other people’s labor… I’m sure it makes you sleep better at night.
#15 – Mike. I think the term you’re looking for is libertarian.
From wikipedia:
Liberal Party is the name of dozens of political parties around the world. It usually designates a party that is ideologically liberal, meaning that they advocate individual rights and civil liberties, and sometimes left wing, meaning that they are egalitarian and believe in the redistribution of wealth from rich to poor.
Also from wikipedia, regarding the Liberal Party of New York (my state, so may indicate my usage of the term):
The Liberal Party of New York is a dormant minor American political party that has been active only in the state of New York. Its platform supports a standard set of center-left policies: it favors abortion rights, increased spending on education and universal health care.
#15 – Mike,
Also, check a dictionary. The terms are not solely political. They were picked to describe political parties based on their dictionary meanings.
Is it cool to be liberal, or just really bad to be associated with the fools who got the US to where it is today?
#18 – Olo Baggins of Bywater,
It’s probably cooler to bring back the old “Bilbo Baggins for President” campaign. But then, Bilbo was pretty progressive.
Show me a young conservative and I’ll show you someone with no
heart. Show me an old liberal and I’ll show you someone with no
brains.
-Some clever dude 🙂
I thought liberal females didn’t wear panties.
So the Democratic party is supposed to be for poor people? Is this the same Democratic party the has a Yale educated white male millionaire running for them during the last Presidential election? Or was that the Republican party? Oh wait, that’s right, it was both.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
When the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President are conveniently absent from Congress on the day a vote is held regarding gay marriage and when the first thing the Democratic party says when they regain control of congress is that they aren’t going to pursue impeachment you know that any differences between the Democratic and Republican party are simply in degree and not in kind.
#8
Even if it meant paying say 70% of your income in taxes? Even if it meant you could get cheaper and more effective health care by paying for it directly? Even if it meant that you would have to pay for additional health care on top of what you pay to the government in order to get decent care? Somehow, I doubt it. If you are so keen on paying more tax, I know many people that would be more than happy to let you pay their tax bill.
Apparently Natefrog thinks that there is only one poll in existence (the one he cited was AP-Ipsos):
President Bush Job Approval
Poll Date Approve Disapprove
RCP Average 03/29 – 04/08 36.5% 60.3%
Rasmussen 04/06 – 04/08 38% 60%
USA Today/Gallup 04/02 – 04/05 38% 58%
AP-Ipsos 04/02 – 04/04 35% 62%
Hotline/FD 03/29 – 04/01 35% 61%
Congressional Job Approval
Poll Date Approve Disapprove
RCP Average 03/27 – 04/05 35.0% 55.8%
USA Today/Gallup 04/02 – 04/05 33% 60%
AP-Ipsos 04/02 – 04/04 40% 57%
Hotline/FD 03/29 – 04/01 37% 52%
FOX News 03/27 – 03/28 30% 54%
#23 – Thomas,
If it meant 70% of my taxes and I paid no other taxes, sales, real estate, state, local, etc., which pretty much come close to that now, yes.
But why do you assume a 70% tax?
Are you aware that the U.S. spends 15% of its GDP on health care NOW??!!!?
Did you know that the next highest paying developed nation in the world pays 9% with the average closer to 7.5% and some countries as low as 6%?
Did you know that for that THOROUGHLY RIDICULOUS price that we already pay, we get, BY FAR, the worst health care of ANY developed democratic nation?
Our infant mortality and life expectancy are around even with the better third world nations, e.g. Costa Rica (which, as an aside, kicks our butts on literacy). We’re currently ranked at 47th best health care in the world.
We are way behind any other developed democratic nation. And, [begin sarcasm] I’m sure everyone will be shocked to hear this bit of old and heavily repeated news [end sarcasm], we are the only such nation NOT to have nationalized health care!!
I wonder if maybe, just maybe, there might be a correlation here. I wonder if it might have something to do with other countries deciding who gets treated based on who can be helped the most and the most cost effectively while we continue to make our decisions based on your wealth.
And, even at that, wealthy people get such wonderful treatments in this country as unnecessary non-cosmetic surgeries, expensive and sometimes less effective medication, and a nice long period of time on life support systems having air pumped through the meat that was once us until our money runs out so that they finally pull the damn plug.
And, even if it did mean that my health care was a tad worse, which I am most definitely NOT conceding, but that poor people could actually get some preemptive medical treatment instead of emergency room only care, yeah, I’d take that.
Of course, it’s almost comical that the same small subset of religious people that are the most fanatical and claim that all morals come only from a 1500+ year old work of fiction, are the same ones saying “screw the poor” with every vote they cast.
#16, no, classical liberalism (i.e. the principles under which the United States were founded, such as the ideas of inalienable rights and self-government) and modern day libertarianism are not necessarily the same thing, though they are similar in many way. Libertarianism, at least in this US, tends to lean heavily towards anarcho-capitalism. Classical liberals do not normally take such an extreme view. This is just one example of their divergence, but I’m sure since you are handy with Wikipedia, you would have already seen that.
So no, I am not confused about the issue at all, as Frank IBC suggested. And this idea (whether you were being serious or not) that “liberal” means generous and “conservative” means stingy is completely absurd. I’ve already gone into where the term liberal originates, and obviously (to anybody who understands the meaning of words) true conservatives are, at their core, essentially trying to keep (conserve) things mostly as they were (i.e. limited government interference, minimal entitlements, maximum individual freedom).
27# At least the old meaning of conservative meant that. The terms have been butchered over the years. Not in the sense to conserve but to control the size and power of government. I think you are wrong about the Libertarian ideology leaning towards anarcho-capitalism here in the states. The party gave up on principle long ago and is now considered minarchist.
Sorry, Mike, I confused your reply with the post to which you were replying.
Misanthropic Scott, there are plenty of charities that specialize in providing health care for people who cannot afford it. They will gladly except your money, and your altruistic motives.
I used to be a moderate — or centrist.
Then my Republican friends swung SO PICKIN’ FAR TO THE RIGHT and they started calling me a liberal or even a leftist for beliefs that many Republican used to believe in. (like balanced budgets or judicious use of the military)
So, I got tired of arguing with them and just started calling myself a liberal.
Oxford dictionary definition of ‘liberal’:
“willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas”.
This is the way in which ‘liberal’ is understood and used by most English speakers except, apparently, those in the US.