Céad Míle Fáilte ~ A Hundred Thousand Welcomes!

Here we seek a rest in the shade, some cool water and a little kindness. This blog is dedicated to peace, truth, justice and a post- industrial, post-petroleum illumined world in spite of all odds against it. I very much like the line about the ancient knight (see poem below) "His helmet now shall make a hive for bees" It is reminiscent of "beating swords into ploughshares" a sentiment I heartily approve of. Thank you for visiting ~ I hope you return!

Waterfall Animation Pictures, Images and Photos

Monday, January 17, 2011

Rules Vs. Results

Our friend from financial services days-gone-by (and sometimes mentor) David L. Smith has a good post up over at his blog, Cassandra Chronicles, in which he spins off a Paul Krugman train of thought to pinpoint the difference between the liberal and conservative (American) views.

QUOTE Conservatives are wedded to the rules — an ideological Master Narrative propounding (at least in theory) unfettered capitalism; free markets; low taxes; minimum government; strong military; willingness to use military force, if perceived to be necessary; and representative democracy — and approve of whatever outcome the rules produce. In the conservative mind, the rules are morally justified, paramount and, therefore, unchangeable and unassailable. Accordingly, with simple, if flawed logic, conservatives claim the results their moral rules produce must necessarily be moral.......Liberals, on the other hand, focus on the results produced by the rules, and if the results are morally or practically objectionable, liberals believe in changing the rules to produce a more morally and practically desirable result (the political equivalent of ‘managing by results’). Therefore, liberals tend to be unmoved by conservative arguments based primarily on the morality of the rules.Unlike the conservatives, united by a common, unchanging creed, liberals tend to squabble a lot about just how the rules ought to be changed, simply because of the myriad combinations and permutations of possible results and developing socio-economic conditions their rule changes must address. UNQUOTE

It is as though the conservatives are the Old Testament and the liberals the New. Not a bad conceptualizing of the two.
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Happy Martin Luther King Day!
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