To Glenn Beck and the Tea Party new comers:

"Government is the coming together of people to do for one another collectively what they could not do as well or at all privately through the market system or philanthropy." - Abraham Lincoln (liberal!)   

“People” coming together as a “collective,” disrespecting our market system and the failures of “philanthropy?” Does that quote sound like something a conservative would say? No of course not. It sounds socialist and practically communist. In the 1860s the fairly new Republican party was comprised mostly of members with Liberal ideals. And the Democratic party members had conservative ideals. A lot of people who study American history know that, but you newbies to politics choose to not find that out, or you are just in denial. Even your leader Glen Beck didn't know that when he chose the Lincoln memorial for your fall rally in 09. There have been party ideology switches this century in the baby boomer generation, such as the conservative democrats flight to change parties after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (the act that effectively ended legal segregation in our nation). Go ahead ask somone! The quotation above is famous in Liberal circles and was said by Abraham Lincoln (See "Lincoln's Hands," his original manuscript). If you folks, who praise President Lincoln, and think he represented your party today, knew this to begin with, you would not have been making fools of yourselves in front of the Lincoln memorial and in the minds of US historians, intellectuals and liberals, 8 out of 10 Phds, 94% of all scientists, and half of our politicians. It is apparent to me that Tea Partyers and conservatives really only like Lincoln because he freed the slaves (something that Liberals had wanted for for decades). And if they praise Lincoln then that provides cover from the media so that the conservative right doesn’t look as if they are racists. And with President Lincoln in their pockets they can attract more African American members, from somewhere. The racism of the right wing is pretty clear because of the right’s hatred for a black president who is doing less damage and more reform, that helps all citizens, than the white conservative president before him had ever done in 8 years. Where was the tea party while the white President Bush was adding more than 3 trillion dollars to our national debt for two wars that were not even necessary? Where was the Tea Party when that white President Bush gave tax cuts to rich people without even making up for it anywhere else in his budgets! President Bush was a tax and spend Republican. So was the white Ronald Reagan who tripled our national debt. Why were the Tea Partiers not carrying posters of the white George Bush as a black African witchdoctor with a bone through his nose at their tax day march? Answer: deep down inside, hidden from political correctness of our society, a black president is an affront to the sensibilities of a true conservative.

By pretending to embrace Lincoln’s party politics you conservatives are warping history. Don’t you care that students learn true facts about our past? Or does that concern mean less to you than boosting your roles by hiding behind a liberal. A liberal Lincoln who clearly used “big government,” to better the United States as whole, when the states had continuously failed to better themselves and bring fairness to their citizens?

Our government representatives have not spent 234 years passing laws willy nilly for the fun of it. Tea Partiers and other conservatives go ahead and study President Lincoln’s record of laws passed. While you are studying Lincoln’s ideals and ask yourselves which federal government laws existing today used to be run just fine without Lincoln’s ideal of what our government really is? Ask yourselves which federal laws can you honestly say were not even needed before they were created, and why were they needed, and do those problems that cause us to write laws, remain today? What were the continuing failures of small governments and individuals that caused our representatives to come together for nationwide solutions? You can also contemplate which specific laws you want to get rid of now that you think that the problems that they had addressed can be handled well at the local level? Look at your past and find evidence that supports your beliefs that the big bad government can’t do anything right. The truth is our Democratic Republic has a centralized government that does a hell of lot more good for its citizens than a pack of conservative governors running around in circles, mostly ending up where their state had started from.

At your convention last year, 80% of the audience when asked if “you have ever been involved in politics before?” raised their hands to answer no. This ignorance is really making you guys look foolish. Tea Partiers and other conservatives should return to school, take civics and United States history. Perhaps you could make a new website called Government as Seen through Tea Party Tainted Glasses.”It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.”

-- Abraham Lincoln, chiding the editor of a Springfield, Illinois, newspaper

A Liberal’s View on the Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives

I should state here that because I am a liberal it is difficult to examine the differences between liberals and conservatives without being biased against conservatism, and I apologize for this almost inescapable context.

There are distinct differences between conservatives and liberals. Most of the behavioral differences seem to be philosophical in origin. The causes of particular behavioral traits can only be speculated. Parenting, environment, emotional life events and perhaps even the organization of the brain can all be contributors in the differences between liberals and conservatives.

As neurology relates to behavior U.C.L.A. has provided some evidence resulting from studies using magnetic resonance imaging, in conjunction with imaging, to observe levels of emotional response in subjects. From a New York Times Magazine article, 2007:

" our most compassionate (or even cowardly) feelings are as much a product of the brain as ''rational choice'' economic theory is. They just emanate from a different part of the brain -- most notably, the amygdala, the almond-shaped body that lies below the neocortex, in an older brain region sometimes called the limbic system. Studies of stroke victims, as well as scans of normal brains, have persuasively shown that the amygdala plays a key role in the creation of emotions like fear or empathy. . . . as The Times reported not long ago, a team of U.C.L.A. researchers analyzed the neural activity of Republicans and Democrats as they viewed a series of images from campaign ads. And the early data suggested that the most salient predictor of a ''Democrat brain'' was amygdala activity responding to certain images of violence: either the Bush ads that featured shots of a smoldering ground zero or the famous ''Daisy'' ad from Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 campaign that ends with a mushroom cloud. Such brain activity indicates a kind of gut response, operating below the level of conscious control.”

That the amygdala reacts with greater compassion and fear in those identifying themselves as liberals makes some sense when considering liberals are known to be concerned with elements of society that may harm the vulnerable. In addition to empathy, fear of those elements can create a healthy drive to change the harmful. In this editorial I will focus only on the evident philosophical differences that can almost predict the behavior that would arise from these two frequently opposing and distinct personality traits.

Conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. Both hold family of great importance. Both have faith. Both are patriotic and want what they feel is best for their country. Both see hypocrisy in much of the actions of the other. Both feel the other is morally corrupt and each blames the other for what is wrong in society. Many liberals and conservatives accept as literal fact what they are told is true, often due to biased and selective news presentations on both sides helping to cement dichotomous views of the world. Both tend to exaggerate numbers in their favor. Both experience righteous indignation and can be zealot on an issue.

A conservative tendency is to value one's self, more so than he or she values others. On reflection at end one’s life, a liberal will be most satisfied or not, with the way that he has treated others and his family in his life time, the good that he has done for other people. A conservative will be most satisfied, or not, with what he has done for himself and his family in his lifetime.

A conservative wears rose colored glasses to see the past, forgetting the negatives and imagining a past society of Norman Rockwell appearance, of traditional conservative values where Donna Reed is a good housewife and Marcus Welby is the family doctor, where kids are good and wars winnable, and centralized government plays a minor role in the order of society. A liberal is likely to view the past with red flags that remind of poverty, sickness, inequality, and businesses run amok without regulation or labor laws.

A conservative is less likely to have an open mind when facing something new or something changing when preconceived judgments take priority over critical thinking and general intellectual curiosity. A good example of this is the David comparison. Suppose a liberal and a conservative are viewing Michael Angelo’s statue of David at the same time. The liberal is more likely to be impressed and intellectually satisfied with the nearly perfect depiction of the male human body. Quickly drawing on past lessons of shame and humility the conservative is instantly embarrassed at the full nudity before his eyes and would chose to hide David from the eyes of children.

Their differing views on entitlement programs such as food stamps are stark. A conservative will say “teach a man to catch fish and he'll fish for a life time. Give a man fish and he'll never learn to fish on his own.” While a liberal would say “teach a man to fish, but show him where the fish are and give him fish when he is without.”

Conservatives believe in “trickle down economics,” the socio economic hypothesis that tax breaks for the few wealthy will cause unselfish generous spending that will fall upon the many poor and provide jobs and happiness. Whereas a liberal subscribes to “a rising tide lifts all boats.” That providing more economic advantages (lower taxation) for the less affluent citizens benefits all – lifting all boats. This redistribution of wealth is a major point of contention between conservatives and liberals. The conservative believes that a wealthy person deserves every dime they have. Where the liberal sees that the poor have to spend every dime they have to survive.

There are foreign policy differences. While both sides exhibit patriotic behavior the conservative position in the world is jingoistic, arrogant, and proud and the good ole’ U.S. of A can do no wrong. Extravagant spending on the military is unquestioned and given priority in every budget. We have a spiritual manifest destiny guiding our place in the world because God has blessed our country above others less well-off then we are. When we act militarily we were right to do so. The U.N. is a socialist plot toward one world government. Immigrants take our jobs and are changing our way of life and we should close the borders completely. The liberal takes a more humility garnished pathway to foreign policy, realizing that we are one of many nations, one no more deserving than the other. Though a liberal is not shy about funding the military, a liberal leader is more likely to dispatch our military to end suffering such as genocide, starvation, or to keep peace. A liberal sees the U.N. as what it is intended to be, a peace orientated democratic body providing a neutral ground for nations of the Earth to settle differences.

Conservatives and liberals have distinctly differing views of what is justice and how it is hindered or progressed. Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed and want change and justice, even at risk of chaos. Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions and want order even at cost to those at the bottom. A liberal would be more likely than a conservative to come to the defense of the prosecuted or incarcerated. A liberal might argue that the founders of the United States wanted to place great emphasis on protecting the innocent from the tyranny of bad criminal justice, including unlawful incarceration. Conservatives continue to place greater importance on prosecution and increased incarceration than on the defense of the prosecuted.

Of course there are large and many governmental differences between the two dichotomous and alike thinking groups. Many conservatives will claim to be in favor of smaller governmental size and less governmental control over society to promote liberty and the general welfare. Some conservatives go so far to suggest that the government should only be in charge of the defense of the nation. While a liberal would more likely be more optimistic about the abilities of the people through government to promote liberty and the general welfare by a necessary and lawful amount of intervention into society.

Do liberals and conservatives need each other like night needs day, like ying needs yang? Just like a force needs an opposing force to define it’s properties, liberals and conservatives need each other to define each other when each is judging and evaluating the other.

The Mad Haters Tea Party

When the simple folk rise up from political obscurity, be wary for they know not exactly what they want, but they do know what they hate. For the past couple of years the Tea Party out of the United States has been a confused and dissembled group of disenfranchised, disillusioned, economically frustrated, scared of change, narrowly informed, non critical thinking, religious and simplistic conservative bigots and very likely a smattering of racists.

In a measure of their naivety of complex issues and ignorance of how politics works, in a room of some 600 people at the recent Tea Party convention, nearly 80% raised their hands when asked if they “had never been into politics before.”

Mob: a large or disorderly crowd; especially one bent on riotous or destructive action.

The original tea party of 1773 were a mob of merchants and locals concerned with taxation by England without representation (or favor) of the local populace of the colonies. But it was not just tea taxes that upset the Massachusetts colonists; it was a build-up of tension brought about by the Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts, and the Boston massacre. The modern Tea Party is a mob made up of right-wing “pure” conservatives angry and hateful at taxation without representation (in Tea Party meaning: taxation without their support) and debt. But it is not just taxes and debt that upsets the modern day Tea Party, it is a build-up of tension brought about by years of watching liberalism and socialism take increasingly prominent positions in society. For an outlet of this tension the Tea Partiers have found scapegoats of programs and people with little ability to defend themselves within the media of the right-wing. Scapegoats like president Obama, government run anything (except for our military), infrastructure based earmarks by congresspersons, gun control laws, regulations of the “free market,” health care reform, welfare and entitlement programs, government overreach into the business of the states, same sex marriage, economic bailouts, abortion rights, RINOS (republican in name only), and religious restrictions by mandate of the U.S. constitution and it’s pesky separation of church and state.

“We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country!” – Tea Party Nation web site

To the Tea Party “limited government” means that government should only protect us and keep us militarily secure from our enemies. They use a Thomas Jefferson quote to justify this ideal: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others,” (found on a Tea Party web site). Jefferson was speaking in generality of the purpose of United States government. “Injurious,” in this quotation does not only mean physical harm by a foreign military, but in all matters which could be injurious and in which government intervention, enforced through written law, can protect individuals from harm. Such government interventionist laws as making slavery illegal nationwide, workplace laws that protect the vitality and safety of the worker nationwide, civil rights laws that protect minorities and individuals from harm and unfair treatment nationwide, and business regulation which protects the populace from monopolization and unfair business practices across state borders.

“Free speech” in Tea Party nuance means that the religious should be able to express their faith through government entities like in a public school. Support for the 2nd amendment, means all gun control laws are unconstitutional (never mind that pesky Militia part). Support for the military is support for supreme United States power, empirical status and interventionism toward the favorite enemy of the moment. “Secure borders” is all about immigration, illegal and legal, and supporting English only in all government communications and in the schools especially. Their love of country is jingoism pure and simple (extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy).

The movement and the members of the Tea Party were indeed born yesterday. But their ideas are as old and as wrong as conservatism itself. From Birthers to Gun Nuts to Pro Lifers, the Tea Partyers revel in their own justification of their conservative ideals. Despite the successful history of U.S. style liberalism they are certain they are right. They have even made their own media to further cement their right thinking ways. They now live in a bubble of right-wing media. A comfortable place for a Tea Partier to be
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The world we live in is not black and white and unfortunately we do not vote by jelly beans in jars labeled with issues as the Tea Partiers might wish. We vote on a huge sundry of modern issues, some complex and some simple, using representative democracy in a republic. And unfortunately for the Tea Partiers we do not live by the literal words of the U.S. constitution, we have a Supreme Court which relates our modern day problems to solutions offered under constitutional foundation – that is clearly how the founders thought it should be.

On United States Socialism

Afraid of socialism? It’s been here a long time. Somewhere between Capitalism and Communism lies the never fully achieved idea of Socialism. The United States is an experiment in combined socialism and capitalism, in a Republic using the tools provided through the practice of democracy.

In socialist fashion the citizens of the United States have collectively determined the need for publicly owned and operated entities such as the local police and fire departments, publicly owned and operated school systems, postal services, and even the military is socialist. All collectively created rules and regulations administered on businesses are socialist practices. All unions are practicing socialism. The shopping clubs are a socialist idea. Our collectively owned and maintained roads and highways are a socialist idea. Social Security is a socialist idea. Medicare and Medicaid is a socialist practice. Collective stock ownership is a socialist practice. So is progressive taxation because it strives toward equality in taxation.

A true conservative in the modern United States favors eliminating all rules and regulations on businesses, privatizing our school systems, tolling our roads and highways, enacting a flat tax system, fully privatizing medical delivery and leaving assistance to the poor entirely up to private charity. A true socialist democratic citizen is optimistic about our collective ability to solve problems after laissez-faire methods have failed; such is the case with health care reform and the rather socialist idea of a publicly owned and operated not-for-profit health insurance company.

Politcal Parties Not Always Party Poopers

We Americans must accept that we have political parties and that we should find our party based upon our ideals and stick with it for awhile. Since early in our nation’s political history, partisanship has been here to stay. We must learn to grow with it, changing it from within, and enjoying its victories, and learning from its losses.

In the beginning we were not supposed to have political parties. In fact the framers spoke of the demerits of party politics in the few years before drafting a constitution. But within fifteen years of adopting our Constitution, the congress broke-off into two camps, or “parties,” and the presidential and gubernatorial candidates followed behind. Former loyalists (to the King) became the Whigs, and revolutionaries became the Federalists. The Whigs favored a strictly republic form of government with little to no citizenship representation or decision making. The Federalists favored a republic but wanted representative democracy. Thus formed the popular terms and then form parties: the Republican and the Democratic parties. Today the party conventions, primary elections, party officers both local and national, are all inventions which are not mandated in the Articles of Confederation which lay-out the architecture of our government.

We have all heard it or even said it before; “there’s no difference between the parties, they’re both a bunch of corrupt crooks and money hungry (etc..).” The statement reflects an ignorance of what is really going on. Those parties and those representatives within are no more corrupt, no more crooks, than the members of your own family, or if not, the family next door to you. Sometimes they can’t balance their check book. Sometimes the infighting is so bad, the car has to pull over off the road for the ruckus to settle. Sometimes they grow so fat and lethargic and glutinous that it becomes obvious and members must be expelled. The founders were right about the congress, its alive, its reflective of our citizenship and its no better or worse than you or I.

The parties also, each have a philosophy to be followed. Sometimes the philosophy is not written but can be examined and defined from a distance. The best way to determine a political party’s philosophy is to study their actions – as is the case with all of us, i.e. “we are what we have done.”

It is understood that there will always be two parties of merit able strength in American politics. In actuality, in most politics around the world, especially where some form of democracy is in place, a single body comprised of individual entities will form-up into legions that have coalesced into two formations.

In nature; bi symmetry is found in almost all life forms. There are not life forms where, for instance, the Democratic Party female, mates with a Republican Party male, and then an Independent and a Green Party Senator must join in to complete the process. In all warm blooded reproduction on Earth there are two phases to fertilization, the forming process (the body politic comes together), and the addition from outside of a fertilization body into the formation (a legislative act, a bill, a need, a demand).

Accept there should be two. Know that two camps of everything is natural. For example; vote for your Green Party candidates with devotion, disregarding what ever is happening in the major parties, and you really do throw away your vote. But, you also reverse the progress of a natural process that has evolved over the years. In the future, one party, or three, or four parties, will eventually be two again. Don’t put American citizens through the growing process of failed representation, all over again.

Currently in divided American party politics, one party is filled with followers who require leadership to follow, to hear its party dogma from, and to absorb that dogma into their psyche. This is one of many generalizations of the Republican Party.

The constituents who support this party are hard working, blue collar and white collar middle to lower class peoples. They are more likely to occupy the land area away from the major cities (where people live densely together they vote Democratic). They are less likely to have the time to spend investigating media reports of what politicians are doing, or which ones are responsible for what actions. They do have the time to listen to am radio in their vehicles, either at work, or driving to or from work. Since 1987 when the Ronald Reagan administration released all broadcast radio and television stations and owners from responsibility to follow an 70 years old law requiring all political opinion or campaigning be balanced with opposition, the Fairness in Broadcasting Act, religions and conservative ownership immediately moved into those markets and suddenly politically Conservative and Christian right-wing fundamentalists began owning large chunks of middle American market. The blue and white collar middle and lower working classes who really only had time to get their media from the radio in the care, could now hear Rush Limbaugh all over the country, without hearing an opposition viewpoint.

The other party proceeds slower but with more detail, more complexity, seeing and preparing for more contingencies. The members of this party base their judgments on what they have seen, or what they have read from those who make it their life’s career to know the related subjects. This is the Democratic Party and they are sort of a free pastoral range herd of independent and critical thinkers. A herd that refuses to follow a leader in any procession towards any matter they themselves have not investigated to full understanding. As disorganized as this may seem, their goals are more closely related than is first perceived. Each of them is facing toward their goal together and it’s a long term goal, with big solutions, permanent fixes to age old problems. Their goals have something else in common; for any numerous reasons, over the many years and decades, the people have not be able to reach these numerous goals themselves.

I challenge anyone reading this opinion article to disprove the following generalization which I feel accurately describes the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties:

Under Republicans

Man Exploits Man.

Under Democrats

It’s the Opposite.

This statement could be disproved by searching for legislation advocated for almost exclusively by the modern Republican party (post Civil Rights Act 1968) which does not contain provisions allowing the further, or easier, or newly created exploitation of workers, of consumers, or of immigrants, or of public servants. Go ahead look it up. The Republican party of today throws in something for the big corporations to exploit, in almost all legislation. They fight Democratic party legislation that seeks to aid and assist workers and consumers, to live better and to have equal opportunity. So, Democratic Party members and supporters seek to reverse exploitation, and Republican Party members seek to allow the exploitation of men by other men.