Talk:Liberalism in the United States/Archive 2

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Clintons

Anyone want to comment on the Clintons? I still think they should be listed. I've outlined why Bill Clinton is a liberal above. Revolucion pointed out that Bill hasn't supported gay rights as much as some other liberals. I'd respond by saying that gay rights activism is a tiny part of liberalism when compared to "big" topics like social welfare, environmentalism, foreign policy, and education. Rhobite 23:46, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the Clintons are liberal, and should be included on this list. For their party, they may be moderate, but overall they lean liberal. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 00:22, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
If the list were ten names to be emblematic of liberalism, then they would not belong on it, but on a long list like this, I think it is reasonable to include them. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:33, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
That's a good way to put it, I agree. Rhobite 06:36, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
The Clintons are so obviously not liberal. Am I the only one here who remembers NAFTA and "the end of welfare as we know it"? If the Clintons are considered liberal, the word has no meaning.
Well, the NAFTA thing has been discussed, but one issue does not exclude someone from being a liberal or conservative. Since George W. Bush doesn't want to close the borders should we say that he's not conservative? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
It's not just the NAFTA thing. There's also the welfare thing, the founding member of the Democratic Leadership Council thing, the "era of big government is over" thing, the trashing of all liberals on a regular basis thing, the support for the Iraq war thing, and a whole bunch of other things in a similar vein.
Okay, I'm off to add the Clintons to the List of American Conservatives. No, what you are saying is not enough. Look at many, many other issues to see their liberal leanings. And what is so bad about being called a "liberal"? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Speaking as a liberal, I can confidently say: Nothing is wrong with it. But that is not the point. The point is that the Clintons are neither liberals nor conservatives. They are centrists. And I'd like you to show me some of these issues on which they are allegedly liberal, because I can't think of any.

Moved over here for easier discussion. How about taxes, abortion (specifically partial-birth abortion), universal health care, education, gun control. I don't think I need to go on. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

The Clintons support the ban on partial-birth abortion, support tax cuts, oppose universal health care that's actually universal, and refused to take a stand on the school voucher issue.
So that's why he "adjusted" taxes higher, vetoed a partial-birth abortion ban, and proposed his health plan, which is basically universal... see Clinton health care plan. (I suppose it is not truly universal since it does not cover Martians. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:32, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
That would be why he signed tax cuts for everybody except the top 10%, vetoed a partial-birth abortion plan with a ton of other, nonrelated amendments on it, and proposed a health care plan that wasn't universal because it didn't cover everybody in America or even cover all of their medical expenses.
Have you even studied Clinton at all? We are proud to call Clinton a liberal. Perhaps you should start by reading this article. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Who's "we," kemosabe? You are the first and only Democrat I know to claim Clinton as a liberal. All of the other Democrats I know (and they number in the hundreds, if not thousands) either hated his nonliberalism or praise it, but they all acknowledge it as a fact. The only people who think Clinton was liberal are conservatives, compared to whom George Wallace was pretty damn liberal.
No, Democrats you know are probably just ashamed to call a spade a spade. People now claim being a liberal is a bad thing. People want to change the language of politics. "Extreme Liberal" becomes "Progressive" and "Liberal" becomes "centrist" or "third way". Not calling Clinton a liberal would be like not calling Bush a conservative. I'll give you the fact that he is not the most liberal person on the list, but he's a liberal nonetheless. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Clinton is guilty of those crimes. If he knew you were calling him "liberal," he would vehemently deny it and explain, in detail, why it's inaccurate. Bill Clinton hates liberals and that's why he used the term as an insult against Tom Harkin and Jerry Brown, both of whom are on the list, when the three of them ran for president.
Yeah, and I'm sure Ann Coulter wouldn't refer to herself as a crazy right-wing whacko, but just because someone doesn't want a label, does not mean they do not deserve it. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:02, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
There is a difference between the two phrases you compared. Many liberals indeed call themselves "liberals". And no doubt Ann Coulter would call herself a conservative (even though she is indeed more than just a conservative, she's a crazy right-wing wacko). --Revolución (talk) 16:30, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Let's compare the records of Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon:

  • Clinton: "The era of big government is over." Nixon: "We are all Keynesians now."
  • Clinton: NAFTA and welfare reform. Nixon: EPA and OSHA.
  • Clinton: Bottom income tax bracket of ten percent. Top income tax bracket of 37%. Nixon: Negative income tax for the poor. Top income tax bracket of 70%.
  • Clinton's failed health care plan: Hillarycare. Nixon's failed health care plan: Canadian-style single-payer.
  • Clinton: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Nixon: "I am not a crook."

Bottom line: If Clinton gets to be a liberal, so does Nixon.

    • The article has an entire section discussing the question of whether Nixon should be counted as a liberal. A similar section on Clinton might well be in order. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • Hell no. The facts are neither Clinton nor Nixon (why would anybody even suggest that?) are liberals. Nixon was a conservative. Clinton was a centrist (who has been looked upon as "liberal" by extreme conservatives). --Revolución (talk) 16:43, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
    • When I suggested it, I was sarcastically making the point that Nixon was to the left of Clinton a number of issues and if Bill Clinton, Mr. Conservative Democrat himself, got to be on the list, so should Nixon.
  • Nixon may have been less conservative and a bit more secular than the current extremist conservatives, but he was in no way a liberal or even a moderate, he was a conservative. Remember, he had an "enemies list" which includes many liberals, including the wonderful John Conyers. --Revolución (talk) 18:54, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Looking from the left, I'd say that Clinton and Nixon have about equally good claims on being liberals (which is to say, not much in either case, but about equal). Nixon was president during the era of the liberal consensus, and governed from the right edge of that consensus, but mostly from within it. Clinton was president during what was basically an era of conservative consensus (certainly the liberal consensus had been broken), and governed more or less from the left edge of that consensus but, again, within it. The results were not radically different. I seriously do think we could use a medium-sized, well-cited section discussing Clinton, much as we have one on Nixon. It would be much more useful than adding him to a list. It would be particularly useful to cite both authorities who say he was a liberal as president and authorities who say he was not. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:27, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

The concensus is that Clinton is a liberal.

The hell it is. I see two guys arguing that Clinton is liberal. Three have just advanced arguments to the contrary. No consensus has been reached and a majority say that Clinton isn't liberal.
As someone who's studied liberalism for much of my life, I'm assured by all reputable sources that Clinton is liberal. He consistently and genuinely supports human rights over property rights, whenever there's a conflict between the two, which has come to be a litmus test for differentiating liberals and conservatives. Furthermore, he carries on the liberal tradition of strengthening international law and global governance, a position abhorred by conservatives. There's a reason that conservatives hated Clinton more than they have hated any president since Roosevelt. luketh 01:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Liberal Republican

With reference as to why I restored "liberal wing" rather than "moderate wing" of the Republican Party in the section about Nixon: in 1968, the Republican Party still had a liberal wing, based largely in New York and New England. For example, when Vermont was solidly Republican, it was not notably more conservative than today. Republicans were strongly identified with liberal, anti-machine reformism in New York City (reform mayors Fiorello LaGuardia in the 1930s and John V. Lindsay in the 1960s, for example), and I believe the same could be said of many New England (and probably even New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio) cities, but as a New Yorker I don't know the names offhand.

Remember that, only a few years before, the "solid South" was solidly in the Democratic Party. This was the last era in which the Republican Party still had clear descent from its abolitionist past, by way of the Teddy Roosevelt Progressives. One of the key ways in which Nixon was not a liberal was his role in the realignment of American politics through his so-called Southern Strategy, playing up to Southern white prejudices.

Just to rattle off a few other names, though, of liberal Republican leaders from the 1960s: Nixon's running mate in 1960), Henry Cabot Lodge; New York senator Jacob Javits; New York governor Nelson Rockefeller (though many consider him to have totally sold out liberalism and made a play for a role in the new, more conservative Republican Party in his handling of the Attica rebellion); Pennsylvania governor William Scranton; and, arguably, Michigan governor George Romney, a strong opponent of the Vietnam War. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:12, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

LaGuardia, Lindsay, Roosevelt, and Javits are already on the list. None of those other guys should go on, in my opinion. I put them in the same boat as the Clintons: not conservative, but not liberal, either. Republicans (and former Republicans) who made it onto the list include:
Some of these people ended up joining the Democrats or a third party, but most were lifelong Republicans.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.217.121.245 (talk • contribs) 28 Aug 2005.

The Anonymous Poster's List

An anonymous poster who keeps placing the very unliberal Bill Clinton on the list of liberal leaders has accused me of having too narrow a definition of "liberal." As evidence, he cited several other people on the list as people I should remove if I left Clinton off. Unfortunately for him/her, he/she forgot that I was the one who put them all on the list in the first place. I shall now explain their placement.

First of all, I agree that all these people except Huey Long (Huey Long!) should be on the list. You misunderstand me. My argument is that if these people are on the list, Clinton should be on it too, because, like Clinton, these people all have some conservative traits.
These people, unlike Clinton, had almost completely liberal traits. You need a flashlight and a tweezer to find Clinton's liberalism.
A personal favorite of mine. But Brown most definitely lowered corporate taxes in California in 1962 and 1963. Some would consider that “corporate welfare.” Does supporting corporate welfare make Brown a “centrist”?
He definitely raised corporate taxes, which is how he paid for California's freeway system.
Bryan helped prosecute John Scopes for teaching evolution. He would be a big advocate of intelligent design if he were alive today -- he’d be an ally of Bush and Pat Robertson. The old Baptist blowhard would be on Pat Robertson’s TV show expounding on the evils of teaching evolution to our children. Does that make him a conservative? A “centrist”?
He didn't believe in evolution. Whoopedy-doo. Name five people from the 19th century Midwest who did. Harold Hughes was a born again Christian who opposed abortion, but he gets to be on the list for being to the left of George McGovern on every other issue. You've never heard of the Christian Left or the Consistent Life Ethic?
Edwards, like Clinton, supports the death penalty. Does that make him a "centrist"?
One issue does not make someone a centrist. Centrism requires you to be illiberal on a wide range of issues.
My personal favorite – I love this man (remember the Humphrey-Hawkins bill?), and I cast my first vote for him in a Democratic primary in 1972. However, if you ask any American male of draft age in 1968 what he thinks of Humphrey, he’ll go berserk on you. In 1968, the far left considered Humphrey a warmongering vulture for his support of the Vietnam War, and (shades of Ralph Nader) they refused to vote for him, thereby helping Nixon get elected. No question about it, Humphrey was a hawk when it came to Vietnam, the Iraqi war of the 1960s. Does that make him a “centrist”?
One wrong step does not erase Humphrey's lifetime of liberalism. If Clinton had been in his shoes, he would have been trying to cut food stamp funding because "the era of big government is over." And how does anyone know where Humphrey stood on the war? He never voiced opposition to it, but he never said he supported it, either.
Notice: I didn’t put Kerry on my list; you put him here. And I’m surprised you did, because Kerry’s politics are nearly the same as Clinton’s. He voted to support the war in Iraq in October 2002. He voted for the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction act and the Patriot Act. You’re wrong about welfare reform. Kerry voted for the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. He voted for NAFTA. (See http://www.covertactionquarterly.org/KerryTragic.html). Although you're right and he is most certainly a liberal like Clinton, by your definition Kerry is most definitely a “centrist.”
I was talking about Bob Kerrey, not John Kerry. And John Kerry still gets to be on the list. Why? Because he has a liftime average of 92 from Americans for Democratic Action. That's the same as Tom Harkin. That's also higher than Birch Bayh, Bill Bradley, Frank Church, J. William Fulbright, Fred Harris, Gary Hart, Harold Hughes, Hubert Humphrey, Jacob Javits, Bob Kerrey (who also received high marks), Mike Mansfield, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Pat Moynihan, Ed Muskie, Gaylord Nelson, William Proxmire, Abe Ribicoff, Terry Sanford, Paul Simon, and Lowell Weicker. It's even higher than Ted Kennedy. To get a 92 from ADA, you have to be doing something right.
You're lack of understanding of American history is really showing here. I'm very surprised this racist is on the list. If Huey Long is a liberal, so is Moussolini, who also built roads and bridges. Long was the worst race baiter in American politics. That immediately disqualifies him as a liberal. You can make him one of your “centrists” if you want, but before you do that, please, please, please read up on his history. He was a little Bayou fascist, not a liberal or a "centrist."
I just got finished reading T. Harry Williams' nine-hundred-page-long, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Long. He didn't do anything for blacks (that would have been political suicide) but he didn't do anything against them. Certainly, he did not engage in "race-baiting." His specialty was class warfare, which a fascist like Mussolini would definitely have frowned upon. By the way, J. William Fulbright voted against every piece of civil rights legislation he came upon. Shall we take one of the four most famous Vietnam opponents off the list, too?
You have got to be kidding me. Did you know that Upton Sinclair, who you mentioned above, modeled the main character of his "It Couldn't Happen Here" on Huey Long? I haven't read the book you mentioned, but it couldn't have been very good if it didn't go into Long's race baiting. I beg you to please consider removing this guy from your list. On Long's death, the NY Times wrote about him: "What he did and what he promised to do are full of political instruction and also of warning. In his own State of Louisiana he showed how it is possible to destroy self-government while maintaining its ostensible and legal form. He made himself an unquestioned dictator…. In reality, Senator Long set up a Fascist government in Louisiana. It was disguised, but only thinly. There was no outward appearance of a revolution, no march of Black Shirts upon Baton Rouge, but the effectual result was to lodge all the power of the State in the hands of one man. If Fascism ever comes in the United States it will come in something like that way."
You cannot comment on Huey Long if you haven't read T. Harry Williams' book. It won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and the National Book Award. It's over 880 pages long and it has over fifty pages worth of notes. And that's the paperback. It is widely recognized as THE book on Huey Long. As to his alleged Fascist tendencies, the same could be said about every Democratic Party in the South. Or didn't you wonder about how Ralph Yarborough got elected to statewide office in Texas? And you still haven't answered my question: If we remove Huey Long for his alleged racism, what possible excuse could you come up with for keeping J. William Fulbright?
  1. Upton Sinclair's book is called It Can't Happen Here.
  2. Long was certainly on the left, but I would not call him a liberal. And the issue isn't racism, it's that he had no respect for constitutionalism.
  3. Could people please sign their comments? It's almost impossible to sort out who is saying what. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:56, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to sign my comments, but as I never received that tutorial, I don't. As for Long, I still say that the description fits most every Southern Democratic politician going back from the mid-1960s to the dawn of time. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, got himself elected to the Senate by paying illegal immigrants $10 a pop to vote for him and by making a few inconvenient ballot boxes disappear. Of course, his opponent in the primary pulled the same tricks, so Johnson won by only 87 votes out of a million cast. Hence his nickname: "Landslide Lyndon."
My apologies to you and to Claude. He belong on this list.
TR practically invented American imperialism. This is man who described his foreign policy this way: "Walk softly and carry a big stick." He sent the Great White Fleet, a menacing armada of American gunships, on a tour of the world in 1902 to serve notice that America was a world power. Congress initially refused to fund this little imperial show of strength, so TR sent the Fleet halfway around the world. Congress had to fund its return. (The antiquities act...<chuckle>). This Yankee adventurer created some national parks, but c'mon, he doesn't belong on the list. He is a "centrist" at best.
With the exception of his views on foreign policy, Roosevelt was just about as liberal as they come. I also forgot to mention his support for just about everything I put down for Bryan.


Umm, TR was a Conservative!!! "The only true conservative is the one who looks to the future." TR Sorry!

Another one of my personal favorites. You forgot to mention his greatest achievement – forcing open shops to union membership. However, he ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb. If Michael Moore were alive in 1944, he would brand Truman a mass-murderer. Truman’s “containment doctrine” unleashed the CIA and its operatives against thousands, maybe millions, of innocent socialist and communist sympathizers in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Greece (during that country’s civil war). How many innocent people died as a result of Truman’s dirty war will never be known. Does dropping the bomb and killing hundreds of thousands of leftist sympathizers qualify Truman as a “centrist”?
If Michael Moore were alive in the 1860s, he'd be going after Abe Lincoln for suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Truman's containment doctrine was supported by half the people on the list born between 1920 and 1950. Should they be struck for buying into McCarthyite bullshit?
  • Earl Warren: As governor of California, he created one of the best public education systems in the world and was nominated for re-election by the Republican, Democratic, and Progressive Parties. As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he voted with the majority on Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda v. Arizona, Roe v. Wade, and many other cases protecting individual, civil, and human rights and increasing government authority over big business.
Typically, you tag Warren as a liberal because all you know is his history on the Supreme Court. Ask a Japanese-American about Warren. As California Attorney General in 1942, he race-baited Japanese, calling them a threat to American security. He did it to advance his political career and pave the way for a run at Governor of California. Japanese-Americans remember him with scorn for casting them in the Willie Horton role. More than anyone, he was responsible for their internment (I believe remorse over this episode is the reason for his courageous support for civil rights on the Supreme Court). A race-baiter, someone willing to scapegoat a minority group to advance his political career – that makes him a scoundrel, and maybe a “centrist” too.
Earl Warren's contrition (and twenty years as the second-most liberal man on the bench) goes a long way toward absolving him in my eyes. If he had bragged about it, though, I'd say toss 'im.
For the treaty of Versailles alone, this guy should be skewered by history. That faulty treaty laid the foundation of WWII. Did you know that "Birth of a Nation" premiered in the White House, and that Wilson thought it such an excellent movie, he recommended that all Christian White Americans view it. A "centrist" at best.
Please see my comment about J. William Fulbright.

Conversely, Bill Clinton opposed campaign finance reform, implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement, expanded the use of the death penalty, declared "the era of big government is over," and signed a welfare reform bill that basically wiped out the welfare system. He never once, in his entire administration, attempted to do anything really liberal.

You say he attempted “nothing liberal.” You forget his first act in office – permitting gays to be in the military. His noble but doomed attempt to give us national health care in 1994 was admirable. And don’t forget that he passed the assault weapons ban in 1994 even though he sacrificed the Democratic Party’s majority in the House to do it. Clinton's "era of big gov't is over" was merely a statement of fact, as Americans have abandoned the idea of big gov't projects. Clinton did not oppose campaign finance reform (the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was signed into law by G.W. Bush; Clinton did not oppose it). Clinton did “end welfare as we know it,” but what he ended was cash payments to poor people. He greatly enlarged the number of social programs in the United States, and this in spite of having to work with a Republican-controlled House and Senate from 1995 to 2001. You may remember that Clinton’s State of the Union addresses were laundry lists of social programs he wanted passed – programs that helped many millions of people. I’m especially fond of Americorps. On balance, I’m convinced that Clinton was a liberal, not one of your “centrists.”
His noble-but-doomed attempt at creating national health care might still have worked, had liberals not opposed it for being neither universal nor even guaranteed. And the assault weapons bill is easily balanced-out by his ultraconservative crime bills, which contributed to the fact that we currently jail more of our citizens than Stalin did. He strenuously opposed campaign finance reform, both by word (voicing the fact that he wouldn't sign McCain-Feingold) and by deed (shoveling millions of dollars into illegal and shady donations into his campaign kitty). Name three social programs (other than Americorps) that Clinton created. Then explain how they made up for for the loss of cash payments.
Clinton was a pragramtist. You can't have Canadian or English-style health care in the U.S. He tried his best to make it work in the USA. I see we're just going to keep disagreeing. I don't care to debate with you anymore, as I believe you're too stubborn and unwilling to hear differnent opinions. And your completely erroneous judgement of Huey Long leads me to question your reasoning ability. So long, Greenie-weeny!
You actually can have a Canadian-style system here in the United States, since upwards of 80% of the American peaople support it. The reason that Clinton couldn't do it was the millions of dollars in soft-money contributions he took from insurance companies that would be hurt financially if the government started to compete with them. His "valiant attempt" at creating a national health care system was, in reality, a system for fattening the pockets of HMOs while insuring less than one-fifth of the people in this country who are uninsured. And you know something else? It is actually possible that some people in this country could still be liberal without being green. Do you think you could possibly wrap your condescending little mind around that?
The tally: If Clinton isn’t on this list, we should also remove, at least, Kerry and Wilson. Huey Long is off the list, no questions asked. The others are open to debate, but again I remind you, I would put all these people on the list except Huey Long. And I would definitely include Clinton.
I question taking Long and Wilson off the list. I also say that Kerrey was far more liberal than Clinton, especially in the areas of environmentalism, health care, gay rights, and welfare.

I think Wilson should not be on the list. Alot of that stuff was probably done due to public pressure. Wilson was very harsh on dissent, and he jailed many left-wing critics. --Revolución (talk) 01:49, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Wilson did those things because he really believed in them. The bosses who sponsored him to be Governor of New Jersey expected him to be just another stooge for them and their big business buddies. Boy, did they get the shock of their lives when, upon taking office, he sponsored the people's preferred candidate for the U.S. senate over the bosses' candidate, then proceeded to institute a statewide minimum wage, strong antitrust laws, and a system of unemployment insurance, all of which formed the basis of his platform at the Democratic National Convention and gained him Bryan's support. Say what you will about his racial views and treatment of wartime dissenters (and I have said a lot, sometimes very loudly), he was a liberal who advanced the cause of economic justice farther than any of his predecessors.
Advanced the cause of economic justice? Then why did he arrest Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs, who was a man who really wanted economic justice? --Revolución (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
That's a non sequiter. The fact is that he did all of the things I named above to advance the cause of economic justice AND he jailed Debs. Just because he did one does not mean that he was incapable of doing the other. And you know, I think if we did a head-to-head comparison of what each man actually accomplished in that arena, Wilson would come out ahead.

Huey Long a Liberal?

You're lack of understanding of American history is really showing here. I'm very surprised this racist is on the list. If Huey Long is a liberal, so is Moussolini, who also built roads and bridges. Long was the worst race baiter in American politics. That immediately disqualifies him as a liberal. You can make him one of your “centrists” if you want, but before you do that, please, please, please read up on his history. He was a little Bayou fascist, not a liberal or a "centrist."
I just got finished reading T. Harry Williams' nine-hundred-page-long, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Long. He didn't do anything for blacks (that would have been political suicide) but he didn't do anything against them. Certainly, he did not engage in "race-baiting." His specialty was class warfare, which a fascist like Mussolini would definitely have frowned upon. By the way, J. William Fulbright voted against every piece of civil rights legislation he came upon. Shall we take one of the four most famous Vietnam opponents off the list, too?
You have got to be kidding me. Did you know that Upton Sinclair, who you mentioned above, modeled the main character of his "It Couldn't Happen Here" on Huey Long? I haven't read the book you mentioned, but it couldn't have been very good if it didn't go into Long's race baiting. I beg you to please consider removing this guy from your list. On Long's death, the NY Times wrote about him: "What he did and what he promised to do are full of political instruction and also of warning. In his own State of Louisiana he showed how it is possible to destroy self-government while maintaining its ostensible and legal form. He made himself an unquestioned dictator…. In reality, Senator Long set up a Fascist government in Louisiana. It was disguised, but only thinly. There was no outward appearance of a revolution, no march of Black Shirts upon Baton Rouge, but the effectual result was to lodge all the power of the State in the hands of one man. If Fascism ever comes in the United States it will come in something like that way."
You cannot comment on Huey Long if you haven't read T. Harry Williams' book. It won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and the National Book Award. It's over 880 pages long and it has over fifty pages worth of notes. And that's the paperback. It is widely recognized as THE book on Huey Long. As to his alleged Fascist tendencies, the same could be said about every Democratic Party in the South. Or didn't you wonder about how Ralph Yarborough got elected to statewide office in Texas? And you still haven't answered my question: If we remove Huey Long for his alleged racism, what possible excuse could you come up with for keeping J. William Fulbright?
  1. Upton Sinclair's book is called It Can't Happen Here.
  2. Long was certainly on the left, but I would not call him a liberal. And the issue isn't racism, it's that he had no respect for constitutionalism.
  3. Could people please sign their comments? It's almost impossible to sort out who is saying what. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:56, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to sign my comments, but as I never received that tutorial, I don't. As for Long, I still say that the description fits most every Southern Democratic politician going back from the mid-1960s to the dawn of time. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, got himself elected to the Senate by paying illegal immigrants $10 a pop to vote for him and by making a few inconvenient ballot boxes disappear. Of course, his opponent in the primary pulled the same tricks, so Johnson won by only 87 votes out of a million cast. Hence his nickname: "Landslide Lyndon."

I have serious reservations about putting Huey Long on a list of liberals. I think the concensus is he doesn't belong here. He can be considered a populist, but a liberal, never.

I think we might want to wait more than a day before saying there's consensus about anything. And if the things he did and proposed weren't liberal, what were they?

List vs. prose

All of the foregoing argues that lists are not as useful as prose. I would suggest that we really need a lot more about the history and evolution of American liberalism, and about how various people mentioned are to varying degrees in the mainstream of American liberalism vs. hanging on to the edges. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:37, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Amen to that. I think these lists are kind of useless, sort of like arguing about baseball players. And unless some kind of criteria is established for who goes on and off the lists, petty bickering results. With Jmabel, I suggest removing the lists and focusing on the history and evolution of liberalism in the USA. --Griot
Naturally, I disagree with just removing the list that I spent three solid hours making. Fill in more details in the section above it if you like, but the list stays.
There are now 125 names on this list! How about an introductory sentence to the list, something beyond "Notable proponents of American Liberalism." I'd like to know what all these people have in common and what qualified them for the list. You have turned this section of wikipedia into your own "Greatest Hits of Liberalism." What concerns me is that some of these people -- Huffington (!), Kucunich -- have had very little impact on liberal thought. They've just been in the media these past years. They're just political celebrities. And there are no academic thinkers on the list except for Galbraith. Harriet Martineau, James Wechsler, Arthur Schlesinger -- shouldn't they be here? (BTW, see "Long New List" above. Some of the discussion there is germane down here as well.) -- Griot
A fair enough point. I just added a more lengthy introductory sentence. What do you think? 12.217.121.245 03:50, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I had at one point added a note that several of these people were associated with "progressivism" or "populism" before what is now known as American Liberalism fully emerged; it was promptly removed. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:00, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
The more this goes on, the less I find this long, uncommented list likely to be useful to anyone. What use is it to say, without qualification, that Henry Jackson and Allard K. Lowenstein were both liberals, other than to indicate that at that time a very broad swath of American politics was, in some sense, liberal? How is it informative to mention, without comment, people who were liberal during some phase of their career, but not in others? What is the purpose of this list supposed to be, and can we characterize it in a way that indicates why anyone should care about it? How is it verifiable? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:03, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea of Jackson being a liberal. He was a McCarthyite all the way down the line and his record on economic issues wasn't too hot, either. His Americans for Democratic Action score was 62, which would make him the second-lowest-rated senator on the list. The only guy with a lower score was Fulbright, who manages to slide in by the skin of his teeth on the strength of his opposition to HUAC and the Vietnam War, and his support of the New Deal, which would have been before ADA was founded.12.217.121.245 01:27, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Not to mention Fulbright scholarships, a liberal program if ever there was one. But he was plain lousy on race. As for Jackson: I sure don't consider him particularly a liberal (though it depends on compared to what, I guess). I live in Washington State, and certainly Warren G. Magnuson (same era, same state, served longer) was far more of a liberal. In the 1960s, when the state Democratic party split into two factions, the more conservative one was tied to Jackson; Magnuson straddled the divide. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:23, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Unsigned personal attacks

Unsigned personal attacks ("So long, Greenie-weeny!", "Do you think you could possibly wrap your condescending little mind around that?") seem to have become par for the course on this talk page. It certainly doesn't impress me with why I should listen to you. Also, while unsigned comments are merely a lack of courtesy, personal attacks are against Wikipedia policy and can ultimately lead to bans. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:09, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Abraham Lincoln

Do you think he was a liberal for his time? --Revolución (talk) 23:53, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Lincoln, the corporate railroad lawyer who was the first Republican president, a liberal? Maybe in the classical sense, but certainly not in the modern sense of the word. Come on guys. -- Roy Brumback

See below. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 21:25, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Well we tried before...

Now hear me out before you anonymous editors scream and yell... ready? Okay, this list is just getting retarded (pardon my un-P.C.ness). Lincoln's now a liberal, but Clinton isn't? Lincoln doesn't even fit in the definition as defined in the intro of the article. Why half these people are on this list doesn't make any sense. What if we were to actually make this a list of notable liberal leaders, and not just a list of every liberal. I'd say shoot for around 12-14 names of people who define American Liberalism. We can propose and work on the list here before we actually move it to the article. The anon that wants Bill Clinton out of the article might be able to come up with a good list of 10 or so representatives of American Liberalism; they seem to be fairly well informed. What do you think? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 21:23, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Note: Currently there are 150 names on that list!!! Faaaaaaar too many. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 21:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
The Anon is most adament about NOT putting Bill Clinton on the list. I tried to persuade, but he wouldn't budge. See debate above. If someone were to whiddle this list to 10 names, he or she would have to come up with criteria for putting names on the list. That is also discussed above. I agree about Lincoln. If you went back and explained modern American liberalism to him, he would pee his pants.-- Griot
It may not even be possible to get it down as low as 15. However, I will say that most of the people who have gone up in the last 24 hours should probably be removed, with the exception of Thomas Paine. It might be helpful to break the list down into eras and then see if we can weed each individual era down to the top people. 12.217.121.245 22:15, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it would be impossible. I'll start. The list would definitely have FDR on it. There's one. Now we just put 10 other people and we're good. Please, let's whittle this list down. Okay, below will be the working list. I am going to assume FDR will be on it, so I put him on there. The numbers don't mean anything. There's room for 15 people. Add until it's filled, then we can start to change the list. Hopefully this works. And no, Bill Clinton does not have a spot. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 13:57, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
FDR is already on the "American Liberal thinkers" list. Can he be on both lists? I think before you start whiddling the list down to 10 or 15, you have to come up with a criteria; otherwise you just bandy names around. How about this for an initial criterion: To be on the list, you must have had a wide influence on liberalism, and your influence must have lasted at least 15 years. This criterion will remove fly by nights and one hit wonders from the list. Under this criterion, FDR is definitely on the list, as his influence is felt to this day. -- Griot
That sounds good. I don't have problem with FDR being on both lists... perhaps we combine the two lists into people who a great impact on American liberalism and its philosophy. Dunno. By the way, you can sign your name by typing 4 tildes ~~~~. Or sign your name "Griot" and type 5 tildes for just the date. Helps to keep order. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:25, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I really don't think this is doable. There is really no way that you can take a 150-name list and cut it down to ten and still keep everyone happy. Not mention the fact that if we just have a ten-name list, some future person with a spare hour or two to kill is going to come by, deem the list inadequate, and add a few dozen more names. That's why I think what we have to do, in the interests of a thorough (yet shorter than 150 names) cataloguing of American liberal leaders, is break the list into sections, weed the people into each section down to the essentials, and then explain what they have to do with liberalism. --12.217.121.245 21:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

What about Laurence Tribe? He's been hugely influential. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:38, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, come on! Anybody who gets a blow job in the Oval Office has to be some kind of liberal! ;) Rick Norwood 23:24, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Working List

(Do not discuss in this section, use above)

  1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  2. Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

Era #1: Revolutionary War-Civil War

This section of the list should be prefaced by an explanation that, at the time, liberalism was catagorized generally as radicalism and that most abolitionists were also involved in a variety of other "radical" causes. So, who should stay and who should go. --12.217.121.245 21:14, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Well do any of these people really fall into the category of "American liberalism" as defined by the article? These people weren't even around when "American liberalism" came into being. They may be part of the Contributions to liberal theory, but maybe not "American liberalism". Thoughts? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 22:07, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I do know that Paine's tracts contained proposals for a guaranteed minimum income, a progressive income tax, social security, and universal public education, so I think he definitely meets the standards set by the article. Horace Greeley, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Thaddeus Stevens all seem to have been involved in projects that, while fairly commonplace in our day and age, were considered radically liberal back in theirs. I don't remember who said it, but it was some liberal who once remarked that conservative heroes are all dead radicals. --12.217.121.245 22:15, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm... well, I don't know then. I know what these people did, but the article starts by saying that American liberalism generally started in the early 20th century. And I'm fully aware that "conservative heroes are all dead radicals", because at one point, everything was radical. Do you think that the working list above should include a Kennedy? If so, which one? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 13:52, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
All three of them. And if the article says that, then the article is wrong. Thomas Paine lived and died in the 18th century and he wrote at length about the necessity of things that liberals still fight for today. --12.217.121.245 22:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
YOu guys will go back and forth on these questions forever unless you establish criteria for deciding who goes on the list. Before suggesting names, how about deciding on criteria. Above, I suggested to be on the list, you must have had a wide influence on liberalism, and your influence must have lasted at least 15 years. Any other ideas for criteria? ~~Griot
The problem with that is threefold. Firstly, you have no way of quantifying how much of an impact one individual person had on a centuries-long movement, particularly since politics is mostly for show and actual governing takes place mostly behind closed door. Secondly, even if someone could quantify it, the definition would vary from person to person. And thirdly, your terms would pretty much exclude anyone who has become famous or influential or was elected since 1990, including Paul Wellstone, Russ Feingold, Jim Hightower, and Howard Dean. Are you really prepared to argue that none of them qualify as the liberal leaders of our time? --12.217.121.245 02:15, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I could argue against some of those guys. Hightower, for example, has never held an important office in gov't, and his influence has been small. But getting back to my point: What are the criteria? Obviously, you and everyone else who puts names on the list has a set of criteria. All I'm saying is -- put it in the open so everyone has some basis for judging. Otherwise, it's just back and forth, tit for tat. I think Voldemort has a good point when he says that the definition of liberal should square with the definition in the wikipedia article. You could start from there. ~~Griot
I find it ironic that the guy who added William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, Gouverneur Morris, Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Peabody, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Thaddeus Stevens, and Charles Sumner to the article is now lecturing me about not putting up anybody from before the 20th century. And I said it before and I will say it again: If the article says that liberalism is a modern phenomenon, then the article is wrong. Thomas Paine, Horace Greeley, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton clearly fit the definition of liberal as presented in the list of liberal positions. (And by the way, Hightower doesn't have to have served in high office to have influence. Jesse Jackson has never been elected dog-catcher, and I would describe him as influential. I am willing to gamble that Hightower has more influence now than most Democratic congressmen.) --12.217.121.245 07:38, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
Hold your horses. I'm not lecturing you about anything. I'm trying to establish criteria, and your last post shows very plainly why this is necessary. Suppose we were to make "influence" a criterion, as I have suggested. Then, to put Hightower on the list, you would have to demonstrate how precisely Hightower has been influential, rather than making a blanket statement of some kind ("..has more influence than most Democratic Congressmen"). I propose two criteria to start: The person must have been influential, and the liberalism he espoused must jibe with the Wikipedia article definition of liberalism. How about it? (If you object to the Wikipedia definition, then see about changing it, although I must warn you, the definition in this article is the standard defintion). ~~Griot

Shouldn't this then deserve a section in the main article as well, under "Pre-20th century liberalism"? --Revolución (talk) 01:58, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

12-217, if I may call you that for short, you are not going to convince anyone by shouting.
Clinton tried to restrict handgun sales, strengthen environmental regulations, protect the jobs of workers during pregnancy or medical emergency, and pass a national health care bill. That makes him a liberal by modern standards, though a moderate liberal, certainly not a classical liberal. I would describe him as a pragmatist, willing to listen to ideas from both sides. But your determination to keep him off the list of liberals goes far beyond the moderate stance wiki expects and requires. Rick Norwood 13:49, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
To return to the subject at hand, American Revolution to Civil War, certainly Benjamin Franklin belongs on the list. His fights against the Penn family, who refused to pay taxes, and on behalf of the Indians, when the governer of Pennsylvania put a bounty on their scalps, plus his religious tolerance and stand in favor of freedom of the press all make him a major liberal influence.
Also, Thomas Jefferson obviously belongs on the list. Rick Norwood 13:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Can you give more details? --Revolución (talk) 16:48, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
On Tom Jefferson? Well, he wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, amoung these the right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness." Almost a direct quote of Locke, except substituting "persuit of happiness" for "property". He said something to the effect that we were better off with a free press and no government than with a government and no free press. He wrote on religious liberty, and freedom of concience. He tried to establish peaceful and friendly relations with the American Indian, and brought many Native American leaders to Washington. I could go on, but I'll stop there, since I'm not sure that the question I'm answering is the one you are asking. Rick Norwood 20:25, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The Solution: Just Drop The List.

You want the best solution to the who's-a-liberal-and-who's-not list? Just don't include one. A lot of other articles on political ideologies -- Conservatism, for instance -- get along fine without one. This doesn't mean there shouldn't be any names named in the article; someone reading through the whole thing will still learn that Franklin Roosevelt instituted the New Deal, that Lyndon Johnson started the Great Society programs, and so on, because these are concrete and factual historical accomplishments associated with liberalism. But a section called "Notable American Liberals" well get bloated and be subject to endless dispute, as we're seeing here.

So, I say get rid of the list altogether, like Conservatism does. Anyone with me? Andrew Levine 02:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. This list is meaningless unless you want to define exactly what a liberal is, and no one has the energy to do that. You will have trouble deleting the list, however, because it is sacred territory to some of the people who contributed. --Griot

  • Well there are obviously three solutions to this then:
  1. we keep the list
  2. we create a separate page called List of notable American liberals
  3. we remove it

--Revolución (talk) 17:22, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I am happy to go along with the majority vote. It's a tempest in a teacup. Rick Norwood 21:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

    • I agree with Gherald, that we should implement Revolución's second suggestion. That would allow us to drop the ugly neutrality template from the top of the page (since, as far as I can tell, the list is the only point of contention here). If it's needed on the list page, I'd be more comfortable with it there than on the main article. Andrew Levine 22:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I have created the separate page. Now we can try to work on the actual article instead of arguing about who meets the criteria for the list. --Revolución (talk) 21:19, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Bravo! The list is pointless. Now it will stand alone and be pointless in a far corner of the wikipedia where no one has to look at it.

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