The End of Liberalism.

[Mindful]

In recent days we’ve seen inspiring demands for liberty from the oppressed citizens of Iran. Our situation in the West today seems the opposite: too much ill-used liberty combined with a soft authoritarianism that we have largely welcomed. We buy what we want, throw away what we no longer desire, and allow the debt to accumulate. We enjoy Caligulaesque sexual liberty but no longer marry nor have children. We eat until we are obese, legalise drugs that take the edge off, consume a degraded popular culture that leaves us stupefied, and alter our brainscapes through unceasing consumption of online ephemera. Amid these seemingly unlimited personal choices, we can see the growth of an encompassing state and transnational institutions that make innumerable decisions in politics and economics over which average citizens exercise no control. If this is the form of ‘liberty’ that protesters in Iran aspire to achieve, then any liberation is likely to prove Pyrrhic.

In a world longing for liberty, advanced western liberalism seems to have reached a dead-end. Having promised liberation from any constraint that is not chosen by the consent of the individual, we have created nations of individualists who are now responsible to no-one in particular, but simultaneously subjects of an all-encompassing state and international order. That liberalism has succeeded. It has also visibly failed. Western liberal democracies are in a state of internal crisis: by every measure, they are wealthy, powerful, and unchallenged by any ideological contender. But an internal rot has spread as its citizens feel at once powerless amid their autonomy. Liberalism has failed because liberalism has succeeded.

How can we understand this paradox?

The end of liberalism | Coffee House

 

[there4eyeM]

Human psychology has not kept pace with the realities we have discovered. We fail to practice what we know to be true about how our brains function, how language functions, how our perceptions function. We are frightened when we approach the realization of how responsible each person is for his/her being. There is a clinging to a past that cannot sustain the present and ill prepares us for the future.

 

[ScienceRocks]

So pretty much the end of modern civilization
The end of 1,000 years of progress in science, education and rationality
A new dark age

This is what would happen with the end of liberalism. I don't think you understand what liberalism is?

 

[Mindful]

So pretty much the end of modern civilization
The end of 1,000 years of progress in science, education and rationality
A new dark age

This is what would happen with the end of liberalism. I don't think you understand what liberalism is?

Probably not.

 

[Norman]

So pretty much the end of modern civilization
The end of 1,000 years of progress in science, education and rationality
A new dark age

This is what would happen with the end of liberalism. I don't think you understand what liberalism is?

Are you again talking about your vision of turning the west into a muslim hell hole, that still is 1000 years behind in science, even executing gays?

 

[there4eyeM]

If the masses flee from true freedom into the arms of superficial mysticism and authoritarianism (as has happened in the past), then a dark age will descend upon humanity. Religion and ideology have become the enemies of the human spirit, and threaten to extinguish the best of our race.

 

[AsianTrumpSupporter]

 

[AVG-JOE]

Baby steps to the stars, Baby!

Liberalism as a label ebbs and flows, but liberal thinking, the kind of liberal thinking that led to the French and American Revolutions that established western democracy is alive and well. Even among many who today label themselves as 'conservative'.

Disgusted With Conservatism, America Was Born Liberal.

 

[Tehon]

Marx told you that capitalism didn't offer the promise of true freedom. We are enslaved by our economic system. "Chasing the American Dream" is that which has undermined your family, community, church, culture and nation. The means by which we acquire the necessities and niceties of life is all consuming in this country.

 

[AVG-JOE]

I
In a world longing for liberty, advanced western liberalism seems to have reached a dead-end.

The desire for the individual to be free is still alive and well.

Figuring out just who is playing the part of Oppressive King/Dictator in our Liberal economy is the modern bitch.

The problem is money in politics.

The solution is not to restrict political donation$, the solution is to remove from congress the power to reward their friends and donor$ via the complicated tax code we've allowed them to build.

The time to demand a truly fair and simple tax code is now.

`​

 

[Mindful]

Some words in the press are used not only for purposes of shorthand but also as Pavlovian bells to get the ideological saliva running. They have only to be printed or uttered for thought to cease, and since thought is often painful and poses the danger of arriving at unwanted conclusions, such words offer protection against such pain and discomfort.

Among them, for certain people, especially in Europe, are poverty, liberalism and austerity (the list is far from exhaustive).

The connotation of poverty is that of Dr. Johnson’s definition: the want of necessities. And no one will be found to defend hunger, lack of shelter from the elements, or nakedness. But the denotationof poverty nowadays is not the same as its connotation. Almost always, the denotation of poverty nowadays is the possession of an income below 60 percent of the median income, so that what is meant is not so much poverty as inequality. A society in which everyone had a guaranteed six-figure income could thus have a great deal of “poverty,” and an incomparably poorer country could have much less poverty, in the technical sense of the word. In recessions, poverty of this sort decreases not because anyone is richer—quite the contrary: because the higher incomes decline, while (at least where there is Social Security) the lowest do not. But no one is materially better off as a result. Of course, this leaves quite untouched the question as to whether equality of outcome is desirable, which is a separate issue.

Liberalism (or neo-liberalism, or ultra-liberalism) in the French and British press means laissez-faire economics. Its connotation is that of a dog-eat-dog society in which—to change metaphorical horses midstream—the devil takes the hindmost. In the French press, Britain is an ultra-liberal society, and all Britain’s manifold shortcomings are due to letting markets rule the society that, as Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have believed, does not really exist anyway. The word “liberalism” is used over and over again, despite the facts that more than 90 percent of British education and health care is state organized, that the nation’s housing market is highly regulated, and that there are many other markets into which entry is made difficult or practically impossible by government regulation.

Again, the misnomer leaves untouched the question of how much regulation is desirable (and what ends are themselves desirable is a matter of contention); but it is as accurate to call Britain a liberal polity as to call North Korea a libertarian one. “Corporatist” comes nearer the truth, though no single word can capture so complex a reality.

Finally, austerity.........

The Devil’s in the Diction

 

[Norman]

Baby steps to the stars, Baby!

Liberalism as a label ebbs and flows, but liberal thinking, the kind of liberal thinking that led to the French and American Revolutions that established western democracy is alive and well. Even among many who today label themselves as 'conservative'.

Disgusted With Conservatism, America Was Born Liberal.

Matthew would oppose that kind of thinking in every way he could, at every turn.

No free stuff for anyone.

 

[AVG-JOE]

You had better be talking about the author of The Gospel according to Matthew and not a member of the board.

If you're talking about a member of the board, this is a classic example of a "troll" or "baiting" post and it should be in The World Famous USMB Taunting Arena.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Favoritism based on wealth is the "ism" that We need to kill.

Who in their right mind would give a million dollars to a politician who could deliver no favors in return?

​

 

[Mindful]

Perhaps we should go back to bartering?

 

[AVG-JOE]

Pass!
​

I think that air conditioning, the internet, cars & highways, air travel, mobile phones, etc are all worth saving.

 

[Mindful]

Pass!
​

I think that air conditioning, the internet, cars & highways, air travel, mobile phones, etc are all worth saving.

Are they an endangered species?

Air conditioning yes. After walking around in unbearable humidity in DC.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Baby steps to the stars, Baby!

Liberalism as a label ebbs and flows, but liberal thinking, the kind of liberal thinking that led to the French and American Revolutions that established western democracy is alive and well. Even among many who today label themselves as 'conservative'.

Disgusted With Conservatism, America Was Born Liberal.

But Modern American Liberals reject individual liberty and yearn for an All powerful central government.

 

[Mindful]

I don't like being told what to do, or what to think.

 

[August West]

Baby steps to the stars, Baby!

Liberalism as a label ebbs and flows, but liberal thinking, the kind of liberal thinking that led to the French and American Revolutions that established western democracy is alive and well. Even among many who today label themselves as 'conservative'.

Disgusted With Conservatism, America Was Born Liberal.

But Modern American Liberals reject individual liberty and yearn for an All powerful central government.

The idea of having 50 states with 50 different governments is a failed experiment. A central government couldn`t be worse than the mess we have now with ridiculous institutions like the Senate and the Electoral college.