Thomas Jefferson and his political associates realized quickly that coalition politics in the United States would always need to be conducted EXTERNAL to the legislative bodies (Congress and legislatures). They also realized that to make sure their group maximized its chance of winning seats they'd need to shoot for 50% + 1 vote!
Their Federalist opposition held out to the bitter end to the idea that we were best off with men of property and influence selecting quality officers of government.
BTW, TJ won that debate ~
During the struggle over the United States Bank others realized that there was a common interest among other diverse groups for pursuing beneficial legislation in the realm of financial affairs and public works (highways, canals, fostering technology, steam engines, railroads, etc) ~ and so developed the first big competitor to the Democrat/Republican party ~ the WHIGS!
They can be seen in retrospect to have made a major failing in not securing a socially beneficial position and reputation with regard to other issues ~ they appear, at this time, to have actually thought you could be neutral on slavery! In the end they were replaced by the Republican party which included the Abolitionist movement in its make up of coalition partners. They also picked up the residual Whig bodies at the state and county levels.
BTW, the Federalists still didn't make a comeback ~ it was like the nation forgot all about them, which, indeed, was the case!
By the time FDR moved into the White House the coalition partners for Republicans and Democrats had changed. In fact, FDR won by a landslide equal to the landslide Hoover had carried just 4 years before, so it was pretty obvious somebody jumped out of the Democrat and into the Republican party!
Who were they? There were two groups ~ in terms of numbers ~ the unemployed and the dispossed. Blacks jumped too but they didn't have the numbers to be significant at that time ~ after all, they were effectively disenfranchised in the Southern states.
Subsequently smaller special interests began to gravitate around each party in terms of ideology ~ which brings us to 2013 and it's still the same old Jefffersonian democratic model ~
It also shares some characteristics of a religion: an orthodox set of beliefs, a list of sinful behaviors and beliefs (gun ownership,opposition to abortion), as well as sacraments (abortion). And anyone who doesn’t share these beliefs is evil, a sinner to be punished.
I"d like to suggest that when we drill down into the data to the BLUE PRECINCTS we find a common feature ~ lots of surface water with lots of mosquitos. In contrast, you do the same thing for the RED PRECINCTS we find a far lower density of mosquitos.
That takes us right to encephilitis ~ as an example of a mosquito born disease. Let's say there's a virus carried by mosquitos that's milder than encephilities, but they are the vector. It's simply been overlooked by the epidemiologists, or maybe the liberals know about it already, but they're keeping their findings quiet.
The first NIH agency to find its budget whacked by the Obama regime turns out to be the one that focuses on epidemiological studies.
Without joking about it, there may well be a disease behind the problem many call "Potomac Fever".
All of which points to liberalism being a brain disorder caused by a common virus
The Democratic party is the home of the depressed, the schizoaffective, agnostic nihilists, earth and celebrity worshipers, dopey non productive people and decadents of all sorts. Its a fools errand to assume that a reasonable social consensus can ever be achieved again in this country. Does any rational Republican believe that political solutions can be reached with Obama?
actually a sociology.....
This piece still does not correctly answer the question, what is liberalism. It answers the question, what are the effects of liberalism.
Liberalism is a way of organizing human thought. To put it most succinctly: it is where a person can construct the reality in which they live as one that is detached from the real, outside world. In this internal reality, the things they want to be true can be true and the things they want to be excluded can be. Moreover, it is a world where the person can define right and wrong, which he continually does so that he never does any wrong.
In this world, when he suffers from human failures and violates his own rules, he is also free to give himself a pass just this one time, and to excuse his failures.
Thus, in this world, there is no sin, and therefore no need to repent and ask God for forgiveness. There is no right or wrong, only relative shades of gray. Because in their own minds they never sin, they don’t need a Savior. They are always good, or at least have good intentions, which count just as much as being good.
Sound familiar?
To a person thus afflicted, the external world imposes itself on them, but they don’t have to accept it unless they want to. Indeed, since their reality is inside their own mind, the things, events and rules of the outside world are used as the “bricks and mortar” with which to construct and maintain their inner world.
Their inner world is their self-identity. When an outsider imposes himself on that inner world, the result is a clash of identities. When outside facts become too critical of this perfect inner identity, these facts must be destroyed or the person who imposes them must be destroyed in an act of self defense. Thus the liberal dodge or personal attack that liberals are known for.
It is impossible to get a liberal to acknowledge a fact or point of logic that conflicts with their internal reality. A person who attempts to do so is attacking their very person. This is why liberals often lash out with a complaint about “hate” when dealing with others. If you object to something a liberal wants to advocate, you “hate” his identity.
As to when liberalism takes hold in a person’s mind, I can only speculate that during the transition from being a child (where make-believe play is common) to being an adult, the person never gives up on sliding into make-believe. But instead of having tea parties with unicorns, in adult make-believe, unicorns traverse rainbows from one gold pot to another to make a pollution free world possible with affordable housing and no hunger or hateful people who never go to war and who always ride sustainable public transit.
Liberalism is the most widespread mental disorder of our age. The challenge for the rest of us is manifold. One of them is- how do parents help to ensure their children don’t suffer from this debilitating and dangerous mental disorder. I think by emphasis that play is play but real is real. The other challenge is how to rescue
If only the CDC would devote funds to find a cure...
Response: I don't think Liberalism is a mental disease. A division of the Liberal populace into at least two parts is necessary. Part one is the the liberal in a high leadership position.(Often an alien.). Such people are vicious, malicious but highly rational individuals. Then there is the second class liberal. The Second class is totally emotionally based. They have become so non-rational as to be controlled by Pavlovian techniques. Jean Jacque Rousseau is their father. He introduced "feeling" into Western Society. The trail leads directly through Rousseau to Hegel to Marx. Some of the key terms used to control the "feeling" based Second class liberal are "struggle," "the system." "capitalism," "rights," "the poor," "the children," "the disabled," etc. etc. (you can add more terms.) When such words are flashed the Second Class Liberal becomes so emotionally responsive that he will do anything to get tension relief such as orgasm, leg tingling, eyes protruding, slight flecks of saliva forming at the corners of his mouth. He will even kill all in good conscience.
The above is a brief summary. Sorry for its brevity.
The liberal mind is uniquely wired to isolate any thoughts of long term consequences from their wild-eyed utopian schemes. The liberal mind also has an internal “firewall” that prevents it from seeing any connection between promoting programs for “social good” and their own self-serving interests (i.e., buying votes from their constituencies).
No wonder Head Start is failing. Doesn't surprise me to hear Davis Brooks saying this.
Is Nancy Pelosi a pie-in-the-sky dreamer, or is she a hard-nosed greedy realist? Is Harry Reid a lunatic, or is he just a greedy rat? We allow the Democrats to hide behind a facade of being caring, but somewhat naive, ideologues. Some are, but the leaders are self-serving, self-absorbed SOBs. They are not misguided children. They are hard-nosed, thieving rats.
For libtards, preschool education is about equality of opportunity in the realm of nurture. They despise the traditional family, and want to destroy it, so that the state can rear children equally. Providing funds for preschool education sounds noble, but it is just another step in the destruction of the family by making sure the state controls the children rather than the family.
Conservatism and Liberalism occur when resources are dense enough to support higher population densities, where they are known as the K-selected and r-selected reproductive strategies in r/K Selection Theory. In r-selection, resources are so copiously available that everyone can easily get what they need to survive. It produces every facet of Liberalism, from fleeing from danger, to promiscuity, to diminished investment in offspring rearing, to earlier sexualization of young, to single parenting, as well as lower loyalty to in-group. In r-selection, it is all about avoiding risk and sacrifice, so as to produce more offspring, (regardless of quality) than those around you.
K-selection occurs in high population densities when there aren't enough resources for everyone to survive. It produces competitiveness/aggression, monogamy, two-parent rearing, later age at first intercourse, and high loyalty to in-group. Here, it is all about helping your group to win in the competition for resources, and then producing small numbers of offspring that are fitter than the offspring of those around you.
Each of these exists in nature, as a psychology designed to optimize reproductive success in a specific environment. They emerge in Humans, probably as a sort of evolved adpatability to various resource states. Give us lots fo free resources, like in a successful nation, and leftism emerges, until it collaspes the system back to K, and Conservatism will once again re-emerge.
You see them distilled out of the population when you ask us what type of environment we want. Conservatives want a K-selected model of human behavior, while Liberals want an r-selected environment, where resources are provided to everybody equally, and everybody acts like an r. Stop by my site, if you want to see all the science supporting this.
http://www.anonymousconservative.com
