WHY I’M A LIBERAL [AM: Yes, I know. I know]

aemedliberal ^

[new spartacus]

Sunday was a gorgeous day here in Los Angeles, clear, windy, just a hint of smoke from the fire up above Santa Clarita.

The SO – who is the “perfect pillion” as well as a pretty good rider herself – and I took the motorcycle out and spent the day with some friends riding through the canyons up there, and on the way I was strongly reminded of why I am a liberal.

First, the clean air.

The population of Southern California has gone up by about 60% since 1970, according to the Southern California Association of Governments. Auto ownership and use has grown faster, probably about 25% more, I’ll estimate, so we’re looking at a 75% increase in vehicle-miles. We’ve probably lost a bunch of manufacturing and refining, but employment is still a whole bunch higher than it was back then.

And I remember summer days in high school when you couldn’t see the end of my West LA block for the smog. Two-a-days in the pool at school when you spent the day with “aqualung”—a chest so sore you couldn’t raise your voice.

My sons haven’t had those problems (I am aware of the higher incidence of asthma, but there’s a bunch of interesting epidemiology on that). I don’t think their children will, either. Why?

The damn bureaucrats, and their command-and-control bureaucracy. Personally, I think there are more refined tools available to us in the Information Age … Precision Guided Munitions of regulation, rather than the crude daisy-cutters. But if we don’t regulate, we’ll choke.

Next, the infrastructure.

Our normal ride, up Bouquet Canyon, was closed due to the fire, so we rode up San Francisquito Canyon instead (past “A Place to Shoot”, a pretty decent firing range).

In the canyon you can see the remnants of William Mulholland’s last great project, the St. Francis Dam, which failed catastrophically in 1928, killing at least 500.

But Southern Californians live on the desert because of the infrastructure that gives us water, protects us from floods, lets us move around, etc. etc. etc.

I know that each of these is the heavy boot of man’s dominion over nature…but unless we are all willing to live like Gabrielinos, we need it.

And the infrastructure isn’t just physical, but social as well. I have a bachelor’s and a master’s from the University of California, and it is a truism the public university has changed people’s lives.

Finally, charity and hope.

We spent Saturday night at the annual fundraiser for the St. Joseph’s Center in Venice. This hasn’t been a brilliant year for us financially, but we managed to give some away anyway, and enjoyed the company of a bunch of people who were doing pretty much the same thing.

I’ve always felt that I was an economic liberal because I enjoyed my nice things less when I had to either worry about someone trying to hit me on the head and take them away, or eat my meal in the window of a restaurant while a starving family stood outside.

Look, I know that the biggest beneficiaries of the welfare programs in the last fifty years have been the people who work for the welfare departments.

I know that we’ve grown dysfunctional cultures like mold on bad French cheese.

But does it tell you we’ve accomplished something when the biggest nutritional problem among the very poor is obesity?

[justshe]

"Why post on a discussion forum if you know it will be read and responded to, unless you want to respond as well? What's the point in posting and running? Do they just like to read the responses? What's the fun in getting insulted, teased, or having your thoughts dissected and debunked? If they don't read the replies, then why post at all? "

---

Bragging rights in Trollville? Thinking they pulled one over on Jim Robinson and his band of 'chainsaw massacre' specialists (AMs)? THEIR thread stayed up "X" amt of time before getting zotted?

P.S. AM-----I liked your reference to the Chainsaw Massacre on the other ZOT! thread (*wink* *wink*)

[Ditto]

And last but not least, GIVING TO A CHARITY DOES NOT MAKE YOU A LIBERAL.

He calls himself a Liberal because he has been told all of his life that anyone who is not liberal is a cold-hearted meanie who wants to see poor people starve and children choke on dirty air. He thinks by calling himself a liberal he is automatically morally superior to people who are not liberal.

[evets]

[Conspiracy Guy]

Now now don't look for any logic in a troll.

[Maigrey]

You just have to see this picture!

[Dan from Michigan]

Liberal run city - Detroit
Conservative run areas - the country.

And that's all I gotta say bout that.

[justshe]

What or WHO is that? He certainly looks like he needs the exercise....but ......??????

[William McKinley]

And the city that unions killed- Flint.

[evets]

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58881,00.html

"Star Wars kid"

[SERE_DOC]

To the writer:

"WHY I’M A LIBERAL"...

Inbreeding

[babaloo999]

They just post here, get zotted and then run back to DU, or Bartcop, or wherever and post that as evidence of the intolerance of JR for dissenting views.
Then they spout off about how this country is just like nazi Germany and how crooked President Bush and his cronies are, blah, blah, blah.

[justshe]

Oh my....thanks for the link. I don't know how I missed that story. Poor kid.

[babaloo999]

Actually, that last sentence pretty well describes Liberty Post.

[jriemer]

I'm alarmed. The Trolls have built up a resistance to MILITARY-GRADE ZOT!

This one keeps running around posting and posting like DU Energizer Bunny. We need superior firepower, folks...

[Redwood71]

Okay. I'm from the south central valley originally. I can remember when I could see the coast ranges and the only real air problem was when it got cold and the smudging started. I can remember when my father would go flying, he was a private pilot, and we make out grapevine in the distance.

I can remember when it was safe to leave your house unlocked, or the keys in your car on main street in either of the towns I lived in, Dinuba or Visalia.

I registered democrat when I first started voting and was proud of the programs that helped the people until I found out it was a lie to get power and lock the voters into dependency of the government.

I can remember when our state was strong financially and people were coming here from everywhere for the chance to make it. I can even remember when this state had money before Gray Davis screwed that up. Now they are laying off teachers at a eyebrow raising rate because they are broke. Next comes the police and fire department.

I can remember all these things because now they are just a memory. The liberals have destroyed all of them. And I live in Washington State now, and it is just as bad and getting worse because of long time liberal control. And this is what you are proud of? Your glass isn't half full, it's cracked.

[Nonstatist]

A good infrastructure and a clean environment are not the provenance of liberals. It was business leaders in the 60's that were one of the major forces to clean up the lakes, air, etc. A good businesseman knows you have to have a decent and working infrastructure; thats one cost they are willing to bear. The problem is how these things are funded. Creating a huge inefficient beauracracy with their hoardes of featherbedders, and the enviro fantics and their extreme vision of state controlled resources is not a necessary part of the "vision"

One last thing; only in the capitalist states is a clean environment ever a priority. The USSR was a basketcase , as was Eastern Europe; those other models of Socialism. San Fransisco, and California for that matter, are now sowing the fruits of their overidulgent infatuations with Statist meddling on these and other "matters". A fiscal mess, one of the flip sides of liberalism.

[Windsong]

You are an idiot.

[RinaseaofDs]

Ann Coulter pointed this out first, so this isn't some new idea I'm about to add.

Here's the thing about this guy - he can talk about how liberalism has been so good for his kids, but he can't talk about the threat their own mother posed them prior to their birthday.

As soon as you bring their stand on abortion into it, it all falls apart. You can't protect people and sacrifice children at the same time.

He never talks about it. Abortion is to liberalism what Slavery was to the South.

[Constitution Day]

Excuse me? What's your problem with me?

[Teacher317]

The thing you have been missing is that it is the same guy (or guys, if there happen to be a few sharing the same resources), day after day.
Do we occasionally get different trolls? Yes. But about 90% of the newbie trolls trace back to the same two ISPs.

Ah. That makes sense. Thanks. Now I won't whine as much when they/he get/s the insta-ZOT! ;^)