What does it mean to say that a person is a liberal, or to say that a thing may be described with this word? The answer, as is so often the case with the English language, is it depends.

'Liberal' shares a root with 'liberty' and can mean anything from "generous" to "loose" to "broad-minded." Politically, it means "a person who believes that government should be active in supporting social and political change."

Liberal can be traced back to the Latin word liber (meaning free), which is also the root of liberty ("the quality or state of being free") and libertine ("one leading a dissolute life"). However, we did not simply take the word liber and make it into liberal; our modern term for the inhabitants of the leftish side of the political spectrum comes more recently from the Latin liberalis, which means of or constituting liberal arts, of freedom, of a freedman.

We still see a strong connection between our use of the word liberal and liber in the origins of liberal arts. In Latin, liber functioned as an adjective, to describe a person who was free, independent, and contrasted with the word servus (slavish, servile). The Romans had artes liberales (liberal arts) and artes serviles (servile arts); the former were geared toward freemen (consisting of such subjects as grammar, logic, and rhetoric), while the latter were more concerned with occupational skills.

We borrowed liberal arts from French in the 14th century, and sometime after this liberal began to be used in conjunction with other words (such as education, profession, and pastime). When paired with these other words liberal was serving to indicate that the things described were fitting for a person of high social status. However, at the same time that the term liberal arts was beginning to make 14th century college-tuition-paying-parents a bit nervous about their childrens future job prospects, liberal was also being used as an adjective to indicate generosity and bounteousness. By the 15th century, people were using liberal to mean bestowed in a generous and openhanded way, as in poured a liberal glass of wine.

The word's meaning kept shifting. By the 18th century, people were using liberal to indicate that something was not strict or rigorous. The political antonyms of liberal and conservative began to take shape in the 19th century, as the British Whigs and Tories began to adopt these as titles for their respective parties.

Liberal is commonly used as a label for political parties in a number of other countries, although the positions these parties take do not always correspond to the sense of liberal that people in the United States commonly give it. In the US, the word has been associated with both the Republican and Democratic parties (now it is more commonly attached to the latter), although generally it has been in a descriptive, rather than a titular, sense.

The word hasfor some people, at leasttaken on some negative connotations when used in a political sense in the United States. It is still embraced with pride by others. We can see these associations with the word traced back to the early and mid-20th century in its combination with other words, such as pinko:

Thanks to The Dove, pinko-liberal journal of campus opinion at the University of Kansas, a small part of the world last week learned some inner workings of a Japanese college boy. Time: the Weekly Newsmagazine, 7 Jun., 1926

"To the well-to-do," writes Editor Oswald Garrison Villard of the pinko-liberal Nation, "contented and privileged, Older is an anathema. Time: the Weekly Newsmagazine, 9 Sept., 1929

Pinko liberalsthe kind who have been so sympathetic with communistic ideals down through the yearswill howl to high heaven. The Mason City Globe-Gazette (Mason City, IA), 12 Jun., 1940

The term limousine liberal, meaning "a wealthy political liberal," is older than many people realize; although the phrase was long believed to have originated in the 1960s, recent evidence shows that we have been sneering at limousine liberals almost as long as we have had limousines:

Limousine liberals is another phrase that has been attached to these comfortable nibblers at anarchy. But it seems to us too bourgeois. It may do as a subdivision of our higher priced Bolsheviki. New York Tribune, 5 May, 1919

Even with a highly polysemous word such as liberal we can usually figure out contextually which of its many possible senses is meant. However, when the word takes on multiple and closely-related meanings that are all related to politics, it can be rather difficult to tell one from another. These senses can be further muddied by the fact that we now have two distinct groups who each feel rather differently about some of the meanings of liberal.

One of these definitions we provide for liberal is a person who believes that government should be active in supporting social and political change; it is up to you to choose whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. In other words, We define, you decide.

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What Exactly Is a 'Liberal'? | Merriam-Webster

Liberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others, but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty. As the revolutionary American pamphleteer Thomas Paine expressed it in Common Sense (1776), government is at best a necessary evil. Laws, judges, and police are needed to secure the individuals life and liberty, but their coercive power may also be turned against him. The problem, then, is to devise a system that gives government the power necessary to protect individual liberty but also prevents those who govern from abusing that power.

John Locke, oil on canvas by Herman Verelst, 1689; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Liberalism is a political and economic doctrine that emphasizes individual autonomy, equality of opportunity, and the protection of individual rights (primarily to life, liberty, and property), originally against the state and later against both the state and private economic actors, including businesses.

The intellectual founders of liberalism were the English philosopher John Locke (16321704), who developed a theory of political authority based on natural individual rights and the consent of the governed, and the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (172390), who argued that societies prosper when individuals are free to pursue their self-interest within an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and competitive markets, controlled neither by the state nor by private monopolies.

In John Lockes theory, the consent of the governed was secured through a system of majority rule, whereby the government would carry out the expressed will of the electorate. However, in the England of Lockes time and in other democratic societies for centuries thereafter, not every person was considered a member of the electorate, which until the 20th century was generally limited to propertied white males. There is no necessary connection between liberalism and any specific form of democratic government, and indeed Lockes liberalism presupposed a constitutional monarchy.

Classical liberals (now often called libertarians) regard the state as the primary threat to individual freedom and advocate limiting its powers to those necessary to protect basic rights against interference by others. Modern liberals have held that freedom can also be threatened by private economic actors, such as businesses, that exploit workers or dominate governments, and they advocate state action, including economic regulation and provision of social services, to ameliorate conditions (e.g., extreme poverty) that may hamper the exercise of basic rights or undermine individual autonomy. Many also recognize broader rights such as the rights to adequate employment, health care, and education.

Modern liberals are generally willing to experiment with large-scale social change to further their project of protecting and enhancing individual freedom. Conservatives are generally suspicious of such ideologically driven programs, insisting that lasting and beneficial social change must proceed organically, through gradual shifts in public attitudes, values, customs, and institutions.

The problem is compounded when one asks whether this is all that government can or should do on behalf of individual freedom. Some liberalsthe so-called neoclassical liberals, or libertariansanswer that it is. Since the late 19th century, however, most liberals have insisted that the powers of government can promote as well as protect the freedom of the individual. According to modern liberalism, the chief task of government is to remove obstacles that prevent individuals from living freely or from fully realizing their potential. Such obstacles include poverty, disease, discrimination, and ignorance. The disagreement among liberals over whether government should promote individual freedom rather than merely protect it is reflected to some extent in the different prevailing conceptions of liberalism in the United States and Europe since the late 20th century. In the United States liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal program of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whereas in Europe it is more commonly associated with a commitment to limited government and laissez-faire economic policies (see below Contemporary liberalism).

This article discusses the political foundations and history of liberalism from the 17th century to the present. For coverage of classical and contemporary philosophical liberalism, see political philosophy. For biographies of individual philosophers, see John Locke; John Stuart Mill; John Rawls.

Liberalism is derived from two related features of Western culture. The first is the Wests preoccupation with individuality, as compared to the emphasis in other civilizations on status, caste, and tradition. Throughout much of history, the individual has been submerged in and subordinate to his clan, tribe, ethnic group, or kingdom. Liberalism is the culmination of developments in Western society that produced a sense of the importance of human individuality, a liberation of the individual from complete subservience to the group, and a relaxation of the tight hold of custom, law, and authority. In this respect, liberalism stands for the emancipation of the individual.See alsoindividualism.

Liberalism also derives from the practice of adversariality in European political and economic life, a process in which institutionalized competitionsuch as the competition between different political parties in electoral contests, between prosecution and defense in adversary procedure, or between different producers in a market economy (see monopoly and competition)generates a dynamic social order. Adversarial systems have always been precarious, however, and it took a long time for the belief in adversariality to emerge from the more traditional view, traceable at least to Plato, that the state should be an organic structure, like a beehive, in which the different social classes cooperate by performing distinct yet complementary roles. The belief that competition is an essential part of a political system and that good government requires a vigorous opposition was still considered strange in most European countries in the early 19th century.

Underlying the liberal belief in adversariality is the conviction that human beings are essentially rational creatures capable of settling their political disputes through dialogue and compromise. This aspect of liberalism became particularly prominent in 20th-century projects aimed at eliminating war and resolving disagreements between states through organizations such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the International Court of Justice (World Court).

Liberalism has a close but sometimes uneasy relationship with democracy. At the centre of democratic doctrine is the belief that governments derive their authority from popular election; liberalism, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with the scope of governmental activity. Liberals often have been wary of democracy, then, because of fears that it might generate a tyranny by the majority. One might briskly say, therefore, that democracy looks after majorities and liberalism after unpopular minorities.

Like other political doctrines, liberalism is highly sensitive to time and circumstance. Each countrys liberalism is different, and it changes in each generation. The historical development of liberalism over recent centuries has been a movement from mistrust of the states power on the ground that it tends to be misused, to a willingness to use the power of government to correct perceived inequities in the distribution of wealth resulting from economic competitioninequities that purportedly deprive some people of an equal opportunity to live freely. The expansion of governmental power and responsibility sought by liberals in the 20th century was clearly opposed to the contraction of government advocated by liberals a century earlier. In the 19th century liberals generally formed the party of business and the entrepreneurial middle class; for much of the 20th century they were more likely to work to restrict and regulate business in order to provide greater opportunities for labourers and consumers. In each case, however, the liberals inspiration was the same: a hostility to concentrations of power that threaten the freedom of the individual and prevent him from realizing his full potential, along with a willingness to reexamine and reform social institutions in the light of new needs. This willingness is tempered by an aversion to sudden, cataclysmic change, which is what sets off the liberal from the radical. It is this very eagerness to welcome and encourage useful change, however, that distinguishes the liberal from the conservative, who believes that change is at least as likely to result in loss as in gain.

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liberalism | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica

Lyndon B. Johnson, as US President, with Hubert H. Humphrey, as US Vice President. (AP)

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

These words of the late Minnesota Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey have always best defined for me what it means to be a liberal Democrat. I still believe them to govern my political philosophy.

The key is belief in government not as the problem but as the needed counterpoint to over-concentrated power to level the playing field, as progressive presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to John Kennedy to Bill Clinton would say, for equal opportunity, individual responsibility and social justice for the average American.

[pullquote]

In recent months, however, some people who sincerely believe they are liberals are being quoted in the national media and on the blogosphere as if their definition of liberalism is the only one.

For example, if a Democrat is on record as pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-ObamaCare, pro-minimum wage, pro-labor, pro-strong environmental regulation or pro-preschool supported by taxes, if that Democrat also believes in the value of business, believes in the private sector as being the best job creator and often more efficient than government, that Democrat still risks being called a conservative or, to many even worse, a centrist.

This reminds me of something I wrote about my own personal liberal political hero in the 1960s, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York, brother of former President Kennedy. Here is what I wrote in my 2006 book, "Scandal: How Gotcha Politics Is Destroying America:"

When Kennedy announced the Bedford-Stuyvesant redevelopment plan, which used Republican-style market incentives and tax breaks for business to spur jobs in the urban inner city, he was criticized by a well-known and respected Democratic socialist writer, Michael Harrington, as putting too much trust in private business. Kennedys reportedly responded: The difference between me and [Republican conservatives] is I mean what I say.

... Kennedy also prayed with Cesar Chavez in the grape fields of California to win collective bargaining rights and justice for agricultural workers. ... He was sometimes rough, often described as ruthless ... but was seen by both left and right as blunt-speaking, passionate and authentic. ... His followers ran the gamut, from culturally conservative blue collar workers who became Reagan Democrats in the 1980s to the poorest African Americans and Hispanics in Americas underclass. The results of the May 1968 Indiana Democratic primary were a dramatic indication of this. He carried 9 of the 11 congressional districts, won 17 of the 25 rural southern counties, won more than 85 percent of the African American vote, and carried the seven [white] backlash counties that segregationist George Wallace had won in the 1964 Democratic presidential primary.

So, although RFK is remembered as a liberal for his 1968 anti-war and anti-poverty presidential campaign ... he represented someone who is neither left, nor right, but both; liked and disliked by both; pro-business but also pro-regulation; religious and even moralistic about family values and faith, but tolerant of dissent and committed to the separation of Church and State. Most importantly, Robert Kennedy connected with people who wanted their problems solved.

Believe it or not, I actually read over the weekend in an Associated Press article that there are some self-described liberals who challenge President Obamas liberal credentials because he attempted to negotiate a grand bargain with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) last year to try to reduce budget deficits and a $16 trillion national debt (now approaching $17 trillion, or about equal to gross domestic product).

What would Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy say if they were alive today, about a government that uses credit cards every day to pay for all its programs and plans to dump all the receipts on the laps of its children and grandchildren, expecting them to pay the tab?

I believe both men would regard such a government, unwilling to raise taxes and cut spending and reform entitlements to avoid passing the tab to our children, as neither moral nor liberal.

If you are a liberal, what do you think?

This column appears first and weekly in The Hill and the Hill.com.

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What is a liberal? What is a conservative? | Fox News

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, at a news conference at the state Capitol Saturday, slammed Major League Baseball's decision to pull the All-Star Game from Atlanta over the league's objection to a new voting law in the state. Brynn Anderson/AP hide caption

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, at a news conference at the state Capitol Saturday, slammed Major League Baseball's decision to pull the All-Star Game from Atlanta over the league's objection to a new voting law in the state.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp lashed out at Major League Baseball for its decision to take both the All-Star Game and its draft out of the state this year, in response to Georgia's new voting law.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred had said that relocating those events was the best way to "demonstrate our values" and oppose restrictions on voting. But in a press conference on Saturday, Kemp characterized the MLB's move as one based on "fear and lies from liberal activists."

The "Election Integrity Act," passed into law at the end of March without any Democratic support, adds identification requirements for mail-in ballots and places restrictions on the number of drop boxes across the state.

While President Biden and other prominent Democrats like former state representative Stacy Abrams have criticized the law as an attempt to make voting more difficult in Georgia, Republicans argue that's a deliberate mischaracterization of what the law actually does.

"Here's the truth," Kemp said. The law "expands access to voting, secures ballot drop boxes around the clock in every county, expands weekend voting, protects no-excuse absentee voting. It levels the playing field on voter I.D. requirements as well as streamlining election procedures."

Democrats have taken particular umbrage to the portion of the law that prevents groups from providing water to voters standing in line in the Georgia heat. But election workers are still allowed to give voters water, Kemp said; it's just political organizations and "anyone else" who aren't allowed to "harass or electioneer voters who are waiting in line to vote, within the 150-foot buffer," he said.

(The relevant text of the bill states that no person can offer "food and drink" to a voter in line but clarifies that a poll officer can make available "self-service water from an unattended receptacle.")

Kemp and state Attorney General Chris Carr pointed to measures in the law that they say will help turnout, including expanded voting hours across the state. They also pointed out that Georgia law specifies a minimum of 17 days of early voting, with absentee votes allowed for any reason. "It's easier to vote in Georgia than it is in New York," Kemp said.

In addition to MLB's announcement, the state has also faced pushback from Coca-Cola and Delta, whose executives have expressed disappointment with the legislation. Delta CEO Ed Bastian argued this week that "the entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections." That claim has been repeatedly disproved.

Kemp characterized the corporate response as a direct result of "cancel culture," and said that the MLB's decision to pull out of Atlanta where both the All-Star Game and the draft were scheduled to take place this July will hurt Georgians who were depending on the All-Star Game for a paycheck. "Georgians and all Americans should know what this decision means," Kemp said. "It means cancel culture and partisan activists are coming for your business. They're coming for your game, or event, in your hometown."

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Georgia Governor: MLB Decision To Move All-Star Game Is Based On 'Fear And Lies' - NPR

Social Issues

In terms of views on social issues, conservatives oppose gay marriage, abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Liberals on the other hand, are more left-leaning and generally supportive of the right of gay people to get married and women's right to choose to have an abortion, as ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v Wade.

With regard to the right to bear arms, conservatives support this right as it applies to all US citizens, whereas liberals oppose civilian gun ownership - or at the very least, demand that restrictions be places such as background checks on people who want to buy guns, requiring guns to be registered etc.

See also: Comparing Joe Biden and Donald Trump's economic policies

The different schools of economic thought found among conservatives and liberals are closely related to America's anti-federalist and federalist history, with conservatives desiring little to no government intervention in economic affairs and liberals desiring greater regulation.

Economic conservatives believe that the private sector can provide most services more efficiently than the government can. They also believe that government regulation is bad for businesses, usually has unintended consequences, and should be minimal. With many conservatives believing in "trickle-down" economics, they favor a small government that collects fewer taxes and spends less.

In contrast, liberals believe many citizens rely on government services for healthcare, unemployment insurance, health and safety regulations, and so on. As such, liberals often favor a larger government that taxes more and spends more to provide services to its citizens.

Some good examples of this policy split are the Environmental Protection Agency, which liberals think is vital and some conservatives want to abolish or scale down, and the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which liberals want to expand and conservatives believe should be partially or completely privatized through a voucher system connected to private health insurers.

In the early part of the twentieth century, liberals - especially those in Britain - were those who stood for laissez fair capitalism. In more recent times, however, the nomenclature seems to have reversed. The exception to this is found in Australia, where the mainstream conservative party is called the Liberal Party and the mainstream non-conservative party is called the Labour Party.

Political liberals believe that parties motivated by self-interest are willing to behave in ways that are harmful to society unless government is prepared- and empowered to constrain them. They believe regulation is necessitated when individuals-, corporations-, and industries demonstrate a willingness to pursue financial gain at an intolerable cost to society--and grow too powerful to be constrained by other social institutions. Liberals believe in systematic protections against hazardous workplaces, unsafe consumer products, and environmental pollution. They remain wary of the corruption- and historic abuses--particularly the oppression of political minorities--that have taken place in the absence of oversight for state- and local authorities. Liberals value educators and put their trust in science. They believe the public welfare is promoted by cultivating a widely-tolerant and -permissive society.

Political conservatives believe commercial regulation does more harm than good--unnecessarily usurping political freedoms, potentially stifling transformative innovations, and typically leading to further regulatory interference. They endorse the contraction of governmental involvement in non-commercial aspects of society as well, calling upon the private sector to assume their activities. Conservatives call for the devolution of powers to the states, and believe locally-tailored solutions are more appropriate to local circumstances. They promulgate individual responsibility, and believe a strong society is made up of citizens who can stand on their own. Conservatives value the armed forces and place their emphasis on faith. Conservatives believe in the importance of stability, and promote law and order to protect the status quo.

Liberals believe in universal access to health care--they believe personal health should be in no way dependent upon one's financial resources, and support government intervention to sever that link. Political conservatives prefer no government sponsorship of health care; they prefer all industries to be private, favour deregulation of commerce, and advocate a reduced role for government in all aspects of society--they believe government should be in no way involved in one's healthcare purchasing decisions.

Jonathan Haidt, a University of Virginia psychology professor, has examined the values of liberals and conservatives through paired moral attributes: harm/care, fairnesss/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity. He outlines the psychological differences in the following TED talk:

Haidt has also written a book, The Righteous Mind, based on his studies conducted over several years on liberal and conservative subjects. Nicholas Kristof, an avowed liberal, offered an unbiased review of the book and cited some interesting findings such as:

Liberals should not be confused with libertarians. Libertarians believe that the role of the government should be extremely limited, especially in the economic sphere. They believe that governments are prone to corruption and inefficiencies and that the private sector in a free market can achieve better outcomes than government bureaucracies, because they make better decisions on resource allocation. Liberals, on the other hand, favor more government involvement because they believe there are several areas where the private sector -- especially if left unregulated -- needs checks and balances to ensure consumer protection.

The primary focus of libertarians is the maximization of liberty for all citizens, regardless of race, class, or socio-economic position.

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Conservative vs Liberal - Difference and Comparison | Diffen

Mark Carney attends a news conference at Bank of England in London, Britain on March 11, 2020.

POOL/Getty Images

Mark Carney, long touted as a potential Liberal leader one day, will be a keynote speaker at the federal partys convention later this week.

Its a political coming-out party of sorts for the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

Until recently, his role as a central banker required Mr. Carney to avoid any hint of partisanship.

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But he is known to have nevertheless quietly flirted with the idea of jumping into politics, and Liberals have bandied his name about for at least 10 years.

Back in 2012, after the Liberals suffered their worst electoral thrashing in history, questions about a leadership run grew so intense that Carney was compelled to deny any interest with a stinging rejoinder: Why dont I become a circus clown?

He left the country shortly thereafter to take over the helm of the Bank of England, but speculation about his interest in federal politics intensified once again with his return to Canada last summer and the recent release of his memoirs, Value(s): Building a Better World for All.

The book spells out Mr. Carneys prescription for a sustainable, more inclusive postpandemic economic recovery, based on the lessons he learned from managing monetary policy in Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and in Britain during the tumultuous aftermath of that countrys exit from the European Union.

When Bill Morneau abruptly resigned as finance minister last August, Mr. Carneys name came up as a possible replacement. Instead, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose Chrystia Freeland, herself widely considered an eventual leadership contender.

Mr. Carneys name also came up again as a potential candidate to fill Mr. Morneaus Toronto Centre seat. But he did not run, and the vacancy was instead filled by former broadcaster Marci Ien, one of the co-chairs of the April 8-10 virtual convention.

Since the release of his book last month, Mr. Carney has been coy about his political ambitions. Hes insisted hes focused on his work as the United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance and his new role as vice-chairman of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., where he is overseeing the global investment firms expansion into environmental and social investing.

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But he has not categorically ruled out a political future.

Mr. Carneys appearance at the Liberal convention, which starts Thursday evening, may not herald a plunge into the political arena. But it does mark the first public dipping of his toe into partisan waters.

It comes just over a week ahead of Ms. Freelands first budget, which could tip the minority Liberal government into an election if all three opposition parties vote against it.

Should an election be triggered during the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, Liberals will get some advice during the convention about how to conduct a virtual campaign from two veterans of last falls U.S. presidential campaign: Caitlin Mitchell, senior digital adviser for the Biden-Harris ticket, and Muthoni Waambu Kraal, former national political and organizing director for the Democratic National Committee.

Theyll also hear from Ben Rhodes, ex-deputy national security adviser to former U.S. president Barack Obama.

The convention itself will be entirely virtual, with more than 5,000 registered Liberals expected to take part in what party spokesman Braeden Caley calls the largest policy convention in Liberals history. Mr. Trudeau will deliver a keynote address on Saturday.

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Mr. Caley said the convention will focus on four broad themes: protecting Canadians health, ensuring the economy comes roaring back, protecting a clean and healthy environment and creating a fairer and more equal Canada.

He predicted it will present a stark contrast to last months Conservative convention, where delegates debated whether climate change is real, rolling back womens right to choose and weakening gun control.

Know what is happening in the halls of power with the days top political headlines and commentary as selected by Globe editors (subscribers only). Sign up today.

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Former central bank governor to play prominent role at Liberal convention - The Globe and Mail

If prime minister Scott Morrison wants a circuit-breaker for the gendered political turmoil besetting his precarious Coalition government, unilaterally declaring gender quotas for federal Coalition MPs would be a masterstroke.

Even Coalition voters on balance now support quotas for women (48% supporting and 43% against) according to the latest Essential poll, with net support among voters overall doubling from +6% in 2019 to +12% in this weeks poll.

Note, Im suggesting he should bring in gender quotas, not quotas for women. Benefits flow from diversity, not women. If three-quarters of Coalition MPs in Canberra were women instead of men as is the case today, gender quotas would rebalance things in the direction of men.

Changing the rhetoric from quotas for women to gender quotas makes it harder for troglodytes to block this sensible extension of the quota approach the Coalition routinely uses elsewhere for example, the longstanding quota ensuring the Nationals get a fair share of ministers on the frontbench.

Quota opponents could be further disarmed if the policy applied only to winnable seats as they open up in the future, making sitting members safe from change.

Morrison could also take up the shift evident internationally from 50/50 quotas to the more flexible 40/40/20 approach adopted, for example, by global law firms Baker MacKenzie in 2019 and Norton Rose Fulbright in 2020.

This 40% women, 40% men, with 20% open approach to leadership appointments not only gives organisations a bit of elbow room in achieving gender diversity but makes room for other kinds of diversity too.

The Male Champions of Change group of Australian business leaders advocated this in its 40:40:20 For Gender Balance report in 2019, aimed to help organisations reap the diversity dividend now clear in management research.

The report provides hard numbers on the superior results achieved by organisations not dominated by one gender. It shows how to overcome the problem of merit being defined by, and reinforcing, the status quo.

Crucially, this is a report endorsed by 255 leading Australian directors and chief executives, including Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn, Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott and Golf Australia CEO James Sutherland to name a few.

There would be a fair degree of overlap between the Male Champions of Change group and the Coalitions donor list come election time. If gender quotas are good enough for them and their organisations, why not for the federal Coalition?

Finally, this is a change which can be picked up and announced right away. Morrison has an action deficit. Declaring the beginning of the gender quota era in the Coalition, using the Male Champions of Change report as his template, would show him actually doing something, not just dodging, delaying and announcing another process.

Stubbornness stands in the way of Morrison making this necessary and politically sensible move.

Guardian Australia political editor Katharine Murphy last week noted the prime ministers practice of almost exclusively addressing men at risk of voting Labor in his public rhetoric. It is reminiscent of former US president Donald Trumps 2020 presidential election tactic. Trump lost.

As with Trump, its unlikely to be enough for Morrison to hold on to men at risk of voting Labor when he is at risk, because of his one-sided handling of the last few weeks, of losing an equal or bigger number of women who voted Liberal at the 2019 federal election.

Nor is it as though this is a new problem. The broad church Liberal party of which John Howard used to boast even as he worked to narrow it, is no more.

Instead of being Liberals, small l liberal moderates now sit as independents between government and opposition MPs on parliaments crossbench: Helen Haines (Indi), Zali Steggall (Warringah) and Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo) so far. Similar moderates are eyeing Wentworth, Hughes, Calare and Groom.

A contemporary Robert Menzies would do a strategic appreciation of the situation and realise he had to bring the small l liberals back into the tent before the cumulative seat loss became fatal.

Looking back on the formation of the Liberals in 1944, Menzies singled out two people for special praise. One was May Couchman, Victorian president of the Australian Womens National League whose members Menzies said did far more electoral work than most men. Over a six-month period, Couchman folded the League into the Liberal Partys Womens Section, significantly strengthening Menzies fledgeling political creation.

Morrison may be no Menzies but, as a former state party secretary and in 2019 victor in an apparently unwinnable federal election, he is not without some political smarts.

Putting his prime ministerial prestige on the line to get the Liberal partys state branches to adopt 40/40/20 gender quotas, and to urge the Nationals to do the same, is not just the right thing to do. It would be very smart politics too.

Chris Wallace is an associate professor at the 50/50 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government and Law, University of Canberra. She tweets at @c_s_wallace

Originally posted here:

Bringing in gender quotas in the Liberal party is not just right it's smart politics too - The Guardian

DePauw University is among top 10 liberal arts colleges in the country, according to a new ranking by BestValueSchools.org.

The website, which has a target audience of college-bound high school students looking for the right fit, published a list of the best 12 liberal arts schools in the nation, with DePauw at No. 10.

According to BestValueSchools.org, schools are ranked based on graduation rate, acceptance rates, tuition, curriculum, class size and reputation. We also consider prestige, alumni performance and the campus and culture of the school, the website said.

BestValueSchools cited DePauws calendar, including winter and May terms that offer unique opportunities, such as domestic internships and study or service travel abroad. It also noted DePauws low student-to-faculty ratio; small class sizes; and a wide variety of majors.

Aliberal artscollege focuses on providing a well-rounded education instead of being highly career-focused, the website said. These schools will prepare you for life. Youll gain knowledge in a wide variety of subjects, and learn more about who you are as a person. These schools are an excellent place to get a degree and discover your place in the world.

Even though the subjects taught expanded, the core sentiment has stayed the same through the ages. Liberal arts colleges prioritize free thinking and knowledge over career skills.

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DePauw ranked No. 10 liberal arts school in the nation - DePauw University

Just over a year ago, Steve Denning, the leadership guru and a former director of the World Bank, argued that stakeholder capitalism is doomed to failure, despite the proclamations from the Business Roundtable to the World Economic Forum that addressing stakeholders interest is the only effective way forward.

According to Denning, stakeholder capitalism failed in the mid-20th century, and it will fail again now because corporations must have a single, overriding goal a true north in order to operate successfully.

Since then, the world has experienced a global pandemic that has turned business and economies upside-down. This chaos has only intensified the debate about the best model for business, with consulting firms such as McKinsey making the case for switching to a stakeholder approach, and groups such as the Shareholder Equity Alliance dismissing that approach as ineffective if not impossible.

A key issue in this stakeholder/shareholder argument is how people are defining efficiency and what level of complexity they are willing to navigate in pursuing a companys goals.The stakeholder model requires thinking through impacts on many constituencies customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders and local communities.

Crucially, there is no single stakeholder model that will work to govern every kind of business in every location. Shifting to stakeholder capitalism requires a willingness to think situationallyto analyze the broad context of a particular enterprise, identify the key stakeholders for that company at that time, and remain willing to revisit that analysis over time.

Some business leaders, such as Denning, look at these challenges and declare them to be impossible to address in a way that leaves a company functioning and profitable.

But shifting to a stakeholder approach is not only possible, it is essential if capitalism is going to remake itself into a sustainable system for the future.

This kind of massive change does not just require new strategies; it requires new ways of thinking about the world. And it cant be done based only on financial data. Making a stakeholder model effective requires the ability to comprehend multiple points of view based on different ways of valuing things.

This is not impossible, but it is hard. And it requires different ways of approaching problems than business programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels have offered for the past half century.

Fortunately, the answer to this conundrum lies in the broad, multifaceted educations provided by liberal arts colleges and by arts and sciences programs at large universities.

The fact that stakeholder capitalism is hard is not a reason to toss it away in favor of ideas such as customer capitalism that simply repackage the fundamental goal of maximizing profits. Instead, its a reason to devote resources to getting the stakeholder approach right.

Making stakeholder capitalism work requires rewiring how we educate those going into business. Our business leaders need to be able to think creatively, identify connections that are not always obvious, and put information together in new ways: this is exactly what a broad liberal arts education prepares students to do.

A liberal arts approach teaches students to think critically about the way todays systems operate and about how the status quo can be changed for the better.

Rather than staying focused on the way knowledge is already understood or applied and rejecting information that does not fit a particular model, a liberal arts curriculum teaches students to ask good questions the kinds of questions that lead them to consider problems from all points of view and to cast a wide net across many types of information to find the answers.

In a liberal arts program, an economics major will learn the theories, models, and formulas that economists use to interpret the world. But they will also learn that historians, anthropologists, psychologists, and professors of religion have different ways of interpreting the world. Most importantly, they will learn that combining a variety of ways of thinking will help make their economic decisions better and more sustainable.

This kind of broad education is the necessary preparation for implementing a stakeholder approach, which requires looking at an enterprise from many perspectives and being able to evaluate long-term as well as short-term impacts and risks.

Liberal arts programs need to claim this strength loudly and fully. At Denison, we are doing this across our campus, finding new and exciting ways to help our students articulate the value and applicability of their liberal arts education.

In our Global Commerce major preparing to graduate our 3rd cohort of seniors this year our students combine courses focused on the dynamics and structures of global trade and business with foreign language study and an individually-designed set of courses drawn from across the college curriculum.

The outcome is that our majors understand how businesses work today while also recognizing how the system can be improved. For them, it is not a question of either getting a job or saving the world. It is a matter of both and. They are prepared to successfully enter the working world as it exists and to think about how to improve the way businesses operate in the world as they build their careers.

This kind of imagination is just what is needed to create a version of stakeholder capitalism that will work. Predicting that stakeholder capitalism is doomed is a failure to imagine that things might be significantly different than they currently are.

Ignoring the need to create successful ways to take a wide range of stakeholders into account will only push responsibility for societys growing problemsincome, housing, and educational inequality, climate change and environmental concerns, depletion of natural resourcesdown the road in the interest of short-term financial success for a limited group of people.

Stakeholder capitalism is hard. The liberal arts are necessary to make it happen.

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Why We Need The Liberal Arts To Achieve Stakeholder Capitalism - Chief Executive Group

President Joe Biden is unveiling the first part of his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure proposal today, which could include up to $3.5 trillion in tax hikes. Some unions and progressive organizations are saying he should go even bigger.

On Tuesday, 82 national organizations, led by Americans for Tax Fairness, sent a letter to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, commending the administration's efforts to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and encouraging the president to go further. The letter said Biden's tax plans were the "boldest of any major party presidential nominee in modern American history."

The tax proposals have "received widespread media coverage and, perhaps more significant, your boldly progressive tax plan was heavily attacked by your political opponents, who spent untold millions of dollars and claimed falsely that the middle-class would pay more," the letter said. "Yet, you won the most votes ever of any US presidential candidate, with a central promise of your campaign to make the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes. You have a clear mandate to pursue your agenda."

The letter, which was signed byAFL-CIO and MoveOn, said that even among Republicans, raising taxes is popular. For example, a New York Times survey from November found that two-thirds of respondents, including 45% of Republican voters, supported tax increases on people making over $400,000, and an Americans for Tax Fairness survey from October found that 71% of Americans supported raising the income tax rate, including 51% of Republicans.

The best way to hold the wealthy accountable, according to the letter, is to reverse the "worst aspects" of former President Donald Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), including Biden's proposals to:

Aside from the TCJA proposed changes, Biden also proposed additional tax reforms during his campaign, like investing in Internal Revenue Service enforcement of high-income taxpayers and imposing a "financial-risk fee" on large Wall Street banks.

The letter said that even along with Biden's campaign proposals, he could implement many other reforms, including a 10-percentage-point surtax on all incomes about $2 million, a financial transaction tax on bond and stock trades, and a wealth tax on ultra-millionaires.

Biden's tax hikes have already faced opposition in Congress. While moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said an infrastructure proposal could be as large as $4 trillion using tax hikes as funding, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that won't win his party's support.

"I don't think there's going to be any enthusiasm on our side for a tax increase," McConnell told reporters last week. Republicans even recently introduced a bill to repeal the estate tax, which would only affect 0.6% of farm estates.

But progressive lawmakers are continuing to push for measures that hold the ultra-rich accountable. Although Politico reported on Tuesday that Biden will notuse a wealth tax to fund infrastructure, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has led the effort to propose a 2% tax on households with net worths over $50 million.

"A wealth tax iscritical for raising revenue, and that revenue is critical for raising opportunity," Warren said on Twitter on March 1. "We build a future for all of our kids by investing in opportunity. This is one way we can make this government work for everyone not just the rich and powerful."

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82 unions and liberal groups urge Biden to go bigger on tax hikes and hold the wealthy accountable - Business Insider

OTTAWA Mark Carney, long touted as a potential Liberal leader one day, will be a keynote speaker at the federal party's convention later this week.

It's a political coming out party of sorts for the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

Until recently, his role as a central banker required Carney to avoid any hint of partisanship.

But he is known to have nevertheless quietly flirted with the idea of jumping into politics, and Liberals have bandied his name about for at least 10 years.

Back in 2012, after the Liberals suffered their worst electoral thrashing in history, questions about a leadership run grew so intense that Carney was compelled to deny any interest with a stinging rejoinder: "Why don't I become a circus clown?"

He left the country shortly thereafter to take over the helm of the Bank of England, but speculation about his interest in federal politics intensified once again with his return to Canada last summer and the recent release of his memoirs, "Value(s): Building a Better World for All."

The book spells out Carney's prescription for a sustainable, more inclusive, post-pandemic economic recovery, based on the lessons he learned from managing monetary policy in Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and in Britain during the tumultuous aftermath of that country's exit from the European Union.

When Bill Morneau abruptly resigned as finance minister last August, Carney's name came up as a possible replacement. Instead, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose Chrystia Freeland, herself widely considered an eventual leadership contender.

Carney's name also came up again as a potential candidate to fill Morneau's Toronto Centre seat. But he did not run, and the vacancy was instead filled by former broadcaster Marci Ien, one of the co-chairs of the April 8-10 virtual convention.

Since the release of his book last month, Carney has been coy about his political ambitions. He's insisted he's focused on his work as the United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance and his new role as vice chairman of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., where he is overseeing the global investment firm's expansion into environmental and social investing.

But he has not categorically ruled out a political future.

Carney's appearance at the Liberal convention, which starts Thursday evening, may not herald a plunge into the political arena. But it does mark the first public dipping of his toe into partisan waters.

It comes just over a week ahead of Freeland's first budget, which could tip the minority Liberal government into an election if all three opposition parties vote against it.

Should an election be triggered during the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, Liberals will get some advice during the convention about how to conduct a virtual campaign from two veterans of last fall's U.S. presidential campaign: Caitlin Mitchell, senior digital adviser for the Biden-Harris ticket, and Muthoni Waambu Kraal, former national political and organizing director for the Democratic National Committee.

They'll also hear from Ben Rhodes, ex-deputy national security adviser to former U.S. president Barack Obama.

The convention itself will be entirely virtual, with more than 5,000 registered Liberals expected to take part in what party spokesman Braeden Caley calls the largest policy convention in Liberals' history. Trudeau will deliver a keynote address on Saturday.

Caley said the convention will focus on four broad themes: protecting Canadians' health, ensuring the economy "comes roaring back," protecting a clean and healthy environment and creating a fairer and more equal Canada.

He predicted it will present a "stark contrast" to last month's Conservative convention, where delegates debated whether climate change is real, rolling back women's right to choose and weakening gun control.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2021.

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Former bank governor Mark Carney among featured speakers at Liberal convention - Kamloops This Week

Regrettably, many members are angry these values and beliefs have been trashed not byLabor governments, but by Liberal governments they helped to elect. For example, the rejection of reform to s.18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, same-sex marriage without protection for religious freedom, the safe-schools program all helped to foment their concerns.

The grassroots are increasingly questioning the values and beliefs of candidates. If merit is not the primary determinant of selection or promotion, this cultural disconnect willcontinue. Conflating bad behaviour by politicians with preselection processes to argue for quotas is illogical and wrong. Preselection should always be on merit and individuals should always take personal responsibility for their actions. This view is reinforced by the fact that we are a party where individual effort is an important cornerstone of its constitution.

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Furthermore, we would do well to ensure political parties have more robust vetting as part of theselection process. The debacle with dual citizenship issues demonstrated obvious shortcomings.

With growing instances of foreign interference and foreign influence, I have publicly advocated forsome form of vetting of politicians. Ministers, like their staff, should be vetted. In relation tobackbenchers, vetting should occur after they are elected, and most especially if they are about tohold positions with access to sensitive and highly classified material.

Selection should be based on merit. It is a view that is widely supported by our grassroots. It took 20 years to achieve reform. Quotas will only return us to the days of entrenched power of factional bosses. We need plebiscites, not quotas.

Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells is a Liberal senator for NSW.

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Quotas for women would be fraught with problems in the NSW Liberal Party - Sydney Morning Herald

OTTAWA -- Opposition members shut down a parliamentary committee hearing Wednesday after the Liberal government once again refused to let a political aide appear to answer questions about the now-dead deal with WE Charity.

Members of the House of Commons' ethics committee had asked Amitpal Singh, a senior adviser to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, to testify after a majority of MPs passed a Conservative-sponsored motion to that effect last week.

The motion allowed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appear before the committee in his place.

But the Liberal government, which has ordered political staff not to appear before committees, deployed Associate Finance Minister Mona Fortier to instead appear for Singh, who worked for Bill Morneau when he was finance minister.

It was the second time a minister appeared instead of a ministerial aide after government House leader Pablo Rodriguez took the place of Trudeau's director of policy earlier this week.

While the committee ultimately decided to hear what Rodriguez had to say on Monday, opposition members refused to do the same with Fortier and instead used their majority to adjourn the meeting after only 20 minutes.

"By blocking witnesses from testifying ... against an order of the House of Commons, the government is devaluing and disrespecting Canada's Parliament," Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett told the committee before asking that it adjourn.

The motion passed in the House of Commons last Thursday called on Singh, Trudeau policy director Rick Theis and the prime minister's senior adviser, Ben Chin, to appear before the ethics committee to answer questions on the WE deal.

It also called for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan's former chief of staff, Zita Astravas, who now holds the same position in Public Safety Minister Bill Blair's office, to appear before the Commons' defence committee to discuss sexual misconduct in the military.

Trudeau was invited to attend on their behalf if the government wanted.

The government has in turn accused opposition members of trying to intimidate and mistreat non-elected political staff and argued that ministers are ultimately responsible for those who work in their offices.

Rodriguez and Liberal committee members have also accused the opposition of trying to score cheap political points by dragging out the ethics committee's study on WE, suggesting there was little more to learn about how the deal came together.

Prior to the committee adjourning, Bloc Quebecois MP Rheal Fortin accused the government in French of "blatantly defying" the House of Commons by ignoring the motion calling for senior political staff or Trudeau to appear.

"I always thought that Canada was supposed to be a democratic country where decisions were taken democratically and where a decision by the House held some value," he said. "And yet members of the government side are blatantly defying the House."

The sole-sourced deal with WE was announced last spring and would have seen the Toronto-based youth organization paid $43.5 million to run the Canada Student Services Grant program, which was designed to reward students who volunteered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WE later backed out of the agreement following questions and concerns about its close ties to members of the prime minister's family, before the $543-million program was cancelled entirely.

The Liberals and WE co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger have insisted that it was non-partisan civil servants who came up with the idea of having the organization run the grant program.

But the Conservatives have held up some of the thousands of email exchanges and other documents released by the government in August, after Trudeau testified, as evidence the arrangement was directed by the Liberals.

The ethics commissioner is currently investigating both Trudeau and Morneau, who abruptly resigned as finance minister and left federal politics in August, for potential conflicts of interest in relation to the deal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2021.

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Opposition shuts WE hearing as Liberals again refuse to let staffer testify - CTV News

Starting Wednesday, March 31, Port, who is widely known for his conservative views on North Dakota and national politics, will be hosting weekly shows on InForum that will feature rotating guest hosts with more liberal takes on the issues. The Plain Talk segments will be live every Wednesday at 2 p.m. and include a live blog where readers and listeners can "join the conversation" by submitting questions and comments in real time.

"My goal is to leave the audience feeling like the issues covered are better illuminated for them, however they might feel about the views I or my guests express," Port said. "Maybe they'll feel persuaded. Maybe they'll feel more committed to what they already believed. Either way, that's a win in my book."

Port's first rotating guest host will be Jonah Lantos, a Minot-based talk show host with the podcast "The Good Talk Network." The idea is to provide a platform on InForum where civil dialogue can happen between two people with opposing views on some of the most hotly debated topics, all while allowing InForum readers to join the conversation.

"I don't want it to be another political cage match," Port said. "We have so much of that these days. Cable news might as well be professional wrestling. I want thoughtful, passionate conversations about news, culture and policy among people who can smile at each other at the end and agree to disagree.

Port, who was a guest on a livestreamed event with OneFargo activist Wess Philome to talk about race, said these kinds of conversations require a willingness to acknowledge that nobody is going to "win."

"In nearly two decades of covering politics, the most concrete thing I've learned is that nobody ever really 'wins' a debate," said Port. "One side may be ascendant for a while, but there are no permanent victories in politics. Time marches on. Attitudes evolve. There's always another election looming. All we can really do is listen and try to understand."

Parts of these livestream shows will be available on Plain Talk with Rob Port, which can be found on InForum or on a variety of podcasting services.

In addition to the Wednesday livestream shows, Port will also begin adding "newsmaker" video interviews with some of his columns, where he'll speak with state leaders and various newsmakers throughout North Dakota. His first is being published this Friday, April 2, with Lt. Gov. Brent Sanford as they talk about the potential sale of the Coal Creek Station.

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Conservative opinion columnist Rob Port to begin new livestream show with liberals - INFORUM

The NSW Young Liberals is pushing for a candidate selection model to get more women and people from non-Anglo backgrounds in Parliament, and fewer political hacks.

The youth wing has prepared a discussion paper which says there must be more CEOs, successful small business owners, top professionals and skilled tradespeople running for our party in winnable seats. The selection model the Young Liberals are proposing the party adopt is similar to one used by the British Conservatives.

President of the NSW Young Liberals Deyi Wu says the party must change how it selects candidates. Credit:Louise Kennerley

People who cant necessarily spend the majority of their time doing party political work as a virtual unpaid second job but who would capably represent and embody our partys values in Parliament, the paper says.

There must also be more women and more people from non-Anglo backgrounds.

The leader of the Liberals moderate faction in NSW, Energy Minister Matt Kean, said on Monday nothing else had worked to increase female representation and it was clear quotas had to be tried.

Quotas are a fast and effective way to get the Liberal Party to better reflect the community we seek to serve, Mr Kean said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week said he was very open to the idea of quotas for females.

In its paper Modernising our Candidate Selection Process, which will be sent to all Young Liberals for feedback before being handed to the partys governing body, there is a call for soft quotas through using candidates lists.

The basic idea of a candidates list is that there is a set pool of candidates (whether statewide, regional or in a local electorate) from which pre-selectors can choose, the paper, co-written by former Young Liberal president Chaneg Torres, said.

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NSW Young Liberals turn to Tory selection process for women - Sydney Morning Herald

Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg wants the Morrison government to redeploy an emergency scheme introduced at the height of pandemic letting workers withdraw $20,000 from their superannuation for other purposes such as first home deposits.

In a speech to be delivered at a launch for Arch Capital founder Nigel Bakers new book The Super Secret on Thursday evening, Senator Bragg says the federal governments early access scheme had been one of the most successful policies of the coronavirus recession. The policy allowed struggling workers who had lost hours or been made unemployed during the crisis to access up to $10,000 twice from their funds.

Senator Andrew Bragg.Credit:Peter Braig

Between April 20 last year and January 31, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority recorded $36.4 billion worth of payments to 3.5 million people under the scheme. The superannuation system is worth about $3 trillion in total.

It was hotly contested by Labor and the super industry but it worked. It was a success for two main reasons: firstly, it helped Australians improve their personal balance sheets, and secondly it drove engagement with super, Senator Bragg said.

By breaking the seal of preservation and allowing people to access their own money Australians realised super wasnt monopoly money that fell out of the sky only to be locked away and eaten by fees and junk insurance, he said. We should consider using this scheme again in future but for targeted policies.

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One of the ways he thinks this could be used is for future crises or other situations leaving households in severe financial stress. Currently, people can apply to the Australian Taxation Office for early access to their super on compassionate grounds for the coverage of some medical treatments, which has allowed some people to pay for IVF, weight loss surgeries and other treatments using their retirement funds. They can also apply directly to their funds in cases of financial hardship.

Senator Braggs suggestions will rile the superannuation industry, which has been advertising on free-to-air television to publicly raise concerns the government is meddling over the possibility of a backflip on the currently legislated rise in the super guarantee from 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent by 2025. Industry Super Australia has previously warned letting first-home buyers tap into super for a deposit will result in higher property prices and would harm the growth of peoples retirement savings due to the loss of compound interest.

Senator Braggs book on superannuation, Bad Egg: How To Fix Super, recommended the expansion of the governments existing First Home Super Saver Accounts scheme to allow first-time buyers to not only tap into additional contributions but mandatory super payments. Liberal MP Tim Wilson recently launched a Home First Super Second campaign to drum up support for letting young renters tap into super to help them buy a property.

Super has damaged home ownership, especially for lower-income Australians and this trend must be reversed. Home ownership is more important than super, Senator Bragg said. I am not saying that super for housing is a silver bullet, especially in an overheated property market.

Jennifer Duke is an economics correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based at Parliament House in Canberra.

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Liberal senator backs redeploying of superannuation early access scheme - Sydney Morning Herald

"We know the direction the country would take, and we're going to continue to make sure that Georgians understand that our very way of life here in Georgia and across the country is under attack by the left," said Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) during Sunday night's candidate debate. (She also said that her opponent, Democrat Raphael Warnock, would bring in "socialism" on eight separate occasions in the debate.)

It's all part of the broader Republican messaging effort to suggest that if Democrats retake control of the Senate, that they will somehow name Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-New York) president and begin the dismantling of capitalism. Or something.

What that rhetoric misses is this: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D).

Manchin is, unapologetically, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate caucus. And he's on the record as:

Which, well, virtually ensures that the picture Senate Republicans are trying to paint of a Democratic Senate majority will never come to pass.

Because, at best, Democrats will have 50 seats -- come January 6. Which means that if Manchin sides with Republicans on ANY vote, Democrats lose that vote. Heck, even a tweet or an off-hand statement expressing disapproval for a Democratic agenda item from Manchin could force his party to recalibrate its legislative strategy.

Which makes Manchin a very, very powerful figure in Washington over the next few years -- especially if his party winds up sweeping both seats in Georgia next month.

And makes it impossible to realistically imagine that any sort of progressive dream will be coming true no matter the outcome in the Peach State.

The Point: Watch what Manchin says and does between now and January 20, 2021. His voice could well be the most important one in the Senate when the next Congress convenes.

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Here's why there's *no* chance of a liberal takeover of Washington - CNN

Every man and every woman, it seems, knows Gilbert and Sullivans quipping lines from Iolanthe (1882): That every boy and every gal / Thats born into the world alive. / Is either a little Liberal / Or else a little Conservative. When the lines were first sung, the labels matched up with Britains political parties, but they obviously have a wider applicationeach calling to mind, then and now, a cultural outlook, an inclination, a temperament, even a philosophy. Over time, of course, even the firmest definition will shift, making easy summary difficult and historical circumstancecontext, that iscrucial to our understanding of what liberalism is and how conservatism differs from it. These days, we may also ask: What sets the two sides of democratic politics so far apart?

Edmund Fawcett, a former editor and correspondent at the Economist, grappled with one end of this polarity in Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, published in 2014 and revised four years later. He now explores its opposing force in Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition. A self-described left-wing liberal, Mr. Fawcett believes that both categories of thought (and politics) are facing critical tests, making it all the more urgent that we grasp their genealogyhow they developed and what they have come to represent. He calls his explorations historical essays, and indeed they are written in a reflective mode, though at times in an impassioned style. Members of both thought-categories will find much to learn from both books, not least from the historical figures Mr. Fawcett brings into view.

Mr. Fawcett notes that, in the broadest terms, the modern era in advanced societies has been governed by a liberal outlook, one in which the liberty or freedom of the individual has been increasingly protected from the state or liberated from custom, hierarchy and the institutionsnotably, the churchthat once dictated social relations and guided mans understanding of himself. The origins of this outlook, he notes, can be traced to the Enlightenment, when reason was elevated to an exalted position and, it was believed, a rational scrutiny of both principles and institutions would lead humanity away from dark superstition and upward toward the light.

Enlightenment thinkers, Mr. Fawcett reminds us, encouraged the idea that society might be understood and thereby changed for the better. They also sought to sever moral codes from their traditional mooring, or at least to rethink them: As Mr. Fawcett puts it, David Hume and Immanuel Kant welcomed liberty from ethical tutelage so that men could determine their own standards of conduct. The German statesman Wilhelm von Humboldt saw education as a way to realize individual possibility rather than, as tradition would have it, train for an occupation or a social role. Benjamin Constant, in France, focused on the concept of liberty, which he defined as a condition of existence allowing people to turn away interference from either society or the state. Calling absolute power radically illegitimate, Franois Guizot insisted that human imperfection meant that no person, class, faith or interest should have the final say. Like other French liberals of his day, he sought a juste milieua place where interests and ideas could be balanced. Enlightenment philosophers on the Continent also challenged the assumptions of the ancien rgime, helping open careers to talent and remove restrictions on office-holding long governed by religion and class.

These currents of thought we associate with the 18th century, and for good reason, but after the shock of the American and French revolutions, they were dammed up by the Napoleonic Wars and an interlude of restoration. It was only in the 1830s that the dam broke. A period of rapid changebrought on by the dislocations of the Industrial Revolution, the railways remarkable shrinking of distance, and episodes of agricultural depression and financial crisisdemanded a re-assessment of established patterns of thought and governance. Enlightenment-driven liberalism was one mode of response; conservatism, one might say, was a response to the response.

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Conservatism and Liberalism: Two Books on the Great Divide - The Wall Street Journal

I thank, Gerald Ingram, for his polite response to my own letter.

Where, I still claimed that readers ought to be more supportive of the Liberal Democrats, as they believe in having a United Kingdom.

Plus we should have stayed full members of the EU.

Where, we were the second strongest economy and third largest member within the 28.

Gerald suggests the Lib/Dems should join the Labour Party as a left wing opposition.

I, for one, would never support the Labour Party.

I would never vote Conservative.

That is why I still claim the Liberal Democrats are an alternative.

Politics is changing.

Your Prime Minster has now grabbed the Green Party policies over climate change looking for new energy sources.

Something he would have written off as nonsense.

Rather as he did with the coronavirus.

Plus, of course, our membership of the European Union which the Conservatives were very much in favour of. Indeed, built on.

It was the Labour Party, who were are not in favour.

Feels like Trump's America.

Richard Grant

Burley

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LETTER - The Liberal Democrats are an alternative - Daily Echo

In the winter of 2018, Gwen Kansen, a 33-year-old self-professed liberal, met a man called Elias in a bar. Within minutes, she knew he was intense. His phone screensaver was of Pepe the Frog a symbol of the alt-right movement. His style reminded her of a Confederate soldier, and he wore badges proudly proclaiming his hatred for political correctness.

It was not long before he disclosed he was a member of the Proud Boys, a far-right, male-only political organization. Still, Kansen didnt put an end to the date. They drank rum and cokes; spoke about music, books and exes; and that night, he walked her home. The two had a brief fling. Later, Kansen wrote an article about coming to terms with her so-called liberal beliefs while still choosing to entertain the affair.

The article was met with backlash. People spammed her Twitter, questioning her morals, dating standards and self awareness. How could a so-called liberal woman choose to date a member of a group known for its anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric, associations with extremist gatherings, and a white nationalist agenda? The consequences of this group are real-life harm: death threats, racial slurs, violence and even murder, and yet Kansen saw it as an opportunity to dabble in a forbidden experience.

The story might sound extreme, especially following a summer of listening and learning. Following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, many white Americans have spent the past year taking part in a social justice movement online and on the ground, combating systemic racism and opposing police brutality. Bookstores sold out of race education books, social media timelines were consumed with Black Lives Matter support, and protests drew diverse crowds.

But then we saw the election results. Trump won the support of 74 million Americans this year including 55% of white women and 61% of white men. Even in liberal hotbeds like New York, California and Washington, Trump maintained 48%, 47%, and 36% of the white vote.

Given continued white support for a man who has refused to denounce white supremacy, lied about the severity of the coronavirus, and hasnt been shy about his sexist and misogynistic beliefs, can liberal white Americans really be doing the groundwork their social media profiles would have you believe?

I thought maybe the [Proud Boys] were four steps away from the Nazis, Kansen said by phone one Monday evening. I now realize maybe theyre one or two.

When speaking with Kansen, I was curious to know her definition of liberal. Im a Democrat. Ill be friends with anyone, like anyone from different sides of the political spectrum. I guess that makes me liberal, she said. Liberals are more open to experiences.

Maybe they are. But a woman of color would be physically threatened if their date exposed their Proud Boy membership over a few drinks. Kansen, a white woman, did not feel at risk and so it was partly her privilege not her tolerance that gave her a hall pass to entertain a member of a white supremacist group.

Although she compares them to the Nazi party, she still felt a relationship with a Proud Boy was fair game. If youre saying that Im more interested in myself than I am in having integrity towards a cause then yeah, youre right, she said. Kansens date isnt one most would consider progressive, but she liked him, and so what she saw as her liberal duties slid. Kansens ability to set aside the mans differences extreme ones that contribute to a systemic problem liberals claim to want to dismantle is not so uncommon, especially among family members and longtime friends: 35% of Biden voters in 2020 reported they have a few close friends who supported Trump.

Does this simply come down to being more accepting of others political views? A superior mastery of compartmentalization? Or does it stem from a place of selfishness, as ultimately it is not their wellbeing that will suffer?

And what should it leave us to believe about the inner workings, impact and true beliefs of self-professed liberals who behave in ways that dont align with those beliefs?

Amanda Booth first witnessed the phenomenon of labeling yourself progressive online while endorsing different values in real life when her white co-workers mentioned buying property in East Austin. The area is popularly known as a redlined neighborhood, primarily housing Austins Black and brown community. Recently, the East Side has undergone major renovations with new modern houses, trendy bars, and local coffee shops, as gentrification pushes out the original inhabitants of the area.

But when Booth, a 24-year old content designer in Austin, confronted her co-workers by explaining that Black and Hispanic people were being displaced from the area, her remarks were met with silence. Both of these guys proudly express themselves as being more on the progressive side of the Democratic party, Booth said. Mind you, both of them have houses on the East Side now.

Its not enough to believe in racial justice and that Black people deserve things. White people need to begin giving up their privilege. The least they can do is try to plug into Austins anti-displacement efforts. But I dont really see those people doing that, Booth continued.

Online, her co-workers share a lot of anti-racist rhetoric. They share videos by Black activists and quotes like Its not enough to be not racist. You have to be anti-racist. But Booth thinks people are watering anti-racism down if they are putting in very little practical effort to match their online beliefs.

There is this cognitive dissonance where they are like, Oh yeah, our city is so segregated. Our systems are built on racism and anti-Black sentiment. But then they dont give up anything, she says. They feel like realizing it, or accepting their privilege, is enough.

Very high-profile examples of police shootings coupled with the breathtaking rise in incarceration, maternal and infant mortality, and coronavirus deaths in the Black community have inspired a great awakening for people especially white people seeing it for the first time. But what if this has led to a shift in posturing, without a real shift in accountability?

People intellectually understand white privilege and can see it, but also like how it makes their life easier, explains Shannon Cavanagh, an associate professor in the department of sociology and a faculty research associate at the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Those guys who buy in East Austin because its cool and hip and cheaper than living on West 6th Street might be displacing a faceless Black family but there is a Whole Foods now and a cool bar scene, she says, adding: They wanna do the right thing but its hard financially mostly and the status quo actually works for them.

The fake indicator of progress of acknowledging privilege publicly while working against it privately has tricked many white liberals into thinking they are actively bettering conditions for people of color. Social media holds an immense influence in this way of thinking. Its simple to tweet that youre doing the work, add #BLM to your bio, attend a protest and donate to a bail fund not without posting photos and screengrabs, of course but once it comes down to the real, hard work, the momentum stops. Oftentimes, our social media presence reflects how we want to be perceived, rather than our authentic selves, or our real day-to-day experience. Being woke is on trend at the moment, and everyone is tapping in, virtually at least.

The issues that helped awaken folks to systemic racism police killings, mass incarceration, Covid deaths are fundamentally structural and require a structural response, Cavanagh explains. Racism is baked into our medical system, educational system, housing, employment sure, white people need to do more individually but our institutions are the things that really need to change.

Despite racism being a structural problem, individual actions still matter. But, Cavanagh warns, people may believe in equality while opting out of decisions that are hard for them personally. Voting can be thought of as a relatively low-cost act of solidarity and commitment to justice, unlike cutting off ties to your racist mother, she says.

The events of the last decade or so much of it illuminated and amplified by social media have made white people confront systemic racism in a new way. Or it might all be performative social media is a performance and being racially woke is a new flavor.

Whether it be cutting off relationships with people who vote to uphold white nationalist beliefs (after trying to educate them, of course) or opting for a neighborhood that wont place you as a gentrifier, there are several ways that white liberals can practice what they post. By giving up privilege, higher salaries, houses in gentrified parts of Texas, and other situations that convenience them, white liberals could prove that theyre actually doing the work, beyond lip service and black squares. Maybe thats why white people keep voting for Trump they are invested, financially but also psychologically, in keeping the society tipped in our favor, Cavanagh says.

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White clicktivism: why are some Americans woke online but not in real life? - The Guardian