On Sep 19, 2007, at 9:25 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> In short, political liberalism tends to privatize, expanding the space
> for freedom (of the negative sort, freedom from government regulation,
> the only kind of freedom that Americans recognize as freedom) --
> sexual and religious, as well as political and economic, freedoms --
> in the private sector and contracting the scope of the public sector
> that provides citizens with goods and services as a matter of their
> rights. The American citizen has few social duties but also few
> social rights, the opposite of the Cuban or Iranian citizen who has
> many social duties but also many social rights.
This model does not have room for Scandinavian social democracy, which allows a lot of scope for private freedoms and civil liberties. It's like you've taken Esping-Andersen's famous three-part model - liberal, corporatist, and social democratic - and lopped off the social democratic taxon.
And "secular"? The U.S.? Is there any country in the Northern hemisphere where religion is such a part of public life? We have a president who takes direction from God, a porn strike force in the Justice Department, and a populace that claims it's more likely to vote for a queer than an atheist. Look at the current absurd controversy over John McCain's religion. Where else could that happen?
Doug