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Author | Topic: What is a Liberal, and What is a Conservative? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
both are BS labels. Essentially, most people fall towards teh middle, with various views that are not encompessed entirely by either label. Of course, the one common trait to people who label themselves as one or the other seems to be a demonization of the other side.
This message has been edited by Darwin Storm, 08-29-2004 01:14 PM
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
To a great extent the problem, the problem I see with the liberal/conservitive argument is that it is presented as a dichotomy, as if there are only two alternatives. Frankly, many of my views are represented by neither party. Frankly, I am for minimal government and government interference in any aspect of our lives beyond certain neccesary functions, such as defense, education, transportation (or transportation management), and to regulate commerace to prevent abuse, fraud, or monopolies. Beyond that, I think we really need to question the cost and benefit of any program. However, many people support programs or idealogies without regard to the costs, which is not only impractical, it is dangerous. There may be some other programs, that we as a society deem neccesary, but they should only be implemented after rigerous debate. To take on the label of conservitive or liberal seems to mean accepting a polictical and social view that seems to push its own agenda first without regards to either the public as a whole or the impact on people as individuals. I know this isn't entirely accurate, but there again is the problem with painting broad strokes with labels.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
I will agree with you on that. Reading through the survey, it was defintely one of the more baised poltical survey's I have seen.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
It also failed to address indivuality and personal responsiblity, so there you go, it ignored several political aspects.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
I think the survey is a poorly limited (and fairly baised) political survey which really doesnt address the topic. But hey, most people like surveys, so who am I to complain.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
LOL , well , just reminds me of the saying, "GIGO"
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
How about rewording it such as:
If economic integration continues globally, should its goal be to serve the interests of consumers or producers? The original reference to economic globalization is silly, since most markets, due to transportation and communications, are already globalized to some degree. Additionally, humanity is such a pathetically vague term (since governments, corporations, individuals, dictorships, blah blah blah are all organizations of humans, ie humanity. Sloppy terminology at best.) The question really doesn't address the benifit to people at all. Additionally, whenever you are talking about trade, the two primary groups involved are always producers and comsumers, (and that is true for inviduals or organziations.). Just me, but I think my question makes more sense.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
duplicate post *deleted*
This message has been edited by Darwin Storm, 08-30-2004 07:44 PM
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
I am saying that the questions inherantly are baised. That is, most of the questions, in the manner they are asked, provide a postive or negative bias to the questions. Of course, the easiest way to coax certain results out of a survey is the generate either unclear questions, or to provide questions with contextual or semantic bias.
As for my results, I feel intoeconomic right: 4.00 Libertarian -4.41 BTW why the should I care what some 2000 year old corpse thinks when the obvious answer is nothing, the dude is dead.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
What about employees? Where do they fit in? Should companies be allowed to cut jobs without warning in order to increase their profits? Should companies ruin retirement funds knowingly (Enron) in order to give CEO's the golden parachutes they require? Should safety and fair pay be considered a universal (world wide) right? I think this is also what the original question was trying to portray.
Employees, in operating in their jobs, are producers. However, you are no longer addressing the issue of the importance of consumer/producer. You are now asking if the current coroporate structures are ethically and effeciently run. That is a whole seperate conversational debate. There are numerous laws that regulate corporations that vary from country to country. A debate along these lines would be long, but an excellent topic. However, hardly relates to the question of where the goal/emphesis should be placed as we continue to ingrate teh world economically.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
Obviously I wasn't clear in explaining the bias. I am not talking about differenting the opinion of the person taking the survey, I am talking about the bias introduced by the manner in which the questions are asked. I already pointed out the faults with the first question:
"If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations."
Or how about:
The growing fusion between information and entertainment is a worrying contribution to the public's shrinking attention span. First off, what the hell are they talking about a fusion of information and entertainment? Are they talking about the new media in which entertainment is dissemenated? ie television, radio ect.Or are they commenting on traditionaly news and information sources are being alterted to become more entertaining. Hell, all enteraintment involves information (visual, audio, tacticle, ect). So , the first part of the question is non-sensical. Also, the question clearly implies, regardless of the first part, that people's attention span is decreasing. Huh? There may be anecdotal evidence, but please show me a scientific study. The question makes an assumption here, which if inccorect, completely invalidates teh entire question.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
Well, crash, surveys are hardly scientific (though some of the statistical methodoly can be). If the questions aren't clear and nuetral as possible, than the writers inherinatly influence the survey results. Its a fairly common trend, and is often why different survey by various newspapers can generate disparate results, especially the more biased the questions wording is.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
please read my post 75 and please tell me where I am wrong in my critque of that that question.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
I would disagree with the terminology of globalization. The world economy has been essentially globalized since before ww2. What you would term globalization is just a progression of economic integration. Reduction in tariffs and such is a current trend, but hardly the only one. Of course, globalization, as the term might imply also, seems to mean a wider and more rapid dissemination of information across teh globe, at least to the 25 to 30 percent of the population that has access to modern communications. However, the term is not used with precise definitions, and thus has different meaning depending on which group is using it.
Secondly, you seem to refer to corporations as seperate entities. Some groups work ethically, others do not. However, last I checked, humanity is not some amporhus entity and neither are corporations. I suggest that you clarify your terminology. The question you must then ask is where do you want to see the benefits of such trade. The essence of any trade is to exchange goods, usually money for products. However, trade is hardly evil, and neither are coroprations. Like any form of human organization, invention, or endevour, there are postive and negative consequeces. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, and in some cases, it is quite valid. However, I would also argue that modern corporations and industrialization also aid in the rapid production of cheap goods that can vastly help people, aka humanity, by meeting needs and services at a fraction the price it would without such buisness organizations.
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Darwin Storm Inactive Member |
Well, I both agree and disagree with your stance (actually various points. First off, multinational companies aren't inherentaly a bad trend. The abuses by a few are teh same abuses we have seen when companies were strictly nationalistic entities. So the real complaint should be, do we structure and regulate companies properly with the law, or should their be changes.
As for your second statement, the whole idea of making things en mass is to drive the price down (economy of scale), and thus make products available to more than just the wealthy. As for outsourcing, that is a mixed bad. I agree that countries that use slave labor, etc, should be sanctioned, but what about countries whos people are free but poor? Isnt the reason outsourcing works is because of a sever descrepency in economies? Providing jobs and investment to these coutries may reduce temporarily some job creation in wealthier countries, but there are positive effects as well. First off, such economies gain enormously (often the outsourced jobs pay such people several time what they make in their own economy). Secondly, the investment expands their economy and wealth, thus developing them as a market (which in the future increases jobs for everyone since the marketplace expands).Now, I believe that outsourcing shouldn't be unregulated, and I also believe that we currently don't have enough understanding of the economic impact ( on both sides of the issue).
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