Conservative vs. Liberal viewpoints

Here's something I've noticed many times. Has anyone noticed the same thing or am I just seeing things.

When a conservative and liberal debate something, the conservative often points to the abstract effect something has on the entire population, while the liberal points to the effect that the policy might have on a specific person.

Here's an example:

In debating a minimum wage law, the conservative will say that having a minimum wage will encourage business owners to higher fewer numbers of entry level workers, therefore hurting a great number of people (i.e. it's better to have 100 people working at $5 per hour than 60 people at $7 per hour).

However, a liberal will look at the same issue and often say, what about the people that I KNOW that work for minimum wage. They need to be paid a higher wage to make ends meet. Liberals are often for a minimum wage because they can point to specific people that it will help, while they can never find someone that was not hired, but WOULD HAVE BEEN if not for the minimum wage law.

Minimum wage is just one example, but I've seen this type of thing very often. Anyone else?

[BCPVP]

Gun control. Look no further than this forum.

[ptmusic]

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Here's something I've noticed many times. Has anyone noticed the same thing or am I just seeing things.

When a conservative and liberal debate something, the conservative often points to the abstract effect something has on the entire population, while the liberal points to the effect that the policy might have on a specific person.

Here's an example:

In debating a minimum wage law, the conservative will say that having a minimum wage will encourage business owners to higher fewer numbers of entry level workers, therefore hurting a great number of people (i.e. it's better to have 100 people working at $5 per hour than 60 people at $7 per hour).

However, a liberal will look at the same issue and often say, what about the people that I KNOW that work for minimum wage. They need to be paid a higher wage to make ends meet. Liberals are often for a minimum wage because they can point to specific people that it will help, while they can never find someone that was not hired, but WOULD HAVE BEEN if not for the minimum wage law.

Minimum wage is just one example, but I've seen this type of thing very often. Anyone else?

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Nice attempt at neutrality.

-ptmusic

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Here's something I've noticed many times. Has anyone noticed the same thing or am I just seeing things.

When a conservative and liberal debate something, the conservative often points to the abstract effect something has on the entire population, while the liberal points to the effect that the policy might have on a specific person.

Here's an example:

In debating a minimum wage law, the conservative will say that having a minimum wage will encourage business owners to higher fewer numbers of entry level workers, therefore hurting a great number of people (i.e. it's better to have 100 people working at $5 per hour than 60 people at $7 per hour).

However, a liberal will look at the same issue and often say, what about the people that I KNOW that work for minimum wage. They need to be paid a higher wage to make ends meet. Liberals are often for a minimum wage because they can point to specific people that it will help, while they can never find someone that was not hired, but WOULD HAVE BEEN if not for the minimum wage law.

Minimum wage is just one example, but I've seen this type of thing very often. Anyone else?

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Nice attempt at neutrality.

-ptmusic

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Maybe he is right though, ptmusic. I commented about this same phenomenon before. I said that liberals like to help the "obvious sufferer."

Raising min wage appears to help the obvious low-wager earners. Raising tariffs on car imports helps the obvious struggling US car manufacture. Setting ceiling prices for rent in inner-city apartments is supposed to help the obvious poor tennents.

Most of these policies ignore the problems they cause. Raising the min wage increases unemployment. Increasing tariffs makes cars more expensive to every US consumer. Setting ceiling prices creates the slumiest living conditions. Conservatives generally look at these large scale problems caused by liberal economic policies. Unfortunately, the general public doesn't understand the economics so they favor raising min wage, tariffs, and rent control.

[TransientR]

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Here's something I've noticed many times. Has anyone noticed the same thing or am I just seeing things.

When a conservative and liberal debate something, the conservative often points to the abstract effect something has on the entire population, while the liberal points to the effect that the policy might have on a specific person.

Here's an example:

In debating a minimum wage law, the conservative will say that having a minimum wage will encourage business owners to higher fewer numbers of entry level workers, therefore hurting a great number of people (i.e. it's better to have 100 people working at $5 per hour than 60 people at $7 per hour).

However, a liberal will look at the same issue and often say, what about the people that I KNOW that work for minimum wage. They need to be paid a higher wage to make ends meet. Liberals are often for a minimum wage because they can point to specific people that it will help, while they can never find someone that was not hired, but WOULD HAVE BEEN if not for the minimum wage law.

Minimum wage is just one example, but I've seen this type of thing very often. Anyone else?

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Nice attempt at neutrality.

-ptmusic

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Maybe he is right though, ptmusic. I commented about this same phenomenon before. I said that liberals like to help the "obvious sufferer."

Raising min wage appears to help the obvious low-wager earners. Raising tariffs on car imports helps the obvious struggling US car manufacture. Setting ceiling prices for rent in inner-city apartments is supposed to help the obvious poor tennents.

Most of these policies ignore the problems they cause. Raising the min wage increases unemployment. Increasing tariffs makes cars more expensive to every US consumer. Setting ceiling prices creates the slumiest living conditions. Conservatives generally look at these large scale problems caused by liberal economic policies. Unfortunately, the general public doesn't understand the economics so they favor raising min wage, tariffs, and rent control.

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Yeah..

Liberals look at a war waged under false pretenses and see thousands killed and maimed and say..that was wrong.

Conservatives, taking the larger view, say.. 'Well, there were no WMDs, and yes there are worse bad guys than Saddam we don't have the power or the balls to fight, but we may be able to bring democracy to Iraq, not that we cared about that before our other excuses proved false, but we always look at the big picture."

And of course the big picture includes, for the many war mongering chickenhawk Republicans, having others do the bleeding for you. Because it is harder to see that big picture when your blinded by shrapnel.

Shitty, but smart.

Frank

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Most of these policies ignore the problems they cause. Raising the min wage increases unemployment. Increasing tariffs makes cars more expensive to every US consumer. Setting ceiling prices creates the slumiest living conditions. Conservatives generally look at these large scale problems caused by liberal economic policies. Unfortunately, the general public doesn't understand the economics so they favor raising min wage, tariffs, and rent control.

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I agree that the general public has their heads up their asses when it comes to anything having to do with economics. Otherwise they'd understand that under Reagan and Bush one unemployment went up, up, then up some more. Under Clinton (I'm definitely no Clinton fan, but hey, facts are facts) unemployment went down, down, then down a little bit more. Welcome Bush 2, unemployment started going up, up, up...You see, for the richest country in the nation, our situation is an absolute scandal. Infant mortality rates I'm pretty sure are the lowest of all industrialized nations. We pay more for healthcare (AND get less) than the majority (if not all) industrialized nations. But it's definitely the liberals fault, right? Maybe if we shaved EVEN ONE [censored] PERCENT of the defense budget or stopped the corporate welfare (which outnumbers welfare for the poor 2-1) we'd be a little better off. But hey, I'm a liberal and it's all our fault. So why listen to me?

What I'm saying, stephan, is that you just demonstrated a "I get all my news from Fox" mentality. Blaming everything on liberals is tantamount to saying "I'm blinded by ideology." I'm a liberal but I'll never go as far as to say, or naively believe, that economic problems are categorically caused by conservatives.

Oh yeah, Clinton also raised the minimum wage. Too bad (for conservatives, I guess, good for everyone that benefitted) unemployment *gasp* dropped, rather than increased. I not quite sure if that's a complete refutation of conservative economic thought, but if I believed something and saw a complete contradiction, I'd have to question some things.

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I agree that the general public has their heads up their asses when it comes to anything having to do with economics. Otherwise they'd understand that under Reagan and Bush one unemployment went up, up, then up some more. Under Clinton (I'm definitely no Clinton fan, but hey, facts are facts) unemployment went down, down, then down a little bit more. Welcome Bush 2, unemployment started going up, up, up...

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The problem with your argument is you list an effect, but you don't list the correct cause. This is known as false cause, http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/cause.html.

Reagan inherited several recessions from Carter, and under Reagan the economy experienced sustained economic growth through the '80s.

Bush's recession began March 21, 2001 and was excellerated by the attacks on 9/11, the tech bubble, and the corporate scandals, http://www.nber.org/cycles/november2001/.

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What I'm saying, stephan, is that you just demonstrated a "I get all my news from Fox" mentality. Blaming everything on liberals is tantamount to saying "I'm blinded by ideology." I'm a liberal but I'll never go as far as to say, or naively believe, that economic problems are categorically caused by conservatives.

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I don't watch Fox News, and I don't see why I must watch Fox News because I know how the economy works. I learned economics while taking Macroeconomics, and Microeconomics. I don't see how you could still be an economic liberal after taking these courses.

Btw, I never said that liberals are too blame for all the problems, I said that they usually look to fix problems (high rent prices, foreign competition, etc) by instituting policies that help a few people while hurting larger groups.

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Oh yeah, Clinton also raised the minimum wage. Too bad (for conservatives, I guess, good for everyone that benefitted) unemployment *gasp* dropped, rather than increased. I not quite sure if that's a complete refutation of conservative economic thought, but if I believed something and saw a complete contradiction, I'd have to question some things.

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Raising the minimum wage raised unemployment. Unemployment dropped because the economy was expanding rapidly under the tech boom, and the recession ended when Clinton took office. The economic growth offset the raise in minimum wage. Raising min wage only causes a small raise in unemployment unless the min wage raise is very large. Raising min wage was just an example of a policy that doesn't help the economy. I didn't infer that raising the min wage causes massive unemployment.

I suggest that you educate yourself and take a few economics courses, or at least read a book or too. You might want to pick up a philosophy book too, because you use false cause quite a bit.

[vulturesrow]

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Oh yeah, Clinton also raised the minimum wage. Too bad (for conservatives, I guess, good for everyone that benefitted) unemployment *gasp* dropped, rather than increased. I not quite sure if that's a complete refutation of conservative economic thought, but if I believed something and saw a complete contradiction, I'd have to question some things.

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Clinton raised min wage, unemployment went down, so the generally accepted theory that min wage hurts employment must be wrong. That is some rock solid reasoning right there. And you are lecturing people about not understanding economics.