Dennis Prager's Are You A Liberal Quiz?

[Sharp]

It is my belief that about half of the Americans who call themselves liberal do not hold the great majority of positions held by mainstream liberal institutions such as the New York Times editorial page, People for the American Way, and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Sharp tends to agree with Mr Prager's observations. The questions apply largely to moral issues or to political issues based upon morals.

You can view Dennis Prager website at http://www.dennisprager.com/
He's a very popular orthodox observant Jew who has online Bible studies as well as a three-hour show opposite Rush Limbaugh. My wife likes him. We've been to hear him live.

He has a regular feature on Happiness and on other cultural, religious, and social issues. Prager and Michael Medved are both part of the Salem Broadcasting Network along with William Bennet, Laura Ingraham, and Hugh Hewitt.

You say you are a liberal.

Do you believe the following?

1 Standards for admissions to universities, fire departments, etc. should be lowered for people of color.
2 Bilingual education for children of immigrants, rather than immersion in English, is good for them and for America.
3 Murderers should never be put to death.
4 During the Cold War, America should have adopted a nuclear arms freeze.
5 Colleges should not allow ROTC programs.
6 It was wrong to wage war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War.
7 Poor parents should not be allowed to have vouchers to send their children to private schools.
8 It is good that trial lawyers and teachers unions are the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.
9 Marriage should be redefined from male-female to any two people.
10 A married couple should not have more of a right to adopt a child than two men or two women.
11 The Boy Scouts should not be allowed to use parks or any other public places and should be prohibited from using churches and synagogues for their meetings.
12 The present high tax rates are good.
13 Speech codes on college campuses are good and American values.
14 The Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent.
15 The United Nations is a moral force for good in the world, and therefore America should be subservient to it and such international institutions as a world court.
16 It is good that colleges have dropped hundreds of men's sports teams in order to meet gender-based quotas.
17 No abortions can be labeled immoral.
18 Restaurants should be prohibited by law from allowing customers to choose between a smoking and a non-smoking section.
19 High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them.
20 Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong -- a white American grandmother should as likely be searched as a Saudi young male.
21 Racism and poverty -- not a lack of fathers and a crisis of values -- are the primary causes of violent crime in the inner city.
22 It is wrong and unconstitutional for students to be told, "God bless you" at their graduation.
23 No culture is morally superior to any other.

Those are all liberal positions. How many of them do you hold?

If you feel this list is unrepresentative of liberalism, perhaps you are not in fact a liberal. Liberalism is largely an emotional reaction rather than a logical or factual one. Good hearted people may react to cliches (Conservatives don't care for the poor. etc.) instead of to reality (Everybody seems to care about the poor. The real difference is how to help the poor.)

 

[seebs]

Sharp, I wish you could have met Rocinante. He was a poster here who said that anyone who didn't approve of systematic oppression of the poor -- not just apathy, but active oppression -- wasn't a real conservative. In a way, you and he were more alike than any other two posters on this board. A mirror may reverse things, but it doesn't really change them.

 

[seebs]

By the way...

When talking up this guy's credentials, I noticed a total failure to point out anything that would qualify him to comment on "what liberals are like". If the Rainbow Coalition released a guide to "identifying conservatives", I would be justly skeptical of it.

 

[Loki]

The army of straw men marching towards me is terrifying. *grabs pitchfork*

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

I don't see the relavence of many of those questions. Most aren't mentioned when those who identify as liberal discuss what it means to be liberal or why they consider themselves liberal. Also, many who consider themselves liberal would disagree with "liberal" positions.

Liberal Christians are not the same as those who are politically liberal. Liberal Christians come from all political persuasions.

 

[nadroj1985]

Who cares what labels we give it all, anyway? If Sharp wants to redefine liberal so that I'm not one anymore, it doesn't make our fundamental disagreements go away, does it?

 

[The Pinata]

Politically liberal?

Sharp, you ARE NOT A LIBERAL.

YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND LIBERAL VIEWPOINTS.

AND I'D ASK YOU TO STOP POSTING AND ATTACKING LIBERALS.

We should get him banned from this forum. He doesn't belong here.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Politically liberal?

Sharp, you ARE NOT A LIBERAL.

YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND LIBERAL VIEWPOINTS.

AND I'D ASK YOU TO STOP POSTING AND ATTACKING LIBERALS.

We should get him banned from this forum. He doesn't belong here.

There is that temptation, but I don't think that would be the charitable thing to do. We are called to love our enemies. We cannot talk about loving and being inclusive if we work to exclude those who attack us.

 

[seebs]

If he's banned, how will he learn anything?

 

[The Pinata]

But, let me take Sharp's quiz.

1 Standards for admissions to universities, fire departments, etc. should be lowered for people of color.

No. No American of any race or color should be given lowered standards of admission. In fact, despite the efforts of several minority groups, a true liberal viewpoint that isn't often brought up is that race should be completely abolished.

2 Bilingual education for children of immigrants, rather than immersion in English, is good for them and for America.

Once again, you display a show of ignorance. Liberals believe that children of immigrants should grow up in the culture chosen by their parents, as well as western culture. If we create a country that speaks only one language, we lose a lot in foreign relations. Children of immigrants recieve a natural gift in picking up these foreign languages, and to deny them a God-given gift would be baseless.

3 Murderers should never be put to death.

That actually is right. The Bible repeatedly tells us that we are not the judge, that God is the judge. In fact, I would reiterate that a lifetime of solitude, remorse, and monotony is far worse than death. Perhaps in his time of sitting in jail, this criminal might come to terms with God, and be given the second life. We are not the judges of life or death, and Jesus taught us that we who are not innocent from sin cannot morally cast the first stone.

4 During the Cold War, America should have adopted a nuclear arms freeze.

This is not a liberal standpoint, but in fact a pacifist standpoint. Everybody agrees that nuclear arms reduction treaties were a good thing. They were key in reducing tensions that had arisen in the Cold War.

5 Colleges should not allow ROTC programs.

Once again, this is not a liberal standpoint, but in fact a pacifist standpoint. A true liberal by the definition of the term would in fact support any single program that a college wished to promote, provided it did not infringe on the rights of others.

6 It was wrong to wage war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War.

Not liberal once again. This was a pacifist standpoint again, and the mainstream Democratic Party did allow President Bush permission for the invasion of Iraq.

7 Poor parents should not be allowed to have vouchers to send their children to private schools.

Vouchers don't cut it. Private schools even in the case of inexpensive ones are remarkeably expensive, and vouchers are not sufficient to allow a poor parent to place their kid in a private school. Instead we have sapped the public school system of much needed funding, lost more teachers, and placed these poor kids into an even worse situation.

8 It is good that trial lawyers and teachers unions are the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.

Trial lawyers and teachers unions are not the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party. However, having the support of our legal and educational systems is far more noble a cause than having the support of the wealthy and affluent.

9 Marriage should be redefined from male-female to any two people.

This is a liberal standpoint, based on the fact that by the United States Constitution, traditional religious viewpoints cannot influence government. I doubt Sharp would truly appreciate allowing religion to mesh with government, because it could very easily lead to restrictions on his church, and his own personal relationship with God. The Church and the State are two seperate bodies, and these are the only two bodies that should never legally be married.

10 A married couple should not have more of a right to adopt a child than two men or two women.

Once again, correct. In the eyes of an actual liberal, a black man and a white man are simply a man. In that same sense, a true liberal views a man and a woman as bearing equal rights regardless of gender, because our constitution promises us equal freedom, regardless of age, race, or sex.

11 The Boy Scouts should not be allowed to use parks or any other public places and should be prohibited from using churches and synagogues for their meetings.

This is not a liberal standpoint. I do not know a single liberal group that opposed the Boy Scouts of America, and the fact that they use public locations for meetings by a liberal viewpoint would be entirely valid.

12 The present high tax rates are good.

This is not a liberal standpoint. This is a socialist standpoint, and one with which I agree with. Socialists are of an ideology that the government can provide a better service without the increased costs created by a desire for profit when the service is provided by private groups. Modern socialists are not opponents of the free market, but they do are supporters of government having influence wherever it can be more competent than private industry. This is evident in all sorts of locations such as healthcare, fire protection, police protection, emergency medical response, military protection, educational systems, social protection, and a huge array of other responsibilities which government is adept at handling in the best interests of the people.

13 Speech codes on college campuses are good and American values.

This one is difficult to understand Sharp. A liberal by definition would actually be an advocate for free speech without restriction. Speech codes are an authoritarian implementation, although they are often implemented to protect sensitive issues such as racial tensions.

14 The Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent.

Incorrect once again. By a liberal viewpoint, in fact, every individual Palestinian and every individual Israeli who has not committed or supported the atrocities plaguing that country is innocent of that crime. Those who commit or support the attrocities are guilty of their crime. So on the vast majority, yes the Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent. However, those who are terrorists on the Palestinian side, or those who resist western mediation on either side are not free from guilt.

15 The United Nations is a moral force for good in the world, and therefore America should be subservient to it and such international institutions as a world court.

By it's mandate, the United Nations was designed as a moral force for the nations of the world to grow in relationship and cooperation. It is not a liberal point of view to be subservient to it, but many people do consider it the proper venue for pushing world affairs.

16 It is good that colleges have dropped hundreds of men's sports teams in order to meet gender-based quotas.

I do disagree with this point, but isn't it also good that colleges have created thousands of women's sports teams in order to meet these quotas?

17 No abortions can be labeled immoral.

Liberals do not necessarily label abortions as moral, or even non-immoral. The fact of the matter is that a liberal in support of abortion is viewing the fetus as a non-human at this stage in development, and is claiming that he should have no legal say in what a woman does with her child.

18 Restaurants should be prohibited by law from allowing customers to choose between a smoking and a non-smoking section.

Once again, I cannot find where this came from. Liberals and Democrats who believe in freedom of choice have long been the strongest advocates of banning smoking in public places, as well as creating smoking and non-smoking sections for the health of their constituents.

19 High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them.

It is a said fact that teenagers will have sex, and they will do it regardless of available protection, no matter how much you teach the principles of abstinence. In all reality, providing these teenagers with condoms prevents unwanted pregnancies that would result in abortions, as well as reducing the spread of sexually-transmitted-diseases such as HIV and syphillis.

20 Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong -- a white American grandmother should as likely be searched as a Saudi young male.

By a liberal viewpoint, the government should not recognize the point that race even exists, so as to truly promote racial equality. While in practice, racial profiling has proven a valuable tool, in theory it is immoral on the part of the government as many liberals such as the ACLU view it. Please note Sharp that the Democratic Party although at times critical of racial profiling has not on a whole condemned it.

21 Racism and poverty -- not a lack of fathers and a crisis of values -- are the primary causes of violent crime in the inner city.

One cannot effectively solve the lack of fathers and the crisis of values. The first because it is effectively impossible to solve such a mess, and the second because it is wrong and immoral for the government to mandate or teach a certain sense of morals and values. I doubt that you, Sharp, would support a government that demanded that you view abortion as a legal and moral act. In that same sense, a government should not impose morals on any single human being, because they have a freedom of religion.

At the same time, we can fix issues of racism and poverty, and they are very influential in the issues of the inner city. So why shouldn't we try to fix what we can?

22 It is wrong and unconstitutional for students to be told, "God bless you" at their graduation.

Once again, it is unconstitutional for students to be told, "God bless you." by their teachers, because the Constitution demands a seperation of Church and state. I have already exampled repeatedly why bonding Church and State would bring terrible consequences.

23 No culture is morally superior to any other.

Once again, this is correct in the view of the government. Although I myself am an advocate of what you would term as western culture, it is morally wrong and unconstitutional for the government to tell somebody that their culture is wrong, because the government is not there to make that distinction. It's sole purpose is to serve the best interests of its populace, not to harass them and insult their heritage.

 

[The Pinata]

If he's banned, how will he learn anything?

He doesn't learn anything. He hardly ever reads the feedback to his posts anyways. I wrote a large article in response to his list right above this, but I honestly doubt he will read it. You know what? I will send it to him in a private message.

 

[Sanguine]

Dennis Prager's Are You A Liberal Quiz?

People actually listen to that right-wing hack?

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

He doesn't learn anything. He hardly ever reads the feedback to his posts anyways. I wrote a large article in response to his list right above this, but I honestly doubt he will read it. You know what? I will send it to him in a private message.

I love that little guy. So happy and bouncy.

I think we need a .

 

[seebs]

For what it's worth, there are a number of issues where I disagree with other people that are being called "liberal"; for instance, I think school vouchers are probably a good idea. But... As noted, many of these positions have absolutely nothing to do with liberal Christianity, and not much to do with liberal politics.

 

[La Bonita Zorilla]

Jesus Christ is a liberal.

 

[Abiel]

Jesus Christ is a liberal.

In what ways?

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

I disagree, Seebs. Sharp has no interest in two-way debate or discussion. His reason for being here is simply to rubbish people he disagrees with.

He needs a spell sitting on the naughty stair in my view.

 

[The Pinata]

Deleted

 

[seebs]

In what ways?

A lot of them.

Christ was a liberal in the ways that modern liberals are liberals, and was eventually killed for it.

 

[The Midge]

Politically liberal?

Sharp, you ARE NOT A LIBERAL.

YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND LIBERAL VIEWPOINTS.

AND I'D ASK YOU TO STOP POSTING AND ATTACKING LIBERALS.

We should get him banned from this forum. He doesn't belong here.

Ouch! That is not very er... liberal?