Midday open thread
by kos
Mon Dec 17, 2007 at 12:27:45 PM PDT
- You know, admitting a mistake isn't so hard. I wonder why Joe Klein and Time Magazine have such a hard time doing it...
- The 2parse blog has been giving serious thought to the notion of the libertarian liberal.
At the heart of American liberalism, there has always been a contradiction. American liberals have long fought for individual rights against the state - especially in matter relating to criminal law, civil rights, minority rights, and free speech.6 At the same time, American liberals fought for greater state intervention in the economy and daily life of the nation. The American liberal tradition had not acknowledged that by giving the state greater power, we were in effect conceding individual freedoms. Even if that power was required to be used to help individuals, it would inevitably have negative side effects, making these individuals dependent on the state and giving the government more power and ability to manipulate individuals.
Today, many liberals have come to see this reality. While we still believe that government can be used for good, we are much more cautious about what government can and should do.
The libertarian liberal approach is pragmatic rather than ideological. It is about maximizing individual liberty with one caveat: the moral duty to empower the impoverished and the disadvantaged. Maximizing individual liberty means using the government as a check against corporations; it means setting up checks and balances within the government itself; it means a strong media, willing to challenge the government and corporations; it means strong individual rights to keep the government and corporations in check; it means elections that are meaningful. To maximize individual liberties, we need to constantly balance the many competing forces in such a way as to give each person the rights that are their birthright.
- Biden is the only Democratic candidate left trying to disenfranchise Iowa students.
- Doctor Housing Bubble notes that California is in deep shit.
- Huckabee, fresh off pissing of the Corporate Cons, is now hard at work pissing off the neocons. Will the Theocons be enough to get him over the finish line?
- Cool. One more civilized state in the union.
New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to abolish the death penalty since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976. Opponents of capital punishment hope the state's action may prompt a rethinking of the moral and practical implications of the practice in other states.
New Jersey's Democratic-controlled General Assembly voted 44 to 36 on Thursday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole. The action followed a similar vote by the state Senate on Monday. Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat and a death penalty opponent, has said he will sign the legislation.
The repeal bill follows the recommendation of a state commission that reported in January that the death penalty "is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency." But equally persuasive to lawmakers was not saving lives but money -- it costs more to keep a prisoner indefinitely on death row than incarcerated for life.
The bill has been signed and is now law.
- The candidate wars are now being fought in the Recommended Diaries. Here's a little secret -- no one is being convinced by those diaries to support your candidate, but many are sure being turned off by them.
- The one thing 2004 taught me was that endorsements meant little. I know Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have all scored "important" endorsements the past few days. While the frenzy around them sure must feed the egos of the endorsers, I don't really pay them much heed. People in today's world like to make up their minds for themselves. They're not sitting on their asses for others to make up their minds for them.
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