Archive for the ‘Liberals’ Category

The real liberal critique: Republicans aren’t liberals – The State


The State
The real liberal critique: Republicans aren't liberals
The State
James Fallows, in The Atlantic, describes their behavior as the most discouraging weakness our governing system has shown since Trump took office. He singles out Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse for scorn because he leads all senators in his thoughtful, ...
When shrieking liberal protesters went low, John McCain went highWashington Examiner
America's liberals want Republicans to not be RepublicansThe Japan Times

all 2,720 news articles »

Read more here:
The real liberal critique: Republicans aren't liberals - The State

Letter: I don’t recognize today’s liberals – Lodi News-Sentinel

Posted: Monday, July 24, 2017 2:30 pm

Letter: I dont recognize todays liberals

Editor: Imitation is the greatest form of flattery so I thank Mr. Maurer.

Ever since the 1960s Ive debated the lefts descent into tyranny using specific examples of the ruling elites disdain for those they believe are below their class. To counter my arguments of the lefts vitriol, ignorance, anger, and disinformation he uses my exact same language. He holds up the Constitution and the Bill of Rights inferring the left holds these rights to be true and given to us by God as our founders proclaimed over and over again. Yet at every opportunity they have torn down these ideals doing their best to do away with our rights stated in the Bill of Rights and in 2012 tried desperately to do away with God in their political plank.

The book I referred to by Mr. Owens, Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps was directed at todays liberals. But this disease of the spirit where everyone is a victim infects liberals of every race or political party. The liberal of my youth is foreign to present-day liberals.

The liberals of my day were closely akin to our founding documents while todays liberal is more closely associated with Marx and Engle. Intolerant of independent thought outside the accepted beliefs of the group think, Our children have been indoctrinated into this mind-numbing philosophy and the proof is in what has happened to a once vibrant Democratic Party and higher academia that once fought for free speech and inclusion descending into anarchy with not one constructive belief to run on.

What do Democrats stand for? All I see is violence, intimidation, personal attacks. Mr.Maurer ends with my opinion reminds (him) of the story about a mother attending her sons graduation from Army boot camp who exclaimed: oh look, my son is the only one in step. That would be my ma but she would correct you and tell you her son is a United States Marine like his father before him of which she was most proud.

Ronald Portal

Lodi

Posted in Letters to the Editor on Monday, July 24, 2017 2:30 pm.

Originally posted here:
Letter: I don't recognize today's liberals - Lodi News-Sentinel

It’s time liberals and socialists worked together to change the direction this country is going in – The Independent

The United Kingdom is a divided country. Rarely have we been so set against each other, with such big political divisions on questions that seek to define the very essence of who we are and who we want to be. Xenophobic nationalism has taken hold in many parts of the country. Only recently, we heard the harrowing story of a Polish girl who committed suicide due to the bullying she received for being different.

Powerful elites hoard wealth while targeting foreigners for rising inequality. Young people are being left without opportunities and without hope as the countrys bridges to its neighbours are burned, well-paid jobs become harder to attain for the majority and secure and affordable housing recedes into a distant dream. The UK is the only advanced country where the economy has grown but wages have fallen.

Tensions between the regions of our country are growing, threatening to spiral out of control at any minute. For a long time the UK has got by as a federal state shoehorned into a unitary model. This cannot last. The ad hoc nature of our constitutional union is falling apart at the seams. We must be ready to change it completely or risk losing it for good.

To fight back against this darkness, we have to reach out and build a true majority that will bring hope and joy back to the lives of millions. To end the rise of reactionaries, the far-right, xenophobes, nationalists and other foul political movements, to turn back the tide, we have to unite all progressives. This means, as it has done in all moments of progress in this country, bridging the gap between liberals and socialists. To form an alliance right across the centre and left. This alliance will be based on these key principles that offer the only chance of building a forward-thinking, united movement in this country:

Firstly: fighting to keep the UK in the EU and promoting European integration.

Secondly: an end to the ideological pursuit of austerity.

Thirdly: a constitutional convention for political reform to address, among other things, the federalisation of the UK and the introduction of a new voting system.

These are three simple but radical principles that are necessary to bring the country back into a position of unity and progress. With these principles engraved into our souls, we can be sure that we will not give ground to those who promote hatred and division. But we can also be confident that well be ready to ease the suffering of millions of ordinary people, to get them back into well-paid employment, get the country back into real growth and prosperity and to hand them the power and ability to shape their own lives.

If we do not act, then we risk finding ourselves embittered, resentful towards one another. The fabric of our nation, formed over centuries to be outward-looking and tolerant, would have been destroyed in a brief frenzy of nationalist fervour. To any real British patriot, such an outcome would be intolerable.

Some in this alliance will not normally be friends. There has been bitter opposition between liberals and socialists, but these differences must be put aside for the common good. Do we not all strive for that goal? To put the country above narrow selfish interests? Even if a simply moral appeal falls on deaf ears, from a practical standpoint we need to work together.

If Brexit goes ahead, then socialist objectives of ending austerity will be like dust in the wind as the economy goes down and foreign investment leaves. It was Labour that took Britain into the EEC in order to revive Britains economic fortunes; the party must not forget that.

Liberals, meanwhile, have to accept that unless they back a radical economic plan that will end austerity then they will be left alone and without the popular support necessary to keep Britain as an active member of the European family.

We can triumph together, or fail alone.

For a prosperous future; for a European, international future; for a future that is fair, open and just, I call for a Liberal-Labour alliance.

Pascal LeTendre-Hanns

Guildford, Surrey

Hilary Armstrong is being totally disingenuous suggesting that Tony Blair somehow spared Jeremy Corbyn from deselection. Democratic selection is something that is supposed to be done by the local membership and was therefore supposedly beyond Blairs patronage unless of course hed found some way to become king of the Labour Party and override local votes, an ambition we perhaps shouldnt put beyond him.

That said, deselecting a single MP like Corbyn would have been irrelevant under Blair, given that applicants for new MPs were suddenly being determined by central office and shortlists were largely comprised of Blairite-only candidates. This resulted in wave of neoliberal entryist cuckoos in the PLP who were in no way part of its culture.

Historically you could say that the centre of the party was roughly the position Barbara Castle occupied. The right would be represented by MPs like John Stonehouse and George Brown. Corbyn would have been to the left of Castle but probably beyond him would have been MPs like Eric Heffer, Tony Benn, Michael Foot and so on.

Significantly, those Blairite critics of Corbyns that now feature in the Parliamentary Labour Party are so far to the right they dont even register on the movements historical spectrum and are consequently often referred to as entryist Red Tories.

To put this in context, the party has for generations been anti-racist and anti-imperialist to the extent of embracing Gandhi even when Indian Independence struggles harmed the cotton-based employment of northern garment workers, and later in the 1950s providing a welcoming home to the Freedom for Africa Movement. How then do we get from there, to this imperialistic new outlook, where white western politicians increasingly stay quiet about xenophobia?

Dr Gavin Lewis

Manchester

Sean OGradys article on Europe highlights why some people are Brexiteers and some Remainers. A Brexiteer values Britain as a nation state and resents Europe taking over that role; they feel a loss of identity when that happens. A Remainer attaches little importance to nation states and does not see any threat from Europe to their identity.

Of course, Europe has not and will not become a super-state. Why should it? Why would anyone want it to? I think of myself as a Londoner, though I was born in Sussex. I am English, British and European. Abroad I am most likely to describe myself as English but the involvement of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the UK Government does not bother me and harmonising rules and regulations across Europe seems eminently sensible.

The EU was formed to curtail the selfishness of nation states, not promote a new one. Little by little it is curtailing the greed of multinationals. It is far from perfect, but I for one would prefer to see nationalistic pride focused on sport, not politics. We have far more to gain from working together to make the world a better place than we do from pretending we are better than everyone else.

Jon Hawksley

London EC1R

While I agree with Sir Vince Cable that the electorate must consulted at the conclusion of Brexit negotiations, we should acknowledge that our electoral system is in no fit state to deliver a sound decision.

About a third of people of voting age are not registered to vote. Of those registered, about a third dont vote. The electorate is thus either disabled or effectively unrepresentative.

The solution is to make voting compulsory, as in Australia, where some 98 per cent of people of voting age are registered and 97 per cent of registered voters cast their vote.

Only in this way can we effectively, in Sir Vince Cables words, consult the British public at the end of the process.

David Browning

Huddersfield

The leaden line-up of Tory pretenders to Queen Theresas throne makes the prospect of daily root canal surgery without anaesthetic appear a pleasure. A daily diet of cod liver oil and raw liver suddenly seems a more attractive prospect.

The motley crew shuffling up next to Clown-in-Chief Boris is headed by two candidates so dynamic they make Sir Vince Cable look like an Olympic sprinter: the utterly dreadful David Davis and the antediluvian patrician pebble-specs stiff Jacob Rees-Mogg.

To date, the rapidly ageing bumbler-in-chief David Davis has proved himself only capable of talking to Brussels brick walls with little vital signs of vision, or a pulse. Mr Daviss negotiating technique as Brexit Secretary is to go commando without his briefing notes and beat a rapid retreat back to Blighty in time for tea.

Dunderhead Dave was equally good at playing the fugitive in 2008 when he waltzed out of the other Daves shadow cabinet. He may dare, but he will never win anything beyond the over-65s sack race, as he proved in 2005 when the blue rinse grassroots rejected him as leader.

The other heir to the steaming pile has a similar poke-in-the-eye-with-school-compass appeal. Prime Minister Rees-Mogg would need to add several wings to No 10 to accommodate the vast retinue of servants I presume he has, not to mention his ever-expanding dynasty of mewling babies and dear old Nanny to change Puer Decimus and the Cabinets nappies.

The Jacobite inglorious revolution would send many conflicting signals to millennial voters. They are used to Theresa Mays rainbow-shaded Tories. The Mogg High Catholic dogma is arguably one that sees gay people as in need of crying up to heaven for forgiveness.

Here, never mind the price in Boots, the very idea of a morning after or any contraceptive pill or device offends heaven. Equal marriage is one allowing ones wife a turn with the Bentley once a month, white-gloved chauffeur and chaperone obligatory.

Installing either of these weary old waffling greybacks in No 10 would confirm the suspicion that the Conservatives were never at ease with Margaret Thatcher at the helm and have a factory default setting of pinstriped drone, not Queen Bee as leader.

The party that boasts of its success in seeing a second female leader in power, while the US, Canada and France await their first, needs to grow a collective pair. It must not make the captain walk the plank, but weather the storm with May as its figurehead until her job is done. It will flower again when the rest of Labours election giveaways unravel and the uneasy coalition between closet anti-EU old Marxists and Blairites falls apart.

Get some nuts, Conservatives and keep Nurse on board or face the post-Thatcher curse. That spelled chaos and ruin for nearly 20 years last time they deposed a woman leader.

Anthony Rodriguez

Stains Upon Thames, Middlesex

David Davis as PM? This just confirms that the Tories are out of touch. Davis, Fox, and Johnson are the most unconvincing ministers and are frequently as embarrassing as Trump.

I had voted Tory for most of my life until 10 years ago, but they have lost their way and live in the past. The world has addressed cost and efficiency and it is well understood. Compassion and long-term thinking are what modern governments need.

May offered fairness and then did nothing. If this is modern Toryism and the Liberals cannot gather sufficient support, then perhaps we need some disruptive Labour government. Who knows, perhaps a left-wing government is exactly what we need. After all these project cancellations for rail networks because its difficult, I know they are past their sell-by date. Brunel would laugh at them as cynical fools who cannot see the future.

Michael Mann

Shrewsbury

Chris Grayling has announced it is too difficult to electrify the Manchester to Leeds line. Presumably no difficulties were expected when deciding to build an underground rail link under central London. Difficulty never stopped Brunel!

Geoff Forward

Stirling

Read the rest here:
It's time liberals and socialists worked together to change the direction this country is going in - The Independent

Globe editorial: Liberals and Conservatives, playing politics with Khadr and NAFTA – The Globe and Mail

Its a bit rich for Liberals to be accusing Conservatives of doing something wrong by appearing in the American media, talking about a live Canadian political issue. The issue is the governments $10.5-million payout to Omar Khadr; last week, after several Conservative MPs aired their criticisms in The Wall Street Journal and on Fox News, senior Liberals cried foul, suggesting that in criticizing the Khadr deal in front of the neighbours, the Conservatives were undermining Canadas bargaining position in the NAFTA negotiations, and even putting Canadian jobs in jeopardy.

Oh come on.

One of the Liberal Partys preferred methods of generating memorable coverage of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Canadian media and especially social media aside from staging photo-ops of him just happening to pop up shirtless at a wedding or jogging by a high-school prom is to get his face on an American TV show, or his photo in a U.S. magazine. Softball interview or fashion spread, either will do. Call it the Go American strategy.

The Liberal brain trust understands that, given the nature of Canadians media habits, whats shown in America does not stay in America, but immediately enters the Canadian media space, usually in a highly privileged position. The PM will never get coverage as admiring in the Canadian press so going stateside is a great way to generate positive, laudatory and highly Facebookable news.

The Liberals are experts at using Go American, and sometimes Go Global, for building Mr. Trudeaus brand and amplifying his partys message in Canada. The Conservatives are merely learning from the masters.

On the substance of the Khadr case, the Conservatives could not be more wrong and well come back to that in a moment. But they have every right to criticize the governments decision, whether its because thats what they genuinely believe, or because they see political advantage in it. They even have the right to talk about it outside of Canadas borders.

The Conservatives arent bringing up the Khadr settlement in order to cause the NAFTA negotiations to fail. The only people making the Khadr-NAFTA linkage are Liberals. Theres simply no sign that the Conservative Party is using the Khadr case to undermine the existing pact or any hopes for renegotiation.

Conservatives are criticizing the Khadr settlement because they disagree with it, as is their right. It would be helpful, honest and a winning strategy if the Liberals, instead of trying to change the subject by casting aspersions on critics, would simply defend the Khadr arrangement, on its merits. Because the Trudeau government is right on the merits. And the Conservatives are dead wrong.

The government did the right thing in agreeing to compensate Mr. Khadr. A lot of Canadians may not see it that way, but the governments decision has the law and the facts on its side. So does Mr. Khadr.

Reasonable people can debate whether the amount paid is too much, but its impossible to argue that Mr. Khadr would have lost in court. He had a Supreme Court ruling in his favour, saying that his constitutional rights had been grossly abused by the Canadian government. (Note: A previous Liberal government.) How many plaintiffs launch a lawsuit with that kind of evidence on their side?

Even though all of the lengthy, extensive and illegal torture he was subjected to happened while he was a guest of Uncle Sam, the Canadian government was partly complicit in those abuses; he was at one point subjected to days of sleep deprivation in order to soften him up for an interrogation by Canadian officials. The Supreme Court said as much.

As a result, it was certain that his lawsuit would ultimately be decided in his favour. The Conservatives are essentially saying the government should have spent thousands or millions of dollars in lawyers fees to fight a case it was bound to lose.

And leaving utilitarian questions aside, the Conservatives are wrong on the cases legal and moral issues. Mr. Khadrs conviction comes from a U.S. military tribunal of questionable legality; even the charge against him does not appear to be legal. Given the torture he was subjected to; given that he was a child at the time of his capture, having been placed in an impossible position by his parents; and given that the chief evidence against him was a coerced confession, its impossible to imagine that he could have been convicted under Canadian law. For the Conservatives to continue calling Omar Khadr a convicted and self-confessed terrorist, as they do on the KhadrQuestions.ca website, is just wrong.

It would be good if the Liberals, having finally made the right decision, would stick to defending it on its merits. And it would be nice if the Conservatives, allegedly the party of individual liberties, could see the Khadr affair for what it is: An example of what happens when when a giant government bureaucracy is untethered from the constraints of law. It crushes people.

Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeDebate

Here is the original post:
Globe editorial: Liberals and Conservatives, playing politics with Khadr and NAFTA - The Globe and Mail

Tony Abbott-backed motion for NSW Liberal preselections wins party support – The Guardian

Tony Abbott at the NSW Liberal Party Futures convention at Rosehill Racecourse in Sydney. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

A motion championed by Tony Abbott to introduce one member one preselection voting has passed at the Liberal partys New South Wales convention.

NSW Liberals voted for the Warringah motion with a 61% majority on Sunday afternoon, following brief delays after the electronic voting system went down.

There were 784 votes from a total pool of 1,224 cast in favour of the first Warringah motion.

A vote for a second Warringah motion was also passed, 769-423, according to the former MP Ross Cameron, a supporter of the changes, who tweeted the empire is imploding.

The motion is for one vote to be given to all MPs and office-bearers in the NSW Liberals during preselections. Current rules give votes to branch representatives and central party officials.

Abbott said the NSW Liberal party would no longer be an insiders club after the convention.

We didnt like the insiders club, the closed shop which the NSW Liberal party has been for too long, he said. We will do even greater things now that weve got this mandate to be a genuine peoples party.

A key proponent of the reforms, the Warringah electoral conference president and powerbroker Walter Villatora, said the party membership had clearly spoken on Sunday. He said the reforms would make NSW the most democratic division in Australia.

Abbott described the reforms as true democracy versus the fake democracy proposed by the partys moderate and soft right factions, which wanted to restrict the party members influence.

Villatora said: Somewhere up above in Liberal party heaven Robert Menzies is looking down and smiling.

The era of brutal factionalism is over. I want to thank the hundreds of members whove made this happen. I especially want to thank the prime minister and the premier for their clear support for democratic reform.

The motions still need to be ratified by the state council. Villatora said he expected that to take place in three months.

Another reform proponent, retired major general Jim Molan, received loud applause in moving the motions on Sunday.

Other motions, proposed by Liberal MP Alex Hawke, were proposed to temper the reforms. Hawkes motions would protect sitting members from the new system with a grandfather clause and place eligibility criteria on voting members, including activity tests and waiting times.

Hawkes motions were voted down.

There were a large number of motions yet to be debated when the meeting concluded on Sunday. It is currently unclear what will happen to the remaining motions.

A how-to-vote card issued by backers of the so-called Warringah motions called on members at the special convention to vote yes only to the two motions, and no to the dozens of others, which have yet to be voted on. Stop the factions, stop the stacking, take control of your party, the card reads.

One NSW Liberals member, Kevin Brennan, tweeted before the debate: If the one member one vote motion doesnt get passed in the NSW Liberal party convention today then the election is lost + the party finished.

About 1,500 members had registered to attend the NSW Liberal Futures convention.

Two sources told AAP the electronic voting system went down just before 3pm as members were about to vote on the motion to introduce plebiscites to select candidates for state and federal parliament. The online voting system can be accessed via smartphones, tablets and computers.

A party insider told AAP it was likely several of the motions could get a majority of votes on the floor, and it would then be up to party officials to weave them together into what has been described as a modernisation plan.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, spoke in favour of plebiscites at the convention on Saturday as a way of giving more power to members and building the partys membership base.

He described plebiscites as a fundamental element of party democracy.

However there are differences of views over the checks and balances in the system, including a minimum period of membership of the party.

Abbott, who has been criticising the direction of the government under Turnbull, said the victory wasnt about him but about the party.

Now we can go forward as one united party, he said.

Abbott told reporters on Saturday those who oppose his one member one vote motions were advocating fake democracy.

Cameron and a fellow Warringah backer, the former NSW president John Riddick, warned the moderates against trying to stymie the changes by bogging it down at state council.

You cannot ignore the will of the people that has been so clearly demonstrated today, Riddick told reporters outside the meeting. If they dont ratify it in three months, they are risking a terrible war of ratification.

Moderates put on a brave face, with Mackellar MP Jason Falinksi hailing the vote as the beginning of a new start for the party that would allow it to reform and address external challenges.

I think this conference today will be a unifying moment in the history of the Liberal party in NSW, the factional powerbroker told reporters.

When asked if it was a win for Abbott, he said it was a win for all Liberals wherever they may be.

I dont believe it will be a shift to the right, he said as he was heckled by Cameron in front of reporters.

The current preselection practice involves a combination of branch-elected local delegates and central electors from outside the seat.

It is understood Turnbull did not support part of the Warringah motions.

Visit link:
Tony Abbott-backed motion for NSW Liberal preselections wins party support - The Guardian