Historically Speaking, What Have Liberals Been Wrong About?

I mean, is there anything that liberalism has advocated that has proven to be wrong and misguided in its history?

One could say gun control, but that was only wrong from an electoral standpoint, since gun control laws have actually reduced the number of gun deaths in this country over the past 10 years. That's an issue that's hurt the Democratic Party moreso than the nation.

How about a liberal nation-building style foreign policy. While I wouldn't consider Iraq a "liberal" war - since it was gone about for horrible and evil reasons, if it was done for purely humanitarian reasons - ala Kosovo - then I think it'd still be wrong to impose values on another nation.

For instance, I wouldn't be in favor of a war against Saudi Arabia because they are repressive towards women. I think its horrible how they treat women over there, but its not my country's place to tell them how to act, culturally.

Dependence on public education? Sure every child has a right to an education in this country, but there is definately something wrong in the school systems in America today (aside from underfunding) that can't just be fixed by throwing more money at it or by paying teachers more. I don't know how to fix the problem, but I believe it'll take more than money.

Personally, I'm not opposed to school vouchers, and I think just speaking in political terms, we better get on the boat with this because minorities really dig this idea. I say anything that helps a child improve his or her education is a good thing. Some people talk about taking money away from public schools - but last time I checked, public school funding came mostly from local taxes, not federal taxes - so as long as federal money is helping pay for school vouchers, I don't see why this can't be a liberal position and we can't champion it.

I'm sure there are other instances where liberalism has been on the wrong side, but I can't really think of any right now.

Can you?

What exactly in your opinion is wrong? I see people cite this charge all the time without qualifications, without giving specifics.

we rank lower in math, science, reading, ect.

I don't believe its because we lack the resources to fund our school systems. At least, a majority of them, anyway.

Why, for instance, does China have children who score better than us in math and science.

Are schools in China better than schools in America? Do they have more money than we do invested in education?

...and you have to understand much of those studies compare different sets of students.

China and Taiwan show better test scores because their systems tend to weed out low scorers before taking the tests. There are other factors to consider as well, including societal, but the biggest factor is that our country's testing pool is very inclusive.

I can show you stats that say we're doing pretty well. I can show you stats that say we're not. I can also make the case that much of the ragging is done by folks who misinterpret select studies, because they want public schools to go away.

We can improve, of course. Right now, under NCLB, we're going the other way, in my opinion. As a teacher, I really wanted Kerry to stand up and say: "Yes, I voted for NCLB. That was a mistake."

<<Why, for instance, does China have children who score better than us in math and science.

Are schools in China better than schools in America? Do they have more money than we do invested in education?>>

Simple: The Chinese expect their kids to do well, and education is highly valued. Americans don't place such expectations on their kids, partly because of parental laziness, partly because of parental pampering. If test scores are going to make any difference, as Bush claims, then we have to stop penalizing the schools, and start penalizing the parents. Hold the Jerry Springer guests responsible if little Junior is 12 years old and can't pull his finger out of his nose long enough to learn the multiplication tables he should have mastered in 4th grade. Tell upper-middle-class Mommy and Daddy that it's just tough shit if they're too "tired" after they get off work, to get involved with supervising their kids' homework. (Hey, if they had enough energy to screw around and bring the kid into this world, they've got enough energy to make sure the kid's done his homework.)

Parents in all income brackets need to get off their dead asses and start investing some time into kids' education, because teachers can't do it alone. Parents know there are no consequences for them, because the teachers can take the fall. When I was a kid, things got so bad that, by the time I was four years old, they'd made a local law requiring that parents make sure their kids knew how to count to 100, knew the alphabet, and had some basic reading skills, before kindergarten. Unless a child is mentally retarded or suffering some other sort of learning disorder, these are perfectly reasonable expectations. As a result of this law (and parents who cared about my schooling), when our family moved to a nearby state, I was advanced enough in my studies to be skipped a grade. Parental involvement works, and if you hold parents responsible, they'll have no teachers to blame for their own laziness. That'd be the best way to straighten up our schools, without costing taxpayers another additional dime.

<<we rank lower in math, science, reading, ect.>>

You mentioned China, and IMHO Korea could also fall into this category of excellence in education. But I'd like to dispute the oft-quoted theory that Japan's schools are somehow better than ours. They're not, and their citizens' dismal lifestyle is a direct result.

They put a lot more emphasis on rote memorization than reasoning, hence the "cram schools" (after-school programs where kids cram like crazy for high school entrance exams). Instead of all schools being good, there are "good" schools (where good grades will get you in) and "bad" schools (where those who can't memorize massive amounts of data end up, despite having other more important skills). Passing an exam makes the difference, which high school you'll get into.

Once you get into a high school, good or otherwise, you might as well forget about being expected to behave like a responsible adult, and even forget about learning, for that matter. Unlike our high schools, in which kids are responsible for keeping belongings in their lockers, getting their things together and making it to class on time, buying lunch tickets, etc., Japanese high schools are like elementary school. Kids bring their own lunches because they spend all day in the same room, and most of them wear uniforms, so they don't even have to think about getting dressed in the morning. (Lest you believe this is a good thing, just look at any teen fashion mag in Japan...these kids dress like multicolored bag ladies, without a clue as to harmonizing colors or patterns, because they've never had the responsibility of expression fashion within the confines of a dress code in their lives.)

The worst part of all, and the biggest obstacle to Japan's dealings with the rest of the world, is in classroom protocol. Asking your teacher a question is considered pushy and rude. Let me repeat this, to make sure no one missed it:

Asking your teacher a question is considered pushy and rude.

Hiragana Times had a terrific article about this, and one of the young people interviewed was a Chinese girl who was nearly in tears over this. She'd scrimped and saved to transfer to what she thought was an excellent school in Japan, only to be shunned by her teachers AND her classmates, for committing the cardinal sin of politely asking her teachers questions about the material they were covering. She couldn't believe this cultural phenomenon, nor could any other exchange students, all of whom found themselves infinitely more comfortable in classes consisting of foreign students and teachers, who didn't have this insane mindset.

And they take peer pressure to levels rarely seen in the USA, this side of a late-breaking news story. Those kids don't need knives or guns; like packs of wild dogs, they can make some poor kid's life hell on earth, often cutting that life short by pushing them down stairs or off the roof of a school building. Bullying is a problem that's incredibly rampant in Japan's school system, and there is no legal help for parents, as there is here in the States. The type of violence we associate with inner-city schools here is considered pretty much prevalent throughout Japan; fitting in is the #1 priority in their society, and individualists are punished severely.

Don't get me wrong, I like Japanese pop culture and the Japanese people. But that doesn't mean I automatically worship everything they do. I've had hundreds of Japanese penpals of different ages over the past 20 years, and there's one thing all but two of them have had in common: their language skills are atrocious.

The aforementioned Chinese and Korean pals I've had do not have this problem, and let me tell you, their languages are a lot more difficult than Japanese. So it's not because the Japanese are at any great disadvantage; if anything, American/English culture is so deeply entrenched into Japanese society, that kids are exposed to English from a very early age. The problem is that Japanese kids simply can't learn, because they're not being taught as well as their Chinese and Korean counterparts.

This educational problem hurts the Japanese in many ways: For starters, it's more difficult for them to negotiate with people in other countries. But foreign language skills are the least of the problems.

Their insistence on rote memorization, opposed to logical thinking, makes their grasp of all subjects suffer. Plus, it's so emotionally and physically draining, that when these kids get a taste of freedom in college, an alarming number of them go beyond "partying" to the point of "drunken waste of humanity".

As a result, in adult life, it's considered a normal part of family life, that Papa will get off work, go get sloshed at a karaoke bar, come home just long enough for Mama to pour him into his pajamas, at which point he'll pass out until it's time for work the next day. Not all families have a drunk for a father (or mother), but let's just say that it's a lot more acceptable. When you have a society in which kids are pressured to memorize instead of learn, are rejected if they ask questions, their only taste of "freedom" is getting f***-drunk, then get jobs where--again--being a mechanical drone is more important than having any individuality, is it no wonder that these people are so unhealthy?

So, to those who think we should use the Japanese schools as an example, I tell them that the numbers in these surveys are horribly misleading. These numbers don't reflect the fact that, for example, Japanese kids have just crammed information into their heads, information that will quickly be forgotten as new information is required to be memorized. They don't reflect Japan's horrible foreign-language skills, or a system that simply does not prepare their young people for adult life--with disastrous consequences. And, considering that our testing is often done in a pop-quiz-like manner (i.e., random testing as opposed to the way testing is done in Japan, with months of "cramming"), the results make the Japanese look more knowledgeable than they really are.

The result of all this is, we don't need to look toward other countries for inspiration to improve our schools. All we need to do is start demanding that parents be held accountable. I've seen this done first-hand, I know it works, and it wouldn't cost a fortune. Parents and teachers must work together to improve their children's education, instead of parents expecting teachers to shoulder the entire burden.

I personally don't think it's a good idea.

That's the dirty little secret.

How about taking all the money spent on militaty programs in other countries and interdiction in our own (including the unconstitutional property seizures) and pour it into rehab for people who run into trouble?

Legalize it, monitor it for quality control and tax it. Oh, and get out of grownups' lives.

... something more convincing than "I don't think its a good idea", because I'm dead certain that the current drug laws are not only a bad idea but are actively contributing to society's decay.

How you say? By stuffing some hapless kid into prison for years for having some pot. By the time he comes out it is damned unlikely that he will ever recover. He'll either be a slacker for life or a hard core criminal. And who could blame him, if you are going to be imprisoned for petty offenses why not just do crimes worthy of that sort of punishment?

How about that?

health & safety issues. And, welfare too. You can't feed the world. Their ideas are not bad, we just can't fund it all carte blanche.

They're a band-aid approach, for one thing. Rather than fixing our public schools, they're going to try to send people to private schools. Once more kids are going to private schools, money will be taken away from public education because "they don't need it", and then the schools will deteriorate further, causing more people to abandon them, until public education is abolished entirely and every child is attending a private school. Then the real goal of vouchers will be acheived: privatized education for all children. Then they can do away with the "vouchers", because "education is a privelege, not a right", and parents will be forced to home school. Except for the rich, who, of course, will continue sending their children to private schools.

Think I'm being ridiculous? Look what they're already trying to do with our public schools. The goal of these people is to re-establish a feudal society upon us. When considering one of their proposals, it needs to be viewed through that light.

Vouchers are a bad idea. Fix public schools.

And answer without using the word 'funding'

...politicians need to trust educators again and stop trying to micro-manage. Teachers were marginalized by the right long ago.

There is big-time waste going on at the administrative levels. Much of the money is being spend to satisfy dubious mandates handed down by dubious legislators.

We need funding, though. There's no way around it.

I agree with you about the waste, especially at the school board level. I guarantee you that for ever failing school there is a failing school board and corrupt school board members.

I also think the whole system needs to be reformed - from what is being taught, to how its being taught, to how students are being evaluated.

Less tests. Less homework. More class participation.

I'd also inforce mandatory school uniforms, but that's just because I had no fashion sense in high school. ;)

There are some very good arguments for uniforms, but being an old hippie, they just don't seem right.

Before we reform education, we as a country need to agree on the purposes of education. Keeping corporations in malleable employees is a differnt goal from turning out well-informed thinking citizens.

There is plenty of hype from politicians trying to make a case for getting elected. The real problems with schools is what is happening in society and family life that makes kids unable to concentrate or behave. And classes are too big...so yeah, throwing more money at it is a good idea.

Most teachers have masters degrees and we pay them like highschool graduates when they start and it takes 30 years to get to 60k a year. Maybe we should pay teachers more or at least give them tax breaks to pay off their educational costs.

Vouchers are a disaster. There will never be private schools enough to take all the children from "failing" schools. The kids who are left will be abandonded and their schools will be even less well funded than before. And I don't think my tax dollars should go to fund private schools which teach religious or other ideas I do not agree with. That is what public education is all about, we retain some control over what they teach.

While the aims of the Great Society were noble, the implementation of a welfare system that entraps people into a life of lower expectations and dependency was very harmful to a generation of Americans caught up in the aftermath. The public housing warehouses of the type put up in Chicago that had to be torn down within 15 years is another example. These places became dangerous hellholes of crime, drugs, prostitution and hopelessness.

My family fell on very hard times when my father abandoned us in 1968. My mother went to the public aid agency to seek temporary assistance until my deadbeat dad could be located and forced to meet his child support commitments. She was told that the only way they could help would be if we sold our house and moved into public housing in a very dangerous neighborhood. That was a choice she could not make. It was hell on us, but better in the long term because we didn't get caught up in that hopeless scenario that would make the path to self sufficiency so very difficult.

I'm sure LBJ's plan could have been done better, but wasn't the concept right - that some people would always be at the bottom and need help?

Perpetual Welfare is a bad idea.

Public Housing a worse idea (at least in the Tenetment/Project non-ownership form).

Don't kid yourself, each side has excess.

And while the Liberals haven't been as wrong about things as Conservative Confederate Nazi Monarchist types back until 27 BC anmd before it is only because the Monatrchist Bushevik assholes have wielded all the power since then.

And now Kings are coming back under another guise in BushPutinism.

that there should be a social safety net. The concept that we need to help those at the bottom was correct, but the idea that a perpetual and institutionalized welfare system, with government provided social workers to monitor the recipients was a very wrong idea that put the government into the business of thwarting peoples dreams and stamping out their hopes and self respect.

a problem? You think universal education will be achieved in a privatized, voucher-funded scheme? I promise you, it will not.

public and private, because I don't think that public schooling will ever be abolished by private schooling, no matter how popular private schooling becomes.

But look at it this way. Minorities already disagree with the party on abortion and gay rights, do we want to be on the other side of their feelings on education too?

It won't be long before blacks and hispanics start to gravitate towards the Republicans. If that party wasn't so openly hostile to them they'd already be gone from us. We should be doing everything we can to make sure we understand their concerns and not just say 'public education is the way to go, always, all the time, and forever' because the future is coming and the future is school vouchers.

without private schools receiving public money. I see no reason they should start receiving it now.

Minorities already disagree with the party on abortion and gay rights, do we want to be on the other side of their feelings on education too?

I teach in a public urban middle school in Atlanta. My kids are very poor and very underprivileged by the time they even hit the school door. I've taught in several private schools in the metro area and I will tell you straight up that any voucher sum that might reasonably be proposed will absolutely not put these kids in a private school. Whoever is speaking for "minorities" on this point isn't speaking for the kids I teach.

Do *we* want to oppose vouchers? I don't know about you, but as long as advocating for my kids means opposing them, hell yes I do.

because the future is coming and the future is school vouchers.

If the future is vouchers, we might as well simply admit now that we're not going to even try to educate the poorest children in our society, because we won't under a vouchers system. Period.

What shall we do with them, though?

Whether it was Iran-Contra, Iraqgate, BCCI, etc., they play nice and actually do some work for the good of the country instead of doing a full bore, Ken Starr like wide-ranging fishing expedition to keep the corruption of the Repugs in the news for years. Almost all of the Reagan and Bush I administrations should be in federal prison. After all they are responsible for the raping and murdering of tens of thousands of people in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, you name it.

.... with marginal tax rates over 50% and other "wouldn't it be nice if it worked" policies are probably liberalism most obvious failure.

On the other hand, excessively conservative economic policies may well be this country's waterloo.

They always have been full of loopholes.

The rates were 90% for a very long time and the economy did fine. They were in the 70%-77% range for almost as long and the economy REALLY did fine , infact once they started going further down farther from the 75% range did the economy start to sputter , wages went down , and inflation at times went out of control.

During those days and this day we have a tax system where marginal rates are confused with taxation. The top 400 income earners pay roughly half their marginal rate due to LOOPHOLES and the like. Some of the most wealthy corperations pay either 0% or near that in taxation.

WE could leave the marginal rates exactly the same or slightly smaller , then end all loopholes, corperate welfare, etc. and bring in about a half a trillion more dollars a year.

WE could raise the top tax rate to 50% but leave all loopholes and only bring in around 1/8th that.

It's only given a couple of hundred million westerners the opportunity to give themselves a leg up in life, financially speaking.

The discussion should be about education rather than schooling.

Education is far more than going to school and learning something. It is the cumulative effect of a life-style.

That is the differnce between societies where parents and grandparents have time to spend with their children.

A society where both parents have to work to make ends meet and where families break up after the first generation, sometimes earlier, education suffers.

Broken families, high divorce rates, are all symptomatic that the level of education is falling - even though the system may have the best schooling system.

Also the system of education makes a big difference.

The principle of Maria Montessori that "the child is the father of man" makes a huge difference to what education is all about.

Traditional schooling is far removed from this prionciple!!

Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

Liberalism was loaded with closet communists until the 1960s when JFK redefined liberalism as tough on communism, and when LBJ launched a war against communist infiltration in Vietnam.

After that, and up until Bill Clinton, liberalism was loaded with closet socialists. Liberals believed deeply--even very smart ones--that giving handouts to people would not make them dependent, and that deficits were GOOD for the country.

Now we are right about everything, pretty much. But the country has gone so far to the right that we are going to have to trim our sails in order to get back in power. That means we're going to have to pull back our visible support for frivolities like gay marriage and enormous turn-offs like abortion on demand. Well, we don't really HAVE to... if we don't mind being out of power forever.

Well, not wrong, just overestimating it...