This artwork came with the release.
This release from Wesley and the Senate Republicans is intriguing on a couple of levels:
From today’s Associated Press:
State treasurer, House speaker oppose restructuring billThere have been some unfortunate developments with the Senate’s bill eliminating the Budget and Control Board, with “The state treasurer and House speaker opposing the Senate’s version of a bill restructuring state government.”
“Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler shot back that the Senate’s version is more conservative than what the House passed last year. He accused the two of supporting the status quo.”
If you support conservative governance, and real restructuring, NOW is the time to stand up to the failed status quo.
Contact the Speaker’s Office and the Treasurer’s Office TODAY, and tell them to support the Senate version of the Department of Administration bill, and to support elimination of the Budget and Control Board.
First, you have the Senate Republicans attacking the Republican House and Republican Treasurer. In a nostalgic sense that’s not weird, because historically the biggest, nastiest split in SC was not between Democrats and Republicans, but between Senate and House. But that was when senators identified themselves primarily as senators, and not as R and D. Now that they think of themselves as Republican senators first and foremost (and this is being sent by the “South Carolina Senate GOP”), it comes across as odd.
Then, there are the really strange words that Harvey chooses to express his disagreement with the House and Loftis: “Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler shot back that the Senate’s version is more conservative than what the House passed last year. He accused the two of supporting the status quo.”
Senator, to the extent that language has meaning, if you are “more conservative” than someone else, that means that you support the status quo more than the other person does. By definition. Go look it up. OK, I’ll save you the trouble. When I Google the word “conservative,” the first dictionary definition that comes up is the one at Dictionary.com, and the first sense of the word is: “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.”
(I would quibble a bit with that definition. If you want “to restore traditional ones,” you are “reactionary.” But the rest is fine.)
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I suggest that we support an “English as primary language” law for our senators. They need to learn the language.
So you are a liberal when it comes to abortion? Because you want to change the status quo on that.
I don’t claim to be either.
But you raise an interesting point.
I’ve always thought it ironic that “bleeding-heart liberals” are all for abortion, rather than advocating for the least-powerful and most vulnerable among us.
The “pro” position — insisting upon an individual’s absolute right to KILL in order to achieve one’s political, personal and economic goals (which is what this has always been about) has always seemed like rather a fascist position to me. A sort of violent absolutism. Which is not consistent with any notion of liberalism.
It’s also very much tangled up with identity group politics, which is also rather illiberal.
The only way in which the the alignment of “pro-choice” and “liberal” works is the sense whereby “liberal” refers to a libertarian sense of freedom, wherein the state is not allowed the power to forbid a particular action by an individual. But you know I don’t subscribe to that point of view.
Liberalism is a philosophy that believes in empowering individuals to make decisions. In the case of abortion that can ONLY be vested with one person, the mother. Likewise gambling, drugs, end of life and prostitution should all be off limits to government intrusion.
In general liberalism is a kind and gentle philosophy that believes in getting along with others no matter what their belief system. War for the sake of war is abhorent in the liberal view and should never be conducted pre-emptively. It differs from libertarianism mainly in the corporate and wealth-accumulation arena. Corporations are really not people so they can be regulated and taxed for the public good. Extreme wealth is never aquired exclusively through any individual action and is therefore fair game for taxation by the government for the public good. It is obvious to the liberal that society always plays a roll in wealth, especially extreme wealth, and therefore society has a stake in that wealth.
Pollution and other spillover activities on the part of both individuals and corporation are fair game for regulation. Imperfect as it is government is needed to keep our environment clean even at the expense of corporate profit.
One of the weaknesses of liberalism is that it’s heartfelt compassion and desire to get along are no match for the ruthless nature of conservatism. Liberals want to work with conservatives in a spirit of compromise and bipartisship. This often results in getting blindsided during elections (Willy Horton, Swiftboating) and when governing (debt ceiling, Iraq war). If I were to change one aspect of liberalism it would be to adopt some measure of the conservative ruthlessness. On the other hand, if that were to happen it could result in the death of liberalism as they adopt the very craven tactics that are employed by the conservative movement.
“Bleeding heart” liberals care more about a human being than a zygote.
Conservative, transparent–it’s all truthiness.
I prefer the classical notion of liberalism, rather than the progressive garbage that we are saddled with.
I support open carry of firearms, I guess that makes me a liberal too…
Actually, it does. Unfortunately, our language has become degraded to where that is described as a “conservative” position. Which is ridiculous. There’s nothing conservative about firearms.
And Kathryn, since you teed it up for me — an essential step in rationalizing violence is to define the victim out of the human race.
Not taking the bait. Got to start supper…
Here we go again…
If you’ve got to go start supper, then you should definitely check out this post…
I set the pork chops out to get to room temperature so the professor can prepare them for us while he listens to All Things Considered.
It used to be-breakfast,dinner,supper(down South).Now it’s breakfast,lunch,dinner.I hate LUNCH,as in ‘let’s do lunch’.
Language changes.See you in the morrow…
If I recall correctly, SC Governot Nikki Haley wanted a Department of Administration (aka “DOA”) and also keep remnants of the Budget and Control Board to keep one of her acolytes, Eleanor Kitzman, as the head of the BCB.