From: stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: A letter to Rush: what is a liberal
Summary: The difference between liberals and conservatives
Date: 30 Sep 92 04:37:52 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Handmade Designs, Salem, OR

[Sorry to take so long to reply to this, but for some reason this posting
never made it to my site . . . I spotted it on a visit to another site and
mailed it to myself.]

Nathan Engle writes:
|stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce) writes:
|>On Wednesday's show I heard you give your definition of liberal and
|>conservative.  I think you are spot-on, but I want to share an insight I
|>have on the subject.  It seems to me that one of (if not the) fundamental
|>differences between liberals and conservatives is the degree to which they
|>feel in control of their lives.  Conservatives tend to feel that they are
|>in control of their destiny, perhaps more than they actually are.  Liberals
|>tend to think that life is something that happens to a person over which
|>they have little control.
|
|    Sorry, but I think that Rush's explanation of liberals as people who 
|don't believe in moral absolutes is more accurate. Your insight applies 
|very well to fiscal liberals, but not necessarily to social liberals.

I'll buy that.  For one thing, as a libertarian, I am something of a social
liberal myself.

|>If you think about it, my theory goes a long way to explain the differences
|>between liberals and conservatives.  For example, if you are the master of
|>your destiny, in control of your life, then it is wrong to redistribute
|>wealth, because those who have it, earned it, and those who don't are
|>themselves to blame for their poverty.
|
|    Hey, you know, I hadn't thought about it but that's a great way of 
|measuring the sin of sloth, huh? Nobody becomes poor who didn't deserve 
|it, and nobody becomes rich who didn't earn it. If poverty is a mark of 
|sin then there must be all kinds of rich people in heaven, huh?

I didn't say that poverty or sloth is a sin, nor have I any belief in
heaven.  I didn't say anything about the rich (I have wealth -- that
doesn't mean I'm wealthy).  I also didn't say "the poor deserve it".  I
didn't mean these things either.

I said *if* you are the master of your destiny . . . 

Unfortunately, this seems to be the usual form of argument on the NET: if
you can't argue against or face the point being made, distort the other
guy's words until you have something you can argue against or make fun of.

|>Conversely, if people don't have any control over their lives, then the
|>wealthy are only that way through happenstance, have no legitimate claim to
|>it, and it is only just that the government should redistribute this
|>wealth.
|
|    No, the thing that makes the redistribution justifiable is that some 
|people have accumulated far more than they need and others don't have 
|enough. It has nothing to do with who has legitimate claims to what. When 
|someone is starving they need food. If someone has more food than they need 
|then they have enough to share. Of course, it's to be hoped that the ones 
|with more than they need will voluntarily share, but why leave it to chance?

As you well know, wealth redistribution in this country goes way beyond
feeding the starving, or meeting people's basic needs.  That some have more
than others is in itself no justification for wealth redistribution beyond
that.

For the record I don't think people are "masters of their destiny", that
they control all of the circumstances of their lives.  But I do think they
do control what they do with those circumstances.  People are remarkably
good at figuring out what the incentives are before them.  That is why we
are the dominant species on this planet, and what liberals forget when they
go about redistributing the wealth.
-- 
orstcs!opac!bug!stevef          I am the NRA              Steven R. Fordyce
uunet!sequent!ether!stevef         . . .  	        Deer are for Dinner
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh