Could I Pass an Ideological Turing Test?

Could I present liberal-left ideas in such a way that the reader could not tell that I was not a liberal?  Let me take a stab at this with respect to a few 'hot' topics.  This won't be easy.  I will have to present liberal-left ideas as plausible while avoiding all mention of their flaws.  And all this without sarcasm, parody, or irony.   What follows  is just shoot-from-the-hip, bloggity-blog stuff. Each of these subheadings could be expanded into a separate essay.  And of course there are many more subheadings that could be added.  But who has time?

Abortion.  We liberals believe that a women's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy is a very important right that must be upheld.  We are not pro abortion but pro choice, believing that decisions concerning a woman's reproductive health are ultimately her decisions, in consultation with physicians and family members and clergy, but are not the business of lawmakers and politicians.  Every woman has a right to do what she wants with her body and its contents.  While we respect those who oppose abortion on religious grounds, these grounds are of a merely private nature and cannot be made the basis of public policy.  Religious people do not have the right to impose their views on the rest of us using the coercive power of the state.

Voting Rights.  We liberals can take pride in the role our predecessors played in the struggle for universal suffrage.  Let us not forget that until the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution on 18 August 1920, women were not allowed to vote.  We liberals seek to preserve and deepen the progress that has been made.  For this reason we oppose  voter identification laws that have the effect of disenfranchising American citizens by disproportionately burdening  young voters, people of color, the elderly , low-income families, and people with disabilities.

Gun Control.  We live in a society awash in gun violence.  While we respect the Second Amendment and  the rights of hunters and sport shooters, we also believe in reasonable regulations  such as a ban on all assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Marriage. We liberals believe in equality and oppose discrimination in all its forms, whether on the basis of race, national origin, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.  For this reason we support marriage equality and same-sex marriage.  Opposition to same-sex marriage is discriminatory.  As we become more enlightened and shed ancient superstitions, we extend the realm of freedom and equality to include more and more of the hitherto persecuted and marginalized.  The recognition of same-sex marriage is but one more step toward a truly inclusive and egalitarian society.

Taxation and Wealth Redistribution.  We liberals want justice for all.  Now justice is fairness, and fairness requires equality.  We therefore maintain that a legitimate function of government is wealth redistribution to reduce economic inequality. 

Size and Scope of Government.  As liberals we believe in robust and energetic government.  Government has a major role to play in the promotion of the common good.  It is not the people's adversary, but their benefactor.  The government is not a power opposed to us; the government is us.  It should provide for the welfare of all of us.  Its legitimate functions cannot be restricted to the protection of life, liberty, and property (Locke) or to the securing of the negative rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Jefferson).  Nor can it be restricted to the securing of these and a few others: people have positive rights and it is a legitimate function of government to ensure that people received the goods and services to which they have a positive right.

Health and Human Services.  A decent society takes care of its members and provides for their welfare.  The provision of welfare cannot be left to such institutions of civil society as private charities.  It is a legitimate state function.  People have positive rights to food, water, shelter, clothing, and health services.  These rights generate in those capable of satisfying them the duty to provide the things in question.  It is therefore a legitimate function of government to make sure that people get what they need. 

Capital Punishment.  We liberals are enlightened and progressive people.  Now as humankind has progressed morally, there has been a corresponding progress in penology.  The cruel and unusual punishments of the past have been outlawed.  The outlawing of capital punishment is but one more step in the direction of progress and humanity and indeed the final step in  implementing the Eight Amendment's proscription of "cruel and unusual punishments."  There is no moral justification for capital punishment when life in prison without the possibility of parole is available.

The Role of Religion.  As liberals, we are tolerant.  We respect the First Amendment right of religious people to a "free exercise" of their various religions.  But religious beliefs and practices and symbols and documents are private matters that ought to be kept out of the public square.  When a justice of the peace, for example, posts a copy of the Ten Commandments, the provenience of which is the Old Testament, in his chambers or in his court, he violates the separation of church and state.

Immigration.  We are a nation of immigrants.  As liberals we embrace immigration: it enriches us and contributes to diversity.  We therefore oppose the nativist and xenophobic immigration policies of conservatives while also condemning the hypocrisy of  those who oppose immigration when their own ancestors came here from elsewhere.

Related articles

Conservatives, Liberals, and Happiness

The Illiberalism of Contemporary 'Liberals'

Ten Reasons Not to Vote Democrat

Comments

[Mason Kinney]

You seem to have the basic arguments correct, from what I've seen, but I doubt whether you could effectively 'pass' as a liberal due to the way they are presented. In particular, liberals tend not to use phrases such as "the coercive power of the state," or worry too much about what constitutes a "legitimate function of government." Not that these things are unheard of from liberal writers, but the distinction between society and the state tends not to get made clearly. Instead of "The state may do X," leftists tend to speak along the lines of "We must do X," and take it as granted that state power is the natural way to go about doing X. Of course, it is difficult to give an honest assessment since your readers already know that you are 'doing a voice.' I would be interested to see this experiment repeated with your attempts juxtaposed with quotes from actual liberal sources on the same issues, so that we might attempt to guess which is which.

[BV]

Excellent comment. 'Coercive power of the state' and 'legitimate function of government' are not likely to be used by liberals. I unwittingly tipped my hand and flunked the test.

I am reminded of a discussion I once had with a liberal philosopher who would not admit that the state's power is coercive. I will have to re-read some Rousseau, but it might be that my interlocutor was thinking that when the individual will is in harmony with the general will then there is no coercion.

I would say that the state is coercive by its very nature and that it has to be if there is to be a state at all. For example, the Federal and state government do not suggest that I make a contribution to their coffers on April 15th; they demand that I do so or else.

[Harrison Searles]

As Mason Kinney has noted, you use a lot of right-wing ways of talking. Another problem that I see is that you fail to carve out the middle a lot of times. For instance:

"The provision of welfare cannot be left to such institutions of civil society as private charities."

No lefty would say that (in public, at least). Instead, they would point out how even though the institutions of civil society are important for the provision of welfare, they are not enough, and the state is needed to do what private charities cannot do.

Also, I don't think a lefty would use the term 'positive right.' Instead, they would largely dance around that issue, and just use the word 'right.' Using the adjective 'positive' tips the hand that you think there is a clear bifurcation between positive and negative rights, which rightys tend to talk about a lot more about. It's not enough on its own to fail the Turing test, but its definitely is damage to your ability to pass it.

[BV]

I think your second point is a good one. But I think you misunderstood the quoted sentence. It means that the provision of welfare cannot be the sole concern of private charities and such.

[Dennis M]

I like this exercise. It's a good one for us, and it also helps reachable lefties see that we "get it" before seeing our critiques.

Your summaries are pretty fair, but I think a couple of them could be made a bit more plausible. For instance, on the size and scope of gov't a liberal could agree that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental, but deny that they are purely negative rights. We don't let parents leave their infants outside to fend for themselves - not even parents who are fans of Ayn Rand. For that matter, we don't let them abandon younger children who theoretically could survive on their own. We (speaking in the liberal voice here) have a duty to help those who can't help themselves (and to a lesser extent, those who can do something but not really enough), and this collective duty we meet, as needed, through government services.

On capital punishment, I would at least add the argument that while you can free a wrongly convicted prisoner from jail, you can't do anything to help him once he has been executed.

On health and human services, I'm with Harrison Searles. Liberals I know would be fine with letting churches and communities take care of all the needs; it's just that they don't and maybe can't, so the gov't has a duty to step in. (The Roman Catholic principle of subsidiarity, but from the secular side of things.)

[Dennis M]

A p.s. to my previous comment: I wish more lefties would do this sort of thing. In public they seem constitutionally incapable of avoiding straw men when presenting conservative views. Some of that is obviously polemical, but it seems to hold even with fairly non-volatile issues in humdrum settings.

[BV]

Dennis,

I should think that if there is a right to life, then it is purely negative. Either I'm alive or I am not. If I am alive, then I can't be given life because I already have it. If I am not alive, then I am not available to be given anything.

If there is a right to pursue happiness, then surely that can only be a negative right. For what could it mean to be given the pursuit of happiness?

Perhaps you understand 'positive right,' 'negative right,' and 'right to life' differently.

That capital punishment argument is a very bad one, but it is one that libs use. If I employed all the bad arguments libs use, I might seem to be parodying or mocking their position.

[Dennis M]

Bill,

Re the right to life, I'm not sure what to call what I have in mind, but the example of an infant's right to the goods and care it needs to stay alive is what I'm after. Someone has to provide it with those things, so it isn't a negative right. Maybe it's not a right to life per se, but it's in the ballpark.

(I didn't express myself as well as I should have when I said that "a liberal could agree that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental, but deny that they are purely negative rights". The point I meant to make is that they can acknowledge that those are the fundamental rights, but that they - or at least the right to life - is not a purely negative one, at least if my reasoning in the preceding paragraph is onto something.)

I agree that the argument from wrongful execution isn't a good in-principle argument against capital punishment, but why can't it be a good or at least interesting in-the-real-world argument (and part of a cumulative case), at least depending on the numbers? It seems that it operates analogously to Pascal's Wager and to one pro-life response to the pro-choice claim that no one knows when life begins. (To wit: Supposing ex hypothesi that the pro-choice claim is true, abortion should still be avoided as it may be the killing of an innocent life, while the danger of letting the fetus live is not correspondingly grave.)