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 of this without sarcasm, parody, or irony.  Each of these subheadings could be expanded into a separate essay.  And of course there are many more subheadings that could be added.  

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.

Comments

[Whyaxye]

There is something "wrong" or disconcerting about this list; it is in "uncanny valley" due to it not being expressed with sufficient passion. The intellectual understanding is, of course, spot on. But where is the studied self-righteousness and the venom?

Nice try, but you fail. I suggest a more rigorous test would be to start and run a Liberal blog which gets a wide and enthusiastic contributing readership. Or, conversely, could we believe that a Liberal atheist had been writing the MavPhil blog all along?

Now take a shower!

[BV]

I agree with you. I flunk! It is too intelligent to be the product of the typical contemporary liberal.

Still, I think this sort of thing is a useful exercise. Although I don't think conversations with political opponents/enemies will get us very far, they may keep us from shooting at each other -- which no rational person wants.

[Colin Hutton]

"Nice try, but you fail" - give the man a break. He had to hold his nose while typing that.

[Dennis M]

I think part of why it has the "uncanny valley" feel is that it mixes popular and "professional" arguments without using the jargon of either. But the key question is whether it accurately presents their views and (some of) the underlying reasons for them, and it generally seems to.

Some questions/comments:

(1) Would they say they're trying to "deepen" the progress in the voting rights case, or just protect the gains that have been made? (We're playing it straight here and not making semi-jokes about voting rights for illegal aliens, cartoon characters, and the deceased.)

(2) With respect to gun rights, most">http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/425775/some-eye-poppling-poll-numbers-guns-and-self-defense-jim-geraghty">most Dems include self-defense among the legitimate reasons for gun ownership; it's not just hunting and sport shooting.

(3) In the marriage case, the bit about becoming "enlightened" and shedding "ancient superstitions" is certainly true for many liberals, but their "official" argument is that gay marriage is legitimated by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. One need not reject traditional religious belief as benighted superstition to be pro-gay marriage in a secular state.

[Nathan]

Hello Bill,

Unrelated to the ideological Turing Test, I would enjoy reading a similar document to the one above, on the same topics, but from your actual viewpoint (I'm assuming conservative). If this has already been done on your blog, would you be so kind as to forward me a link?

[BV]

Colin: Typing with one hand is not easy!

Nathan: Excellent suggestion.

[BV]

>>Would they say they're trying to "deepen" the progress in the voting rights case, or just protect the gains that have been made?<<

The former, clearly.

Ad (2). A Dem is not the same as a liberal, just as a Repub is not the same as a conservative.

Ad (3). Excellent point! Liberals' 'official argument' should have been mentioned. Wikipedia: "In 2015, the Supreme Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and required all states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions."

[BV]

Nathan,

Since I probably won't get around to doing what you request, you can find my views on the above questions by poking though my categories on the right sidebar, starting with Abortion: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/abortion/

[George]

Hello, Dr. Vallicella.

I think it's a good start. However, if I may be so bold, I think you're describing a left-liberalism that is fading away for something more radical. Left-liberalism is increasingly attaching itself to identity politics and Social Justice Warriors. Hence, your description might be out-of-date.

Everything is in degrees, to be sure. Still, in the more radical circles, left-liberalism is becoming truly illiberal when it comes to the free exchange of ideas and arguments. Postmodernism has gotten teeth at the colleges where intellectual diversity has been destroyed.

Ideas have consequences, as the famous book title says, so don't underestimate what's happening. The left owns the "intellectual means of production" (I'm borrowing that term from Ilana Mercer). They take kids at formative intellectual years where they are being ideologically shaped.

(I can give a story at my community college of a professor who "teaches" philosophy 101. Oh my goodness! But maybe I'll tell you another day.)

Liberalism can be defined by wanting to maximize inclusiveness and individual, subjective preference satisfactions. It additionally can be thought of in postmodern terms of seeing "oppression" and "power structures" all over civil society. It wants to "liberate" the person with the State.

***

By the way, I would argue, the so-called "alt-right" is rising as largely a reaction to SJW-liberalism. Both are based on identity politics. When the SJWs talk about how white men are "oppressors" who need to step down from positions based on their race for the identity of various minorities (or so-called minorities like women), they create the incentives for various whites to form their own identity politics.

If the SJWs push enough, they will help generate what they hate. They talk about "inclusiveness," but they really exclude. It's so bad that you have people at CNN judging a crime of black thugs attacking a white *in terms of* identity politics. Some lady sarcastically says, "Oh, poor white people!" Traditional ethics is taking a backseat to identity politics. And they seem totally unaware that this will create a reaction. Are ordinary, normal whites going to accept that inane attitude if it is pushed hard enough? For all the talk of "racism," who is helping to generate it?

Moreover, as liberalism thinks it is "liberating" people by its inclusiveness or its ridding the world of "stereotypes" and "prejudice," it really is just substituting in new forms. These new forms can be worse than what we have. So it should be no surprise that many liberals have become extremely intolerant.

There appears a shift away from any semblance of classical liberalism. That's why I think your description is a good start but doesn't appear to nail it down.

[BV]

Good comments, George. I was trying to present a defensible leftism.

[George]

That's a good point: SJW-liberalism is just indefensible on *all* levels! Ha, Ha.

However, I suppose, an earnest SJW-liberal could try to portray it as upholding moral decency against prejudices, stereotypes, racism, sexism, etc.

Yet it should be noted that this type of SJW-liberalism is expanding. I can cite numerous articles on this. With the election of Trump, rather than it dying down, I suspect it will expand particularly at colleges. It's very worrisome to me.

Although generalizations can be too rash, I would add that a big theme to your post matches Paul Gottfried's basic description of Left versus Right. Namely, that the Left stands for equality and the Right is more accepting of inequality. Indeed, consider John Rawls, G. A. Cohen, or Thomas Nagel. Egalitarianism motivates them all.

And, whatever one thinks of these guys, I at least find Rawls' ideas interesting and (somewhat) defensible. I can understand the worldview and it's not totally insane in its more moderate versions. For example, there have been scholars who have argued for libertarianism based on some of Rawls' premises and framework.

Then again, I see the more radical trends of Leftism. And since it's so distant from my worldview and many others, it makes me wonder about the stability of this nation. How can there be a debate that aims at compromise or agreement with such radical differences? But to be frank: I think the Left has already won the war (despite the recent elections). The culture war has been lost.

Anyway, sir, I did understand what you were doing. My apologies with my tangents---but I hope they are taken well and are useful.