Never say "the left" when you mean "the Democrats"

[Politruk]

None of this changes the fact that the Democrats are equity seeking collectivist and definitively left wing.

No, they're liberals. It's not the same thing.

 

[UltraChad]

Libertarianism is not liberalism.

Never said it was.

 

[UltraChad]

No, they're liberals.

They literally call liberal ideals and values fascist......because they're leftist, not liberals.

Liberals are by definition pro-liberty. Democrats used to be that. Not anymore. It's not 1960 anymore bud....welcome to 2024.

 

[Politruk]

Liberals are by definition pro-liberty.

No, that's libertarians. Not liberals.

 

[UltraChad]

No, that's libertarians. Not liberals.

liberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism

a political philosophy based on belief in progress and stressing the essential goodness of the human race, freedom for the individual from arbitrary authority, and protection and promotion of political and civil liberties

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberalism

All other references of any credibility and philosophers of any note all agree. Liberalism is a pro-individual and civil liberty ideology.

That's why Democrats aren't liberals. It's not 1960 anymore bud, welcome to 2024!!!!

Libertarians are a sub-type of liberal, the same way Marxist, democratic socialist, progressives, Nazism and other various political ideologies that all support collectivizing the means of production, are all socialist. Libertarians are all liberals, but not all liberals are libertarians.

 

[Politruk]

Liberalism:

The chief objective for liberalism is human freedom within reasonable limits. Freedom means the ability to do what one wills with one's own life and property, and build and live in a society where the state and church do not interfere and regulate. Liberals differ from Anarchists in that they believe that people need to be 'oppressed' by governments in order to be free in other respects — though they value government only for the freedom it brings, and don't consider it something valuable or desirable in itself. More importantly liberals of multiple types believe in representative government. They believe that governing is a profession like a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer (and some lawyers and teachers do end up governing), and that it can only be handled by experts. These experts need to have a constituency, and need to be balanced by other experts, but once empowered in office, your representatives govern and you, citizen - while free to criticize, voice displeasure, protest and so on x cannot really interfere with the actions of the representatives. Sure, you might try to vote him out and get another representative to reverse said edict, which is of course time consuming and tedious, but fundamentally the agency of the citizen in directing and regulating laws stops at the ballot, after which it's entirely up to the representatives. Likewise the notion of whether laws and measures put up to a wide referendum, based on a one-time measure among a populace not fully cognizant of the technical details of the entanglements of domestic and foreign policy, can be truly representative of the people's best interests is up in the air. Even the radical-for-their-time Jacobins (the origins of today's Liberals) were against referendums and defended the principle of representative government.note
Liberals see themselves as working for reforms within institutions and believe that institutions safeguard liberties and allow ordinary people to live as they please. In practice, critics argue, this leads liberals to be devoted to maintaining the existing power structures of society, and working with the interests of power holders rather than the powerless. Historically there were a number of splits in liberalism over the last two hundred years. There is the split between Natural-Law liberalism and Utilitarian liberalism. Natural-law liberalism holds that humans, due to divine or natural law, have certain rights that no government should infringe upon. These rights are due to self-ownership, meaning that you own yourself, and no other human does (though you may belong to God, according to early liberals, you do not belong to any other person). John Locke was a major proponent for this view, which was also influential in The American Revolution. Utilitarian liberalism grew in popularity in the 19th century, and it holds that the best course of action is to pursue what would bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Since only the individual knows what would bring the greatest happiness to himself or herself, then governments should pursue a policy of personal autonomy, letting everybody pursue their own happiness. The most influential advocate for utilitarian liberalism was John Stuart Mill, despite not being generally considered as a Liberal himself.
Liberalism argues that positive liberty is absolutely necessary for universal human freedom, particularly that of the poor. For instance, a family which struggles to earn enough to feed itself will obviously be unable to provide medical care or education for its members without state intervention. As such, the state should intervene in economic affairs on behalf of the least privileged. Liberals are also in favor of enforcing agrarian reform and land grants and likewise advocate for a strong centralized state (especially the Jacobins). Liberals want all people to be actually free, period, and when Liberals abolished slavery, either in Jacobin France or Radical Republican America, they denied compensation to slave owners, albeit any attempts to extend support and investment to newly freed slaves provoked such a backlash and reversal that they eventually stopped from fully committing to their program.
Social Democracy gained consensus among the mainstream Left while the American Democrat Party, historically a party with populist-classical-Liberal sentiments, turned towards Liberalism and social democracy. The result was the post-war consensus that remained in place until The '80s. But in brief, it is worth pointing out that even Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek conceded some ground to Socialism in their proposals to replace contemporary welfare programs and minimum wages with 'negative income taxes' that would provide living wages to all citizens (and Hayek actually went even further in unambiguously endorsing universal healthcare and other safety nets to care for those subject to misfortunes beyond their control).

Libertarianism:

Associated Economic Theories:

• Laissez-faire Fair, Austrian

Libertarianism is essentially an offshoot of Classical Liberalism, meted by more conservative elements (such as the aforementioned Friedrich Hayek), but it didn't necessarily begin this way. Contrary to modern libertarianism, the movement was actually left-wing at first, with Libertarianism initially being synonymous with Anarchism. Even in its modern, right-wing form, Libertarianism shares some elements of Anarchism, such as skepticism of authority, preference for direct democracy, and opposition to state-based hierarchies. The two would gradually split apart in the latter half of the 19th century, as Libertarianism placed a greater emphasis on individual freedom and empowerment, while Anarchism focused more on the rights of the collective and had a much stronger devotion to the working class.

Libertarianism struggled to define itself from Anarchism until the early 20th century, when it began to move rightward on the political spectrum. As the old "Libertarian Socialist" movement waned, writers like Ayn Rand would go on to seed the ideas of modern Libertarianism in the general public. Politically, the massive opposition bloc that had been built to oppose the New Deal seized on Randian ideas of "Objectivism," merged them together with a fervent devotion to the free market and laissez-fair capitalism, and birthed modern Libertarianism. Murray Rothbard, a highly influential Austrian School economist, is often credited for being the "mastermind" behind Libertarianism's shift from the political left to the political right.note

Libertarians believe that a Democracy that upholds a free-market economy without arbitrary government regulations is the only ethical, if not practical form of society. The Invisible Hand ensures that the most successful business are always the ones run most efficiently, and that businesses that do not operate in an efficient way are phased out. The government’s job is primarily to protect private property and to not infringe on freedoms.

Modern Libertarianism is fiercely anti-socialist, and it regards social democracy and liberalism as setting a precedent for a tyrannical state, and sees programs such as the welfare state, high minimum wages, social security and other measures as unwarranted infringements on economic liberty. They believe that if a political party controlled 60% of all economic activity, it would be impossible to vote them out due to voters' fears of losing their jobs. To them, it would only be a matter of time before the political system would turn into a one-party system, and fear that the socialists would blame Democracy (where it is necessary to make compromise to get policy into law) and turn the government into a tyrannical dictatorship, all while every economic system run by the government would begin to flounder.

 

[UltraChad]

Liberalism:



Libertarianism:

Knock off commie wiki is wrong.

All the universities, references and philosophers including the very men who developed the core ideology of liberalism, and even regular wiki are correct.

And that's why Democrats, who fucking hate liberty and think it's evil aren't liberals. They're authoritarians.

 

[Politruk]

Knock off commie wiki

TVTropes ain't that, you idiot!

 

[UltraChad]

TVTropes ain't that, you idiot!

They ain't Britannica, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Oxford or the liberal philosophers themselves either... they aren't even REGULAR wiki.

They're WRONG.

Maybe try CREDIBLE references and the papers/books the philosophers actually wrote on the topic instead of confirmation bias from low brow wiki knock offs and this kind of embarrassment won't happen to you.

 

[jhenry922]

Communist and Democrat are interchangeable these days.

I can explain to you with some crayons, if you'd like.

 

[Politruk]

The Dems are not even social democrats now -- if they were, Sanders would have got the nomination.

And he could've won, too -- in 2016, a lot of voters were vacillating between Sanders and Trump, seeing both as anti-establishment candidates.

 

[Rightguide]

​

The Head in the Sand Ostrich Award ​

Dear Esteemed Nominee,

It is with great pleasure—and just a touch of exasperation—that we announce your nomination for the Head in the Sand Ostrich Award! Yes, you heard that right. This prestigious recognition is reserved for individuals who have mastered the fine art of willful ignorance, deliberate inaction, and the occasional head-first dive into denial, all in the noble pursuit of avoiding uncomfortable truths.

In our world where truth is often inconvenient, you have consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to look the other way when faced with facts, and expertly bury your head in the metaphorical sand.

 

[Politruk]

​

The Head in the Sand Ostrich Award ​

Dear Esteemed Nominee,

It is with great pleasure—and just a touch of exasperation—that we announce your nomination for the Head in the Sand Ostrich Award! Yes, you heard that right. This prestigious recognition is reserved for individuals who have mastered the fine art of willful ignorance, deliberate inaction, and the occasional head-first dive into denial, all in the noble pursuit of avoiding uncomfortable truths.

In our world where truth is often inconvenient, you have consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to look the other way when faced with facts, and expertly bury your head in the metaphorical sand.

Why are RW jokes always so lame and stupid like that?!