TxAgswin said:
zgolfz85 said:
TxAgswin said:
WestTexasAg said:
Can you explain your reason for being a liberal? Not making fun, just curious what is appealing about being a liberal.
No worries. My skin has to be pretty thick on this board. 
Happy to answer your question...
The reason for my ideology revolves around dignity and fairness.
I believe in universal health care. I find it undignified that the wealthiest country in the world is so tied up in their own bull**** that we can't take care of those that can't take care of themselves. I am fortunate enough to not have to dread making financial decisions about my family's health. I got it. But most do not. The fire department doesn't send you an invoice after they put out the fire in your house. The police don't bill us when they protect us from bad guys. Those services are baked into our fundamental rights, and healthcare should be as well.
I believe our court system is broken. There are way too many people in jail. And there is definitely a race element to that. I won't dig into that because people get very defensive about it, but that's what I believe. Our criminal justice system is fundamentally flawed and, in my opinion, conservatives are to blame for that.
I believe that education is the answer. It always has been. We should put every spare nickel we have into education.
John Adams said, "Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant."
I support our troops (of course), but I think the Pentagon gets waaaay too much money.
I am a "liberal" (or whatever) because I think we should prioritize differently.
That's just me though.
I applaud the honesty. You lose me on the court and racial stuff though. I agree with you barely there.
Here's my question to you? How would you honestly handle the outrageously higher prevalence of crime, both violent and minor offenses by the black community? I know some of that is due to racial inequalities going back centuries and continually improving, but at some point that community has to police their own and I see NONE of that unfortunately. I don't even see a desire by anyone within the community to be accountable or expect accountability in any way, shape or form. At the end of the day, there's nothing we can do for some communities until they're willing to stop it themselves.
If I'd seen even a semblance of the black community trying to stop the violence and crime that pervades, I'd be SO much more willing to do anything and everything I could to personally help any way I could. It has to be a joint effort though. You have to want to be better and to do better. Don't simply accept that your neighbors are bad and do bad things. Band together as a community and stop letting folks ruin it for everyone else.
I agree.
Communities, like people, should be accountable and they have agency over their own outcomes No doubt.
Crime is directly correlated to economics and education (or lack thereof). And economics in this country has a very real racial component.
Race gets sticky because the economic timeline is fundamentally unfair. Not being able to own property or go to college until just a generation or two ago makes it virtually impossible to create any sort of wealth in your family.
So, while problems about race at this moment are more about economics than race, those economic fallouts were the direct result of racist policies of exclusion. It will likely take several generations for that water to level. While I don't think the answer is over the top silly nonsense like reparations or even affirmative action. I do think we should take a pause before indicting the black community. They were dealt a ****ty hand and I can understand why they would be pissed off about it. Who wouldn't be?
Quote:
If I'd seen even a semblance of the black community trying to stop the violence and crime
Come on, man
There are enormous efforts being made in the black community to combat crime. Most are faith-based, and there are tons of people that dedicate their lives to try and better their communities and work to steer kids in the right direction. And God bless those folks.
I agree with some, but not all of that. Like others have said, my parents were the first in a long line of my family in this country to go to college (I was first to actually graduate and not drop out) and to generate wealth, if we are considering upper middle class as "wealth" for this context. I think white Americans get unfairly lumped in together as if we're all silver spoon fed mcducks and because we happen as a collective to be the most "privileged", so it's just acceptable for some reason to continually **** on us. It's beyond silly and this time 15 yrs ago, I believe we were truly and finally getting somewhere with the color blind path we were on. In that respect, I don't see the fantasy liberal equivalent of myself to in any context be accepting of CRT. I honestly can't understand how the left has simply accepted and tolerated it as a whole, when everyone knows deep down what kind of irreparable damage it's going to ingrain in the next generation or 2 (I'm assuming and hoping everyone wakes up and rejects it before it goes any further than that, but yeah right).
I agree there's efforts going on, barely, to address crime within the community to your other point. But, it's so minimal in my opinion and it's a vocal minority, while as a whole it's seemingly just accepted that crime is going to be a thing, even for the working class. If this became a prevalent issue within any other community, I honestly can't picture the collective not putting forth way more effort to police their own and cut that bull**** out.
On the flip side of that, it inevitably creates apathy from other groups. I think this is largely misunderstood and mistaken for and redefined as "racism," when in reality it's simply being realistic and sensible and essentially thinking "just get your **** together."
Case in point....Chicago. It's insane to me that it's not even a talking point. Could you imagine any other race of people being accepting of a major global first world metropolitan area being a hotbed for a group of people being continually mowed down at an unbelievable rate? It's just not even mentioned. It's simply no big deal. Who's vocal about it within that community, save a select few? Why is every single black athlete, musician, politician, actor or other influencer not talking about it 24/7? Like just meet the rest of us in the middle. It's being unrealistic about it and that's why a lot of people tune out. If the community as a whole would band together and be honest and say hey, we have this problem, but we also have this other problem and we're ready to finally admit that bad people doing bad things is not acceptable, regardless of where they started in life and for any reason, you'd see people moving mountains to help them. The whole well that's bad, but do you know how rough they had it excuse is not realistic. It's not serious. Its not genuine.
Anyways, I hate it for them and for everyone involved. It honestly seemed like we were finally breaking down some real barriers when this century turned and this new uber focus on race in your face all the time Sunday Sunday Sunday race race race 24/7 race drives everything everywhere for everyone thing is backtracking.
