I hope that you, and your degenerate kin, and we, the ‘crazy leftists’, have a mutual understanding that liberals are spineless principleless cowards whose only conviction is to have no convictions.
Classical liberalism (just to give a concrete political term for those old school liberals) is admirable. I broadly agree with its values and I support all those points you mentioned. The progressive and conservative variants we often see in US politics are blatantly hypocritical and broken.
Unfortunately, liberalism’s core issue is that it’s an ideology based on an abstract concept rather than our physical conditions - it starts with the abstract, fair idea of freedom and attempts to apply it onto material reality. For example, the liberal approach to free speech, which theoretically creates a marketplace of ideas where the best prevail, just turns into a propaganda echo chamber when huge media organisation are owned by business tycoons with political agendas, and when social media companies are financially punished by their advertisers for allowing controversial expression. The utopian marketplace of ideas never really manifests at scale when that marketplace is collectively dominated by the like-minded owning class.
Without adding restrictions (a contradiction of liberty), the huge wealth of some people turns their freedoms into their political power. If the rich owning class can control the economy through a monopoly or similar, they have the freedom to control what news you can find, what products you can buy (if you can’t DIY it, like a computer) and their quality and how safe they are, what jobs they will give you, and so much more.
There are also plenty of other contradictions which we see play out, such as:
How can we balance freedom of religion with giving people rights that a religion rejects? (e.g. abortion, homosexuality)
How can we balance someone’s individual rights with someone else’s right to private property? (e.g. trespassing, restriction of the commons)
How can we balance someone’s individual rights with community safety needs and expectations? (e.g. weapon rights, industrial and environmental restrictions, speech laws)
Should liberalism be allowed to defend itself against a democratically-approved transition to dictatorship, or does this contradict political freedom?
In these situations, we have to resolve them somehow, so we end up with liberalism variants like conservative liberalism and progressive liberalism, straying further from the pure old-school liberalism they necessarily contradict. Even without corruption, liberalism decays, distancing itself from its ideals, and ultimately turns into a playground for the powerful who have far far far far far more ability to realize liberty than almost everyone else.
Because I look at policy and results. Actual peace, actual economic benefits, and damn, do I love his transition team.
I think the worst thing the Dems did for their party was rig their primaries. Bernie was a big one, I think it would have altered the course of the next few elections for sure. And then when they did it to Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang… and this year to RFK jr…
Whoever is making the controlling decisions behind the party facade wanted puppets instead of genuine leaders, and they chased the good candidates out. The ones who had integrity (Tulsi, RFK), reached out to see what was going on on the other side and found good footing there. I followed.
If I see a clip, I search out the full video for context. If I read a quote, I search out where that quote came from to get context. When context is inserted, it turns out Trump is incredibly decent, and I like it over here.
And bring that spider on, I’ve got a giant-ass lynx cat and a guardian dog, both of which love munching on spiders.
You make a good point about the primaries. In the previous elections, Bernie Sanders getting shafted definitely shifted a lot of their supporters away from the Democrap Party and Bernie’s social democracy towards socialism (like, working class seizing means of production). It had a real radicalising effect on people. They were being disenfranchised by federal politics so they looked towards unions and direct democratic organising away from the broken electoral system.
Whoever is making the controlling decisions behind the party facade
Money talks - you can’t dominate a US election without it. And most people don’t have the kind of money that talks, so both parties inevitably end up representing the owner class rather than popular opinion of their supporters. Democrat donors don’t want radical changes which would threaten their wealth, so no matter how popular a Bernie is, they’re going to do all they can to block them. On the other hand, while Trump is similarly unorthodox and controversial like Bernie, they’re not really a threat to the owner class’s wealth (Trump himself is a business owner!). So even while many Republican donors did object and push hard for alternatives, they didn’t do a Democrat and obstruct him.
Best answer because even in this thread you’ve been down voted.
I voted for him myself and have for sure been down voted for it on here, over and over again.
Haven’t been banned though, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
(●__●)
This place seems to have more crazy leftists but at least they can’t ban us here… I don’t think lol.
I hope that you, and your degenerate kin, and we, the ‘crazy leftists’, have a mutual understanding that liberals are spineless principleless cowards whose only conviction is to have no convictions.
Republicans like Trump are also liberals. [wiki]
Yeah, old school liberals. Free speech, gun rights, reasonable abortion laws, live and let live, don’t touch the kids, free and fair elections.
Doesn’t get better than that.
Classical liberalism (just to give a concrete political term for those old school liberals) is admirable. I broadly agree with its values and I support all those points you mentioned. The progressive and conservative variants we often see in US politics are blatantly hypocritical and broken.
Unfortunately, liberalism’s core issue is that it’s an ideology based on an abstract concept rather than our physical conditions - it starts with the abstract, fair idea of freedom and attempts to apply it onto material reality. For example, the liberal approach to free speech, which theoretically creates a marketplace of ideas where the best prevail, just turns into a propaganda echo chamber when huge media organisation are owned by business tycoons with political agendas, and when social media companies are financially punished by their advertisers for allowing controversial expression. The utopian marketplace of ideas never really manifests at scale when that marketplace is collectively dominated by the like-minded owning class.
Without adding restrictions (a contradiction of liberty), the huge wealth of some people turns their freedoms into their political power. If the rich owning class can control the economy through a monopoly or similar, they have the freedom to control what news you can find, what products you can buy (if you can’t DIY it, like a computer) and their quality and how safe they are, what jobs they will give you, and so much more.
There are also plenty of other contradictions which we see play out, such as:
In these situations, we have to resolve them somehow, so we end up with liberalism variants like conservative liberalism and progressive liberalism, straying further from the pure old-school liberalism they necessarily contradict. Even without corruption, liberalism decays, distancing itself from its ideals, and ultimately turns into a playground for the powerful who have far far far far far more ability to realize liberty than almost everyone else.
Why would you vote for him???
TW: arachnophobia
I hope you get a visit from this guy tonight
Because I look at policy and results. Actual peace, actual economic benefits, and damn, do I love his transition team.
I think the worst thing the Dems did for their party was rig their primaries. Bernie was a big one, I think it would have altered the course of the next few elections for sure. And then when they did it to Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang… and this year to RFK jr…
Whoever is making the controlling decisions behind the party facade wanted puppets instead of genuine leaders, and they chased the good candidates out. The ones who had integrity (Tulsi, RFK), reached out to see what was going on on the other side and found good footing there. I followed.
If I see a clip, I search out the full video for context. If I read a quote, I search out where that quote came from to get context. When context is inserted, it turns out Trump is incredibly decent, and I like it over here.
And bring that spider on, I’ve got a giant-ass lynx cat and a guardian dog, both of which love munching on spiders.
You make a good point about the primaries. In the previous elections, Bernie Sanders getting shafted definitely shifted a lot of their supporters away from the Democrap Party and Bernie’s social democracy towards socialism (like, working class seizing means of production). It had a real radicalising effect on people. They were being disenfranchised by federal politics so they looked towards unions and direct democratic organising away from the broken electoral system.
Money talks - you can’t dominate a US election without it. And most people don’t have the kind of money that talks, so both parties inevitably end up representing the owner class rather than popular opinion of their supporters. Democrat donors don’t want radical changes which would threaten their wealth, so no matter how popular a Bernie is, they’re going to do all they can to block them. On the other hand, while Trump is similarly unorthodox and controversial like Bernie, they’re not really a threat to the owner class’s wealth (Trump himself is a business owner!). So even while many Republican donors did object and push hard for alternatives, they didn’t do a Democrat and obstruct him.
Please provide any evidence you have got anything that lends towards this decency, which context needs to be inserted please let me know.