Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Liber: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber (“the free one”), also known as Liber Pater (“the free Father”) was a god of viticulture and wine, fertility and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome’s plebeians and was part of their Aventine Triad. His festival of Liberalia (March 17) became associated with free speech and the rights attached to coming of age. His cult and functions were increasingly associated with Bacchus and his Greek equivalent Dionysus, whose mythologies he came to share.”
Lib·er·ty: [lib-er-tee] noun, plural lib·er·ties. 1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence. 3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice. 4. freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty.5. permission granted to a sailor, especially in the navy, to go ashore. (from Dictionary.com)
With the ongoing discussions, cum arguments, that have flowed back and forth for years on our various threads between our Libertarian, Rand influenced commenters and people of other perspectives, I’d like to explore the similarities and differences that distinguish those three title words all obviously flowing from the same Latin Root. As we see Liber was a Roman God associated with freedom. With the definition of Liberty above we can see that the suffix ty (meaning state of) converts this freedom loving God into a concept of freedom. Al as a suffix which means pertaining to, added to Liber creates a noun connoting someone who believes in Liberty, in other words the political view called Liberal.
Now Tarian as a suffix connotes: “A believer in something. An advocate of something. (rare) A native or inhabitant of somewhere.” Thus we see that Libertarian connotes by its’ structure a noun which means an advocate of freedom. These three title words therefore all have the same root and each is evocative of the support of freedom, so how come there are not only numerous internecine battles between advocates of Liberty? Dropping etymology, which is not my area of expertise, I’d like to opine on why this disagreement between advocates of Liberty, thus in some ways disciples of Liber, have led to such angry disputations.
Liberty was the original notion upon which this country was founded. Originally that liberty meant to be free of the imperialist boot of the British Empire, which was extracting excessive taxation from its colonies and thus diminishing profits. Almost all of those who we call our “Founding Fathers” were among the wealthiest of men in the Colonies and thus had economic motivation for ridding themselves of the exploitation of this empire over the sea. Had that alone remained the sole concept of Liberty in the American context, we might have had a far different form of governance. Luckily for us the “Founding Fathers” were men of “The Enlightenment” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enlightenment and therefore Liberal, when used in the sense of open to freedom of thought from old norms. There is a debate that has raged from the 1960’s as to whether Locke, or republicanism was more influential on the founding fathers, but I’ll leave that to those to whom philosophy is important. I my opinion more salient is the fact that our “Founding Fathers” were open to new forms of governing and that represents Liberal in a general sense of being open to new ideas.
Somewhere along the way Liberal’s meaning also morphed into a political concept and then a partisan one. I think the political usage of Liberal reached its apogee in the Administration of FDR and in the 48 years until Reagan’s election. Liberal politics defined government’s role as one of ensuring citizens of not only freedom, but of equality of opportunity. In FDR’s mind and in the minds of the “thinkers” of his administration the metaphor for life was a race towards success by all the people. Government’s proper role in this should be as a referee that ensures that each citizen starts that race with an equal chance of success or failure, recognizing that for those who “fail” there must be a “safety net” to protect them from total devastation. Conceptually, the Liberal political view boiled down to “we are our brother’s keeper”.
However, as I’ve mentioned our revolution was born in a resentment of taxation and imperial control of economic activities. That too was an important, parallel strain of American political thought and provided the counterweight to Liberal ideology. We can roughly call this important strain of American political discourse Conservative ideology. Proponents of this ideology tended to be alarmed by change that re-imagined a sense of stability and continuity. Its advocates were comforted by what they saw as basic values which included a defined social structure and moral limits of the citizenry through laws that codified religious belief and maintained above all, a sense of order and stability in life and in commerce.
Through our history this Conservative ideology emphasized Christianity as a moral basis of law, which oversaw patriarchy and ensured at least public recognition of restraining people’s “baser” urges such as sexuality and salaciousness. Thus our country, born in liberty, saw our politics as a battle between two differing ideas of what freedom meant. While Conservative ideology sought to limit licentiousness and disruption of the social status quo, it strongly believed in liberty for all forms of financial enterprise. From the Liberal perspective though, financial enterprise must be moderated by regulation, lest it become oppressive to the liberty of the many. These counterpoints of perspective are what is behind our seeming two track American political belief. Public debate in this Country has tended to recognize only these two poles of religious belief and has marginalized other nuances on the political spectrum.
The fact though is that all Conservative ideology is not based solely on a perception of religious morality. Indeed, the truth is that many people of wealth, or aspiring to wealth, are not what you would call religiously called. We all know that even the least comely of people can suddenly have sexual magnetism when you add wealth, fame and/or power to their arsenal of public persona. In all countries and in all times the elite class of humanity has felt themselves above the constraints of public morality. While maintaining outwardly sober lives, their private and yet sometimes unfortunate public excesses have brought them under public censure and made “traditional Conservative values” uncomfortable ones for them to be able live their lives as they please. This created a vacuum of belief in our rigidly bi-polar political system.
There has always been a Libertarian faction in the American political process. This is composed of those individuals against imposing both personal and commercial morality on the populace, most especially when it came to their own predilections. It arose at the birth of our nation in the aversion to taxation and morphed into holding that individual freedom takes precedence over societal interests. While it existed throughout our history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism philosophical debate it took a rather turgid popular author, Ayn Rand, to widely popularize it. Her most seminal work “Atlas Shrugged” has become best seller and quasi “bible” to a wide swath of influential thinkers, many possessing wealth and/or influence. While embracing individual freedom in the social sense actually seems similar to Liberal belief, the thinking part ways radically as the Libertarian’s also have an almost mystical concept that the “Free Market” is able to effectively regulate society’s interactions.
This piece is not an exercise in presenting my own political viewpoint, though I imagine many here are aware of what I believe. My aim is to point out how and original concept, borne many thousands of years ago in a so-called “pagan” tradition can take the same root concept and revise (and re-revise) it into political and social philosophy. The God (Demi-God?) Liber represented the human longing to be “free” of the constraints of conventional morality and religious adherence, to be in fact Liberal in action, thought and speech. The Libertarian idea takes that intellectual/emotional freedom and adds in the freedom of commercial interests and by doing so creates a new vision. Via the historical metamorphosis of both language and philosophical concept, the God Liber has given birth to a multitude of strains of political positioning, some of which are antithetical to each other. And so it goes.
I’ve used this piece to restate my own sense that when we allow ourselves to be guided by various concepts that can be defined by “Isms” we lead ourselves astray. Words are tricky things in that each of us can view the same word, deduce the concept it represents and then come to different conclusions as to what they mean and how we should use them. The simple fact is that none of us is given early instruction on how to organize our thought processes. Because thinking is something we each come to individually, much prior to any formal educational process, we are still limited when it comes to true communications with others as much as we pretend the opposite. We fight our political and social battles with words that vary with each beholder. My frustration, at times, as someone who has been a major commenter here is that no matter how clear I think my exposition is, my position will be misunderstood by individuals to whom the same words will have different meanings. While like most humans I don’t hesitate to assert my personal beliefs, there is frustration to be found when others through their perspective find connotations that weren’t my intention. Perhaps the problems we humans have in getting along peacefully, stems from the fact that we have yet to find adequate, broad based means to really communicate with one another. I hope I’ve communicated this clearly, but who knows? Perhaps this is but a sour mood I’ve awakened to on this beautiful morning in the country after weeks of reading the ongoing debates with Libertarians and concluding they are exercises in non-communication.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
True, so true (no knowledge of Nietzche).
But then is not logic existing on its own, voluntaríly divorced from reality. And using “since the time of Aristotle” seems nebulous as he was the great denier of the importance of testing ideas against nature,
plus known for patching up his stuff when shown deficient, But in no way honestly meeting the opposing ideas.
I’m just repeating what other’s have written, GeneH.
You know full well the limits of my knowledge.
So take it for that of a parrot who repeats words.
Don’t get hot if I use others opinions. Correct the fool but don’t abuse him. And if you don’t have time or desire, that is your prerogative. I was looking for an explanation, not for trouble as you famously said.
I was hoping for a bridge between your worlds, but you call him a mental defective person. And not worth consideration. In which case, the discussion is closed, as my source is defective.
Blame Mespo for putting up the words of syphylitics, not me, but oddly MikeS did not grip that argument. It was only the ideas MikeS discussed. Wonder why he is so. Just kidding you and you know it. Surely you are laughing now.
Now did I pull out the barb as intended, or is it deeper still?
“And I wondered if GeneH felt less sure of the grounds of logic due to this position.”
Not in the slightest. Nietzsche was a syphilitic madman (although other postulates exist to explain his mental defects) and I consider his works in that light. The Law of Identity is non-negotiable as a basis for logic and has been since the time of Aristotle. You cannot have logic without definitions of the objects or principles being discussed in the terms of their interrelationship(s).
TonyC,
Where did you steal that? Perfect. What do you call your party. Going to watch and see how others shoot holes in it. But my little mind can’t.
Of course, the question remaining is how. How? How?
We all seem to be within idea range of each other.
The confusing of judgements, or better yet labels with the reality of that which is labeled was a constant occurence with me, and a plaguing one too. If nothing
else it tends to bias ones thoughts, ending the objective phase, and with, as can be imagined, subjective effects, of negative sort dependant on ones disposition.
I have begun to coach myself from regarding my own history as a guide to reality. Opens new possibilities.
GeneH replies by going into a discussion on both quantum and systemic levels, in which we have complete agreement as far as my knowledge leaps.
But the Nietzcheian idea was to the fallacy of even thinking that the equalities exist, that A being A at one time or place is still A at another, plus N’s other examples of perfect circles, etc.
And I wondered if GeneH felt less sure of the grounds of logic due to this position. I am simply not qualified to answer, and only capable to pose it as a repetition of N.’s words.
Feynman, mathematical genius even as a boy, who became so through his father’s nature coaching, encountered another boy scout and was challenged to name the birds around them, which the other could name. F. challenged him if he knew more than the names, and scoffed the negative by saying that names were not knowledge.
Does a rose smell just as sweet in Swahili, Urdu, Pashtu, etc.? And does it have more names and nuances in Shiraz? Consider our limitations and possibilities.
Mike, I agree on the point that definitions rule, bu I reject the characterization of being my brother’s “keeper.” To me that carries a connotation of superiority I do not like. I accept one duty of that role, in serving as my brother’s defender against injustice.
Libertarians are big on the idea that their free markets maximize “choice,” but in my view that is not the good thing it pretends to be, because it includes the choice to coerce, to lie, to endanger, to exploit, to use dangerous compounds and conceal the fact. They claim the free market will correct these errors, and rational actors will eschew them, but ignore the fact that the evidence of such acts can be concealed to the point that liability cannot be assessed. When a “rational actor” is faced with the choice of certain bankruptcy (e.g. losing all of their crops to a pest) or risking a lawsuit by endangering consumers (e.g. by using a known carcinogenic pesticide), then figuring out how to endanger consumers while minimizing the risk of a lawsuit is actually their rational action in their own selfishly best financial interest.
Only regulation and a mandatory right of inspection by entities with zero financial interest in the outcome can correct that failing, the free market is powerless and fails to correct it because at its core, all actors will always sell out to the highest bidder, and in the free market that is both expected and legal.
As a self-professed liberal, my goal is NOT to be my brother’s keeper, but to minimize harmful acts and coercive situations. I believe doing that will indirectly maximize choice in the good sense that Libertarians invoke, without the negative senses that they choose to ignore.
It is why I support public works, including roads, schools, health care, police, fire fighting and so on, because I believe the privatized versions of those create coercive situations for those that earn too little to afford them. I do not think I am my brother’s keeper to “[ensure] that each citizen starts that race with an equal chance of success or failure.” I consider myself my brother’s helper in that regard, because the consequences of being forced to begin a mile long race two miles from the finish line is inherently a recipe for near certain economic failure and subsequent coercion.
Likewise the prospect of no safety net; without it, coercion is nearly certain, and people will get rich on the misery and desperation of others (or other citizens will be victimized by crime when the miserable and desperate feel they have no choice if they or their loved ones are going to survive).
The way to maximize good choices of citizens is to minimize the ability of other citizens to be coercive or deceptive or exploitive, and to minimize those situations and circumstances in which the “choices” available to children and citizens are so restrictive they make the possibility of attaining the average success significantly more difficult for people in those situations or circumstances.
In business, novice businessmen often forget that profit is a side-effect of demand, so they focus on profit as the difference between price and the cost of goods and labor. This is a fundamental business error and leads to the failure of one business after another, I think it may be the most common cause of business failure. Profit is a function of demand, and demand is a function of quality (including accuracy, reliability, consistency, etc), service (including turnaround, availability, expertise, guarantees), exclusivity (cachet), and pricing. When the novice focuses on the cost of goods, the most common result of lowering that cost is a reduction in quality. When the novice focuses on the cost of labor, the most common result of lowering that cost is a reduction in service, and often quality as well. When the novice focuses on pricing, the most common result of increasing price is a reduction in demand that actually lowers net profits. And when the novice ignores exclusivity, the most common result of reducing exclusivity (for example, Cadillac introducing cheaper lower-end cars with the Cadillac brand) is reducing demand at the higher price point.
In short, the novice focusing on the components of “profit” should instead be focused on the drivers of demand that would warrant an increase in pricing: Better quality, better service (like faster turnarounds), or greater exclusivity. More or better advertising can increase demand.
Counter-intuitively, the route to greater profits is usually an intelligent increase on the cost side in order to increase demand and THEN charging whatever the market will bear. For example, organically grown meat and vegetables cost much more to produce, but their ROI is higher than the same effort devoted to maximizing the sheer weight of produce without regard to quality.
I think that analogy applies here. In business we need a conscientious prevention of waste and stupidity and laziness on the cost side, but our primary focus to increase profit must be on increasing the drivers of demand, with the realization that will probably increase costs.
In society, we need a conscientious prevention of waste and stupidity on the costs of government, but our primary focus must be on increasing the drivers of happiness for citizens, which is minimizing the causes of unhappiness, like financial coercion, victimization by crime, inequality of opportunity, and exploitation by others profiting from endangerment, sickness, accident, or other misfortunes.
“I think some people equate the term “liberal” with “Democrat”–which ain’t necessarily so.”
Elaine,
That is so true and a point I was making in this piece. All these words are used with plasticity of meanings, given the eye of the beholder. As for Republican Liberals I remember Senators Chuck Percy and Charles Goodell, for just two. Also famously there was Jacob Javitz, John Lindsey, Louis Lefkowitz and Nelson Rockefeller of New York.
Mespo,
That was a great quote from Nietzsche and only goes to show me that my intelligence is merely the synthesis of ideas I’ve heard, but whose creators I’ve forgotten.
“Take two examples of hubris: In the Old Testabment, God gave Adam the task to go and name everything, thus extablishing symbolically his dominance. This has led to the terrible standpoint for which we are suffering today, feeling that we are privileged and don’t have to follow the laws of nature.”
ID707,
When I was reading Mespo’s quote I was thinking of the exact same thing. Somehow, as Gene further expounds, we humans foolishly believe that giving something a name equates to understanding it. Many of us, myself included at
times when I lack self-awareness, play what is known as a “fitting game”, defined in the book “The Games People Play”, by Dr. Erich Berne. In this came, we unconsciously identify items that we may be familiar with ad from that identification impute to ourselves greater knowledge than we actually have. i.e. I’ve spent a total of perhaps 10 days in Chicago and I assume I know the City, when all I have are merely random experiences, akin to the story of the “Blind-men and the Elephant”.
id707,
Clearly you misunderstand what I think about certainty. There are reasonable degrees of certainty, from low to extremely high, but these are expressions of probability. The phrase “absolute certainty” is often at best a hyperbolic expression used to communicate the idea of an extremely high level of reasonable certainty and at worst a failure to realize that absolute certainty simply isn’t built in to the universe at the quantum level. Both Heisenberg’s and Gödel’s work indicates that not everything can be known at a quantum or a systemic level. That does not mean, however, that facts within a given system or set cannot be known, but rather that all facts cannot be known (and are usually replaced with an assumption of some sort). In short, I am absolutely certain that absolute certainty – although possible for given facts as a subset of data – is often neither but rather an assertion of high levels of probability at a systemic level.
“I think some people equate the term “liberal” with “Democrat”–which ain’t necessarily so.”
Bingo, Elaine.
MikeS,
Thanks for the link, I have previously given the link to the book here, but a re-read of your review is good to do.
The Frence terms all tourists learn: “tout droit” and “a droit” illustrate the two meanings of right: straight ahead to correct positions, and to the right on a political and economic scale (two examples) of political thinking as wee often use it.
But as Elaine and Malisha have noted, everyone’s scale contains many factors. One political party does not have a common set of factors with a common set of values.
Being right in fact or belief is important to some.
Some couple this need to belonging to the successful group. Others to just belonging to a shared belief.
Or those like myself to anything that feels good as long as a plausible case is made and the indoctrination holds against attack.
I just muse and am bemused. Playing with the things that Nietszche says that mind gave us.
Fun to see one owns musing in print; not that I am comparable to him, just that some of these thoughts have occurred to me lately. Won’t specify as this is not a brag.
Take two examples of hubris: In the Old Testabment, God gave Adam the task to go and name everything, thus extablishing symbolically his dominance. This has led to the terrible standpoint for which we are suffering today, feeling that we are privileged and don’t have to follow the laws of nature.
Similarly, knowledge does not consist of names, however precisely defined and agreed upon they are.
Richard Feynman brought that out in a tale from his youth.
Last, (at last, if you are still here), I wish I could understand logic as well as N. To then give GeneH our defender of its eternal value, reason to doubt. Not to get revenge, but to simply express my “feelijg” that nothing is certain—-which is what I believe is the basic idea of this N. citation (perhaps 😉 ).
Mike,
I think some people equate the term “liberal” with “Democrat”–which ain’t necessarily so.
I can recall days–years ago–when some well-known and popular Republican politicians/elected representatives held quite liberal positions on a number of social issues while being more conservative on fiscal matters. Those kinds of Republicans are hard to find these days–or maybe they are afraid to speak up.
Good work, Mike S. Etymology is a neglected discipline. Nietzsche understood that all great ideas –and man’s hubris — are defined by the verbal symbols we use to express them. He also understood that those symbols are imperfect and sometime contradictory:
The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world. The sculptor of language was not so modest as to believe that he was only giving things designations, he conceived rather that with words he was expressing supreame knowledge of things; language is, in fact, the first stage of occupation with science. Here, too, it is the belief that the truth has been found out of which the mightiest sources of energy have flowed. A great deal later – only now – it dawns on men that in their belief in language they have propagated a tremendous error. Happily, it is too late for the evolution of reason, which depends on this belief, to be put back. – Logic too depends on presuppositions with which nothing in the real world corresponds, for example on the presupposition that there are identical things, that the same thing is identical at different points of time: but this science came into existence through the opposite belief (that such conditions do obtain in the real world). It is the same with mathematics, which would certainly not have come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no real circle, no absolute magnitude.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
Yes, the RWA book explains a lot not just about the way the RWA’s mind works (and the way his or her followers’ minds work, which is even scarier), but it explains a lot about our future. “Our” future. Or, unfortunately, our “future.”
“One factor missing: MikeS on a previous occasion passed on a gratis on-line book on the theme of RWAs. Have you read it?
Using that, I could add, not necessarily correct, that people having decided which group they support, will accept just about anything their leaders say.”
ID707,
Thank you, this is also on point. Whether people think I’ve hit the mark or not, there is, as I stated to CLH above, a continuity in what I write. What you have grasped correctly is that although the term “Right Wing Authoritarian” (RWA) ostensibly connotes people on the Right, though as the author explains it really encompasses all those that blindly support their choice of “experts” (leaders) to the exception/denial of any facts to the contrary. In a minor bit of self promotion here is the link to that article, from which one can download a valuable, free book.
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/21/the-authoritarians-a-book-review-and-book/#more-44246
“I tend to lean towards the liberal views myself, except where I diverge on things like gun ownership, and tolerance of religion as a concept. I make fun of religion, but I generally leave it be except when I see nutters using religion as a framework for their nutterdom.”
“I also tend to cringe at the thought of over regulation by the government of the marketplace. I’m for consumer protection against fraud and reckless market endangerment, or endangerment of the consumer, but beyond that I don’t like government having the ability to control so much of our power base.”
“One of the things that I have been thinking on regarding this post today is that there is a very distinct possibility that neither liberals nor conservatives have any idea whatsoever of the actual meaning of the words they use to describe a particular set of political ideologies, and I’m wondering if those definitions actually apply to their respective adherents.”
CLH,
You clearly get what I was attempting to convey in this piece. The first two quotes, from your first thread comment reveal that you are an independent, rather than “party line” thinker. One of the problems with the political set up i the country today is that partisans tend to expect strict adherence to a given set of political propositions. To my way of thinking, problems are solved by
evaluating the data on a given issue and the trying to construct a solution that fits that data, rather than trying to solve it by forcing it into ones particular pre-conceptions. However, today’s American political discussion is more the bandying about of words whose meanings are given plasticity based of the
particular pre-judgments of the user. Liberty for instance is a word loaded with a variety of positive connotations.
Were we fighting for “liberty” in Viet Nam, or was “liberty” merely a word used to rally support for a war of choice, based on the false premise of the “Domino Theory”? Were we “liberating” Iraq, or were we “liberating” Iraqi oil?
Liberal too, which originally was a noun used to describe either generosity, or someone having an open mind towards the world, has devolved into a generalized political belief system from the time of FDR, with the parallel track from the Right of being an anathematized belief system akin to Marxism, treason and totalitarianism. The initial connotation of Libertarian was someone who believes in freedom. Today’s meaning is someone who believes all government is coercion ad the marketplace rules.
My basic premise, in most of what I’ve written in guest blogs here, is that we cannot overcome the basic problems that beset our country and humanity by responding to them with rote answers. A legal opinion blog is I think the perfect forum for making that point since if the history of the Law and our legal system proves anything it is that “one size doesn’t fit all”. The ideal to problems solving, as it is in rendering legal judgment, is where do the facts lead rather how can we fit the facts into an already foregone conclusion.
CLH,
Still haven’t explained why an aerotech did combat missions. Ehhh?
As to this old college paper you pulled out and pass on to us, heee, heee. Product of a morning’s boredom.
It was excellent.
One factor missing: MikeS on a previoux occasion passed on a gratis on-line book on the theme of RWAs. Have you read it?
Using that, I could add, not necessarily correct, that
people having decided which group they support, will accept just about anything their leaders say.
And these RWAs, will accept without serious consideration, such as comparison to previous principles. I feel as you do, that the problem begins with the propaganda fed to us as youngsters.
Maybe in our pablum by our mothers and fathers too.
Having met an exception, a daughter with fellow
siblings to a father, who all differ from the parantal norm, it is fortunate that some evade the family process. But there are others.
Nothing’s broken at work, all the lines are running, my paperwork is done, and I’m bored, so I figured I’d share my boredom with the victi- I mean, commentors on here.
One of the things that I have been thinking on regarding this post today is that there is a very distinct possibility that neither liberals nor conservatives have any idea whatsoever of the actual meaning of the words they use to describe a particular set of politcal ideaologies, and I’m wondering if those definitions actually apply to their respective adherents. I think, and I believe studies have shown, though I can’t find the reference anymore, that when people are given a set of values, in randomized order, in a neutral phrasing, that they tend to identify themselves with the actual definition of liberal, even if they vote conservative. That disparity is intuitivley in line with my own suspicions, that most people who call themselves conservatives do so because people with some similarly held beliefs call themselves that, just as people who call themselves liberal, even though when asked about certain fundamental liberal platforms, they might tend to the exact opposite in their preferences.
Is this an issue of poor education in America? Is this caused by pervasive propaganda? Or is it simply a product of an “us vs. them” mentality. I think it’s a mixture of all the above. Poor education leads to poor words association. Gene H.’s article on propaganda, specifically in regards to how word choice and subconcious perception of how words are used, says that a lot better than I could. Then there is the Us V. Them, whoever the us is or the them is. People have a tendency to simplify data sets into something that is readily assignable into categories without much thought on their part, and a simple dialectic is much easier to make a decision on than a broad set of issues, arguments, and counter arguments are.
Liberace??? Or is it too early on Sunday for you?
Mike Spindell,
Thank you for the etymology related to “liberty,” but unless I somehow missed it, I think you left out “libertine.”
BarkinDog,
As I believe Representative Barney Frank once put it: “Conservatives believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth” — whatever their own peculiar sect of superstitious animism teaches.
Inquiring dogs want to know.