Talk:Liberalism in the United States/Archive 1

message: Johnson is a very confusing leader. On the one hand, he was liberal both economically and in his incremental, rather than revolutionary, handling of the civil rights movement, with the end result being full accordance of civil rights to African Americans. However, he mishandled the war in Vietnam. Vietnam was a tricky issue. Starting in Kennedy's administration, liberals thought that if Vietnam fell, all of Asia would fall, and the communists would continue to expand their power until all liberty, in the entire world, was destroyed. This view may have been wrong, but Kennedy's participation is understandable. Once things started getting really bad, however, Johnson should have worked harder for a global consensus, and should have been more transparent about the choices being taken with the American people, the US Congress, and the rest of the free world. Is this criticism enough to say that he "wasn't liberal?" It's not clear. He DID resist the conservative elements that demanded full-scale war against communism which would have definitely been a World War III, but that doesn't necessarily make him "liberal. Remember that the liberals were in control during WWI and WWII. This is one of the places where liberalism has few answers. What happens when your enemy will not negotiate and losing means the destruction of liberty? In WWII, Roosevelt decided that liberals must fight. In modern times, liberals have concluded that we must fight against Islamist extremists; however, an important component of this fight is through education and a friendly foreign policy that will limit new recruits. With those so extreme that there's no hope: we must fight. Johnson faced the problem that Vietnam was not negotiating. Many issues to consider. Since Johnson is so controversial and not universally accepted by liberals, we should leave him off the list of liberal leaders, unless someone makes a good argument to the contrary. luketh 00:02, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Johnson, liberalism, and war

message: Dean talks as if he were a liberal such as "reaching out to red states", but he's definitely a progressive by his methods and policies. He talks consensus, but, instead, turns to antagonism. My recommendation is to leave him off of the list of liberal leaders. There are a number of progressive politicians, Chisholm, Nader, and Kucinich, for example, who many liberals want to claim, but who aren't liberal in the philosophical sense. Progressives, such as Nader and Kucinich, who prefer to influence politics by drastic measures that even they know cannot hope to find consensus, shouldn't be on this list. Some liberals think that McGovern and then later, Dukakis, infused progressive elements into mainstream liberalism which contributed to the weakness of liberalism today. Progressivism was not a good thing for liberalism, leading many to think of liberals as progressives in disguise. luketh 00:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dean, liberalism, and progressivism

message: I plan to make a move that may be controversial, but it seems to be the right thing to do. This article does not outline liberalism in the United States pre-Wilson. That is, it focuses only on modern/American liberalism. Since it's an article on the development of a particular ideology, namely American liberalism, and not a historical article on liberalism in the United States since U.S. independence, the title is somewhat misleading. My proposal is to retitle the entry "American Liberalism." Since activity on this page has been minimal since I began editing, I'm going to go ahead and make this move, leaving this documentation of my reasons. If anyone objects and wants to expound on the entire history of liberalism in the United States, then they are free to move this entry back to its prior title and expand it or copy relevant portions to a new entry. Note that this entry is already referenced through the "Liberalism" box as "American Liberalism." Hopefully this move will not generate a considerable amount of controversy. luketh 03:46, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Retitling entry

message: The recently added list of 20th-century U.S. liberal leaders strikes me as quirky. I certainly agree with:
:Hubert H. Humphrey - Nelson Rockefeller - John F. Kennedy - Robert Kennedy - Edward Kennedy - Allard K. Lowenstein - Eugene McCarthy - George McGovern - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Paul Wellstone - Fiorello LaGuardia - Walter Mondale. And I guess I can't argue with the inclusion of Daniel Patrick Moynihan (despite some lapses on his part: "benign neglect" and all that), but if he's on the list, then how about other sometimes-lapsed liberals like Henry M. Jackson?
I would certainly add Adlai Stevenson, probably an even clearer inclusion than some on this list. I'd also consider adding Warren G. Magnusson (not even an article yet? Jeez), Ann Richards, Ralph Bunche, Thurgood Marshall, William Scranton (also lacking an article), and John V. Lindsay; that's just off the top of my head.
Is the inclusion of Theodore Roosevelt as a "liberal" an implicit way of making the case that the Progressive movement is part of the stream from 19th-century liberalism to modern American liberalism? If so, Robert M. La Follette, Sr. seems an even more appropriate inclusion in this respect.
William O. Douglas seems to me to be a bit left of "liberal". On the other hand, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Harry S Truman all were pretty centrist in terms of their times and don't particularly strike me as liberals. All had some liberals in their cabinets (and Carter certainly had one as vice president), but I don't think they themselves were liberals, any more than Lyndon Johnson was.
Also, any reason to include only politicians, not (for example) influential writers like Lionel Trilling or John Rawls? 
Anyway, these are just suggestions: feel free to act on them, or discuss, or ignore. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:09, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
:Thanks for your comment. Some centrists (in the US sense) are included, since this article is part of the liberalism series, in which a broader usage of liberalism is used. People who can be considered left of US liberalism shouldn't be included, so you ca delete William A. Douglas.  --Gangulf 07:06, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I apologize for my last edit in which I said Ann Richards was "definitely not a liberal." While she never used the term "liberal" self-referentially, her views do, in fact, seem quite liberal. A good argument could be made for returning Richards to the list of liberal leaders. luketh 20:14, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leaders 

message: I am removing Noam Chomsky from the list of "left liberals". Chomsky certainly does not consider himself a liberal, and tends to use the term, usually disparagingly, to refer to people he considers well to his right. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:33, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
I'm surprised that Noam Chomsky was ever included here. While the article has a long section on right-wing criticism of liberalism, there is also a long tradition of left-wing criticism of liberalism. American liberals started to describe themselves as "progressives" in the 1960s and 1970s, to avoid left-wing critics. In the 1980s, through today, they more commonly adopt the label "progressive" to avoid right-wing critics. All of which raises another question: what is a progressive? The wikipedia article is a stub. --Sentience 03:13, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Noam Chomsky? 

message: In the early 21st century, the term "liberalism" in the United States has become somewhat confused, applied to a broad spectrum of viewpoints. As the Democratic Party, generally seen as the standard-bearer of liberalism, adopted the more centrist outlook of the DLC, the term "liberal" (applied to the party as a whole) became associated even with more centrist candidates and issues who, for example, support the death penalty or take pro-business positions. For this reason, and because many on the farther right have so heavily used "liberal" as a pejorative, many Americans on the left of the political spectrum prefer to use the term progressive to describe their views, disassociating themselves from what they see as an increasingly conservative politics that still holds the name of liberalism.
The question of whether or not the word "liberal" is used as a pejorative should not be included the main definition. It seems to me that this definition was written by someone who has taken personal offense to the use of the word in this manner. 
:I agree. -asx-
Some Americans define liberals as those who support the use of government power to promote equality. U.S. liberals also are more likely to openly support the legitimacy of government social intervention than are conservatives.
Some Americans? Try most U.S. political science textbooks. The word liberal should be defined by the prevailing political ideology held by its members, not the opinions of opposing political groups. 
:I agree. -asx-
The mention of the DLC is also completely unnecessary. A "liberal" is a leftist, or even better described as a semi-socialist. 
:I disagree. "Socialist" is an emotion-laden term and it's use to describe liberalism is not only inaccurate, but inflamatory. -asx-
People who call themselves "liberal" are uncomfortable admitting this, 
:What is your evidence for this claim? -asx-
but by comparing the main demands of socialists and liberals one can see that they are basically the same. 
:I disagree. They are not basically the same. The belief that they are is your Point of View. -asx-
It is true that liberals do not favor as much public ownership in the economy, but they are essentially socialists because their main goals involve more government control to promote equality, both social and economic. 
:By this definition, Republicans and conservatives are also "semi-socialist." Therefore, your definiton of "liberalism" is well to the right of mainstream American political opinion. -asx- 02:42, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current definition is out of line with U.S. political science textbooks 

message: What is with the recently added, uncited claim that the collapse of the Bretton Woods system was a death-blow to the liberal consensus? Seems absolutely unintuitive to me. Unless someone can come up with a clear citation for who says this, I intend to remove it from the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:03, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
: This article tends to favor the political to the exclusion of the economic, and tends to focus on political ideas as opposed to political conditions.  The discussion of political ideas is fine, but I think some the things happening in the material world have to be discussed.  Stagflation, the collapse of Bretton Woods, the decline of wages and unionization rates during the 1970s and 1980s, Europe and Asia going from economic basket cases to real competitors, all of these things had an effect on political conditions and political ideas.
: I am not fixated on the specific change I made, but I do think the effect the changing economy had on the liberal consensus should be mentioned more in this article. Mr. Know-It-All 05:54, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bretton Woods 

message: We seem to have a back-and-forth in editing the lead section over whether American Liberals are concerned with promoting "social and economic equality" or merely "economic equality". I would argue strongly that the former formulation is far more accurate. At the height of the "liberal consensus" in the 1960s, far and away the bulk of the civil rights legislation related more to social and civic equality than economic equality. It was a sweeping away of laws and practices (especially in the South, but school segregation, for example, was almost as much of a factor in the North) that institutionalized social inequality. Similarly, multiculturalism -- not a universal liberal position, but one whose support comes mainly from liberals -- is a matter of social equality and only has a tangential connection to economics. Some aspects of multiculturalism that are most connected to social and civic equality -- availability of ballots and voter pamphlets in multiple languages, availability of translators in courtrooms and hospitals -- have been rather specifically liberal projects. Similarly, Title IX: social, not primarily economic. I could go on, but I don't want to make a laundry list. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:53, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
: I would go even further. The opening paragraph needs to explain in almost childishly simple terms what the word liberal means to an American (during the last few decades, if I understand the US etymology of this word). A lot of Wikipedia is useless because the term liberal, used by international readers and editors, means laissez-faire capitalism, while many American readers and editors use it in exactly the opposite meaning: limp-wristed, tax-spending socialist. Note that I am not expressing an opinion about which usage is correct; I am merely saying that this page should be embarrassingly clear about which usage is intended, and be explicit about the possibility of a misunderstanding. When that is settled, we have a huge task disambiguating the link liberal to this page (when used in the current American sense) whenever it is appropriate.Arbor 11:53, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Promotion of equality