50 replies to this topic

[Hierophant]

I am trying to subsume as many liberal positions as possible under the least number of principles. Ideally these principles should be able to explain all typical liberal positions (but not all positions which liberals adopt, since many liberals are moderate or even conservatives on specific issues). Here is what I came up with:

1. Social voluntaryism. Liberals believe that, insofar as social issues go, people should in general be free to do whatever they see fit.

2. Equality of opportunities. Liberals believe that everyone should have a chance to succeed economically, and support programs which permit people to have that chance.

3. Reformism, anti-radicalism. Liberals believe in working within the system (i.e. using political means, including democracy, activism, the media) to implement these first two points, and oppose people who try to operate outside the system as being illegitimate and undemocratic.

Do these three principles subsume the essence of liberal attitudes? Or do you think one should be added or modified?

(disclaimer: I am not a liberal, but I don't intend to argue with anyone here... I just want to confirm or disprove my intuitions about it based on my readings and past discussions with other liberals)

[threelefts]

For some reason this topic showed up in the feed for the NHB. I deleted my reply.

Edited by threelefts, 13 May 2012 - 04:05 PM.

[Hierophant]

Sorry... I don't know anything about that. My apologies if it's my fault.

[cli1rus]

I am trying to subsume as many liberal positions as possible under the least number of principles. Ideally these principles should be able to explain all typical liberal positions (but not all positions which liberals adopt, since many liberals are moderate or even conservatives on specific issues). Here is what I came up with:

1. Social voluntaryism. Liberals believe that, insofar as social issues go, people should in general be free to do whatever they see fit.

2. Equality of opportunities. Liberals believe that everyone should have a chance to succeed economically, and support programs which permit people to have that chance.

3. Reformism, anti-radicalism. Liberals believe in working within the system (i.e. using political means, including democracy, activism, the media) to implement these first two points, and oppose people who try to operate outside the system as being illegitimate and undemocratic.

Do these three principles subsume the essence of liberal attitudes? Or do you think one should be added or modified?

(disclaimer: I am not a liberal, but I don't intend to argue with anyone here... I just want to confirm or disprove my intuitions about it based on my readings and past discussions with other liberals)

I could go along with the "do whatever they see fit", if there was no Socialism. In Socialism, a responsible person refrains from sexual perversion and is prosperous, while an irresponsible person participates in sexual perversion, gets a disease or ends up in poverty and then demands the responsible share the wealth.

The problem in America is not equal opportunity, but rather equal effort.

Christians are forced to work outside the system, because Atheists control the system, particularly the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry.

If there was ever a justification to hate America Jews, it would be their control of the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry that has made billions of dollars by sexual perversion/pornography.

I have never been able to figure out if the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry was the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party or the Democratic Party was the political wing of the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry.

I support Israeli Jews, but American Jews seem to hate Christians, and take every opportunity to destroy Christians.

[LaikaTheSpaceGod]

There is a difference between liberals and conservatives that can be expressed in terms of a classroom:

In a liberal classroom of straight-A students, a lower-achieving student receives aid and assistance from the entire class. The Class average is a B and everyone is happy about that. In a conservative classroom of straight-A students, the lower-achieving student is murdered. The class average is A and everyone is happy about that.

[MagnaCarta]

I am trying to subsume as many liberal positions as possible under the least number of principles. Ideally these principles should be able to explain all typical liberal positions (but not all positions which liberals adopt, since many liberals are moderate or even conservatives on specific issues). Here is what I came up with:

1. Social voluntaryism. Liberals believe that, insofar as social issues go, people should in general be free to do whatever they see fit.

2. Equality of opportunities. Liberals believe that everyone should have a chance to succeed economically, and support programs which permit people to have that chance.

3. Reformism, anti-radicalism. Liberals believe in working within the system (i.e. using political means, including democracy, activism, the media) to implement these first two points, and oppose people who try to operate outside the system as being illegitimate and undemocratic.

Do these three principles subsume the essence of liberal attitudes? Or do you think one should be added or modified?

(disclaimer: I am not a liberal, but I don't intend to argue with anyone here... I just want to confirm or disprove my intuitions about it based on my readings and past discussions with other liberals)

Social voluntarism is a bit of a misnomer as it neither elucidates nor qualifies a liberal position in and of itself. Over the past two-hundred years liberalism has seen a divide to some extent on a pragmatic and metaphysical level - in the former camp you have welfare and classical liberalism and in the latter you have the debate over positive and negative freedom. Both indeed assume that the individual is paramount to the argument and that said individuals are capable of free-will. Liberalism is concerned with the capabilities and limitations of the choices and freedoms of the individual but always maintains the antecedent claim the persons being discussed are, in fact, individual possessors of freedom(s).

The third point is decisively anti-liberal in the sense that it limits the "liberty" quotient of the ideology from which liberalism gets its name. Reformation of an institutional system is not working within said system but rather supplanting it with something new. This has been the battle cry of liberal movements from the French Revolution of 1789 onward. That being said, the second part of your claim appears to particularly valuable and strikes a chord with many modern scholars who have noted a serious imperialism in the implementation of liberal ideology.

I saved your equality of opportunity point for last as it is not only an incredibly complex source of contention amongst scholars of all fields, but also a definitionally critical point in liberalism as a doctrine. The liberal position does indeed hold that all 'individuals' are deserving of equal concern and respect. However if that claim usurps the liberties and freedoms of individuals as possessors of rights than it typically has ceased being an argument on par with liberalism and tends to fall in the camp of communitarianism or republicanism (per their understanding in academic terms as compared to colloquial terms). In other words, equality is a distinctly republican concept that begins to find its roots in writers like Plato and is further expanded by authors like Rousseau, whereas freedom is a central claim of liberalism but (as many scholars claim) one cannot be free without some grounds for equal opportunity. This also draws a distinction between the classical liberal position and that of the welfare liberal.

For what it is worth political scholar Dr. James Fishkin of the University of Stanford has written several incredibly influential pieces on this topic in which he has identified the central claims of liberalism to be threefold: freedom, merit, and equality.

[Hierophant]

I guess I should be more specific. I am talking about liberalism as we know it today, not classical liberalism. I didn't come here to get a history lesson.

[MagnaCarta]

I guess I should be more specific. I am talking about liberalism as we know it today, not classical liberalism. I didn't come here to get a history lesson.

Modern liberalism was briefly addressed if you actually bothered to read the post in its entirety; as such it is a bit difficult to sum up liberalism as an ideology if you cannot accurately decipher its historical points since they are the foundation and building material for modern liberalism. If you wanted sheer opinion and political 'shooting from the hip' as to what people think liberalism is - rather than facts and data from the thinkers who actually created the ideologies that shape the beliefs of the masses - you need only to look so far as 95% of the information on the internet or this site.

If you wanted a succinct rebuttal to your initial post then you are quite simply wrong. Not only do two of your points have nothing to do with principals in liberalism (by any standard both pragmatic and in academic theory) but (2) is a republican claim itself without the necessary qualifiers. Equally as important your third point is so disingenuous that it has less to do with liberalism as an ideology and more to do with the bounds and scope of institutional bureaucracy and possibly some basic moral norms.

Indeed it would seem that if your objective was to "confirm or disprove [your] intuitions" and you won't accept history/political science as a position of contention against what you believe than all you done is enacted some sort of confirmation bias. If you want a detailed list of Ivy League professors as well as ancient and modern thinkers/actors (and their works) who create the political reality you live in and, in-turn, also disagree with you I would be more than happy to provide that information.

[Hierophant]

Wow.

[LaikaTheSpaceGod]

Modern liberalism was briefly addressed if you actually bothered to read the post in its entirety; as such it is a bit difficult to sum up liberalism as an ideology if you cannot accurately decipher its historical points since they are the foundation and building material for modern liberalism. If you wanted sheer opinion and political 'shooting from the hip' as to what people think liberalism is - rather than facts and data from the thinkers who actually created the ideologies that shape the beliefs of the masses - you need only to look so far as 95% of the information on the internet or this site.

If you wanted a succinct rebuttal to your initial post then you are quite simply wrong. Not only do two of your points have nothing to do with principals in liberalism (by any standard both pragmatic and in academic theory) but (2) is a republican claim itself without the necessary qualifiers. Equally as important your third point is so disingenuous that it has less to do with liberalism as an ideology and more to do with the bounds and scope of institutional bureaucracy and possibly some basic moral norms.

Indeed it would seem that if your objective was to "confirm or disprove [your] intuitions" and you won't accept history/political science as a position of contention against what you believe than all you done is enacted some sort of confirmation bias. If you want a detailed list of Ivy League professors as well as ancient and modern thinkers/actors (and their works) who create the political reality you live in and, in-turn, also disagree with you I would be more than happy to provide that information.

Thanks!

Although, it's likely that you are already aware that information, of any kind, has a decidedly liberal bias


I wonder if liberalism can be crudely summed as the desire and action of lifting the least among us to approach the greatest among us; that happiness is improving the commons.

[Hierophant]

information, of any kind, has a decidedly liberal bias

Actually, we all think that information is biased in our favor. It's called confirmation bias, and everyone is subject to it, no matter what your political beliefs are.

[MagnaCarta]

Thanks!

Although, it's likely that you are already aware that information, of any kind, has a decidedly liberal bias


I wonder if liberalism can be crudely summed as the desire and action of lifting the least among us to approach the greatest among us; that happiness is improving the commons.

Well, that might not be a terrible claim in and of itself, but I'm not sure that it is completely true. When you pick up some works by many a continental conservative they are decidedly illiberal documents - the same can be said about the philosophy of ancient Greece or the majority of writings by eighteenth century republicans. Now, to your credit, liberal theory has a firm (but not absolute) claim on progessivism so you have a point that any sort of new information or information that sought change would count as liberal in a sense; this is certainly the case according to some of the early conservative authors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Did you mean that the sorts of information people are likely to receive through media or some fashion is liberal in America?

The second part sounds similar to variations of liberalism; John Rawls comes to mind for instance. Typically the thesis of improving happiness for the greatest number is basic utilitarian philosophy. The problem is that liberalism does not necessarily need to concern itself with distributive criteria (i.e. how to properly distribute opportunities, wealth, etc.), but that certainly has been an immensely popular feature of liberal theory in the past fifty years or so.

[sole result]

there is only one principle to liberalism, make every gender of ancestry dedicate their lifetime to assuming a character role in reality never wanting to understand the self evident by any stretch of humanity's imagination educated since birth so every human lifetime wishes they could leave the very moment they seek spiritually after death.

Ask yourselves this question, what does it take for a lifetime to change from ancestor to parent, to grandparent, to great grandparent, to great great grandparent, to great great great grandparent? going forward that is 1 to 1/2 to 1/4 to 1/8 to 1/16 to 1/32. However looking back at one's own ancestry it was 2 lifetimes, 4 lifetimes, 8 lifetimes, 16 lifetimes, and 32 lifetimes that contracted their DNA into your body here now. This works for everything in the plant and animal cellular adaption including the homo sapien species that humanity believes the intellect is superior to while only an induced reflect of instincts working the inside of the body to navigate around everything beyond the skin. Exponenetial inversion to being conceived and after becoming a conception conceiving another generation.

Simple compounding interest is the most powerful physical force in the universe because everything here changes now universally all the time or balance wouldn't rule this adapt or become extinct moment like it does nobody believes is understandable by definitions of theory and theology.

How many lifetimes consist to be in that generation of your ancestry before you were conceived?

Now, when does your lifetime acquire those pole positions within this ever changing moment as nobody can know what arrives next?

If money is a metaphor equal to time, what is time equal in the real moment? Controlling how everyone else thinks each generation passing through exchanging positions of ancestry or their specific DNA becomes extinct at death when now ancestors are in the moment.

[Totally Rad]

I think its incredible when non-Liberals take it upon themselves to decide what Liberals are about.

I think its awesome when a non-liberal decides what a liberal stands for. It's just so complete a demonstration of oppression.

[sole result]

I think its incredible when non-Liberals take it upon themselves to decide what Liberals are about.

I think its awesome when a non-liberal decides what a liberal stands for. It's just so complete a demonstration of oppression.

Aren't the principals of liberalism character matters so much the rule of law defines who's who theoretically and theologically to where the gender doesn't count other than a means of moving the intellect around during a accidental lifetime magically appeared for not reason other than a gift from beyond the present compounding elements of the periodic table keeping this planet self contained and universally balanced all the time now is here to details never duplicated physically working the same way forever here and always now.
Liberals is as generic as people or one. When lifetimes swear oaths to obey incomplete information to protect a faith and defend beliefs, what is left to teach understanding the real moment? Genders of ancestry? they are to busy saving humanity's ideologies.

[RobCooperX]

I could go along with the "do whatever they see fit", if there was no Socialism. In Socialism, a responsible person refrains from sexual perversion and is prosperous, while an irresponsible person participates in sexual perversion, gets a disease or ends up in poverty and then demands the responsible share the wealth.

The problem in America is not equal opportunity, but rather equal effort.

Christians are forced to work outside the system, because Atheists control the system, particularly the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry.

If there was ever a justification to hate America Jews, it would be their control of the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry that has made billions of dollars by sexual perversion/pornography.

I have never been able to figure out if the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry was the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party or the Democratic Party was the political wing of the Atheistic Liberal News and Entertainment Industry.

I support Israeli Jews, but American Jews seem to hate Christians, and take every opportunity to destroy Christians.

What the hell are you smoking?? I got big shocking news for you have misinformation about Socialism, American Jews and who really controls this country. I love how you think the poor, poor christians have it so bad. Oh really? Then how come every politician on either side has to say how Christian they are to have a chance at being President? We have the right to be athiest in the United States, but we are treated by many as second class citizens. Many Christians have no respect for an athiest even though it's always you guys throwing your views in people's faces. Let me guess, you listen to Rush Limbaugh and your Bible bookmark is a picture of Ronald Reagan. You know, Jesus #2. This country would be in much better shape if the athiests had as much power as you like to pretend we have. Have you ever heard of facts? And I'm loving your hatred of "American Jews". So can we consider you the American Hitler?

[RobCooperX]

There is a difference between liberals and conservatives that can be expressed in terms of a classroom:

In a liberal classroom of straight-A students, a lower-achieving student receives aid and assistance from the entire class. The Class average is a B and everyone is happy about that. In a conservative classroom of straight-A students, the lower-achieving student is murdered. The class average is A and everyone is happy about that.

That's funny but it's also very true. But the lower-achievers in the conservative classroom aren't murdered. The straight-A students just knock them down, steal their lunch money and the lower-achievers die young because they can't afford to go see the school nurse.

Edited by RobCooperX, 19 May 2012 - 03:07 AM.

[Hierophant]

I think its incredible when non-Liberals take it upon themselves to decide what Liberals are about.

I think its awesome when a non-liberal decides what a liberal stands for. It's just so complete a demonstration of oppression.

Well gee, I'm sorry for trying to understand where you people are coming from. How insensitive of me.

I am not "deciding" what liberals are about, I'm asking liberals if my intuitions are correct. That's kindof the whole point of this thread. I'm sorry that you are so confused that you think asking people about their positions is the equivalent of being the new Hitler.

[Hierophant]

Sole result, are you a follower of Gene Ray? I can make no more sense of your posts than I can make sense of Time Cube. It reads like a language that looks like English but is not actually English.

[sole result]

Sole result, are you a follower of Gene Ray? I can make no more sense of your posts than I can make sense of Time Cube. It reads like a language that looks like English but is not actually English.

Do you comprehend that liberty requires one no more follows theory or theology than leads others within their own invented mythology? Don't try and make sense of a Time Cube using existential single track analogies. Natural balance shows how it works all the time and to comprehend why is to connect the dots of self containment within an instant of compounding contractions expanding the details never duplicated twice since added to the results here now.

Look at my avatar which is just an origami figure mapping out poisitions a human lifetime becomes in different stages of it's lifetime. The center hole is the point of ancestry making the conception of that specific detail and we know that is a fertilized cell of compounded lifetimes of a male and female result of ancestry so far. See nothing has left the moment to the physical definition of energy cannot be created or destroyed while changing in shape and form.

Here comes the 3 divides to the 4th dimension of the molecular table of contents that shape and hold this planet in universal balance, gaseous, liquid, and mineral states of balancing combined into what remains ever changing in detail here on Earth as it does throughout the heavens around this solar system.

This combines spirit and body or heart and mind. Now when minding the vernacular and acting in the interests learned after birth, what were you educated about that path every lifetime endures to become male and female lifetimes of any species. Being composed of the elements in the periodic table and becoming another cellular adaption of simple compounding interest with each cellular expansion originating from that fertilized cell into the ancestor of ancestry that arrived exactly what took place now in this ever changing moment.

I have survived most of my lifetime feeling out of place because I couldn't believe in incomplete but rule of law defined everything on a majority is good enough. That is selling ideologies where ancestors must give up understanding what real functions as and accept time relativity as the norm to thinking what exists comes from beyond the moment always here and forever now never duplicating details working within the same results. Male and female lifetimes of the homo sapien every generation where details are delivered upon conception.

OK back to the avatar's points there are six points that extend beyond the other 8. Now of those six points the top and bottom are the polar points of mom and dad in cellular form and Earth's north and south electromagnetic poles of the hemisphere separated by the tropics/equator which are the exponential top and bottom halves of the same whole. the 4 points horizontal represent grandparents of the conceived fertilized cell. Now for the planet they represent mid night, dawn, noon, and dusk. which create divides from leading edge and trailing edge of the planet revolving around the sun creating the am/pm time relativity with day and night separated by the vertical equator of dawn and dusk.

Now the 8 peaks that rise up in the center of the horizontal 4 are the points of contracting eroded elements that become cellular adaptations' great grandparents of the food chain including the homo sapien species within the animal predatory male female category. Inception to conception of another generation overlapping three to four generations, death of ancestry, extinction of the species.

So simple theory and theology making people wish they couuld escape eternity can only do it playing character roles in reality legalizing denial in every aspect of saving humanity's greater good protecting the faith life comes from beyond the moment here all the time.

So what is liberalism to you? Escaping real for reality's sake or becoming balanced with Eternity always present within this compounding instant nothing remains the same details as before working the same way as always.

Ever hear the saying,"No matter how things change they remain the same." Now you know why and how. So the details of what, where, when, and who only exist now and what is now came from everything changing into this moment and that is why time travel is physically impossible other than how it functions exactly as what takes place here now as a whole universal moment.

Existentially speaking this is all theories and theologies combined throughout history and explains why democracies will never work playing vernacular tribalisms dividing ancestry into society's children parented from church and state institutions educating symbolism over substance and character roles matter more than the gendered lifetime as matter.

To save humanity from destroying the human species that substitution of symbolism over substance must get back to balance within adapt or become extinct functions regulating everything universally the same way where tipping the scales leads to extinction without emotional decisions of which vernacular was right or wrong since all were playing by the same invented rules to deny what real has been all along.

Edited by sole result, 19 May 2012 - 07:25 AM.

[Totally Rad]

Well gee, I'm sorry for trying to understand where you people are coming from. How insensitive of me.

Nah... You're being stupid and employing tired old strawmen. You're also posting in the Liberals ONLY part of the forum. A woeful disregard for others property.

[sole result]

Here are examples of thinking out of the box and never define objects from the outside in without understanding the subjects inside out. Figure it out as exponentials defined existentially never add up to understanding everything that was how it came to exist now with here never staying the same as before all the time.
That makes this instant the permanent balance point between was and what remains functioning as usual.

i.e. Eternity's no beginning and no end just everything changing without creating or destroying energy while everything changes shape and form.

Expansion moves perpendicularly within magnetism and contracts diagonally from generated electromagnetism arriving out of action and reaction balancing the moment as is it has been doing all the time. Think 6 halves of the whole not two sides to every issue arguing semantics of maybe or might be following would of, could of, should of analysis.

Now the flat pieces of paper on the opposite sides are not colored at all but when folded into shape and form only certain surfaces reflect the form shaped. Yet both were of the same size to start with. Do you live in an existential moment or an exponential continuence of nothing remaining the same details as before.

Last question, which has more matter social identity or ancestor of ancestry? One is conceptual the other a conception of what was. anyone want to lecture me about how evil humans are and how good humanity is religously, politically, or economically?

I understand real, not believe in reality. Something any ancestor of ancestry can do should they wish serentiy in their lifetime and give it to their ancestors to comprehend why nobody gets along socially defined by other person's greater good intentions of feeling superior to the rest of the species and life all together.

Edited by sole result, 19 May 2012 - 08:47 AM.

[TheOldBarn]

Here are examples of thinking out of the box and never define objects from the outside in without understanding the subjects inside out. Figure it out as exponentials defined existentially never add up to understanding everything that was how it came to exist now with here never staying the same as before all the time.
That makes this instant the permanent balance point between was and what remains functioning as usual.

i.e. Eternity's no beginning and no end just everything changing without creating or destroying energy while everything changes shape and form.

Expansion moves perpendicularly within magnetism and contracts diagonally from generated electromagnetism arriving out of action and reaction balancing the moment as is it has been doing all the time. Think 6 halves of the whole not two sides to every issue arguing semantics of maybe or might be following would of, could of, should of analysis.

Now the flat pieces of paper on the opposite sides are not colored at all but when folded into shape and form only certain surfaces reflect the form shaped. Yet both were of the same size to start with. Do you live in an existential moment or an exponential continuence of nothing remaining the same details as before.

Last question, which has more matter social identity or ancestor of ancestry? One is conceptual the other a conception of what was. anyone want to lecture me about how evil humans are and how good humanity is religously, politically, or economically?

I understand real, not believe in reality. Something any ancestor of ancestry can do should they wish serentiy in their lifetime and give it to their ancestors to comprehend why nobody gets along socially defined by other person's greater good intentions of feeling superior to the rest of the species and life all together.

Clearly, real is genuflect, books, logic, human evolution, and indeed morality is a compass by design. You are libertarian obviously.
There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with books, passing down logic, tried and true experiments should be shared.
I learn from someone's failings, I also learn from my own, or I should. Or, I should wish to.

Peace!

[Hierophant]

Nah... You're being stupid and employing tired old strawmen. You're also posting in the Liberals ONLY part of the forum. A woeful disregard for others property.

I did publicly ask for permission and I was told I could. Now you're berating me for asking for permission? You're ridiculous. Now that's one liberal principle I didn't list: whining that you're the victim, even when you're not.

I did say I wasn't gonna confront anyone, but come on...

[sole result]

Clearly, real is genuflect, books, logic, human evolution, and indeed morality is a compass by design. You are libertarian obviously.
There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with books, passing down logic, tried and true experiments should be shared.
I learn from someone's failings, I also learn from my own, or I should. Or, I should wish to.

Peace!

this is where you missed the mark, I am not a character of libertarian ideology. I am a gendered result of ancestry so specific that I wouldn't be me now if any other lifetime were involved within the compounding conceptions of my ancestry passing through this instant of continuious universal balancing.

This is so physically simple over 400 generations of being educated about time relativity in one form or another ancestors choose to deny what is real for their inherited ideologies composed in theory and theology establishing institutions of subjective church and state houses of religion and politics administering economic substitution of understanding the substance of how and why for the faith details to what, where, when, and why come from beyond this instant always here and forever now.

I learned from society's courtroom of public opinion destroying my mother's will to live as a character of humanity's societal evolution in 2005. Know what separates metaphors and metaphysical maybes from what is really going on now all the time with here being the same universal balance point between was and details arriving now as compounded from contracting resutls using the same self contained matter universally balancing in the same position all the time.

Humanity is out of self control because of some self anointed self loathing individuals that cannot accept the physical limits of their sole results being gendered human lifetimes and they paint illusions of maybe it is anything other than this moment existence remains ever changing within.

How and why the inmates run the asylum every generation now has conceived here.