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Post by sisyphus on Jun 22, 2006 22:09:35 GMT -5
what, pray tell, is the liberal ideology? what is "their" position? liberal is a nebulous adjective applied in degrees. your question is absurd. if you're trying to ask me whether or not i think for myself, then yes. i do. i take MY position on various issues, and that position is constantly shifting based on new information, and does not follow any strict automated line.
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Post by Matheus on Jun 22, 2006 22:12:03 GMT -5
The terms "liberal" and "conservative" have nothing more to do with anything than interpretation of the constitution... btw, it doesn't leave much room for the gray area when you speak in such terms.
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Post by Matheus on Jun 22, 2006 22:12:28 GMT -5
Once again, labels are stoopid.
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Post by Mary on Jun 22, 2006 22:20:00 GMT -5
The Democratic Party platform embraces capitalism as its economic model. I don't. I would call that an enormous philosophical disagreement. Surely you are not trying to tell me that the American Democratic Party is basically indistinguishable from socialism. That would be plainly preposterous. I prefer to say "leftist" rather than "liberal" but I suppose it doesn't matter. I have minor disagreements with (some) liberals, nothing major. I think American liberals were way too quick to dismiss school vouchers and school choice as a means of improving access to education for the poorest Americans. I tend to be more sympathetic to Israel than a lot of my peers on my left, and I'm extremely put off by knee-jerk anti-Israel sentiment. (I'm equally put off by knee-jerk pro-Israel sentiment, though. It's complicated. But I've had many many disputes with Students for a Free Palestine here at Berkeley, and been called a fascist a few times because of it, so I'm clearly not just towing the student left line in Berkeley, at any rate.) I think the American left position on marriage should be much more radical than it is - rather than simply supporting gay marriage, the left should be calling into question the entire institution of marriage, and suggesting an alternative system of civil partnerships that extends way beyond simply admitting gay couples to the club. I think banning smoking in bars is totally fucking assinine and puritanical. But I don't really find these issues to be particularly pressing (except Israel/Palestine) or significant. What I find much more interesting are the issues which challenge the left by splitting it down the middle. For example, how should left respond to the treatment of women in fundamentalist Islamic societies and communities? Here feminism and multiculturalism seem to be at cross-purposes, and there's no clear "left" answer.... nor do I have any idea what the appropriate answer should be. Now that's an interesting dilemma. |
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Post by kmc on Jun 22, 2006 22:20:49 GMT -5
Once upon a time, PEW was going to prove the existence of souls.
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Post by Mary on Jun 22, 2006 22:21:47 GMT -5
I usually vote green in local elections and Democrat in (close) national elections. Though voting green in local elections is a function of living in the Bay Area - the only two parties, really, are Democrats and Greens. Dunno what the fuck I'll do in TN....
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Post by Mary on Jun 22, 2006 22:25:42 GMT -5
But pew, I've tried to answer your question, but I still disagree with your premise and you never addressed that. Are you assumign that it's impossible to be an "independent" thinker if your positions line up across the board with standard positions of the left or right? Please explain.
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Post by Mary on Jun 23, 2006 0:03:32 GMT -5
I obviously can't help with the second class, but I've got some suggestions (if you don't mind) on the con law course ... first, you've got to discuss Loving, even if that means just printing it from the internet. Second, I'd just forget about the libel cases, if a student has an interest in that, you can point 'em towards the right cases or let 'em do a project on the topic. Political speech and obscenity could take up the entire course, and I wouldn't feel bad at all about hitting those hard and leaving out some of the other stuff. Also, in my experience, students are interested in the whole "why Miranda protections are/aren't important" discussion. Given the current court, you may be able to talk about the rise and fall of the fourth and sixth amendments with some "ripped from the headlines" cases. Oops...somehow I didn't notice this before. Ken, I think you're right about Loving, but I'm wondering if you can recommend a particular web site where I can get Supreme Court cases that are already abridged? I know about lexis-nexis, but it's a massive amount of work for me to read through the entire case and excerpt all the opinions myself, figuring out what to excise and what to keep.... I did that a few summers ago for cases that were coming down from the Court while I was teaching - I think I excerpted Lawrence v. Texas and Stenberg v. Carhart myself - it took me hours..... can't stand the thought of having to do that again, ugh.... I'm a little reluctant to do Miranda because I'm really trying to organize the course in such a way where students can actually trace the development of the law in various areas - i.e. see how the clear and present danger doctrine evolves in first amendment law, see how the court struggles with defining "obscenity", see how the various tiers of scrutiny evolve for suspect categories in equal protection law, etc etc.... I'm reluctant just to throw in an "interesting" fifth amendment case without the same kind of examination of gradual development of doctrine. On the other hand, I would very much like to do a line of eighth amendment death penalty cases, beginning with Furman v. Georgia, but fuck, I'm just running out of room in the damn class! One thing that I really liked about the way Berkeley used to organize its con law classes that nobody else seems to do, not even Berkeley anymore - rather than doing one class on civil rights and liberties, they did two separate classes - one on "civil rights" that was really just a 14th amendment class, and one on "civil liberties" that covered 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendment cases. I really, really liked this approach - I think the 14th amendment makes an excellent introduction to con law, and I loved having so much time in the class that I could do a lot of critical race theory and feminist legal theory in addition to just straightforward exposition of cases. Once you lump civil rights and civil liberties together, it just feels cramped and rushed and you have to start excising stuff that you don't really want to excise. I actually have two major changes I want to make to the poli sci curriculum at memphis, and this is one of them. Instead of two con law classes for undergrads (civil rights & liberties, and then a kind of structural class on stuff like separation of powers, federalism, and executive authority) I would do three, splitting up the civil rights & liberties class into two. And, similarly for political theory, they only have two major undergrad lecture courses in theory - ancient & medieval, and modern. I really think there should be four introductory theory classes - ancient & medieval, early modern, late modern, and contemporary. Holy shit, I've rambled on endlessly about this and it's totally irrelevant to the topic!!! Ummm, sorry to everyone and anyone who actually tried to read all of that. I hope you really needed to fall asleep. Cheers, M |
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Post by shin on Jun 23, 2006 0:22:06 GMT -5
I hereby declare this thread no longer in service to abortion OR to souls OR any such related topic. From now on, this thread is for pictures of adorable animals. Pilfer cuteoverload.com if you must. Thus declares the father of the thread. Thus it shall be.  |
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Post by rockysigman on Jun 23, 2006 0:25:08 GMT -5
 This puppy is as broken as this thread. |
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Post by Galactus on Jun 23, 2006 0:25:41 GMT -5
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Post by frag on Jun 23, 2006 0:37:14 GMT -5
 and don't fuck with her. i Taught her everything she knows. 'bout fighting that is. she's a badass. Supreme! Tupelo may be a sweetheart at first glance, but she'll claw out your pancreas in a nanosecond if i Tell her to. |
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Post by rockysigman on Jun 23, 2006 0:39:10 GMT -5
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Post by frag on Jun 23, 2006 0:54:04 GMT -5
duck hat? whatever!
i bet that cat wasn't named after a van morrison album/nick cave song
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Post by Kensterberg on Jun 23, 2006 0:57:08 GMT -5
Hey frag, Tupelo is an extremely cute kitten. And I don't say that about all cats ... great pic.
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