Liberalism

[C_Clayton_Jones]

So, here on this forum I've been getting called a liberal. I don't involve myself with politics and I don't really understand the terminology and the difference between all the parties.
I've always considered myself as an independent because I don't really care for politics.

Please don't judge. I just want to understand all of it better.

Which is why you're being called a 'liberal' by conservatives.

Conservatives are in essence authoritarians, they need to label that which they don't understand and fear: change, diversity, dissent, and expressions of individual liberty terrify most conservatives.

When one refuses to conform to the conservative ideal, as expressed in rightist dogma, conservatives perceive that as a 'threat,' a 'threat' that must be attacked, however unwarranted their fear.

Yes, the reaction you get in act of professing compassion for one of their designated fear/hate targets, such as illegal immigrants, is proof enough of that.

And gay Americans, transgender Americans, minority voters, and same-sex couples – the list is disturbingly long of those whom conservatives fear and hate.

 

[kiwiman127]

Darlene, just stay away from the name-callers and the flamers. It doesn't matter what side of the fence they stand. They simply have nothing to say that would interest any normal human being and are incapable of carrying an adult conversation anyway.
Head over to The Lounge, it's typically civil there.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Conservatives are against progress, we get that. That's why conservatives ultimately lose in the long run.

You're developing quite a reputation for stating everything 100% in opposition to reality.

Progress usually implies that matters will get better in the future. All of the liberal reforms over the last century are making things worse. People ask "will my standard of living be better than that of my parents" and the answer is usually coming up "No."

The liberal mindset is easy to understand - they see something in society and they seek to destroy that in order to replace it with something "better." The thing is, the replacement is an untested quantity, it's only "better" in the mind of the liberal. The liberal takes society on a leap of faith, a leap off of a cliff, with the promise that we'll float upwards instead of plummeting into the canyon bottom.

Layer after layer after layer of liberal reform fundamentally changes society and no one in the liberal reform movement give a god damn about the after effects nor the unintended consequences. This is the wreckage that liberals causes.

Look back half a century ago. High school graduates were getting married in their early 20s and some in their late teens. Children were being born soon into the marriage. The man was able to modestly support the young family on his income. As his work experience grew he was promoted and the quality of life for the family improved. As the family grew with more children they moved up the income ladder and up the housing ladder too. The public schools weren't shitholes and liberal intellectual ghettos, they actually managed to teach and kids actually managed to learn.

Everything liberals touch turns to shit because none of their ideas survive touching reality.

Progress doesn't just mean doing something different, it means actually making things better. This is where liberals fail. People will come to realize this if they actually think about it. So the liberal strategy must focus on getting people to not think about it or to inject all sorts of bogus distractions to shift the blame for all the change onto conservatives, people who were trying to defend the status quo and manage incremental change based on reforms known to work.

Sorry to say but societal norms always trend to more progressive ideals. 120 years ago it was unthinkable to see a women showing her ankle in public but things gradually turn more progressive. In another hundred years people will be looking back and laughing at you conservatives and your beliefs about gay marriage, abortion, …etc. 500 years from now people will be looking back at the utter absurdity of orthodox religion. Religion is dying and you guys can't handle it.

A majority of Americans are laughing at conservatives and their inane position on these and other issues today.

 

[Darlene]

What PaintMyHouse is speaking to, normal people calling liberals "liberal scum" happens when liberals invoke their totalitarianism and start attacking the human rights of people in order to further their "caring" agenda.

Ahhh. I don't believe I've been doing that. I believe I stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves at the time.

Just be wary that you don't cross the line and either compel people to follow your course or violate their human rights in order to advance your mission. The totalitarian impulse is very strong in liberals. Respecting human rights means respecting that people can disagree with you. We see a repeated pattern of liberals stomping on human rights in the name of "niceness."

All parties stomp on human rights.

 

[Darlene]

This is why I stay away from politics. No one will ever agree or get along. There are only certain issues that I support.

 

[Gracie]

Folks around here like sticking other folks in a box. Doesn't matter if you agree with them or disagree with them...you are either a liberal or conservative, dem or repub, innie or outtie, uppie or downie, lefty or a rightie. Box. Must fit. Cram when necessary.

 

[Darlene]

Folks around here like sticking other folks in a box. Doesn't matter if you agree with them or disagree with them...you are either a liberal or conservative, dem or repub, innie or outtie, uppie or downie, lefty or a rightie. Box. Must fit. Cram when necessary.

I say fuck the system. Its not worth it.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Folks around here like sticking other folks in a box. Doesn't matter if you agree with them or disagree with them...you are either a liberal or conservative, dem or repub, innie or outtie, uppie or downie, lefty or a rightie. Box. Must fit. Cram when necessary.

I say fuck the system. Its not worth it.

Please stop scaring the conservatives.

 

[Darlene]

Folks around here like sticking other folks in a box. Doesn't matter if you agree with them or disagree with them...you are either a liberal or conservative, dem or repub, innie or outtie, uppie or downie, lefty or a rightie. Box. Must fit. Cram when necessary.

I say fuck the system. Its not worth it.

Please stop scaring the conservatives.

Freedom of speech, man.

 

[Darlene]

We should come together [ame=http://youtu.be/axb2sHpGwHQ]The Beatles - Come Together - YouTube[/ame]

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

I say fuck the system. Its not worth it.

Please stop scaring the conservatives.

Freedom of speech, man.

That really frightens them.

 

[Darlene]

Please stop scaring the conservatives.

Freedom of speech, man.

That really frightens them.

That doesn't make any difference to me.

 

[Darlene]

Somehow, I find this ties in with this convo. The government will fail you. [ame=http://youtu.be/n0l0YOHO5jg?list=RDHCWI4kM_MF2M8]Demon Hunter - I Will Fail You (Lyrics) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[SmedlyButler]

We should come together The Beatles - Come Together - YouTube

You post a song written by Lennon in opposition to Saint Ronnie.

 

[Darlene]

I am someone to hate [ame=http://youtu.be/l76unGjRtBs?list=RDHCWI4kM_MF2M8]Demon Hunter - "Someone To Hate" - YouTube[/ame]

 

[kiwiman127]

This is why I stay away from politics. No one will ever agree or get along. There are only certain issues that I support.

Yep, the USMB Lounge would be perfect for you. Check it out, you'll like it.

 

[Votto]

So, here on this forum I've been getting called a liberal. I don't involve myself with politics and I don't really understand the terminology and the difference between all the parties.
I've always considered myself as an independent because I don't really care for politics.

Please don't judge. I just want to understand all of it better.

The classical term liberal is the opposite of authoritarianism. However, today's modern liberal is all about increasing the size and scope of the state over the individual. Now we have the state telling us that we can't drink biggie sodas and what kinds of toilets we can buy etc.

Last year alone, the government passed well over 40,000 new regulations and laws. For the modern liberal, the problem is personal freedom because we drink too much, eat to much, don't eat and drink the right things, use too much energy because we live in houses too big and drive cars that are too big. Our mere existence is increasing carbon emissions and choosing the reproduce just makes it worse. We pollute the environment and we don't share enough of our wealth with the poor etc.

No doubt about it, personal freedom is the biggest danger to mother earth, so ever endeavor should be made to curb and control it, if not crush it.

I've always said that jail is the ideal liberal utopia. This is because:

1. Everyone wears the same cloths and eats the same food. No where on earth is there such equality.
2. Everything is free, including health care.
3. Everyday is gay pride day in jail.
4. You could not be safer behind bars and with guards watching your every move......unless you share a jail cell with a big guy named "Bubba".
5. You have free access to educational opportunities.
6. No one has to work, and all the porn and sex you can muster.
6. In jail, the minority is the majority. If you are a weak white man you are a dead man.

 

[Pogo]

So, here on this forum I've been getting called a liberal. I don't involve myself with politics and I don't really understand the terminology and the difference between all the parties.
I've always considered myself as an independent because I don't really care for politics.

Please don't judge. I just want to understand all of it better.

Which is why you're being called a 'liberal' by conservatives.

Conservatives are in essence authoritarians, they need to label that which they don't understand and fear: change, diversity, dissent, and expressions of individual liberty terrify most conservatives.

When one refuses to conform to the conservative ideal, as expressed in rightist dogma, conservatives perceive that as a 'threat,' a 'threat' that must be attacked, however unwarranted their fear.

A good many of the vocal ones certainly are, and more than that they're [ame="http://www.amazon.com/The-Eliminationists-Radicalized-American-Right/dp/0981576982"]Eliminationists[/ame] -- focused not on dialogue or exchange of ideas but on outright demonization of anything that opposes them, the goal of course being to absolutely extinguish any alternate view to their own and establish ideological monopoly.

[MENTION=50197]Darlene[/MENTION], half the wags on this board have no clue what Liberal even means; they simply (very simply) lob it as a grenade. Many of them don't even distinguish between Liberal and leftist, which is a little like not distinguishing between Kansas City and Bangkok.

This country was founded by Liberals as a Liberal experiment, and that philosophy has been under fire from both the right and left ever since. Round about half a century ago the Joe McCarthys of the right started using Liberal as a slur, conflating them with their political enemies, Democrats (who were both liberals and conservatives). Round about 1988 Lee Atwater and the George Bush Presidential campaign revived that conflation as a campaign propaganda tool. Round about six years ago a writer named Jonah Goldberg wrote a book called "Liberal Fascism" (a concept functionally much like "Antarctic Heat Wave") to further conflate the meaning. All these wags were (and are) attacking Liberalism by trying to morph its meaning into some kind of slur. Which makes about as much sense as claiming Adolf Hitler was a leftist (oh wait, some have already gone there).

Today, halfwit self-styled pundits like Sean Hannity and Lush Rimjob continue the same conflation in their quest to dumb-down the populace. The drones picked up on all this malarkey and ran with it, not bothering to strip out the baloneyistic demagoguery and examine the true definition. By now we have people walking around who literally think Liberalism is the opposite of what it actually is.

Oh, they also have another term they like to toss around the same way: "Progressive". A fun cat-toy experiment when you get that one: ask them to define it. They won't. They don't have one. It's just more Eliminationist rhetorical bullshit. The bottom line is that flinging labels like monkey poo is the tool of the rhetorically unequipped.

Here's a good background on all this... you won't get the ignora-wags to read it but at least you'll know where we stand and what Liberal means in reality (they will insist it doesn't mean this any more; they do this because flingng poo is their only tool and they can't face losing it):
Redefining the Political Spectrum


[Edit: just read the post above; there's another zinger -- I've actually had politically active posters on this board try to tell me the difference between "liberal" and "conservative" is the size of government. Presumably anything over an 8.5 is "liberal" ]

 

[Darlene]

I just listen to my metal and give the government the finger. My pregnant brain keeps forgetting what I was gonna say, but I have a feeling it was of importance.

 

[Rikurzhen]

A good many of the vocal ones certainly are, and more than that they're Eliminationists -- focused not on dialogue or exchange of ideas but on outright demonization of anything that opposes them, the goal of course being to absolutely extinguish any alternate view to their own and establish ideological monopoly.

It's hard for me to recall when I've read a more inaccurate piece of writing. Congratulations to you.

Look, right up front let's acknowledge that a good many liberal ideas are a stalking horse for liberal totalitarianism. When a rapist is in the middle of attacking a woman, you shouldn't be faulting the woman for not having a "dialogue or exchange of ideas" on the issue of rape.

The liberal assault on human rights needs to be stopped, not debated.

On the issues which liberals favor which are not predicated upon totalitarian control, there certainly is debate.

So for you to confuse opposition to liberal totalitarianism with Eliminationism and close-mindedness is pretty impressive sophistry on your part.

This country was founded by Liberals as a Liberal experiment, and that philosophy has been under fire from both the right and left ever since.

And during the same era "gay" used to mean happy and using your argument, definitions never change and so to call someone gay today implies that they are a happy person, not some homosexual.

Round about six years ago a writer named Jonah Goldberg wrote a book called "Liberal Fascism" (a concept functionally much like "Antarctic Heat Wave") to further conflate the meaning.

Correcting purposeful misinformation is now a conflation of meaning.

By now we have people walking around who literally think Liberalism is the opposite of what it actually is.

We see this a lot with immature thinkers - they appeal to dictionary definitions and ignore the reality on the ground. A favorite tactic is to make a claim like this - "True communism has never actually been implemented yet, so to condemn the communist systems of the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, China, Vietnam and Cambodia is wrong. They weren't really communist." For the people listening to this idiocy, they're having a good laugh at an immature thinking trying to think his way out of a wet paper bag.

Abstract definitions have very little utility when compared to how adherents of a philosophy actually implement the philosophy. The abstract doesn't exist unlike the philosophy implemented by the adherents. We can measure how that political philosophy actually intersects the real world.