Beyond that, I wasn’t really going for an examination of the pure philosophy of liberalism so much as an analysis of the Democratic Party in practice.

I certainly agree that making everyone being better off is better for me. I suspect we disagree on how to achieve that result, with you being more in favor of centralized decision making to eliminate risk, and me being more in favor of individual freedom to maximize opportunity.

Speaking for myself (not for liberalism), it seems to me that choices made by individuals factor into the outcome of their lives, but that’s just one factor. Other things, like political power, macroeconomics, etc. play roles, too, and a greater role more often than not. I realize that it’s anecdotal evidence, but in my experience with lots of people across class lines, I think that a cross-section of any economic class of people will have a pretty similar mix of virtuous and non-virtuous people.

However, I find measuring the role of such factors tedious enough to make me think, who cares anyway? “Enlightened salf-interest” plays a bigger role in the political choices I’ve made than that other stuff. I think that I’ll be better off if I live in a society and economy where the great majority of people are better off, too, whether it’s by helping them out or by some other means, even if they’ve made bad choices.