The Liberal Mentality

[Cavebear]

This is where I usually have to remind people of the differences between conservatism, socialism, liberal, and progressive.

Conservatism means keeping things as they were "in the good old days".  Which was not always good for a lot of people.  But some traditional practices have general benefits.  Think "barn-raisings"

Socialism means the government taking private goods for well-intentioned general distribution. Think "health care for all". 

Liberalism means (and I will get some flak here from conservatives) the government is intended to pass regulations controlling  capitalistic excesses and promote "the general welfare" of the downtrodden.

Progressive means that new ideas should be explored with the understanding that some may work and some not (FDR was progressive, not liberal) and that as society changes, laws and regulations must change or be enacted.

I am a Progressive, and utterly unashamed of it.  As society changes, our laws must change to adapt to that.

And I will give you an example guaranteed to burn holes in some peoples' brains.    The 2nd amendment has to be changed.  There are many reasons and I won't bore you with them.  But we are no longer a "musket militia" society, and that is sufficient for a change.

Not asking any specific questions, just saying something...

[pr126]

[Baruch]

This is where I usually have to remind people of the differences between conservatism, socialism, liberal, and progressive.

Conservatism means keeping things as they were "in the good old days".  Which was not always good for a lot of people.  But some traditional practices have general benefits.  Think "barn-raisings"

Socialism means the government taking private goods for well-intentioned general distribution. Think "health care for all". 

Liberalism means (and I will get some flak here from conservatives) the government is intended to pass regulations controlling  capitalistic excesses and promote "the general welfare" of the downtrodden.

Progressive means that new ideas should be explored with the understanding that some may work and some not (FDR was progressive, not liberal) and that as society changes, laws and regulations must change or be enacted.

I am a Progressive, and utterly unashamed of it.  As society changes, our laws must change to adapt to that.

And I will give you an example guaranteed to burn holes in some peoples' brains.    The 2nd amendment has to be changed.  There are many reasons and I won't bore you with them.  But we are no longer a "musket militia" society, and that is sufficient for a change.

Not asking any specific questions, just saying something...

You are so 1970 (I am so 1975) ... go figure! ;-)  We only know what was burned into our skulls when we were 20.

[Baruch]

Controlled opposition.  Have house from Clintons, will travel (in luxury).  Corbin is probably controlled opposition too ... one of those people/sheep crosses.

[Baruch]

Communists define communism as stateless. I know statelessness is a fantasy. It's a fantasy communists will continue to hold to for as long as they exist. Every time communists gain government and fail to abolish it like their ideology tells them to, the next generation of communists just denounce them as "not real communists." Communists are retarded, you see.

Communists are like all other -ists ... compulsive liars and dictators.  Lure in the sheep, shear them and butcher them.  Back in the old days of 1880-1920, anarchism was a fad, like Facebook, and all the -ists wanted to get on the bandwagon.  Nobody actually wants smaller government, they all want bigger government for themselves, and to punish their enemies.  Marx stole the stateless idea, from the ideas of that French hippie, Rousseau.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Right, and I could go on r/classical libertarians and discover a community of classical libertarians. That doesn't mean that because I didn't have access to that community before the internet that the number of libertarians has actually increased, it just means they have a way to be more vocal about their existence and interact amongst each other. Amplitude =/= volume or mass. Particularly when that amplitude is vibrating across the internet and not the real world.

Tumblr is not "the real world". Leftypol is not "the real world". Nor is any other chatroom. The only time these chatrooms have any relevance in the real world is when they decide to meet each other and that is predominately to interact with each other and not the environment around them.

I'm talking about relevant communists... communists who are enacting social change, who are influencing public opinion, who are making an difference with their sway on politicians... people who vote for communists, or publicly campaign for communists. I could call myself an whatever I like on a chatroom, but at the end of the day if I am not taking actions in the real world to enact whatever position I push online, then they are just words on a computer screen and are what your online persona is, not you as an individual.

Communism holds significantly less political and social power in the real world than it does on the internet; failing to observe a reality that may exist on the internet does not translate to failing to observe something in the real world that does. I love the internet, but I have no delusions that tumblr, youtube comments, this forum, whatever are somehow equal to or as real as something said or done in the real world. And the reality in the real world is that if you identify as a communist... you are utterly irrelevant to society. It's as purposeful as identifying yourself as a furry. Sure, it might gain you points within your niche community, but otherwise people are just going to give you a strange look and walk by.

Woah there Shiranu.. You're getting ahead of the site word salad chefs here. But you are correct. Being a self proclaimed Bengals fan doesn't in fact make me a paid employee of the Cincinnati Bengals. Just because I might post on a Bengals fan website doesn't automatically turn me into an NFL player any more than someone posting on a sub topic of a much larger site claiming to be a socialist or communist is the leader of the Soviet Union..It kind of reminds me of the anti drug warriors going online to proclaim that the entire nation and every citizen of the nation is somehow going to become a heroin addict and we're all going to overdose tomorrow morning if all the dope dealers aren't executed immediately..
In other words the squeaky wheel gets the grease and since it's getting so much grease it must obviously be where you put all the gasoline..

[Gilgamesh]

Woah there Shiranu.. You're getting ahead of the site word salad chefs here. But you are correct. Being a self proclaimed Bengals fan doesn't in fact make me a paid employee of the Cincinnati Bengals. Just because I might post on a Bengals fan website doesn't automatically turn me into an NFL player any more than someone posting on a sub topic of a much larger site claiming to be a socialist or communist is the leader of the Soviet Union..It kind of reminds me of the anti drug warriors going online to proclaim that the entire nation and every citizen of the nation is somehow going to become a heroin addict and we're all going to overdose tomorrow morning if all the dope dealers aren't executed immediately..
In other words the squeaky wheel gets the grease and since it's getting so much grease it must obviously be where you put all the gasoline..

If you want to overthrow your government and create communism then you are a communist. In the same vein, if you currently reside within a communist society and want to destroy it, you are not a communist.

It is self-evidently absurd to think that the former doesn't necessarily mean you are a communist, but that the latter does.

And even if there was not one person in existence in favor of communism, that doesn't suddenly make using the identifier, 'communist' and arbitrarily start shifting it around with other identifiers. That makes 0 sense.

Not to mention Shiranu's funny implication that people on the internet aren't 'real' people that exist in the world.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

So you're vying to be the greasy, squeaky wheel, huh? Congratulations.

[Gilgamesh]

So you're vying to be the greasy, squeaky wheel, huh? Congratulations.

It's so telling when you engage someone with argument and instead of defending their position in kind they do literally anything else. It's almost like you cannot defend your position because it's not an accurate description of reality.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

How about the fact that I just don't really care to argue with you?  I'm a real bastard that way, but oh well.

[Gilgamesh]

I would probably start calling them (as you define them [or rather as they are text-book defined]) a relic of the past,

And here is the retarded contention that started this ^

Imagine having your shitty position put into such an inescapable corner that you literally contend that it's okay to arbitrarily shift definitions around because one of the terms you're doing it to don't really have many people who believe in it any more. Somehow if you have the belief that communists don't exist, that makes it okay to call people who like social safety nets socialists, and then socialists communists.

Yeah...

[Gilgamesh]

How about the fact that I just don't really care to argue with you?  I'm a real bastard that way, but oh well.

>goes to a discussion board
>vagueposts
>"instead of vagueposting and stroking your ego lets get into specifics and have a discussion on this, you know, discussion board"
>woah thats asking for a lot m8

[Shiranu]

Not to mention Shiranu's funny implication that people on the internet aren't 'real' people that exist in the world.

That wasn't my implication. My point was that speaking your opinion on an internet chatforums is not taking action, any more than sitting around telling someone you should bake a cake makes you a cake baker if you never actually go and bake a cake. Without action, you can call yourself whatever you want... a communist, a baker, an apache attack helicopter... but if you don't take any action off the computer that indicates you are one of these things... you might as well be nothing. "You" as a communist or baker are just ones and zeros and flickering pixels on a meaningless screen somewhere.


To keep it political - If I called myself a democrat, and shared that here... and then never voted democrat in my life and didn't support any democratic campaigns, than I am not really a democrat. No one would think I was.

But I don't believe the personas we wear online are real people either, if you really want to know.

[Shiranu]

And here is the retarded contention that started this ^

Imagine having your shitty position put into such an inescapable corner that you literally contend that it's okay to arbitrarily shift definitions around because one of the terms you're doing it to don't really have many people who believe in it any more. Somehow if you have the belief that communists don't exist, that makes it okay to call people who like social safety nets socialists, and then socialists communists.

Yeah...

Meh, you are going to land on the wrong side of society and history, so be mad about that all you want. No skin off my back.

[Hakurei Reimu]

That's not what I said - at all. People who are pro-socialist-states (ie socialists) view liberals as useful idiots - because these liberals are easily convinced to support ideals which are antithetical to liberalism.

While this might be true in certain cases, there might be other forces that drive this trend that have nothing to do with people you would call socialist.

If you're going to call people who are pro-even-one-social-policy a socialist, then what are you going to start calling socialists?

You missed the point here. These terms we use to describe peoples' political leanings are relative. I would take a socialist to be a person who thinks that more social policies than currently are in place are in order. It doesn't mean that if you're for even one social policy, then you're automatically a socialist in a political climate.

Oh, you'd call them communists, you say?

No, I call people who are for nationalized industries and the accompanying communist style control economy communist.

Well since a socialist state requires a government, what are you going to start calling communists - which is defined as being fundamentally without a governing body?

Oh, don't be obtuse, Gil. The classic socialist states you are obviously referring to have been traditionally been called 'communists,' and that is what I've been calling these kinds of societies all my life. You're committing the genetic fallacy by insisting that they be called 'socialists' due to its entemology when it is obvious that it's not how people are using the term.

What? Liberalism is pro-capitalism.

This is not how 'liberal' has been traditionally used in the US. At least, not in my lifetime.

Capitalism naturally exists without government collectivism.

Actually, it's barter economies that tend to 'naturally exist' in this state.

Liberalism is fundamentally pro-individualism, therefore capitalism is a natural consequence of liberal ideals.

Again, not how 'liberal' has been used in the US.

Not only that, but the most prosperous nations on earth have always been, currently are, and will always be, capitalist economies. 

Agreed.

And not only that, but you don't speak for all liberals. Myself and all my friends are liberals. We are all pro-capitalism.

Again, according to your definition of what 'liberal' means.

Oh, but you'd rather redefine liberalism, too, right?

It's already been redefined, moron, at least in the US. Mostly by the conservative twits who wanted to actually take rights away, by defining them in a way that brings them closer to the communists that were the bugbear of the Cold War era.

Go to r/socialists or r/communism right now and talk to, you know, actual socialists and communists. Ask them what they think about liberals. To them, there is virtually 0 difference between liberals and fascists. They don't consider themselves aligned with liberals. They consider liberals useful idiots who get put into the gulag as soon as they've served their purpose. Why? Because while a marxist can confuse a liberal enough to be able to use them to bring about their ends, they cannot completely remove that liberals sense that personal liberty is something to be preserved.

Who cares if 'real communists' and 'real socialists' think we're useful idiots? The important part is to not be one. Thing is, you can't defend personal liberties unless you're willing to bust the heads of individuals who violate the personal liberties of others. It's simply an inescapable fact of human nature that you're always going to have people who are selfish pricks willing to screw people over for their own gain. That's why people invented governments in the first place.

Furthermore, liberalism, as a practical exercise, is going to overlap somewhat with socialism and communism and marxism as you define it.

The fact is; I don't see liberals turned sour to capitalism. I see people who call themselves liberals but who hold ideals antithetical to liberalism, sour to capitalism.

So? Ideals of personal liberty do not necessarily imply that you must be capitalist. Capitalism is just an economic system â€" a way of distributing goods and services. It has nothing to do with individual liberty, at least directly. A true post-scarcity economy could be the most liberal you've ever seen, yet would not even have the smallest whiff of capitalism in it because goods and services would literally be too cheap to sell.

I see people who don't know the etymology behind terms using the terms exactly as the people who seek to socially engineer them would like them to use those terms.

This is literally the definition of engaging in a genetic fallacy.

You are literally arguing that we allow the marxist tactic of hegemony over language with purpose to confuse us, to confuse us. That's... pretty retarded.

I was born with all of these terms already muddled in the way I described. That ship's already sailed. The only thing you can do is be clear on what you believe.