I am an extreme liberal

I don't have to get up at night just yet, but I perhaps need to check it out in advance.

I'd like to know exactly what you consider middle class.

From the European view of liberalism, I only would put Thomas in that category (mostly, at least).

source: Britannica

dys would be here a left-wing centrist, someone in the middle of those with Social-Democratic ideas.

Sad thing is, you probably actually believe this.

Did you know the people the make up the military are predominantly conservative? Yet you write "Conservatives generally prefer others to defend the country for them." Seriously out of touch statement. It's a statement driven by propaganda with no real thought behind it.

You also said "He taxes the middle class who does not have the ability or resources to exploit loopholels and acquire tax breaks reserved for the rich." Again, you have done no research here and instead rely solely on the propaganda you have read. How much tax revenue do you really think the middle class actually provides? Compared to the huge amounts the upper 20% and large corporations pay? It's pocket change.

The rest of your statement is nothing more then an irrational, emotional screed that has zero basis in reality. I hope you don't mind if I don't use your example as a typical liberal, but rather that of one of those far left, moonbat liberals that can't see the real world through the haze.

Try being a "wealthy incorporated small business owner" and subject yourself to double and even triple taxation on the same earned dollars. I used to do that - gave up.

Hear! Hear! I have eschewed several major appliances ( clothes dryers); limited the use of energy (setting my heat to 58 degrees when we are home and awake; to 50 when we are out or asleep); consolidated all my "errand running" to keep gasoline use to the minimum because I am a liberal.

At every job I have ever had, my work ethic has always been praised.

BTW -- Becoming successful, even successful in terms of financial rewards, is not forbidden by any liberal doctrine that I know of.

Aidan -- What the conservatives don't understand is that liberals want everyone to the best of their ability to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. I feel that far too many conservatives like to step on the fingers of people who are hoisting themselves up the economic ladder in order to climb over them.

Let's see: integration was a liberal idea. Small businesses are the liberal way of transacting commerce. Craftsmanship is a liberal notion.

Let me add, Lash, that showing astonishment regarding opposing perspectives is not an effective argument against those perspectives.

McG, you say that my statements regarding the conservatives' exploitation of tax loopholes (which I insist they also created, however indirectly) reflects my succuming to liberal propaganda. How lame. You obviously wish to muddy our waters by such charges. You also seem to pursue a strategy of obfuscation by challanging me to define "the middle class." Do YOU have a precise definition of that phrase? I think not. It is defined variably and vaguely by sociologists and other social theorists for some time now. I am employing a more or less non-technical usage. Consistent with popular parlance, I am suggesting by "middle class" those who are neither very rich nor (not yet) poor. All those in-between the extreme poles.
Sociologists have made fine distinctions, positing sub-divisions such as the following:
upper-upper (old money like the Duponts), lower-upper (new money like the Kennedys, Trump and most CEOs), upper-middle (e.g., administrators who serve at the pleasure of their upper class employers, and very successful physicians), middle-middle (most senior academics and the average physician or lawyer), lower-middle (employees of most businesses), upper-lower (the "respectable working class) and lower-lower (the less respectable uneducated and chronicallly un-(or under) employed class.
The boundaries of these made-up divisions are inherently fuzzy and reflect both economic and cultural standings. For example, a famous author, painter or poet would be placed by some graders in one category while another would disagree (I think they stand outside the class system in significant respects, but that may be romantic of me). The composer-violinist, Fritz Kriesler, was once commissioned by an upper-upper class matron to play at one of her socials. She offer to pay him, say, 3000 dollars (I'm making this up). He agreed. Then she added the stipulation that he not mix with her guests. He immediately responded, "Oh, in that case I will charge only 2000 dollars". Obviously his sense of the scheme of social ranking differed from hers.

Most of the young soldiers and grunts I have known--I never served in the military, thank Godess, but I was director of a USO club for a couple of years, giving me much access to lower class military perspectives--were "patriotic" but not very thoughtful about political matters. You might call them "conservative," but I would attribute that merely to a kind of reflexive response to their situation. They were for the most part too young to have formed considered perspectives on political reality.

My conception of the Upper Class coincides with C.Wright Mills' "power elite", those who really run the country through political officeholders they finance. But that sounds a bit more cynical than I wish to sound. Leaders like Howard Dean have recently had a moderating effect on my radical orientation, an orientation that was generated and maintained over the years by the likes of Nixon, Reagan and Bush43.
I've known many people over the years who have blindly supported the interests of the power elite and thought (because of their own brain washing) that they were promoting the interests of Justice, God, Country, Virginity, etc. etc. Suckers, everyone.

I'm exercising my right not to read MM's post because of his insistence on breaking up loooooonnnnnnggggggg passages with pieces of red type and making them longer.

That's a way to discourage . . . make that squelch . . . debate.

More business opportunities. A stronger economy. Cheaper prices for domicile. Better education for children. SMaller families, perhaps. More equitable distribution of wealth, rather than the top 1% having 40%. BTW: merit has nothing to do with that last one.

And, they believe that the Republican party, which aims to destroy the environment, over-populate the earth, take everything away from the middle to lower classes, force women to work to support their nonsense is the party of family values.

That's because they don't read books or newspapers.

Ignorance is not bliss.

What do you know about reality?

A whole lot more then you.

Fight! Fight!

I doubt that, mr. 'let's bomb Fallujah and Sadr City to the ground to fix our problems with insurgents and terrorists'

Cycloptichorn

I think we should send POM in there to drop cowpies.

I, as a conservative, am more than happy to have my tax dollars go to
help someone in need. What I will not accept is subsidizing a lifestyle and
adding to the entitlement mentality that the enormous welfare system has created.

What I will not accept is the status quo. We hear time and time again how
the poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer. With a welfare
system as large as it is... why is that? Isn't the system designed to help
out the less fortunate? TThe system is not working.

What I will not accept is rewarding bad behavior. I realize that an
unmarried mother is going to need help and am glad to help her get on her
feet. Everyone makes bad decisions and makes mistakes. However, if the
same mistake happens two or three or four times, we should not be
rewarding that behavior, we should be discouraging it.

When my wife was a junior in college, her tutition was raised another
$2000 dollars or so for her senior year. Already working three jobs (the
campus library, campus newspaper, and a private printing business) all
while maintaining an "A" average, she went to the financial aid office and
asked if there was anything they could do to help her cover the tuition
increase. After looking over her file, they casually informed her that given
her current situation they could not offer any more aid... however if she
were to have a dependant they would be able to help her out more.

So here we have a staff member at an insitute of higher learning telling
someone to have a kid in order to obtain federal aid to pay for school.
Anyone that can not see that this system is broke is blind, dense or
intentionally avoiding reality. We need to stop that sort of mentaility and
we need to stop rewarding poor behavior, while leaving those that show
promise and effort and intelligence out to dry.

Needless to say, she decided against having a kid and decided instead to
work extra hours at her jobs in order to pay for the tuition increase. She
missed her perfect "A" average by .001 of a point.

It has recently been reported that the Milwaukee social security office
is second in the nation for social security fraud. I will not accept this.

========================================

What I will accept is helping people achieve their goals.

While I concede the fact that there needs to be a safety net for those who
fall in need, there also needs to be a path for them to work their way back
to a self-sustaining lifestyle. This can come in many forms, all of which I
would be more than happy to help pay for with my tax dollars.

Number one, and I think by far the most important, is education. This can
be broken down into sub-divisions: job skills/training, formal education,
and personal skill training.

All of these require the participant to take an active role in improving their
future. Whether it takes the form of teaching job skills, increased
subsidized loan limits for education, or merely teaching someone how to
interview, it gives the person options as well as the skills necessary to succeed.

Second, there needs to be some accountability and more oversight in the
process. A system of limits should also be looked at. If you already have
the skills necessary to succeed and are merely at a rough patch in your
life, I concede again, that there needs to be a support net, but there also
needs to be oversight of the process. The welfare reform under Clinton
tackled many of this already with supervised job searches and proof of
progress or effort.

Third, tax breaks and other incentives to businesses that operate in low
income/high crime areas. The cost of doing business in these areas are
already steep due to the need of increased security and increased theft.
A tax incentive would help the people that need the help by allowing
business to invest in the area at the same cost of investing in an area
of less risk.

Fourth, and this is the libertarian in me, make crime less appealing than
being honest. I think we should seriously look at legalizing some leisure
drugs. This not only takes power away from the gangs but also helps
reduce our prison population. If drug dealing became a less lucrative
option, people would have to find other options. I am not entirely sold on
this and could be persuaded otherwise... but I think we should at
least take a look at it.

In the mean time we need to crack down on criminals of the robbery/theft/scam varieties...
especially repeat offenders. we need to send a message that crime does not pay and will not be tolerated

Fifth, invest in the future. Our education system is failing our students.
It fails those that need it most, the most. Milwaukee has a truancy rate of
45%. This is a recipe for disaster. We need to educate our young people before
they become a problem. School choice is one avenue. San Francisco
has an excellent school choice system that is working - both by improving
the schools and improving the students.

We need to look long and hard at exactly how giving tenure to teachers
benefits the students. What the Teachers Union is doing to help the
students. What the administration is doing to help the students. And where
our tax dollars are going. We spend more money per student now than
any other time in history, yet we are not getting improved results. An
Einstein quote comes to mind: insanity is when we keep doing the same
thing expecting different results.

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I'm sure I missed some, but I think it is a good place to start. Give people
the skills to do a job and then let them do it. I know it isn't as fun as
arguing and calling people names, but if we were to just wipe the mud
from our eyes and sit down and talk things through, I think we'd find we
have a lot more in common... like Lash and McG have suggested. There is
a way to be fiscally responsible and help people out. It is giving people a
way to live self-sufficiently. Anything else, IMO, is just a handout.

good and thoughtful post jp.

Well, I see Jp's posts as whapping me about the head as I veer to the streets. I have been almost all classes over my life, except very high.
I tire of arrogance rampant, from all sides, but more from the Middle Secure and Middle Insecure.