Howard Metzenbaum: The Last Ferocious Liberal

When the Democratic Party was being remade in the 1980s and early 1990s as the second party of Wall Street, Howard Metzenbaum fought to defend the liberal values of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Dealers with whom he came of age.

Opposing the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council when Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Dick Gephardt were jockeying to lead the corporate-sponsored group, opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement when Clinton and Gore were shoving it down the throat of Congress and the American people, challenging the pro-business biases of Clinton's judicial nominees, Metzenbaum fought to keep the Democrats on the right side of the great economic and political debates of the era.

Metzenbaum, who has died at age 90, never cut the conservatives a break – be they Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush or Democrats like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

As a reporter and editor for The Toledo Blade and then for The Nation – one of his favorite publications - I interviewed Metzenbaum frequently during and after his years in the Senate. We spoke often about the roots of his political faith, which he traced to the Depression years, when he came to revere political leaders like Roosevelt and the radical labor organizers with whom he made common cause on the streets of Cleveland.

Metzenbaum got his start in politics as a Democratic legislator elected on a ticket headed by FDR, and he never abandoned the faith in the New Deal or the labor, farm and community movements with which it aligned. His friend Dick Feagler, a veteran Cleveland political writer, opined that, "He was the last of the ferocious New Deal liberals..."

Metzenbaum embraced that label and everything that went with it – especially the sense of urgency evidenced by those who sought to establish a measure of economic and social justice in the first 100 days of Roosevelt's first term as president.

Arriving in the Senate in 1974, the man who had marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and picketed with striking trade unionists in his native Ohio, remonstrated his colleagues for moving cautiously – and, to his view, far too slowly – to address the recession into which the nation had sunk.

"The people pay a terrible price," declared Metzenbaum. "No wonder the people are angry -- they have a right to be."

Metzenbaum was serving in a Democratic Senate. But he had no qualms about condemning the leadership of the chamber.

"From his first days in the Senate, Metzenbaum gave notice that he would not be one of the club. He wasn't trying to win any popularity contests," explained his hometown paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer. "Good thing. ‘Senator No' led filibusters, put legislative holds on pet projects of other senators and disrupted business as usual."

But it was not merely political business that Metzenbaum sought to disrupt.

He believed that senators, especially Democratic senators, had a responsibility to side with workers and consumers against corporations and their lobbyists. Metzenbaum stationed an aide on the edge of the Senate floor whenever the chamber was in session to keep an eye on the proceedings. He did not trust Democratic party whips to alert him to bad legislation – in fact, he knew that the whips were often moving the bad legislation – so Metzenbaum remained ever on the ready to rush to the floor with the amendments, quorum calls, threats of filibusters and parliamentary procedures he would use to hamstring the special interests.

:You've got to be prepared to be there morning, noon and night," Metzenbaum explained back in the early 1980s, when as a member of the Democratic minority he repeatedly blocked Reagan administration initiatives. "You have to have the floor protected 100 percent of the time. I wish it didn't have to be this way. I shouldn't have to do this."

In fact, Metzenbaum relished legislative combat.

And he pulled no punches.

"I rise not to address myself to the merit or lack of merit of this legislation but, rather, to address myself to the fact that the matter is before the Senate at all," he declared when preparing to block a 1982 bill that would have retroactively altered corporate liability in antitrust cases. "We don't have time to do anything that is important, but we have plenty of time to take up every special interest bill that any highpriced lobbyist pushes before the Congress of the United States."

That attitude -- and his willingness to express it so ardently -- made Metzenbaum a hero to younger progressives who saw the senior senator from Ohio as a mentor.

Paul Wellstone said it was Metzenbaum who taught him to follow his conscience as a senator – and to get used to saying "screw you!" to anyone who counseled doing otherwise.

Metzenbaum did that a lot.

When self-made millionaire returned to the Senate in 1977 with a new president named Jimmy Carter, Metzenbaum immediately picked a fight with the Democrat in the White House. The president endorsed legislation to deregulate the natural gas industry. Metzenbaum saw the proposal as a corporate giveaway and he fought it by introducing close to 500 amendments designed to derail the bill.

Metzenbaum brought the Senate to halt, creating such a crisis that Vice President Walter Mondale was finally forced to intervene.

The fight earned Metzenbaum the nickname "Senator No."

Metzenbaum passed meaningful legislation – including the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1989 that required the comprehensive listing of nutrition facts and understandable claims about food, and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, a 1988 measure that required companies with more than 100 workers to give 60-days notice before shuttering a factory – but he was just as proud of the proposals and the appointments he blocked.

And he took special pride in saying "no" to Democratic presidents who he felt had failed to live up to the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Dealers who briefly tipped the balance of power to favor the interests of working Americans.

Metzenbaum finished his Senate career in 1994, when a Democrat served in the White House.

But that Democrat was Bill Clinton, whose ties to the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council had always offended Metzenbaum. The Ohio Senator had questioned Clinton's picks for the Supreme Court, suggesting their records on business issues were little better than those of Republican nominees he had opposed. He had criticized the Clintons for proposing health-care reforms that did more to bail out insurance companies than get care to the uninsured. He had lambasted the administration for failing to advance meaningful legislation to protect workers and consumers.

So it came as no surprise that Metzenbaum's last fight was against the Clinton-promoted General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The president was wrong, the senator from Ohio said, to promote a trade agenda that was packed with "deals for big business" that were written to "shortchange American workers."

"Don't we have some sense of compassion, some sense of concern?" Metzenbaum asked his fellow Democrats.

Today, most Democrats – including Hillary Clinton – are critics of the free-trade agenda that Bill Clinton advanced back in the mid-1990s. But, when it mattered, Howard Metzenbaum stood, as he so often did, virtually alone for the principle that doing right by the people – and by his conscience -- mattered a whole lot more than satisfying the transitory demands of party loyalty.

Comments (41)

1. Well, I feel sorry for Senator Metzenbaum's family, but....

   if a guy who picked fights with Democrats from Bill Clinton to....JIMMY CARTER!!!....isn't being replaced by a similar Senator in the Senate (and "pro-torture-when-it's-needed-to-be-elected" Sherrod Brown might not exactly fit the bill)...

   then maybe the times have passed for such a politician?

   Even Obama isn't calling for a repeal of NAFTA or a "New New Deal".

   No aspersions on Sen. Metzenbaum...but as the old "liberal lions" pass away from old age, their replacements seem a bit more moderate... so perhaps the voters aren't looking for "liberal lions" anymore?

   Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 08:56am

2. so perhaps the voters aren't looking for "liberal lions" anymore?

   Posted by MASK 03/14/2008 @ 08:56am

   perhaps the people are just too lost in mallalalalaland to even notice.....

   politics for them is something they pay attention to once every 4 years for the sum total of 3 newscasts, 1 flier in the mail, and 12,345,646 television commercials.

   .........And Now, Back To Everyone's Favorite Singing Competition, "America, I'm Dull."

   Brought to you by Coca (Cola) and Pfizer. We keep you happy!!!

   Posted by frosty zoom at 03/14/2008 @ 10:37am

3. NICHOLS: He believed that senators, especially Democratic senators, had a responsibility to side with workers and consumers against corporations and their lobbyists.......Metzenbaum passed meaningful legislation – including the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1989 that required the comprehensive listing of nutrition facts and understandable claims about food, and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, a 1988 measure that required companies with more than 100 workers to give 60-days notice before shuttering a factory....

   It's sad that a state like Ohio, desperately needing someone with vision of the evolving world of technology & global trade, sent someone, for so long, into the Senate with the lifelong goal of going "against corporations". The economic climate of Ohio today, stands as a stark confirmation of the failed strategies employed by old school liberalism.

   As for "meaningful legislation", that which looked great on paper and cost a bundle to implement, what exactly has requiring nutritional info on packaged food done for us? Is obesity down? How is it that we continue down the path of requiring warnings (McD's getting `burned' with serving overly hot coffee ring any bells) instead of requiring folks to have common sense and pay the consequences when they don't!

   Warning, Warning: Reading this HAPPY commentary maybe dangerous to your mommy-dependent mind......

   Posted by Happy at 03/14/2008 @ 10:44am

4. Posted by HAPPY 03/14/2008 @ 10:44am

   actually, food labelling is an excellent thing. it has saved me from eating gelatine many a times.....

   now, if people are too dumb or lazy to read the labels, that is a different story.

   do you read the nutrition labels?

   Posted by frosty zoom at 03/14/2008 @ 10:59am

5. do you read the nutrition labels?

   Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 03/14/2008 @ 10:59am

   Maybe once a month....

   What's been done is done as for labeling and I don't advocate doing away w/it.....on the other hand, I don't place much trust in the list of ingredients for the most part....but it's probably good for the folks with allergies of some kind. The `common sense' point I tried to make is basically what you laid out.......labelings, warnings, laws, regulations,...none of which can compensate for folks not employing common sense nor for taking care of oneself....the Libertarian way!

   Posted by Happy at 03/14/2008 @ 11:15am

6. Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 03/14/2008 @ 10:37am

   Hey, FZ....glass houses, huh? Or is Harper some "ferocious liberal"?

   Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 11:17am

7. Hey, FZ,

   Fuel Cell is down to $6 (from $8 last I cited, I was off then, thought that would be a bottom)......It's time to buy!

   Posted by Happy at 03/14/2008 @ 11:17am

8. Hey, FZ....glass houses, huh? Or is Harper some "ferocious liberal"?

   Posted by MASK 03/14/2008 @ 11:17am

   hardly. we've got just as many sheeple happily passing life away in the hallowed halls of mallalalaland.

   in fact, "Canadian I'm Dull" (on Obama's fav, CTV) is hosted by none other than Ben Mulroney, son of our ex-pm (St. Ronald's wing man), Brian "no-free-trade-oh-wait-let's-do-NAFTA" Mulroney.

   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/Mulroney_reagan.jpg

   check out this graph:

   http://media.economist.com/images/ga/2007w29/TV.jpg

   http://media.economist.com/images/ga/2007w29/TV.jpg

   Posted by frosty zoom at 03/14/2008 @ 12:43pm

9. Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 03/14/2008 @ 12:43pm

   I didn't even know there WAS a "Canadian Idol"!

   Of course, really, until they come DOWN HERE and become an "Alanis" or an "Avril"....nobody much notices.

   heheh

   Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 1:15pm

10. "A nice reminder from Nichols that thankfully, socialist leaning Dems like Metzenbaum was, are not fully in control of government."----Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/14/2008 @ 1:14pm

    Okay....what kind of Dems are in control?

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 1:17pm

11. The Last Ferocious Liberal?

    Don't tease us!

    Posted by pontificus at 03/14/2008 @ 1:41pm

12. Since when did left wingers get to call themselves 'liberals' anyway? Liberal in the classical sense was a far greater and more honorable calling. To make matters worse, now the leftists have stunk up the term 'liberal' so much that even they don't want it anymore, and now they're using the term 'progressive' as if to imply the inevitability of their folly.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/14/2008 @ 1:43pm

13. None as long as Bush wields the veto pen and actually uses it.------Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/14/2008 @ 1:23pm

    Are ALL the Dems in Washington "socialist leaning like Metzenbaum"? If so, then why make the distinction?

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 2:13pm

14. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/14/2008 @ 1:43pm

    Would that be like back when "conservative" used to mean ...actually PAYING for government expenditures with tax revenues, and not piling up TRILLIONS in debt?

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 2:14pm

15. Thank you for the tribute to Senator Metzenbaum. I was always proud of him and only hope that Senator Brown and future representatives can live up to Metz's record.I will miss him.

    Posted by mimsky at 03/14/2008 @ 2:19pm

16. Posted by PONTIFICUS 03/14/2008 @ 1:43pm

    "Liberal" and "conservative" are labels, only relevant within the contexts of the periods of time in which they were ever used. The concepts of "left" and "right" I believe are consistently valid.

    Posted by MATTMAN at 03/14/2008 @ 3:10pm

17. "...public schools...."

    What is the operant term here? How do you even have public schools without "socialist" public funding i.e. (TAXES!!). Is the answer "faith-based donations"?

    Posted by MATTMAN at 03/14/2008 @ 3:14pm

18. Thinking of FZ's son, a HAPPY Original, an executed BUY:

    03/14/2008 YOU BOUGHT FCEL

    FUELCELL ENERGY INC CHG #US35952H1068 S Cash

    Shares: +500.000 Price: $6.00 Amount: -$3,010.95 Comm: $10.95

    Settlement Date: 03/19/2008

    Posted by Happy at 03/14/2008 @ 3:39pm

19. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/14/2008 @ 4:11pm |

    Okay...what was education like BEFORE public schools? What were the literacy rates?

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 4:19pm

20. "..the ideal way would be to eliminate public schools. One can only dream of that kind of progress..."

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/14/2008 @ 4:11pm

    Are you even speaking in English? Is that some kind of code?

    No matter how marginal, public education becomes, it is still preferable to mass ignorance.

    Maybe you think all the "lesser people" (i.e., not rich already, or attending a rich church), don't need an education? Maybe it'll be easier to incarcerate the infidels then?

    Then we could make cool laws, like vagrancy laws, mann act type laws, anti-sodomy laws and jail all the non-believers.

    YEE-HAW!!!! X-tian jihad. Stone 'em, flood 'em out, damn them!!!

    Ahh!! xtian compassion. Gotta love it.

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/14/2008 @ 5:51pm

21. Posted by MALCONTENT 03/14/2008 @ 5:51pm

    Three hours later, still love to see LL explain the benefits we as a culture (as a civilization) enjoyed before public education.

    Maybe the problem started when "the masses" learned to read and stopped going to their clergy for all the answers and discovered them for themselves???

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 7:40pm

22. Posted by MALCONTENT 03/14/2008 @ 5:51pm

    No matter how marginal, public education becomes, it is still preferable to mass ignorance.

    Oh, I see. It's either blindly support public education or you're in favor of mass ignorance? Lord what fools these liberals be!

    Posted by pontificus at 03/14/2008 @ 7:57pm

23. Posted by MALCONTENT 03/14/2008 @ 5:51pm

    Maybe you think all the "lesser people" (i.e., not rich already, or attending a rich church), don't need an education? Maybe it'll be easier to incarcerate the infidels then?

    I think what he's in favor of is replacing the public school systems with private educational systems available to everyone using vouchers. Certainly, it would be cheaper than public schools (DC spends $15,000 per student - good enough for an expensive prep school - and even THAT figure is believed to be underestimated because of padded enrollments).

    My daughter attends private school at $5,500 per year - far less than the $8,000 my public school system (with horrible teachers) spends per student. And my public schools are consider 'good' - for public schools.

    I know none of this matters to you lefties, though. Knee-jerk support for entrenched public bureaucracies is one of the canons of leftist dogma. Don't expect it to change soon.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/14/2008 @ 8:02pm

24. Posted by MALCONTENT 03/14/2008 @ 5:51pm

    Maybe you think all the "lesser people" (i.e., not rich already, or attending a rich church), don't need an education? Maybe it'll be easier to incarcerate the infidels then?

    I think what he's in favor of is replacing the public school systems with private educational systems available to everyone using vouchers. Certainly, it would be cheaper than public schools (DC spends $15,000 per student - good enough for an expensive prep school - and even THAT figure is believed to be underestimated because of padded enrollments).

    My daughter attends private school at $5,500 per year - far less than the $8,000 my public school system (with horrible teachers) spends per student. And my public schools are consider 'good' - for public schools.

    I know none of this matters to you lefties, though. Knee-jerk support for entrenched public bureaucracies is one of the canons of leftist dogma. Don't expect it to change soon.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/14/2008 @ 8:02pm

25. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/14/2008 @ 7:50pm

    LVLIB, wouldn't EVERY family home-schooling result in atleast ONE parent....staying home most of the day, unable to work?

    Posted by Mask at 03/14/2008 @ 9:31pm

26. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/14/2008 @ 11:23pm

    And the children of the poor, learning disordered and apathetic?

    Condemned? Fucked?

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/14/2008 @ 11:36pm

27. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/15/2008 @ 12:25am

    "And the children of the poor, learning disordered and apathetic?"

    What if your father wasn't worth a shit? You get to follow in his footsteps?

    Of course parents should bear these responsibilities, but many cannot or simply won't. We write their children off?

    I really find it hard to believe, that a person in your position, hasn't met/at least tried to help many who were incapable of helping themselves, much less the children, they, unfortunately, but irreversibly, brought into this world.

    Education.

    Incarceration.

    Retroactive abortion.

    Pick one.

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/15/2008 @ 12:40am

28. Hey MASK! Now I can see why you guys like Obama so much. His pastor sounds just like you! Especially his 'God Damn America' speech, where Rev. Wright counsels that whenever the song 'God Bless America' is played, you folks should sing 'God Damn America' instead! Or where Rev. Wright concludes that AIDS was invented by the CIA. Brilliant! If this is where Obama gets his spiritual counseling, I can certainly see why you folks would be completely on board with him! Especially CRABBIE!

    Posted by pontificus at 03/15/2008 @ 08:45am

29. So, apparently, there are still some 'ferocious liberal lions' around, after all!

    Posted by pontificus at 03/15/2008 @ 09:09am

30. From one recent editorial:

    Mr. Obama went on to explain Mr. Wright's anti-Zionist statements as being rooted in his anger over the Jewish state's support for South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. As with his previous claim that his church gave the award to Mr. Farrakhan because of his work with ex-offenders, Mr. Obama appears to have made that up.

    Neither the presentation of the award nor the Trumpet article about the award mentions ex-offenders, and Mr. Wright's statements denouncing Israel have not been qualified in any way. Mr. Obama nonetheless told the Jewish leaders that the award to Mr. Farrakhan "showed a lack of sensitivity to the Jewish community." That is an understatement.

    As for Mr. Wright's repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks because of what Mr. Wright calls its racist and violent policies, Mr. Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be "provocative."

    Hearing Mr. Wright's venomous and paranoid denunciations of this country, the vast majority of Americans would walk out. Instead, Mr. Obama and his wife Michelle have presumably sat through numerous similar sermons by Mr. Wright.

    Indeed, Mr. Obama has described Mr. Wright as his "sounding board" during the two decades he has known him. Mr. Obama has said he found religion through the minister in the 1980s. He joined the church in 1991 and walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith.

    The title of Mr. Obama's bestseller "The Audacity of Hope" comes from one of Wright's sermons. Mr. Wright is one of the first people Mr. Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. Mr. Obama consulted Mr. Wright before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Mr. Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.

    Mr. Obama obviously would not choose to belong to Mr. Wright's church and seek his advice unless he agreed with at least some of his views. In light of Mr. Wright's perspective, Michelle Obama's comment that she feels proud of America for the first time in her adult life makes perfect sense.

    Much as most of us would appreciate the symbolism of a black man ascending to the presidency, what we have in Barack Obama is a politician whose closeness to Mr. Wright underscores his radical record.

    The media have largely ignored Mr. Obama's close association with Mr. Wright. This raises legitimate questions about Mr. Obama's fundamental beliefs about his country. Those questions deserve a clearer answer than Mr. Obama has provided so far.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/15/2008 @ 09:13am

31. Sen. Barack Obama says he "obviously disagrees" with his pastor of 20 years who said black Americans should sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America."

    Well, I guess we should be grateful for that. On the other hand, it seems a little convenient that Mr. Obama should only make this statement a) in the middle of a Presidential campaign and b) only after a conservative news outlet made this sermon public knowledge (the rest of the media being unaccountably unable to dig up this info on its own).

    Gee, and you lefties wonder why people think the heart and soul of your movement boils down to simple hatred of America?

    Posted by pontificus at 03/15/2008 @ 09:46am

32. I love this part:

    Reacting to an ABC News story about the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Obama told the Pittsburg Tribune-Review, "I haven't seen the line. This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements."

    But he defended Rev. Wright's overall record, accusing ABC News of "cherry picking" statements of the man with a 40-year career.

    I can imagine people like Obama defending Hitler. Let's see. "Well, obviously by focusing on Auschwitz and the other death camps, haters of Herr Hitler are ignoring his obvious achievements in contructing a world-class highway system."

    Posted by pontificus at 03/15/2008 @ 09:49am

33. Looks like Hillary wins again. She figured if she just held on long enough, Obama would self-destruct. And obviously, he is doing so. You lefties have some serious problems now.

    Posted by pontificus at 03/15/2008 @ 09:50am

34. I can hear CRABBIE now, raging in his double-wide up in the UP, tearing up his propane bills and screaming "THEY'RE SWIFT-BOATING HIM!"

    Posted by pontificus at 03/15/2008 @ 10:07am

35. "Might makes right!"

    Really, the ideology of the Conservatives and Libertarians who post on these threads can be boiled down to these three words. And by "might," they really mean "money."

    It's true that we Liberals are sometimes a little sloppy. (This includes John Nichols.) We should never let ourselves be tarnished with the label "anti-corporate" and wear it as if it were a mark of honor, nor should we be so foolish as to praise an old "Liberal lion" like Metzenbaum by calling him "anti-corporate" or "anti-business."

    This lets the other side congratulate itself that it is "pro-corporate" and "pro-business," whereas actually it is only the LARGEST corporations that the plutocrats favor while trampling on the rights of the small ones, while they tax income from work more than they tax income from investments, thereby undermining business productivity while promoting trading in paper.

    The "correction" that we are experiencing now in the housing market is only a symptom of the disease that treats investors as the "golden geese" from whom all wealth comes. We ought to understand what Metzenbaum understood: Wealth comes from labor and from natural resources. Part of the surplus that labor produces can then be invested -- either by wealthy individuals, over whom most of us have no control, or by the government, over which all of us who can vote DO have some control.

    There is a public interest, and we can either define it or let the big corporations define it for us.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 03/15/2008 @ 11:59am

36. I am amazed at how many people believe that home schooling is a plausible alternative to public education.

    There is a grain of truth to the claims that home schooling advocates make. CLASS SIZE DOES MATTER. The larger the ratio of teachers to students, the more individual attention students receive, the better the students learn.

    Surely, if we had one teacher for every 2.5 students, our children would be very well educated, indeed. But who will pay all these teachers? Or do we expect them all to work for FREE?

    It's true, the traditional housewife is a throwback to the feudal system, in which each lower estate (with the peasantry at the bottom) regarded it as its duty to fulfill its social obligations to the higher estates (the landowning aristocrats at the top) for no pay at all. (The higher estates were also supposed to have obligations toward the lower ones, but we know how well that worked in practice, don't we?) How very strange that so many people would find FEUDALISM so appealing!

    Look, if you want to home-school your children, go RIGHT AHEAD. This presupposes that somebody in the household has enough of an income to feed everybody else, including the full-time teacher-mother. Since most US-American households require two workers to bring in an income like this, I am confident that the home-schooling craze will never spread very far...

    ...unless the minimum wage rises dramatically.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 03/15/2008 @ 12:13pm

37. the ideal way would be to eliminate public schools.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/14/2008 @ 4:11pm

    yeah!!!

    let's eliminate public police and fire services, too.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 03/15/2008 @ 1:44pm

38. Education is not a civil right.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/15/2008 @ 12:25am

    well, it sure should be.

    how are parents supposed to home school if both parents are working two full time jobs JUST TO PAY FOR FOOD AND RENT?

    home schooling is a full time job.

    how are under-educated parents supposed to teach their kids calculus?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 03/15/2008 @ 1:48pm

39. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/15/2008 @ 01:15am

    Glad you feel your point is affirmed. You completely missed/ignored mine.

    "I push and preach constantly to conservative Christians that the church for too long has failed it's own responsibilities to better care for the needy."

    Well good for you and your fellow church goers. Once again implying the government/law doesn't apply evenly to the non-believers.

    "Many do, but not enough."

    Sorry that your preaching fails, even in your little closed group. Imagine creating policy for everyone. Good chance it'd be imperfect. Are you gonna give up? Should we all give up.?

    "I want a society again where people took more responsibility for their lives, their family and extended family, and the needy around them."

    I agree completely. Any all inclusive, practicable ideas that do that?

    How about proposing a better idea, before we give up on a process that, so far, has brought many up from their previous station in life?

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/15/2008 @ 2:17pm

40. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 03/15/2008 @ 7:34pm

    You talk alot, for someone who continually evades the issue.

    Posted by Malcontent at 03/15/2008 @ 9:14pm

41. It is a fact of life that corporations are out there to make a profit in any way conceivable. It is logic then that the government should stand with the consumers and workers because if not surely corporations will do with them as they please.

    That does not mean we are against companies. We are for a civilized society where checks and balances are present all the way and individual rights meaningful (as opposed to a law of the jungle society). Take the consumer labels for instance, before them any judgment about a nutritional product by a consumer could only be around its taste and appearance. The producer could put almost any ingredient which the consumer would not know. Is this a fair situation? I believe it is not. Now the consumer has far more elements of judgment to make his/her consuming choices. Was it an element of super extra cost to companies? It might had been an initial cost of evaluating the products and paying the nutrionist team, but in the end it is a bargain compared to the benefits it should provide.

    Now, in my point of view Nichols goes too far qualifying Carter as a conservative, for example. There is no way that the US will out itself of this interdependent world anymore, less of commerce. NAFTA is incomplete and imperfect, it should be thought about more around consumer rights and environmental standards in Mexico, but we can't turn our back to it, only make it better and just.

    That is the problem here in the US. We do rush to do things to benefit some companies, but never think of the social costs. We need to do a lot of educational training with displaced workers, but that cost is not assumed by the companies nor the government.

    Posted by Frank42 at 03/16/2008 @ 1:51pm