What does answering yes to all the rhetorical questions make you?  Or are these not rhetorical and you are posing them to the audience?

Also, you ask if a lot of things are fair.  So out of curiosity, what is your definition of fair?  And just to clarify all of you questions, who should be tasked with making things fair: government, individuals, families, communities, some other group or entity?

"What does answering yes to all the rhetorical questions make you? "

I'm not sure it makes you anything - other than a person with beliefs on a particular subject.  Some people believe the answer to some of those questions is yes.  In a democracy majority rules - or at least it should.

"Also, you ask if a lot of things are fair.  So out of curiosity, what is your definition of fair? "

Fair considers the interests of all involved - and tries to find a balance.  I think that you could define unfair as something that grossly favors one side over another.  There are many cases where fairness is subject to debate - but I can find many instances where the system is clearly unfair by most measures. 

The nature of a democracy is that things may be fundamentally unfair for the minority of the population - because of the concept of majority rules.  Our Constitution prevents things from becoming "too unfair" for the minority of the population (I'm not referring to race, but the concept does often apply to race).  In the system we have today - which I don't consider to be much of a democracy - things have become unfair for the vast majority of the population.  It seems to work well for the most elite amongst us.

"who should be tasked with making things fair: government, individuals, families, communities, some other group or entity?"

We are tasked with that responsibility - citizens.  It's our job to make sure the government represents our interests.  Unfortunately, we get a C- because such a large number of us don't bother to vote.  Our government is openly corrupt - however corruption isn't the most important issue according to most polls.  If we don't fix the ethics crises, we can't function as a democracy.

For years, there was an "ethics truce" in Congress.  What that meant was one side wouldn't bring up ethics charges if the other didn't.  What that truce resulted in was corruption at all levels.  Can you imagine a "truce" when it comes to crimes?  "Don't speak of my crimes, and I won't speak of yours".  That sounds like an agreement the mafia would make, not an agreement a statesman would make.

The losers in this equation - as usual - are the average American citizens.

I first would question whether the Constitution prevents things from becoming too unfair.  In all of your questions, are those things too unfair or just minor infractions?  If they are gross unfairness, then the Constitution really hasn't prevented things from becoming too unfair.  And let's take a look at race, the Constitution did not serve to protect racial minorities.  It allowed slavery until we specifically fought to abolish it.  And it allowed racial prejudice until we, the people, stood up to change that.

On citizens, are there not other avenues that they can effect equality outside of government?  And why do citizens get a C- for not voting.  Who knows why they don't vote?  And should people just vote to perform the act?  Or should they be informed about the issues and candidates as a requisite to voting? 

On the parties, the parties don't do a great job of policing themselves.  As Democrats, are we not culpable if we ignore the improprieties of our representatives?

..."fair" doesn't even appear in the Constitution...I could be wrong.  The Constitution was never meant as a social "balancer" arbitarting fair or unfair.  It's a pretty good idea to keep the federal government out of the "fairness" business.

..."equal protection of the laws."  The question, then, comes down to what types of laws are passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President. For instance, do they favor the rich and powerful as opposed to the average working people of the country?  And are the laws "fair" if they do so?

By the way, here's Jim Webb on "fairness:"

Finally, a word about fundamental fairness, and the anxiety that many Americans feel about their economic future.

Last month, I spent three days traveling in the far southwestern part of my state.  It was my first visit back to Southwest Virginia since the campaign.  What struck me during that visit was how the worries of families in these small towns seems to have actually deepened since last fall.

We visited with union coal miners; defense industry workers; high technology workers; and retirees throughout the region.  People in many parts of my state are seeing an economy in which more and more manufacturing jobs are moving overseas ? where the purchasing power of families has declined or stated flat ? where heating and electric bills have suddenly skyrocketed? and where more and more of our people lack health insurance.

Even an area like Hampton Roads, which has traditionally been strong because of defense industries, last year saw the decision to close a major Ford truck plant in Norfolk, with thousands of good, high-paying jobs now heading overseas.

These fears have caused many Americans to question the basic fairness of our economic system.  Many of you are familiar with the warning signs I have spoken about, but they are worthy of repeating here.

Top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980;

Corporate profits in this country are at an all-time high as a percentage of national wealth, while wages and salaries are at all-time lows.

Today's CEOs make 400 times more than the average worker - compared to 20 times the average when I graduated from college;

47 million Americans lack health insurance;

Fewer and fewer of our people own stocks, and of those that do, their holdings are smaller than they were a generation ago.

Almost equally important, many leaders are seemingly indifferent to these trends.  Some even maintain that this growth in income inequality is a form of economic Darwinism, and that it should not be a source of governmental concern.

Our nation shows other serious strains as well.  I've long been concerned about the staggering prison incarceration rates in the United States, which are higher than any other nation in the world.  Speaking of reporting, 23 years ago I was the first American journalist allowed inside the Japanese prison system.  Even then I wrote of my concern that the incarceration rate in this country was the highest in what we then called the "free world" - with nearly 700,000 people in prison.  Today our country has more than two million people in prison, and more than 7 million under some form of correction supervision when one includes probation and parole.  A black male who does not finish high school now has a 60 percent chance of going to jail.  One who has finished high school has a 30 percent chance.

We want to keep bad people off our streets.  We want to break the backs of gangs, and we want to cut down on violent behavior.  But there's something else going on when we're locking up such a high percentage of our people, marking them at an early age and in many cases eliminating their chances for a productive life as full citizens.  This is what I call a "trajectory" issue.  It will take years of energy to sort it out.  But I am committed to working an a solution that is both responsive to our needs for law and order, and fairer to those who become entangled in this system.

It is a matter of self-interest for all Americans - including the so-called elites -- to recognize the dangers of our present course.  It's simply not healthy for a democracy like ours to have such a wide gulf between the rich, the poor, and the vast majority of hard-working, productive people in between.

As many commentators have pointed out, if left unchecked the division of our society along class lines threatens to usher in an era of protectionism and political unrest.  I am determined to do everything I can to advance a progressive agenda that addresses the issues surrounding economic fairness and social justice.  I believe we can work toward solutions that keep the United States economy strong and engaged in the rest of the world, but which also safeguard the rights of workers and the environment.

Jim Webb gets it. Asd so did the Founders, as evidenced by the first words of our nation's Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

That's right, we have a government in order to ensure "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to all citizens.  Sounds a lot like "fundamental fairness" to me.

..."equal protection under the law" to mean "protect us from people making too much money."  Nor does "all men are created equal" mean that "all men must have equal salaries."  The only thing the Constitution does is guarantee the opportunity to succeed...it does not, and should never, guarantee success.  That's up to the individual not government.  Trotting out this tired old class warfare baloney doesn't work anymore.  The solutions we need are more complex than these simplistic "attack the rich" diatribes.  Once again, we see a bunch of wah wah wah and NO solutions and NO answers and NO proposals that will sell to the electorate.  Webb's polemic statements are are wonderful rhetoric but they are (unsurprisingly) devoid of solutions.  Instead of rattling off a bunch of whiney gripes, how about a serious proposal that actually works?  Why is that so hard?

 

ignore them and denigrate, as you do with everything.

*Fair trade vs. so-called "free trade"
*A steeply progressive tax structure
*Closing of tax loopholes and giveaways to rich individuals and corporations
*Increased minimum wage
*Universal health care
*Top quality, lifetime education
*The estate tax, which you conservatives like to denigrate as the "death tax."
*On and on and on.

Obviously, you will denigrate each and every one of these and claim they're not "solutions" or "answers" or "proposals."  But you're just plain wrong, just as you've been wrong on pretty much everything else you've written on this blog.  Case in point: your absurd, over-the-top, anti-immigrant rant the other day, is completely debunked by Sebastian Mallaby in today's Washington Post:

*"the incarceration rate for immigrants was just one-fifth the rate for the population as a whole"
*"94 percent of undocumented men ages 18 to 64 were in the workforce, compared with 82 percent of native-born men."
*"People say, contrariwise, that immigrants steal jobs from native-born Americans. But economists have patiently explained for years that there is no finite "lump of labor" in an economy. The presence of migrants causes new jobs to be created."
*"undocumented immigrants are ineligible for welfare, food stamps and Medicaid; and although they do use hospital emergency rooms and schools, they also pay sales taxes and payroll taxes, and one in three pays income tax."
*"Once you take into account the boost to pretax incomes caused by immigrants' contribution to growth, the total effect of undocumented workers on native-born Americans is roughly zero"

The bottom line is that your entire world view is incorrect, you constantly cite incorrect information, twist and warp what people say, condescend and denigrate, accuse people of being religious bigots the minute you can't think of a serious counterargument, make excuses for the inexcusable, and waste everyone's time with your drivel.  What do you add to the discussion here, because none of us at Raising Kaine see it?  It's certainly NOT an "alternate view," at least not in the sense of a well-argued, well-reasoned, and well-evidenced view. Instead, it's just red herrings, appeals to authority, and other logical fallacies.  Is there any reason we should let you stay here and waste everyone's time?

I hate to say this but a lot of this is incorrect.  Labor economics will show as a consensus that increases in the labor supply does repress wages and it is known that illegals are getting Medicaid and Welfare benefits.  Even CNN interviewed some people getting Medicaid...
and there have been some fairly objective, well done studies that show it is a aggregate economic drain or loss, especially for working America ....
and which is why Corporate America loves illegal labor and guest worker Visas, they know this is true.

Borjas showed significant wage depression for unskilled labor jobs and our favorite guy, Harris Miller knew this all too well, he got his start busting the Farm Workers union with illegal labor. 

I haven't been over here and haven't followed the rants but this issue has to have more misinformation in it than I have ever seen and please watch out because the Corporate cheap labor lobby is trying to generate much of it.  Take Andrew Card for example, he tried to take one instance, one moment in time with one set of legal immigrants in one city and extrapolate those results to be a black and white truth...and one cannot do that...the only "black and white truth" all things static, is the law of supply and demand in economics.

You write: "Labor economics will show as a consensus that increases in the labor supply does repress wages"

With all due respect, that's a simplistic, ceteris parabis argument.  As with anything else in economics, the "price" of something is determined by BOTH supply and demand.  So, yes, increases in the labor supply will tend to lower wages, but ONLY if there are no offsetting increases in DEMAND for labor.  What we're seeing in the United States is continued strong demand for labor, with supply barely keeping pace.  This is a major part of the reason for our extremely low national unemployment rate. 

You DO make a good point about corporations wanting a cheap, exploitable labor supply.  And what better to serve this purpose than undocumented, non-unionized immigrants?

Also, I would argue that what's supressing wages in America is not immigrants particularly, but competition from cheap products coming out of places like China, where there are minimal labor, human rights, or environmental standards to worry about.  What we have today is a globalized economy where highly mobile capital can find the cheapest labor, wherever it is.  Yet labor remains largely immobile, given national boundaries and immigration restrictions.  In other words, the problem of low wages may very well have more to do with capital than with labor. 

P.S.  We also need universal health care in this country, plus lifetime educational benefits to keep Americans competitive in the world economy...

is the key phrase. 

From Wikipedia

Neoclassical microeconomic model - Equilibrium

The demand for labour of this firm can be summed with the demand for labour of all other firms in the economy to obtain the aggregate demand for labour. Likewise, the supply curves of all the individual workers (mentioned above) can be summed to obtain the aggregate supply of labour. These supply and demand curves can be analysed in the same way as any other industry demand and supply curves to determine equilibrium wage and employment levels.

Then the US unemployment rate is an interesting topic...for example, there are many unemployed STEM professionals who are counted as employed, abet as security guards, home depot retail sales, insurance agents.

Aggregate # of jobs as well as total # in the labor force are giving more accurate information these days and used by labor economists.  Case in point is STEM, well, unemployment is 2.2% but that counts H-1B and L-1 Visa holders in the numbers, yet the aggregate # of jobs is down ~500k since 2001, but we have 600k of H-1Bs estimated in the US alone...
so that tells you something much more than just the BLS unemployment rate in the field.

I think the "proof in the puddin" really is Borjas.  I've read his papers and he is considered one of the most credible labor economists in the world, his assumptions and stats are very well done, even his analysis of raw data to extrapolate.  And he has said illegal labor does repress wages and if you do not like that result...I've got an even more amazing one...the flood of PhDs is lowering Post Doc salaries extensively! 

But, again the key is all things static and productivity is up, GDP is relatively flat in comparison...I mean think about it, a 7% unauthorized jump in population where the majority is unskilled labor competing in a 100M labor market, of course that is going to depress wages, all other things being reasonably static. 

I'm a deep study person, again don't shoot the messenger and just because these are the results does not imply necessarily a solution you disagree w/ here.  It does certainly imply that a domestic immigration policy does affect domestic labor markets.

NYTimes article on Card and Borjas.  I find this thing fairly amusing for labor economists are supposedly objective.  I've read both of these works and believe Borjas is simply more robust and accurate in his assumptions frankly and his results also correlate more to the actual body of work in my view on labor economics as well as historical data.

I think Card's "oh supply creates it's own demand" is just a little too "new age economics" for me in terms of trying to down play the historical affect that has on wages or this reality.

(don't shoot the messenger, but I do read these texts and studies and ya know their math is solid, what can I say!).

global labor economics.  You're hitting on why we have trade, offshore outsourcing budget and so many different policies as our concerns for you are right, they all are related and here's the creepy part...I think the only ones really studying these are corporate executives hunting the cheap labor globe on where next to move their factories. 

Peter DeFazio put together a bill asking for a Congressional Trade Office to put trade in the hands of congress plus get some accurate and theoretical projections like the CBO...
(what an idea, actually look at the stats and data).

Of course his bill is getting little attention. 

In my questioning whether the Constitution itself can effect equality, I was focusing specifically on minorities.  Is it your assertion that the government has no role to play in protecting the rights of minorities?

What sort of "fairness" are you referring to?  Are you specifically limiting your comments to only arguing against an Equality of Outcome theory of social justice?  Or are you more broadly criticizing egalitarianism?

all I know is I see this term being hijacked by DLC Democrats periodically....if you see a post trying to discount China as an economic threat and somehow trade is perfectly fine..
I'd claim that is a hijack of the term..
I'd say if you have someone claiming unlimited, uncontrolled, no real domestic immigration policy is a progressive...I'd say they hijacked the term there too.

Anybody for Corporations writing policy, most assuredly the term was hijacked.

Corporations do not have a role to play in determining policy?  Do they not have expertise or at least a thoughtful, reasoned position to contribute?  Are you suggesting to be progressive, you must bar corporations from a seat at the table?

Also, you speak of corporations as an abstraction.  Do you feel that they are faceless entities intending hinder progressive ideals? 

And back to the gist of the diary, is progressive a useful term?  And if so, what defines it?  Certainly you have limited its scope, but instead of what does not constitute a progressive (assuming you find that term useful), what does?

it is so out of balance and working America, average citizen has so little voice, putting it in the abstract is most certainly appropriate.  There are a few corporate citizens speaking out, such as Warren Buffet, but then he turned around and gave his money to Bill Gates who certainly doesn't have his thinking on US trade and economic policy, so go figure that one.

I was more interested in what your thoughts were on what constitutes a progressive.

The corporations comments do though get to another point of relawson's about fundamental fairness.  Indeed large corporations have a disproportionate amount of influence.  But how do you rectify that?  Even if you were to bar their contributions to campaigns, they still have a wealth of resources at their disposal including the mass of human resources they can bring to bear. 

I think we are back to relawson's point about voter participation.  The primary advantage that the citizenry possesses is numbers.  As a combined, organized force, they/we have more power than a corporation to shape public policy.  Witness the Christian Coalition!

we have a 100+ yr old legal ruling/definition which over a century of precedent which gives corporations no responsibility to anything but profits, no national alliance either.  I think public citizen has some of the best ideas to "democratize" corporations and make them accountable.

Thanks to everyone's comments....they are all so thought provoking!!!

I agree tx2vadem that we as citizens have power in the numbers.  My beliefs:  from K-12, incorporate constant teaching and discussion of government (its form and function, and it's positives and negatives).  I can't tell you how many young people I know who know absolutely nothing about federal, state and local government much less who their representatives are or what the concept of representation means!!  Further, middle school children should "mock" participate each year in whatever elections are being held in their community, from understanding the concepts of voting structures (precincts and on up through the board of elections, etc.), how to learn about and understand issues that effect them and their community, of how to evaluate candidates intelligently, and on and on. 
And yes, I think voting should be mandatory and occur on a holiday or the weekend.

Folks government is the one accessible tool of the citizenry to truly control its future.  Sounds obvious but I believe it's so ignored.

Glad to see the lively debate.  I'm not sure we defined what progressive means - but I'm OK without a label since I don't think labels are particularly useful. 

Caught the immigration debate - I spend enough time on that subject and won't add to it, but I noted strong arguments on both sides and agreement on some key issues.

And as usual, I believe that Senator Webb makes a strong argument on fundamental fairness.  I think we should apply those ideals when debating immigration, trade, healthcare, and all issues for that matter.