"Bleeding-Heart Liberal" is a Misnomer

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I wasn't arguing that the great society programs didn't help poverty level in the short term. (whether it would be sustainable is another matter) Merely the degree to which they did. The common wisdom is overhyped in a discussion where the common wisdom says the rate is considered halved.

[Cyclotron]

True.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Oerdin


The statistic commonly heard is that Johnson halved the poverty rate in America. That remains Johnson's greatest accomplishment though most of his welfare system either got dismantled or suffered such large spending cuts that it stopped working.

I have problems with the welfare system Johnson created (as I said in my last post) but no one can take away the fact that Johnson did half the poverty rate in America.

The welfare system Johnson created was largely devoted to helping people get trained and placed into better jobs. The jobs training programs were sacked because they allegedly didn't work. Many trainees didn't land jobs in the fields they trained for. The Nixon administration ignored the statistics which showed that trainees definitely had better success in the workforce than equivalent non-trained cohorts. Nixon dismantled it and replaced it with direct payments like ADC snd SSI. In the end we still paid them, but in effect we paid them to stay away from us.

[Dinner]

Job training and education is the way to take someone who is marginal in society and make them into productive tax payers. The government gets something like a 500%-700% additional on the money invested into student aid because more educated workers end up making more and thus paying more taxes yet every year in recent memory the Republicans have savaged student aid.

America has a real problem. The old manufacturing jobs are going away and the well paying jobs we can get are all knowledge or information based. Yet we do the worst job of educating people and the government slacks on its responsibility to make sure the population gets the needed job skills. If we want to attract high tech businesses then we need workers who can perform high tech jobs. We're not doing that in sufficient numbers.

What we need is a massive subisidy to improve access to higher education and a carrot & stick appraoch to funnel students into the needed fields. I.E. we're not producing enough engineers & scientists so students in those fields get full scholarships but we don't need another worthless philosophy major so they should have to pay their own way if that's what they want to study.

It would be great to have some sort of incentive system to encourage better performance. 50% of your education gets paid if you have a 2.0, 75% if you have a 3.0, and 100% if you have a 3.5 gpa. That would amount to big money and students would have a reason to study more and get better grades.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Arrian

Of course it doesn't, because the article is a hachet job vs. liberals. But is my second paragraph incorrect? Is it untrue that (US) Conservatives generally feel that the needy should receive assistance from charity and not the government (via wealth redistribution and/or various social programs)? I wasn't trying to attack them, but rather to lay out their general position w/o drawing any particular conclusions.

-Arrian

Hatchet job vs Liberals? Maybe.

As for your second paragraph, the article says nothing about the opinion of conservatives about taxation and the role of the government in delivering programs.

Also, although the article was written by an American, I think it is of interest to people throughout the liberal-democratic world.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Oerdin


What we need is a massive subisidy to improve access to higher education and a carrot & stick appraoch to funnel students into the needed fields. I.E. we're not producing enough engineers & scientists so students in those fields get full scholarships but we don't need another worthless philosophy major so they should have to pay their own way if that's what they want to study.

I doubt you want a bunch of engineers we're typically a bunch of consie types especially those that have decent GPA's.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I resently had a discussion about levels of Science and Enginering with my father (he and my grandfather were tool and die makers and I'm into Programing so Enginering runs in the family).

Engineers arn't just manufactured from the raw college bound population, a good engineering mind needs to be cultivated at an early age. Without said cultivation the only way to incresse the raw numbers of Engineers is to dumb down the curiculum, this is also a problem in ALL college courses, society has gone from sending 20% of the population to college to sending 40% but inteligence has not incressed. For society to truly have more skilled engineers it needs to VALUE that kind of mind because society produces what it values. Take Japan for example, a technology obsessed society ware geeks rule, is it any wonder that they out Engineer us? I think for the US to get the kind of mind set it needs to succed would require some kind of major system shock like another Sputnic or something on par with Japan being Nuked. With re-aligned values radical policies like what
Oerdin is sugjesting would probably get enacted but it would to a great extent be the value changes that would realy bring about the revival of Science and Enginering.

[:) Smiley]

they way China has embraced engineering - the last few leaders and most of the top officials all have engineering degrees - it won't be long before we have our next Sputnik.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Arrian


One possible reason for this is ...

Another possible reason is that conservatives have more guilt and try to buy their way to a clear conscience.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Hatchet job vs Liberals? Maybe.

As for your second paragraph, the article says nothing about the opinion of conservatives about taxation and the role of the government in delivering programs.

Low taxation and limited government (especially when dealing with social issues and programs, but not so much when it comes to breaking heads or enforcing morality) are bedrock for American conservatism, and pretty much dogmatic from the Hoover Institution perspective.

[notyoueither]

So your country is severely ****ed up, although I have a hard time believing the charicatures that are painted here. Doesn't mean that similar acceptance of liberals being caring and sharing while conservatives are mean spirited scrooges are not the defaults elsewhere where they certainly are not warranted.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Caligastia

No, I can't because I'm not a U.S. citizen.

Which, I suspect, is due to your choice. Or a waiting list...

If you want a say, you can become a citizen and vote.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by notyoueither
So your country is severely ****ed up, although I have a hard time believing the charicatures that are painted here. Doesn't mean that similar acceptance of liberals being caring and sharing while conservatives are mean spirited scrooges are not the defaults elsewhere where they certainly are not warranted.

Yes, our country is severely ****ed up.

The basic (very general) positions I laid out for (US) liberals and conservatives regarding charity/social services are correct. I didn't make any particular moral judgments about them (in that particular post). The idea behind my post was: ok, assuming the statistics are correct, they may be a simple reflection of people's rational actions in accordance with their political beliefs.

Generally speaking, a liberal will likely support social welfare type programs funded by taxation, whereas a conservative will prefer to leave that to charity. I think that various posts in this thread from US conservatives and liberals bear that out.

-Arrian

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Another possible reason is that conservatives have more guilt and try to buy their way to a clear conscience.

I sleep pretty damn well at night 'cept when the baby cries.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


I doubt you want a bunch of engineers we're typically a bunch of consie types especially those that have decent GPA's.

Hardly. Even the rich are voting Democrat these days. Slate had a great article about it where they coined the term BushenFraude or the aversion to Bush which caused many of the richest people in America to vote Democratic. Is it here to stay? Hard to say but it seems tax cuts along aren't enough to buy these peoples' political loyalty. You actually have to do a halfway decent job of governing as well.