Liberal Principles #2
Oct. 18th, 2006 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythI think I'm gonna stick with Principles, rather than Philosophy. It's simpler to spell, for one.
Security.
This is one of the major places where post-New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism come into conflict. One part is a conflict over methods, the other is a conflict over goals. This one's just gonna cover goals, methods will come into play later.
There's a lot that can be said about security, but most of it is implementation and methods and the interactions of other principles. Security is an important and fundamental part of liberal principles though. Because without security, a lot of other things are pretty much impossible. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs isn't a perfect representation, but it's not horrible as an approximation. People will vary, of course.
And if you look at the hierarchy of needs, you find more than just avoiding being attacked or stolen from (as a person or a nation) under "security" and the basic needs of survival. And that's one of the main differences in the Liberal vision of security, as opposed to the conservative vision. Liberals include economic security as important too. Because when people spend most of their time working three jobs just to make ends meet, or worrying if they lose their job they'll lose their house and insurance and everything, well, that's just not how people should live. And it has all sorts of other bad effects too, on the economy, politics, science, just about everything. But when conservatives talk about "security", they just mean guns and tanks and cops and prisons. And that's missing half the picture.
Security.
This is one of the major places where post-New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism come into conflict. One part is a conflict over methods, the other is a conflict over goals. This one's just gonna cover goals, methods will come into play later.
There's a lot that can be said about security, but most of it is implementation and methods and the interactions of other principles. Security is an important and fundamental part of liberal principles though. Because without security, a lot of other things are pretty much impossible. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs isn't a perfect representation, but it's not horrible as an approximation. People will vary, of course.
And if you look at the hierarchy of needs, you find more than just avoiding being attacked or stolen from (as a person or a nation) under "security" and the basic needs of survival. And that's one of the main differences in the Liberal vision of security, as opposed to the conservative vision. Liberals include economic security as important too. Because when people spend most of their time working three jobs just to make ends meet, or worrying if they lose their job they'll lose their house and insurance and everything, well, that's just not how people should live. And it has all sorts of other bad effects too, on the economy, politics, science, just about everything. But when conservatives talk about "security", they just mean guns and tanks and cops and prisons. And that's missing half the picture.
