The Rise and Fall of the Liberal Protest Movement

[Grim17]

Over the last 40 or 50 years the Liberal movement in America has been more effective in bringing about needed change than any other movement in the history of the nation. They have a proud legacy of standing up and fighting for peoples rights and being the voice for victims of discrimination, whether it be for Black's, homosexuals, or women. Their persistence and refusal to shut up in the face adversity has truly changed the country for the better.

They were responsible for the integration of Black people into all facets of American society, for women no longer being discriminated against and harassed in the workplace, and for homosexuals no longer having to hide in the shadows and being able to live their lives openly and freely, without fear of being shunned and victimized by society. Thanks to their efforts, the words "You can't because your Black, a woman, or gay", have been virtually eliminated in our culture. Something that not very long ago, you'd have been hard pressed to find many who would have believed that would ever become the norm in American society... But here we are.

Throughout the years of their struggles, Liberal causes managed to prevail even though they were very strongly outnumbered. Think back to the civil rights protests and even though public opinion was not on their side, they far outnumbered the opposition at public protests. Liberals were the ones who were mostly peaceful, while the opposition often resorted to violence. The reason for the greater numbers and their success boiled down to one key element that no amount of opposition could overcome... It came down to a battle between "right and wrong", and the peaceful liberal protesters are the ones who had "right" on their side. Don't forget also, that "wrong" never draws the number of supporters that "right" does. Put another way, it was "victims" versus "victimizers" which in my opinion, gave the liberal protesters the moral upper hand that in a country like ours, was destine to prevail.

Fast forward to today and you find that those same fundamental principles still apply and are the key to whether an agenda succeeds or fails. The only difference in recent years, is that it's no longer the Liberal movement that's peaceful, has the greater numbers, or the moral upper hand, it's the conservative movement. Somewhere along the line Liberals became the victimizers, the oppressors, and the ones who resort to violence. They took what was a successful and righteous agenda, and transformed it into a movement that no longer has "right" on it's side. They went from fighting for equal justice for all, like Martin Luther King did during the civil rights movement (a core principal in America), to fighting for social justice (something that obama embraces), which has nothing to do with equality, and the majority of Americans are rejecting it.

Read more

http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/grim17/696-rise-and-fall-liberal-protest-movement.html

 

[teamosil]

Er what? No, the conservatives are still the victimizers and the liberals are still fighting for the disempowered. Same like always. For example, the right is still fighting tooth and nail to prevent poor people from getting medical care, the left is fighting for them to be able to. The right is fighting for the corporations and the super rich, the left is fighting for greater income equality. The right is still fighting against tolerance, the left is still fighting for it. The left for women's rights, the right against. The left for marriage equality, the right against. Etc...

 

[Grim17]

Here's a few observations:

the left is fighting for greater income equality.

You want to take from one, to give to another by treating difficult and skilled labor the same as unskilled labor. That is social justice, not equal justice.

The right is still fighting against tolerance, the left is still fighting for it. Etc...

Really... A CEO of a fast food chain expresses his belief in traditional marriage and in return government officials in 3 cities show their "tolerance" by threatening to deny him the right to conduct business in their cities. Gay rights people show their "tolerance" by vandalizing property and harassing innocent employees. Tolerance is a 2 way street my friend.

 

[teamosil]

You want to take from one, to give to another by treating difficult and skilled labor the same as unskilled labor. That is social justice, not equal justice.

Nope, that's not true at all... You're just making things up. We want more income equality, not treating difficult and skilled labor the same as unskilled labor or whatever. You're thinking in binary mode. I'm saying "MORE equal" and you're hearing "ABSOLUTELY equal". The laws in this country have been cranked all the way to favoring investors over people who work. I think we need to ease that back to a more sensible balance.

Really... A CEO of a fast food chain expresses his belief in traditional marriage and in return government officials in 3 cities show their "tolerance" by threatening to deny him the right to conduct business in their cities. Tolerance is a 2 way street my friend.

No lol. The whole "tolerance means tolerating intolerance" is just idiotic. It's just a word game the right likes to play. Obviously it's just silly talk.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Er what? No, the conservatives are still the victimizers and the liberals are still fighting for the disempowered.

For naught though. Liberals are fighting for the disempowered to be able to suckle more from the powerful, which nonetheless keeps them in a dependent position. Whether progressive taxation, wage inflation, direct redistribution, welfare, whatever, it all requires a source of wealth to tap. A richer person is supplying the funds for hiring or welfare. If the liberals wanted to fight for the disempowered, they'd be coming up with ideas for the disempowered to help each other completely independently from the rich, not ideas for how to use the resources of the rich to be able to buy more of the rich's stuff from them.

Same like always. For example, the right is still fighting tooth and nail to prevent poor people from getting medical care,

Total horse****. Health care costs something. The right is looking for ways for people to CARE what their health needs are costing in the first place. The fact that no one cares what their health care expenditures really are is why it's become so expensive.

The right is fighting for the corporations and the super rich, the left is fighting for greater income equality.

There's no fight to be had when population doubles, triples, quadruples, quintuples, etc., the need for human labor. When there are always more people than before, and always better technology to do more of work for us cheaper and easier, there is NO WAY to force income equality.

 

[rocket88]

In other words,

and

 

[Grim17]

No lol. The whole "tolerance means tolerating intolerance" is just idiotic. It's just a word game the right likes to play. Obviously it's just silly talk.

Expressing a belief in traditional marriage is not a display of intolerance. That CEO does not discriminate against homosexuals and isn't calling for the arrest of people engaging in homosexual behavior.

 

[Grim17]

In other words

Now that was a well thought out rebuttle... Keep up the ummm, "good" work.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Nope, that's not true at all... You're just making things up. We want more income equality,

This still requires a richer hiring source. How can you force an employer to pay a free man wage = (x) when another free man OFFERS to do the same work for wage = (x-1)?

No lol. The whole "tolerance means tolerating intolerance" is just idiotic.

Therefore the concept of tolerance is idiotic.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Nope, that's not true at all... You're just making things up. We want more income equality, not treating difficult and skilled labor the same as unskilled labor or whatever. You're thinking in binary mode. I'm saying "MORE equal" and you're hearing "ABSOLUTELY equal". The laws in this country have been cranked all the way to favoring investors over people who work. I think we need to ease that back to a more sensible balance.



No lol. The whole "tolerance means tolerating intolerance" is just idiotic. It's just a word game the right likes to play. Obviously it's just silly talk.

It is the METHOD of the liberal desire to force incomes to be "MORE equal" that is disturbing, Obama seeks this by using social justice or income redistribution. One can appraoch this "evening out" in one of two VERY different ways, one is to try to increase the REAL value of those now at the bottom, the other is to try to simply play Robin Hood and take from the rich (via taxation) to give to the poor (via subsidies). It is far EASIER to do the latter and, since more voters are at the bottom than at the top, it is also quite a bit more politically popular.

 

[teamosil]

Expressing a belief in traditional marriage is not a display of intolerance. That CEO does not discriminate against homosexuals and isn't calling for the arrest of people engaging in homosexual behavior.

The question isn't "do you prefer straight marriage or gay marriage?" lol. Obviously everybody can just prefer whichever one they want with their own lives. The question is whether or not we should allow gay people to get married and "no" is obviously clear cut intolerance. There isn't any wiggle room there at all.

 

[Paschendale]

Expressing a belief in traditional marriage is not a display of intolerance. That CEO does not discriminate against homosexuals and isn't calling for the arrest of people engaging in homosexual behavior.

No, he's advocating for stripping them of fundamental rights. Calling that anything besides discrimination is just lying.

If the liberals wanted to fight for the disempowered, they'd be coming up with ideas for the disempowered to help each other completely independently from the rich, not ideas for how to use the resources of the rich to be able to buy more of the rich's stuff from them.

How about education? Vocational training? Low cost housing? Curbing their expenses by centralizing healthcare costs? Enforcing a living wage? Better and cheaper public transit? Requiring companies to keep the jobs here in the United States would help. There's a whole lot of things we can do.

 

[teamosil]

It is the METHOD of the liberal desire to force incomes to be "MORE equal" that is disturbing, Obama seeks this by using social justice or income redistribution. One can appraoch this "evening out" in one of two VERY different ways, one is to try to increase the REAL value of those now at the bottom, the other is to try to simply play Robin Hood and take from the rich (via taxation) to give to the poor (via subsidies). It is far EASIER to do the latter and, since more voters are at the bottom than at the top, it is also quite a bit more politically popular.

The reality is just way more complicated than that. There are literally 10s of thousands or maybe 100s of thousands of rule, policies and practices built into the system that have an enormous effect on where the money flows. For example, employees have an interest in keeping their jobs, where investors have this whole moral hazard incentive to try to risk everything on dramatically increasing the value of the company. So, regulations which require more accurate reporting of the company's financials tend to favor employees because if a company reports its financials accurately, it will be more stable than if management games the reports to make it look like it is way more profitable than it is by slashing expenses in a way that could not be maintained for stealing future revenue for the current quarter or whatever. So, when Congress repeals reporting regulations, like the so called "JOBS" Act Cantor got passed did, like the repeal of Glass Steagal did, etc, that jerks huge amounts of our GDP away from employees and towards investors. There are, literally, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of knobs like that on the economy that we can either turn to favor investors or employees, other knobs that favor the rich or the middle class, other knobs that favor people whose parents were well off or to favor those whose parents were not as well off, etc.

The real work to be done is at that level and that is where Congress spends 99% of its time fighting. The thing is, those sorts of policy changes are boring. They aren't easy to grasp in a 3 second sound byte. So, the news doesn't really talk about them and the politicians don't campaign on them, but that is the real day to day grind of the thing.

 

[hazlnut]

You want to take from one, to give to another by treating difficult and skilled labor the same as unskilled labor. That is social justice, not equal justice.

You don't understand the term/concept income inequality. -- It's somewhat complicated. Glenn Beck can't teach it.

 

[pbrauer]

Over the last 40 or 50 years the Liberal movement in America has been more effective in bringing about needed change than any other movement in the history of the nation. They have a proud legacy of standing up and fighting for peoples rights and being the voice for victims of discrimination, whether it be for Black's, homosexuals, or women. Their persistence and refusal to shut up in the face adversity has truly changed the country for the better.

They were responsible for the integration of Black people into all facets of American society, for women no longer being discriminated against and harassed in the workplace, and for homosexuals no longer having to hide in the shadows and being able to live their lives openly and freely, without fear of being shunned and victimized by society. Thanks to their efforts, the words "You can't because your Black, a woman, or gay", have been virtually eliminated in our culture. Something that not very long ago, you'd have been hard pressed to find many who would have believed that would ever become the norm in American society... But here we are.

Throughout the years of their struggles, Liberal causes managed to prevail even though they were very strongly outnumbered. Think back to the civil rights protests and even though public opinion was not on their side, they far outnumbered the opposition at public protests. Liberals were the ones who were mostly peaceful, while the opposition often resorted to violence. The reason for the greater numbers and their success boiled down to one key element that no amount of opposition could overcome... It came down to a battle between "right and wrong", and the peaceful liberal protesters are the ones who had "right" on their side. Don't forget also, that "wrong" never draws the number of supporters that "right" does. Put another way, it was "victims" versus "victimizers" which in my opinion, gave the liberal protesters the moral upper hand that in a country like ours, was destine to prevail.

Fast forward to today and you find that those same fundamental principles still apply and are the key to whether an agenda succeeds or fails. The only difference in recent years, is that it's no longer the Liberal movement that's peaceful, has the greater numbers, or the moral upper hand, it's the conservative movement. Somewhere along the line Liberals became the victimizers, the oppressors, and the ones who resort to violence. They took what was a successful and righteous agenda, and transformed it into a movement that no longer has "right" on it's side. They went from fighting for equal justice for all, like Martin Luther King did during the civil rights movement (a core principal in America), to fighting for social justice (something that obama embraces), which has nothing to do with equality, and the majority of Americans are rejecting it.

Read more

http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/grim17/696-rise-and-fall-liberal-protest-movement.html

LOL, MLK didn't fight for Social Justice? That sounds very much like Glenn Beck speaking... complete and utter BS.

13 Quotes From Social Justice Crusader Martin Luther King Jr. | Addicting Info

 

[Neomalthusian]

How about education? Vocational training?

What about it?

Low cost housing?

We've accomplished great things in lower-cost housing in the last 3-4 years (slight sarcasm), thanks to the housing bust. Lots of cheaper housing options lately, haven't you noticed? The federal government's encouragement of people taking out huge long-term loans for expensive homes worsens the unaffordability of housing. The market prices would even themselves out if FedGov wasn't in the housing advocacy business, because there would be a lot of people demanding housing at a lower price point.

Enforcing a living wage?

Again, this is a suggestion to "help" the disempowered by entitling them to more of what belongs to someone else. This does not empower the meager. It just comforts them at someone else's expense.

Requiring companies to keep the jobs here in the United States would help. There's a whole lot of things we can do.

There's a whole lot of things we're doing with great intentions that are making all the problems worse. There's no way to "require" our companies to stay home when the entire global marketplace is integrating. This is happening for the first time ever. There's no historical record of globalization that shows us that staying protectionistic is the way to go. What you're talking about doing only sounds good at the most superficial of levels, without regard for the actual consequences.

 

[Grim17]

The question isn't "do you prefer straight marriage or gay marriage?" lol. Obviously everybody can just prefer whichever one they want with their own lives. The question is whether or not we should allow gay people to get married and "no" is obviously clear cut intolerance. There isn't any wiggle room there at all.

Just as most on the left, you completely mis characterize the debate. This isn't about homosexual couples forming a legal union, it's about their insistence on defining that union as a "marriage."

All you have to do to prove me wrong, is show me the quote from that CEO where he states that homosexual couples should not be allowed to form a legal union. That would be intolerant.

 

[Grim17]

You don't understand the term/concept income inequality. -- It's somewhat complicated. Glenn Beck can't teach it.

Take the insults somewhere else.

 

[Grim17]

LOL, MLK didn't fight for Social Justice? That sounds very much like Glenn Beck speaking... complete and utter BS.

13 Quotes From Social Justice Crusader Martin Luther King Jr. | Addicting Info

Everything that MLK said was about equality, not about social engeneering. He did not advocate for special treatment, just equal treatment.

 

[teamosil]

Just as most on the left, you completely mis characterize the debate. This isn't about homosexual couples forming a legal union, it's about their insistence on defining that union as a "marriage."

All you have to do to prove me wrong, is show me the quote from that CEO where he states that homosexual couples should not be allowed to form a legal union. That would be intolerant.

Right. It is about whether the government should discriminate against gay people by refusing to let them get married. Its separate drinking fountains all over again. The left is on the side of saying that the government should not discriminate against them, just like the left is always on the side of social progress like in all the examples you listed in the OP. The sides didn't change, you changed. At some point you decided you were no longer in favor of continuing to progress towards tolerance and whatnot.

 

[teamosil]

Everything that MLK said was about equality, not about social engeneering. He did not advocate for special treatment, just equal treatment.

No lol. Not at all. He advocated social justice continuously. He even advocated affirmative action aggressively and constantly. Now you may think of that as "special treatment" rather than "equal treatment", but that's just because you haven't thought it all the way through.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Right. It is about whether the government should discriminate against gay people by refusing to let them get married. Its separate drinking fountains all over again. The left is on the side of saying that the government should not discriminate against them, just like the left is always on the side of social progress like in all the examples you listed in the OP. The sides didn't change, you changed. At some point you decided you were no longer in favor of continuing to progress towards tolerance and whatnot.

And this is exactly what we are seeing in the 6 states (and DC) that have plenty of liberals so the system works, just like it is supposed to.

 

[Grim17]

Right. It is about whether the government should discriminate against gay people by refusing to let them get married.

Again you fall back on dishonesty... The word "marriage" is the objection, not the legal recognition. Time and time again, people like yourself prove my point, that the most important thing to you is not the rights, but the word. You want to inflict pain on people more than you want equal treatment.

That is precisely why so many people turned out for Chik-Fil-A appreciation day, because of the blatant display of intolerance by the left on this issue.

Denying legal rights is discrimination... Not denying the redefinition of the word "marriage."

 

[teamosil]

And this is exactly what we are seeing in the 6 states (and DC) that have plenty of liberals so the system works, just like it is supposed to.

Not sure what your arguing here.

 

[Grim17]

No lol. Not at all. He advocated social justice continuously. He even advocated affirmative action aggressively and constantly. Now you may think of that as "special treatment" rather than "equal treatment", but that's just because you haven't thought it all the way through.

He wanted laws to force equal treatment for blacks, not special treatment. Affirmative action was unfortunately a nessiary measure to force American society to treat black people equally. It's purpose was served long ago, and is no longer needed.