Family Leave
 

I found this article on the impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act really interesting. In particular the article addresses the issue less as a matter of gender equality than of the basic needs of individuals and families.

One thing that's come up in a couple of threads is, what kind of government best secures freedom? And it seems to me that if you mean the freedom of a person to get sick or try to start a family without throwing his or her livelihood away, then a liberal-minded government is the kind you want. But if you mean the freedom of employers to bully and ruin their (former) employees, then a conservatively minded government is the kind you ought to support.

It is difficult to try to create a balance between businesses and individual needs. It seems like every time that the government passes a law to benefit workers, larger businesses react by reducing their US employees, either by outsourcing the work to countries that don't seem to care about how laborers are treated or by laying off employees and forcing the remaining employees to do more work at the same rate of pay and benefits.

What I think the government needs to do is to find a way to convince businesses that it is in their best interests to look out for the needs of their employees. Unfortunately, many businesses that I've researched or for whom I have worked seem to be more concerned about their profit margins than they are about having a team of loyal employees who are happy, productive, and loyal to the company.

How did European countries manage to retain businesses while making sure that workers received acceptable pay and benefits? Perhaps applying those principles to our businesses and legislation will result in solutions that satisfy everyone.

Regarding the article, I do have a great deal of empathy for Deonarain. If she wasn't familiar with labor law, it was probably easy for her employer to weasel out of keeping her as an employee. While she should have kept in close contact with her employer, it is rather difficult to think clearly when a loved one is in serious condition at a hospital.

Or if you really want to have freedom without having any ideals imposed upon you whatsoever, a nice middle of the road government is the way to go!

I could also say if you want high tax rates, and to work like a dog to make ends meat, liberal governments are the way to go. If you want to keep most of what you make, conservative governments are the plan!

You see? It can work all ways. Liberal governments have some good policies, conservative governments have some good policies. The fact of the matter is your issue is more of an American issue rather than liberal versus conservative, and to characterize conservatives with bullying employers is unfair and stinks of excessive bias. I don't know how the system works in the States, but up here I do like the conservative policies on the economy much better. Now if they can just get those environmental policies up to par...

EDIT: In fact, I'm going to have to ask you to point out sections of the article that makes it so that conservatives are all bad and liberals are all good. It seems to me like the conservative judges were often ruling in favor of the mothers as well. It strikes me more as the annoying, irritating employers that are pains in the ass, regardless of whether the government at the time was liberal or conservative (several cases were from the time of the Clinton administration). As such, I find your claim unsubstantiated.

No, I don't think it does.

You've countered a valid observation with the equivalent a slogan. There's no reason to believe that while more 'social measures' make livelihood less precarious for a portion of a given population, higher taxes (the downside of 'more social measures') makes livelihood more precarious.

Taxation being proportional and motivated by the funding of a social net (in this case), someone being taxed out of a living wage (or even right out of proper work conditions) would be an aberration.

So, the upside of 'less social measures' is just that taxation is lower, but there's a good chance you'll have to pay to replace the services that the extra taxes would have funded. That expense can end up, for a lot of people, bigger than the tax breaks.

Basically, we end up with this as the upside of 'less social measures' 'less taxes': people whose actual livelihood wasn't threatened by taxation and isn't threatened by ill health (for example) get to, perhaps, save some extra money. The equivalence kinds of get lost, doesn't it?

Not that taxation isn't an actual downside, but it's a downside in a whole different order of priority than the downside of a society with 'less social measures.'

Also sloganized is this:

Moderation is a virtue, but there's no reason to believe that moderation in any given matter is automatically the middle ground between any two possiblities.

And I'm fairly certain that evoking a government which 'doesn't impose ideals' doesn't mean much here.

As for the rest, I'm probably going to stay out of that. But I would note that it might be best to take more care to what definition of the terms liberal and conservative are being used at any time.

Edit: That's kind of a mess. I'll try and fix that.

First of all, your entire post is confusing. You keep calling what I said slogans. What does that mean? You mean cliches? Possibly, but some cliches are true. Neither did I counter fifth's point. I simply said he needs more evidence to back up his loaded statement that 'if you want bad things to happen, support conservatives', but simply saying that shows nothing except an anti-conservative bias. Therefore, I said 'hey, I can say that too. Doesn't make it true.' So no, my statement was no intended to be a claim about the reality of politics. It was done in a sort of satire in order to show how fifth's claim was also not representative of the reality of politics. Following me? Good, then you're already doing better than I did with your post.

So here we go... I don't actually care about taxation one way or the other. I don't even know how the tax system works in the States. I'm saying I can make unjustified anti-liberal claims as easily as fifth makes unjustified anti-conservative claims. All in all, the article fifth posted only painted a select few conservatives in a bad light, and mostly employers, and he generalized about conservatism based on the actions of those few.

Okay, so now that you've done countering me on my sarcastic fake point, you might want to try arguing with me with my actual points (which you neglected to do) if you really actually disagree with me and aren't just trying to be a nit-picker.

Since this is the part thats actually on topic.

The FMLA was opposed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and a majority of Republican Senators and Congressional Representatives, and was passed by the Democratic Congressional majority under President Clinton. If you're looking for some definition of 'conservative' as differentiated from 'policy positions supported by the national leadership of the major American political party which both bills itself as conservative and is overwhelmingly supported by individuals who identify as conservative' then I'm afraid I can't help you.

I'm with you up to that point. I was going to try and clean it up before anyone replied, but it looks like activity hit a peak. However, while my post was confusingly constructed, I really take issue to this:

I mean slogan. I don't see what's confusing about my use of the word slogan. Since you go on to explain at lenghts that your statement was 'satire' and 'a sarcastic fake point', you understand that I mistakingly assumed it was something of a serious point.*

That knowledge should have given you all of the context you need to understand my use of the word slogan. The general definitions of the word 'slogan' have to do with advertisement and repetitiveness. I opposed something that's like a slogan or that's sloganized to a valid observation. More or less, in that context, slogan means a talking point with a dubious relation to political reality or reflection, having become purely a low rethorical thing. I guess that in that it has some relation to a cliché.

The knowledge that I was mistaken* should also have prevented you from implying that I was "just trying to be a nitpicker", since your "fake, sarcastic points" actually look like egregious mistakes rather than nits, if taken seriously. Which you know I did. I was disagreeing with an opinion that you didn't really hold, but that I thought you did.*

As for your "real points", frankly, I think that's another thing on which I wasn't confusing. I made clear which points I was addressing and then wrote:

...which includes those of your points that I haven't directly addressed. Design, not neglect. Since I thought that the statements were made somewhat seriously, I thought they had content that, while tangential and distinct from the rest of the thread, were substantial enough to be addressed. I also meant, by this countering, to show that the (fake, sarcastic) statements had no merit to them whatsoever, compared to Fifth/Quinto's. Which leads me to...

First, that counts as an intent to counter. Second, it doesn't really show or demonstrate anything. It would have been just as effective to say 'Fifth's claim is not representative of the reality of politics.' What do the satirical examples share with Fiftho's claim? Little, if you're not already convinced that the latter is 'nor representative of the reality of politics.' I guess they share a lack of nuance in the phrasing and 'bias', but the former is a fairly superficial similarity and the second is... well, what's wrong with bias?

On further examination, I'm not exactly mad at myself for focusing on the glaring problems with your satirical examples rather than on those nits. That you don't endorse those statements doesn't change that you were comparing them to Fiftho's statement.

*Then again, there's that 'some clichés are true' line...

Just going to say that this statement is nearly meaningless. In that you can probably find some good points to just about anything. That doesn't then logically lead to it being on equal footing with something else. As it pertains to Fifth's point the liberal point of view has significantly more good points from the perspective of the working class than the conservative view. Its a function of the definition of conservative and liberal. The only bias in Fifth's statement was towards thinking that workers are more important than employers. That portion was opinion the rest was more or less fact and you can't attack an opinion as biased because opinions are supposed to be biased.

That being said the culture here in the US my be the biggest stumbling block to truly liberal policies towards workers. In places like Japan companies tend to think of employees as their family and once you are hired you work for life with full benefits. Hell they make you work out every morning. It works there because that's just how that culture is and until ours starts to change I'm afraid we're stuck.

[QUOTE=Sithdarth]That being said the culture here in the US my be the biggest stumbling block to truly liberal policies towards workers.[QUOTE]

I thought thats what I said. You say what I said is meaningless and then you agree with me? I said it might be more of an American problem than a flat out liberal versus conservative problem. The fact of the matter is, as I was trying to say, where I come from, I like the conservative policy towards the working class much better. The liberal policy, quite frankly, sucks ass.

Again, I say, maybe in the States. In Canada, I find the conservatives have significantly more good points from the perspective of the working class than the liberals. The bias in fifthfiend's statement was characterizing a conservative government based solely on one issue.

Archbio said I kept using slogans, but that above is about as sloganish as it gets. You could almost hear that line in a campaign ad as it is a loaded statement. Clearly nobody wants their employers to bully or ruin them. He could have said 'a downside to the conservatives is that employers seem to get away with bullying employees more'. That implies that theres more than one issue on the go, but his actual statement IS a loaded one, and DOES reveal bias.

Finally, the issue isn't the definition of conservative or liberal. Its a matter of Republican versus Democrat. Do Republicans define what constitutes as conservative? Do Democrats define what constitutes as liberal? No. Conservative people, believe it or not, do not neccessarily agree with Republicans on every bloody issue. Maybe a majority of them, but not all of them, and I seriously doubt many conservative people agree that bullying employees is okay. If fifth wanted to point out the Republican track record with the issue and say 'hmm, perhaps the republicans aren't good for family issues... kind of hypocritical considering they claim to be the family oriented party...", okay I can see that. Maybe this means Canadian conservatives are different than American conservatives, I don't know. If you wanted to say this is a Democrat versus Republican issue, then thats okay, but while Republicans might be a more conservative party, Republican does not EQUAL conservative. Saying 'conservative governments are bad for families' is either 1. saying that all conservative governments, not just the Republicans, are bad for families, or 2. The Republican party in the US defines what a conservative people and parties should believe in for the rest of the world.

And I disagree with both 1 and 2. It simply comes down to an issue between two AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES, rather than two multi-national ideologies, and the issue should be treated as such.

1) American politics is not American culture. Namely the whole liberal conservative thing is purely political. What I was referencing are the general culture and history of the nation. You see in Japan and a few European countries people are instilled with a sense of duty toward others. In Japan this can be traced back to the feudal era and the samurai code of Bushido directly. America was founded mostly by the newly rich around the idea that everyone should fight for their piece of the pie on their own. These things have little to do with political climates and such. They are purely historical frames of reference that help bring context to why the populace of a nation acts in the way they do.

2) It is definetly not just an American problem. The names the parties go by may change from place to place but the problem is almost ubiquitous. Not completely mind you but its found its way into most industrialized nations. There is always a group whose policies support the corporations, we'll call them conservatives, and a group whose policies support individuals in general or more specifically the working class, these shall be named liberal.

Now both can be good for a country in general. However, it cannot in anyway be argued the conservative view in anyway supports the working class better than the liberal view. This is because the conservative view by definition stresses the rights of companies. Of course policies of either bent can be horribly destructive if not managed right but in a totally theoretical sense liberal policies always beat conservative ones when it comes to helping the majority of a country's population. That is using Fifth's definitions of liberal and conservative which he made very clear and which are the generally accepted ones.

3) I reiterate that if your country has constructed a particularly crappy liberal policy and a fairly decent conservative one that has little bearing on the discussion at hand. The discussion being the general bent of conservative policies is to help corporations while liberal policies benefit the working class. Also, just because a policy helps a country in general doesn't mean everyone, or even a majority of people, see the benefits of it.

Either you have really confused your political definitions or your liberals are so far left they might as well be communist and your conservatives are more in the center than right. Of course even in that sort of situation the "liberal" point of view still clearly benefits the worker more by promising to provide for all his/her needs by extreme taxation of the very rich. Also, I point out again that built into the very definition of conservatism is a preference for the rich aka corporations and their owners. Any good points for the working class are out weighed by the incredible bias towards the upper class, via the desire to maintain the status quo or bring back the good old days. The good old days being significantly better for the rich than the poor.

That particular statement is true for all countries and thus conservative policies by definition are always significantly better for the rich than the poor. If they weren't then the status quo could not be maintained or the clock turned back and thus they would be liberal policies.

All that being said you could just be making the mistake of associating the policies of a mostly conservative party with the idea of conservatism. It may be that liberal elements have crept into this mostly conservative party and is showing through with these new policies that are not conservative.