Paul Woods: CFL 1994-Week 1: Baltimore Stallions @ Toronto Argonauts: First Baltimore Game in the CFL

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

The first Canadian Football League game ever for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, which was starving for major league pro football again to the point they would take a CFL franchise to show they can and will support good pro football. This is not a shot at the CFL, of which I’m actually a fan and watch their games in America, but Baltimore is one of the greatest pro football cities in North America, with a long proud rich tradition.

Baltimore is the only city to win the NFL Championship, including three Super Bowls, the United States Football Championship in 1985 with the Stars, and the Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup in 1995 which you could make the case was the North American gridiron pro football championship in 1994 and 1995. The Baltimore Stallions played both games against the Vancouver Lions in 1994 and the Calgary Stampeders in 1995.

1994-95 was the final chapter in the Baltimore journey to be an NFL city, again by not only getting the Stallions as an CFL expansion franchise, but supporting them very well, and I believe they even led the CFL in attendance. Keep in mind an American franchise leading the Canadian Football League in attendance, but they wanted the NFL back in Baltimore so much that they would support another style of gridiron football from another country.

Thanks to the CFL and football fans of Baltimore and the State of Maryland in general and perhaps the Delmarva area and Southern Pennsylvania, Baltimore proved that they were an NFL-caliber market again after losing the Colts in 1984 and losing out on NFL expansion in 1993, that the NFL was losing money by not having a franchise in this great football city and market, and that the State of Maryland deserved its own NFL franchise again as well.  Now it has two:  the Ravens and the Redskins, who play about 40 miles apart from each other.

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Reason: J.D. Tuccille: The Right to Take Even Really Stupid Risks

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

I have often said that the real difference between liberals and conservatives is not necessarily philosophy. We both tend to want the same things and both believe in limited government. I am not saying there are no real differences in philosophy, because of course there are, but that the real differences have to do with the role of government: How big we want the state to be and what we want it to do, instead of being concerned that there is too much freedom here or there. It is really about government’s role in regulating activities instead of forbidding them or whether it is acceptable for government to get out of the way completely. Of course there are exceptions to this, but the 2012 presidential election pretty much made my point.

I am about to give you a perfect example of this (self-high-five): what should be allowed and what should not be allowed in a free society, whatever your definition of that is, because both liberals and conservatives complain about the nanny state and want to see much less government regulation in their own lives. Now of course there are people further to the left and right of liberals and conservatives, respectively, who are in love with the nanny state, but liberals like to talk about freedom. Conservatives like to talk about responsibility and we both believe in a certain degree of both but tend to preach the other thing.

As a liberal I believe in both and I am sure that sounds weak,  but, seriously, what good is one without the other. Imagine a free society where we are as free as we want to be but do not have to pay for any of our decisions and freedoms. You drive a car without a seatbelt and crash it and are now looking at medical bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Assuming you survived, perhaps you were saved by an airbag. But remember, this would be a society free of responsibility so the state, meaning the taxpayers, are going to pick up your tab like an alcoholic at a bar giving away free booze all night but only to alcoholics.

This type of freedom would become very unaffordable in a hot minute with all sorts of people making assholes of themselves doing the dumbest of activities and not having to pay for hurting themselves. We simply could not afford that type of freedom unless we lived off Monopoly money and could pay for everything.  I am cool with allowing free adults to live their own lives again as long as they are not hurting any innocent people, but that is not good enough.  They must pay for the consequences of their bad decisions as well as reap the rewards of their good decisions.

Now try to imagine responsibility without any freedom. Now try to imagine a CEO, whether the CEO of a company or just his own life. What good would that role and the responsibility for all the decisions that are made on behalf of that company or individual if that person lacks the power to affect the company’s affairs or his own life, or others are calling all the shots for that company or individual, with the CEO relegated to the role of puppet and responsible for whatever happens to the company or himself for good or bad. That CEO would have a title without a job.

There are plenty of things I would not do because I either do not want to do them because they do not interest me or I consider them too dangerous and risky.  I could give you some examples.  I do not smoke tobacco or use any other drug legal or otherwise. I do not drink alcohol. I do not gamble and if what you read earlier has not put you to sleep, perhaps hearing about things I don’t do will. But my broader point is that my choosing not to engage in certain activities because I believe they are dangerous doesn’t mean I believe they should be illegal,  because I don’t.

If certain activities are dangerous, they should not necessarily be illegal, again with reference to a free society. It is about the amount of freedom that allows people to live their own lives and benefits society as a whole so we can all be productive and not require government to babysit us and make most of our personal and economic decisions. And that freedom ends for me when it comes to hurting innocent people and not taking responsibility for my own mistakes.

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The Atlantic: Opinion: Peter Beinart: Liberal is Good: Why More Americans are Liberal Now

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Ederik Schneider
No Apology Necessary

No Apology Necessary

The Atlantic: Opinion: Peter Beinart: Liberal is Good: Why More Americans are Liberal Now

Ederik Schneider on Google+

Liberalism is the perfect example of why education is so important in America, because the more Americans have learned about liberalism, especially the non-political junky American, the more they’ve learned that they at least respect the liberal philosophy if not embrace it altogether and view themselves as liberals because they know they have Liberal outlooks, whether it is on issues like Equal Justice and Opportunity for All, quality education for everyone, job training for adults so they can move on to good jobs, marijuana legalization, equal rights for gays, and so on.

The best way to view where Americans are ideologically is their position on the issues instead of on how they self-describe themselves. If you look at their positions on a large variety of issues, they clearly indicate that America has become more liberal if not a liberal country altogether. This doesn’t mean Americans are suddenly in love with the welfare state and begging government to increase taxes. But that has never been what liberalism has been about anyway. Instead it is about individual rights. Liberty, Equal Justice, and Opportunity For All.

When you have conservatives or libertarians like Andrew Sullivan, of all people, saying that “liberal”is no longer a dirty word or a bad thing, you know America is moving in that direction. Liberals and progressives acknowledged in the 1970s and 1980s that America was becoming more conservative, which is how Ronald Reagan became President of the United States. That forced the Democratic Party to move away from the far left and become more of a center-left party. Republicans will have to correctly adjust as well if they want to acquire power in the future.

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Washington Examiner: Timothy Carney: Are Libertarians Ultra-Conservative or Free Market Liberals?

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Rik Schneider
Libertarians are ultra-conservatives because they see big government as a threat to freedom and civilized society, period, and are opposed completely to big government involved in our economic or personal affairs.  Libertarians are much more conservative than the religious right or the neo-right, which sees Americans as having too much personal freedom, and that all of this personal freedom has somehow weakened our national morality. So they are more in favor of government, even big government, when it comes to both our personal and economic affairs.The neo-liberals that progressives and socialists like to call what I call a New Democrat, hence the name of this blog, are the New Democrats, the real liberal Democrats who go all the way back to. Wendell Willkie in the 1930s and 1940s, when he was politically active.  They are what is called the new left in America that emerged when the Baby Boomers came of age in the 1960s and early 1970s, people who are completely anti-war, anti-military even, who believe capitalism is out of control in America.

The new left, at the very least, want capitalism scaled back or even to see some industries nationalized or completely taken over by the U.S. Government. They are not the real liberals but are those people who favor big government involved in our lives from both an economic and personal standpoint when it comes to activities they see as dangerous. And yet they are called liberal or modern liberal when they are not very liberal on a host of other issues.

The real liberals are not what were called “Modern Liberals,” who apparently emerged with Franklin Roosevelt, a president who was not a fan of civil rights, equal rights for all Americans, and  who locked up ethnic Japanese, Italian, and German-Americans during World War II because he believed they were loyal to the countries of their ancestors and not the United States. But the real liberals are the New Democrats, people who are not quite libertarian and anti-government, but who believe the job of government is to protect every American’s personal and economic freedom.

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The Federalist: Donald J. Boudreaux: In Defense of Liberal Learning

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Rik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

Liberalism is at its best regardless of its source and education is a perfect example. It’s about giving people the tools they need to be successful in their own lives. Education is a liberal concept because it is about empowering people and liberating them so they have what they need to live in freedom. That is exactly what a liberal education is, not teaching people what to think, but teaching them how to think and to be able to distinguish fact from opinion.

Forget about the welfare state and government dependency and other forms of big government that tend to be perceived as liberalism because that is not what liberalism is about. Without liberalism none of us would have the ability to achieve success in life because none of us would ever have the tools needed to be liberated and free from the welfare state and government dependence. Liberalism is about liberating people and that starts with education, a liberal education at that.

Liberalism built America and a lot of what we’ve achieved has come from liberal values that derive from education, leading to liberation of the individual and liberal values like equal opportunity and justice for all so that every American can have that freedom and benefit from liberal democracy. These are the real liberal values and what made America great. It all begins with education so we can develop the tools and then take advantage of them.

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Slate Magazine: Bob Garfield: Why I Love Big Government: A Valentine for Big Gov.

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

Bob Garfield in his column in Slate today was explaining what he loved about big government and laying out a lot of the things that government does and calling them big government. The problem is that not all government is big and all civilized developed countries have a certain level of government that collects taxes to fund the operations that the people need government to do. Having a government does not necessarily mean that the government is big.

“Big” government actually is government trying to do too much and trying to make decisions for those qualified to make them for themselves, whether these decisions are economic or personal. The safety net, the Postal Service, the military, law enforcement, homeland security are not big government, but trying to replace successful private industries with these agencies in the safety net or eliminating privacy with law enforcement, homeland security and defense would be big government because people would not have the freedom they need over their own lives.

There is small government that leaves almost everything up to the private sector. There is big government that basically tries to manage the economy even if it does not own the entire economy, but at the very least tries to manage the people in the economy for their own good. But there is also big government that tries to eliminate personal choice and privacy because it does not trust the people to make decisions about their own lives. And these would be the differences between big government and a limited government.

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New America Foundation: Justin King: Senator Ron Wyden Wants Children’s Savings Accounts

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

I somewhat covered this last week with a blog on retirement and unemployment accounts for people so they can save for retirement and not have to burn those accounts when they are unemployed, especially for long periods of time like as we have seen in the Great Recession. But Senator Ron Wyden, the incoming Chairman of the Finance Committee, taking over for Max Baucus as he leaves the Senate to become U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, would like to empower all Americans, especially lower end middle class workers and low-income workers to save for themselves but also to start what would essentially be trust accounts for their children. He has a good idea and I hope he will push it.

We could do this simply by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is the tax credit that goes to low-income workers to get them off of the Federal income tax rolls. We could expand the eligibility to individuals earning up to $30,000 a year and couples earning up to $40,000 a year and stop taxing savings completely up to, let’s say, 10 percent of one’s income so people could afford to save but also encourage employers to match what their workers put away for savings and also perhaps have a Federal match of the worker’s savings as well for workers who are earning up to $100,000 a year.

I suggest allowing Americans to open two types of savings accounts that would be separate from their retirement and unemployment accounts and allow for middle class and low-income workers to for both themselves and their children and put money away that would be matched by their employers and the Feds as well. That would be tax-free as long as it is not being spent for non-emergency reasons and this would allow all Americans to build up nest eggs and not wipe out their retirement savings or consume so much in public assistance during economic downturns.

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Slate Magazine: Tanner Colby: Affirmative Action: It’s Time For Leftists to Admit it Isn’t Working

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

As a liberal I believe in the notions of equal opportunity and justice for all. Without those two concepts liberalism simply doesn’t mean a hell of a lot and it would just be a class philosophy. Taking from the few to care for the many is what separates liberalism from socialism. Liberalism is about empowering everyone, at least everyone who needs freedom, not taking from one pot to take care of everyone else, but expanding the pot for everyone.

Affirmative action, or what is called affirmative action, which means affirmative action for African, Asian, and Latino Americans, as well as Caucasian women who have fallen behind Caucasian men in the economy and education system, goes against the rock-solid liberal values that make liberalism the great philosophy that it is. Instead of punishing people for doing well, give them payback for discriminating against others.

Affirmative action denies one group of Americans economic and educational opportunities because of their race, and because of the fact that so many members of their race, and in some cases race and gender, already have those opportunities, it is simply unconstitutional and if we didn’t have so many judges with socialist notions of equality at all cost, affirmative action would have been thrown out as unconstitutional 40 years ago.

As a liberal I also believe you can’t achieve equality without liberty. For people to be as successful and as free as possible in society under a Rule of Law system, they must be able to achieve their full potential if they choose to and that is just one more problem with affirmative action: That if you want to empower the people who’ve been left behind in society (and in some cases at least it does have to do with their race, ethnicity or gender) the simple way to do that is to empower them and give them the tools they need to be as successful in society as possible.

The way to achieve liberty and equality for all, equal opportunity, and justice for all is first to throw out affirmative action, or at least reforming it to the point that it only benefits people who come from poverty regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender, but my preference would be to throw it out and replace it with a system of strong civil rights enforcement, so you hit bigots in the economy and education. system in their wallets, so it would be in their economic disadvantage to deny people access because of race, ethnicity, or gender. You would have an education system for students where everyone regardless of income level can go to a good school in this country and that means having educational choice and a universal job training system for low-skilled adults.

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Top Model Baby Belle: Elton John: Candle In The Wind Tribute to Marilyn Monroe

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

The best tribute to Marilyn Monroe because it perfectly sums up Marilyn Monroe’s life is that she was a candle in the wind that blew out far too soon and left a huge hole that no one else could fill, or has filled since. She was the best looking woman who has ever come from Hollywood and also a good actress and a hell of singer. She was also very funny, and a lot of that humor was intentional, and even though she is stereotyped as a dumb blond bimbo, she had a quick wit and mind but many inner problems as well.

Marilyn Monroe was dead at 36 in 1962 from a drug overdose. It was a probable suicide but in a lot of ways summed up her life perfectly about a woman so perfect on the outside with so much talent but not much going on in the inside with regard to the ability to manage her talents and abilities. She was a woman who could attract the President of the United States and the U.S. Attorney General but was incapable of managing her own affairs.

She was a goddess on the outside but on the inside thought of herself as a loser without self-confidence and someone who apparently didn’t see much point in living and didn’t enjoy life. She had the talent and ability to work for anyone but a childlike inability to manage her life. She was lost outside her crib and could not manage life in the real world.

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Talking Points Memo: Andrea Mitchell Reports- RNC Chairman Reince Priebus: ‘Everything in in Play For 2016’

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports: RNC Chairman Reince Priebus: Everything is in Play For 2016 – YouTube.

Source:The New Democrat 

Hillary Clinton is the clear 2016 frontrunner for president not just to win the Democratic nomination for president but to be elected the next President of the United States. The fact that the Republican Party doesn’t have anyone who can beat her or could win the Republican nomination for President and win the general election against Hillary is why they are getting their shots in early.

Posted in The New Democrat, TPM Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment