Recently, in an attempt at clarifying dialogue [which is a good thing], Delawareliberal ran a post on Some Basic Principles , that offers a viewpoint on exactly what liberal principles mean. This was, at least in part, a response to a top-of-the-head definition of liberal objectives that I proposed to a libertarian-leaning conservative in a different thread that went like this: Liberals define freedom differently that you do; neither side has a monopoly on the word. Liberals view individual liberty as freedom from want, hunger, and lack of medical care, with the best possible remedies coming from an enlightened public policy that manages the necessary redistribution of some of society’s excess wealth to insure that all people start with a foundational basis of security and prosperity. I was not--as DelawareDem acknowledged--trying to lampoon liberalism, but to make a point to another blogger that if you want to talk with people of different beliefs you have to make a good faith effor...

Now that I have been properly schooled in the distinction between liberals and progressives, I can say with some confidence that BlueNC is a progressive blog. Which makes it all the more interesting to find James Protzman posting this regarding Democrat Bev Perdue's nativist stand on the children of immigrants pushing him toward Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger: Dear Bev. . . . I'm sure you and your staff agonized about whether to sell out poor brown people for political advantage, but agony or not, you came down on the wrong side of an important moral issue. Which makes your campaign irrelevant to me. Don't bother calling. Don't bother writing. Don't bother me at all. You don't need progressives, and progressives don't need you. I'm heading for Mike Munger. RALEIGH - Leaders of the state's community colleges voted today to close their doors to illegal immigrants until they complete a study and come up with a permanent policy. The de...

There is a lot of furor lately about talk radio--or hate radio as critics from Nancy Pelosi to Delawareliberal would have it--and the fact that conservative talk radio is a three-hundred-pound gorilla in the marketplace that is stifling balanced coverage of issues and locally oriented public-service programming. This leads into issues of how (not whether , but how in the minds of talk-radio critics) the perceived imbalance between conservative and progressive talk can be corrected through the Fairness Doctrine or other regulatory strategies. One of the sources often cited by critics is the study jointly done by the Center for American Progress and the Free Press entitled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio [June 2007]. This report makes a number of allegations regarding this imbalance, a few of which are excerpted here: As this report will document in detail, conservative talk radio undeniably dominates the format: Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 n...

. . . that we've apparently been in a recession since 1975. According to Mid-Atlantic States Labor, The American quality of life has been going downhill since 1975 . Arguing that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not "is not an appropriate gauge of our national well-being" is not a particularly new proposition, although you should feel a slight tinge of warning at that "national well-being" term being thrown into the mix. Let's take a look at how the analysis goes: GDP measures the total market value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given period. But it includes only those goods and services traded for money. It also adds everything together, without discerning desirable, well-being-enhancing economic activity from undesirable, well-being-reducing activity. An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being. More crime, more sickness, more war, more pollution, more fires, s...