Its not about fitting race criteria, its about creating a society equal for all races. Our country suppressed African Americans for hundreds of years. Huge damage was done to the race as a hole, by treating them as second class citizens. The second class treatment means the class lines will parallel racial lines to an unacceptable degree. This needs to be corrected with programs like affirmative action.
The purpose of Government is to ensure freedom. Our government is what gave use freedom and liberty. Our government ensured our freedom of speech which allows us to use sites like these. The government can be used as tool to help the people, not regulate people, that is what liberals believe.
Everyone deserves a chance to succeed. The chance to succeed is what makes america great. In todays world success is equal to knowledge. America needs strengthen it's educational system so that everyone can get the credentials they need to compete in our ever growing global community. We need to educate more people with better educations, we need educational reform to achieve this, and that is a liberal platform.
Liberals have lead they way in civil rights, womens rights, privacy rights, and now gay rights. They protect the poor and the elderly with social security, Medicare, and Medicaid and they fight for financial aid and affirmative action programs so that everyone gets the chance at higher education.
Well, you need a socialist element to regulate economic freedom. That is the purpose of having an element of socialism, to stop the abuse of power and wealth in the marketplace, while still maintaining a competitive marketplace. You need regulation to create safety nets so that the lower class is more willing to take risks. No regulation may mean total economic freedom, but total economic freedom is equal to anarchy in the marketplace.
Also, I think the Creator of the argument did a poor job of wording it, I think they wanted us to essentially debate the merits of socialism and capitalism.
He weakend education with no child left behind, he chose to use the clinton administraitions surplus for tax cuts instead of social security reform and he started a war that has cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars. He has made america look like an imperialistic power instead of a champion of liberty that it needs to be.
The death penalty is a outdated, expensive, immoral, form of punishment. Due to the legal fees and the endless appeal system, the death penalty often costs up to 10 times more than life in prison. Such is the case in Timmothy McVeigh. The state spent 1.3 million dollars to kill him when they could have kept him in prison for the rest of his life for only 130,000 dollars. Additionally, i hold the belif that if it is wrong for an individual to kill, then it is also wrong for the state, which is a representation of the individuals, to kill as well.
