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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The DNC According to Dave Barry

Har de har har. For those who like their beloved hot-air liberals liberally lampooned, a chuckle or two. I have to admit that I do find myself quelling stray thoughts that Hil and Bill will still kill Big O's nomination, through subterfuge, tricky-dicking or swarms of ninjas.

From The Miami Herald.

QUOTE Sen. Clinton is scheduled to address the convention Tuesday night, when she will either call on her supporters to unite behind Obama, or attempt to snatch the nomination and escape with it by helicopter to a secret mountain fortress. ''We are fully confident that Sen. Clinton will do the right thing,'' stated a Democratic party official, adding, ``but we have a net.''

The Obama-Clinton tension is only one of the dramatic storylines developing in Denver. Another one is Obama's choice of running mate. Following days of feverish media speculation over a list of names that at one point included the late Hubert Humphrey and a probably fictional congressperson named ''Chet Edwards,'' Obama, in a bold move, went with the one name guaranteed to send an electric shock of electricity through the spinal cord of American politics: Joe Biden.

This choice not only virtually locks up Delaware's electoral vote (which it shares with Wyoming) but it also buttresses the Obama team with one of the Senate's most vocal voices. Sen. Biden is scheduled to address the convention Wednesday night from 8:48 p.m. until dawn. UNQUOTE

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