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KillHour posted:.But then are they both Liberals and Conservatives, even though you've defined them as mutually exclusive opposites? This is actually a place understanding the idea Locke, Smith, and Voltaire as myths of origin is useful. These are foundational liberal ideas. These ideas have contradictions that have become apparent, so they are rationally critiqued. Some people try to prevent these ideas from breaking and from being discarded. That, trying to prevent them from breaking to preserve them, is conservatism. In the past conservatives tried to prevent other ideas from breaking under rational or prophetic critiques. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 05:35
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KillHour posted:Since, as Fritz said, it's Sunday night and nothing interesting is happening, I am going to engage on an aspect of the creation myth thing: is the french revolution referring to something besides the overthrow of the monarchy here? because the us achieved independence shortly before the french revolution, not well after. in fact, the cost incurred on the french monarchy in supporting the revolution was a fairly direct contributor to the crises leading to their downfall
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Sep 19, 2022 05:51
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Bar Ran Dun posted:This is actually a place understanding the idea Locke, Smith, and Voltaire as myths of origin is useful. These are foundational liberal ideas. These ideas have contradictions that have become apparent, so they are rationally critiqued. Some people try to prevent these ideas from breaking and from being discarded. That, trying to prevent them from breaking to preserve them, is conservatism. In the past conservatives tried to prevent other ideas from breaking under rational or prophetic critiques. So then is modern (as in "current", not as in the modernist movement) American Libertarianism a Liberal or a Conservative ideology? I would argue that based on what you have said, it has to be both (since your statements have equated the foundational Liberal ideals to modern Conservatism). Since this gives us a contradiction, I would go further as to claim that by the argument you just laid out here, your attempt to preserve this Liberal/Conservative dichotomy is, itself, conservatism. GhostofJohnMuir posted:is the french revolution referring to something besides the overthrow of the monarchy here? because the us achieved independence shortly before the french revolution, not well after. in fact, the cost incurred on the french monarchy in supporting the revolution was a fairly direct contributor to the crises leading to their downfall  this is what I get for typing while playing a game. Pretend I said that they were inspired by the enlightenment movement that had started in France and was going on contemporaneously.
KillHour fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 05:51
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socialsecurity posted:That's not what started this discussion. If this is the point of contention, that liberals always side with fascists and never with leftists, then it seems like the easiest way to disprove this would be to provide an example where liberals have sided with leftists.
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Sep 19, 2022 05:57
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Fister Roboto posted:If this is the point of contention, that liberals always side with fascists and never with leftists, then it seems like the easiest way to disprove this would be to provide an example where liberals have sided with leftists. I think different people were arguing different things. Maybe one or two were saying liberals always sided with fascists but even those people were probably being facetious. At least I hope they were? Bar Ran Dun was definitely asserting that Liberals, by definition, can never align with Fascists.
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Sep 19, 2022 06:00
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KillHour posted:So then is modern (as in "current", not as in the modernist movement) American Libertarianism a Liberal or a Conservative ideology? I would argue that based on what you have said, it has to be both (since your statements have equated the foundational Liberal ideals to modern Conservatism). Since this gives us a contradiction, I would go further as to claim that by the argument you just laid out here, your attempt to preserve this Liberal/Conservative dichotomy is, itself, conservatism. What ideas conservatives are trying to preserve is irrelevant to that they are conservatives. It does not equate conservatism to its object. There was actually a bit of discussion about this with Helsing re-who equates to “liberal“ in the context of the book to now back when I did the thread a couple years ago. This is also where it comes in that conservatives are romantics, this is to say they are idealists. They are treating the idea they are trying to preserve as a real thing rather than a construction.
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Sep 19, 2022 06:22
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KillHour posted:At least I hope they were? Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! definitely isn’t which is why I started the whole conversation.
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Sep 19, 2022 06:38
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Fister Roboto posted:If this is the point of contention, that liberals always side with fascists and never with leftists, then it seems like the easiest way to disprove this would be to provide an example where liberals have sided with leftists. The problem here is that "liberals have sided with leftists" is vague in so many ways that it's trivial to change definitions so an example doesn't count. It really isn't interesting to get into an interminable argument about how _____ doesn't count because they weren't really leftists or they weren't really helping them. That said, you might recall that the US and UK provided military aid to communists in World War II. Also, the Democrats in Vermont all vote for Bernie Sanders over his Republican opponents.
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Sep 19, 2022 06:40
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism:_A_Counter-History i would recommend this book if you're interested in seeing in detail why and how liberals very often side with fascists.
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Sep 19, 2022 06:44
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Bar Ran Dun posted:What ideas conservatives are trying to preserve is irrelevant to that they are conservatives. It does not equate conservatism to its object. There was actually a bit of discussion about this with Helsing re-who equates to “liberal“ in the context of the book to now back when I did the thread a couple years ago. Are you asserting that an ideal that is held mostly by conservatives is not a conservative ideal, and furthermore that whether you are a conservative or a liberal is unrelated to your beliefs? Because if so, that is a really out-there theory. Bar Ran Dun posted:This is also where it comes in that conservatives are romantics, this is to say they are idealists. They are treating the idea they are trying to preserve as a real thing rather than a construction. Given the amount of bending-over backwards you have to do to make this line of reasoning work, I'm doubling down on my argument that you are doing the thing you're accusing conservatives of. Refer back to my argument that philosophy is also a construction and not a real thing, yet you are applying a philosophical argument to real people.
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Sep 19, 2022 06:51
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Fister Roboto posted:If this is the point of contention, that liberals always side with fascists and never with leftists, then it seems like the easiest way to disprove this would be to provide an example where liberals have sided with leftists. Wasn't this done on the previous page? James Garfield posted:In the most well known situation involving fascists, world war 2, it was the soviet union that continued trade agreements with the nazis until right before it was invaded, joined the nazi invasion of Poland, and tried to join the Axis in winter 1940. The liberals in the USA, meanwhile, started military aid to the USSR soon after it was invaded and before they were actually at war. I do not think it is as obvious as the sky being blue that this is an example of "liberals always side with fascists". I do think DV's point that "liberal" has become a generic otherizing term of abuse is a good one. How do you define "liberal" Fister?
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Sep 19, 2022 06:53
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James Garfield posted:Another example: when fascist Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, liberals sent weapons to help stop the invasion. The communist countries all failed to vote yes on non-binding UN general assembly resolutions condemning the invasion. I guess liberals forgot that they side with fascists every time. Well, there is a not-insignificant contingent of SA users who would argue that it is not Russia, but rather the US and the countries of Western Europe, that are the fascist states in this example.
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Sep 19, 2022 07:01
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tristeham posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism:_A_Counter-History okay instead of trying to make your point by recommending an entire book could you summarize the thesis and how it is relevant, in your own words, to this discussion edit: SourKraut posted:Well, there is a not-insignificant contingent of SA users who would argue that it is not Russia, but rather the US and the countries of Western Europe, that are the fascist states in this example. there was a whole thing this weekend in GBS, CSPAM, and QCS regarding posting on SA about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I would invite you to be specific about the claims/posts you're alluding to rather than vague handwaving. frankly, there is an awful lot of wild stereotyping going on e.g. "cspam thinks this bad thing" and "gbs or d&d thinks this bad thing" where it's a small minority of posters in those subforums expressing those viewpoints I don't give a poo poo what the CSPAM hivemind thinks. The CSPAM hivemind is also not a thing that exists. Please state clearly the viewpoints you take issue with rather than strawmen. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 07:02
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Also: this is the US Current Events thread. I realize we're off on a slight tangent about the extent to which liberals historically align with fascists vs. align with leftists, but it would be good if the discussion would be more directly relevant to US current events if it's to remain itt. I certainly think the broader conversation merits its own thread as it's a discussion worth having, but we're kind of straying afield from the thread topic. I'm not going to force the discussion out of the thread at this time. But I dunno, if someone wants to make a new thread on the subject I'm happy to give them a free avatar change? If the discussion continues to be lively through tomorrow I'll probably shunt it into a spinoff thread as at that point it seems capable of self-sustaining the conversation.
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Sep 19, 2022 07:15
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KillHour posted:Are you asserting that an ideal that is held mostly by conservatives is not a conservative ideal, and furthermore that whether you are a conservative or a liberal is unrelated to your beliefs? Because if so, that is a really out-there theory. The essential thing is the trying to preserve the myths of origin. You’ll actually see them explicitly state this too (and David Brooks has done so a couple of times over the years, they’re trying to preserve what they think is good from the past). The object (what ideas they are trying to preserve) is going to vary from culture to culture. Our conservatives in our context and time have a particular set of ideas that can be used to identify them. You are likely thinking of conservatives as a particular group with characteristics x, y, and z and beliefs x,y and z. That describes them in a particular context. I’m saying that across many contexts the thing they do is try to preserve the myths of origin of that particular context.
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Sep 19, 2022 07:21
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Bar Ran Dun posted:The essential thing is the trying to preserve the myths of origin. You’ll actually see them explicitly state this too (and David Brooks has done so a couple of times over the years, they’re trying to preserve what they think is good from the past). So your definition of a "conservative" is not bound to any particular political beliefs, but merely to the fact that they are trying to assert some outdated thing that has been proven incorrect, whereas your definition of a "liberal" is someone who uses reasoning and logic to knock down those incorrect beliefs? A few things on that: - You have encoded your definitions such that one side is always right and one side is always wrong. You pretty much categorically can't do that. I mean, you can, but nobody will take you seriously. - You have already claimed that liberals are capitalists and vice versa. This drags capitalists along with liberals in this definition, which makes no sense because capitalism is a monetary system but according to your definition, liberals need to be able to free themselves of the parts of capitalism that are proven to have contradictions - Your definitions are absolute and leave no room for adaptation to new information or changes in the world. As I have pointed out before (and you don't seem to have an answer to), this self-defines your theory as conservative. - Again, this is incredibly reductive. I think it is self evident that everyone has shibboleths they are trying to protect, regardless of evidence, and everyone also has beliefs that are purely calculated. No real person would ever fit in these definitions as completely liberal or completely conservative. - Pretty much nobody ever uses the words liberal and conservative to mean this, and they are pretty common words. So unless you spend a ton of time stablishing your definitions, this is just confusing. - You still haven't addressed my core point that this is all abstract beard stroking. Why should I accept your definitions when there are many more common (and I would argue useful) definitions for these things? Edit: It's a problem that I am trying to say that there is more to conservatism than trying to preserve origin myths, but you have chosen to define the word conservative by that very act. Your definition makes your argument trivially true, but in exchange, it stops defining anything concrete and becomes a purely abstract concept. An ideal, if you will. Hence, again, your theory is inherently conservative (and therefore wrong by your own definition). KillHour fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 07:49
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DeadlyMuffin posted:Wasn't this done on the previous page? Broadly speaking, someone who believes that the government should stay out of its citizens' personal lives, but also that the government should stay out of the affairs of private industry (ie private control of the means of production). The latter half is the key difference that separates them from socialists. There are varying degrees of this, from libertarians to neoliberals to social democrats, but I think that's an accurate broad definition. There are certainly people who use "liberal" as an insult, but I think there's also a segment of folks who identify as liberals but don't seem to be willing to take a critical look at liberalism and its failures. So when other people criticize liberalism or liberals, they take personal offense rather than defend their position. It's a little like the "not all men" thing.
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Sep 19, 2022 08:44
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Liberal (pejorative)
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Sep 19, 2022 13:52
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Not to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think the point Bar Run Dun is making is that liberal ideology is about pushing towards more freedoms in one way or another (free speech, freedom of movement, free trade, free exercise of religion), and that while conservative ideology may use any of those ideas as shibboleths, the distinction is that they think that the current extent of freedoms is sufficient, and aren't pushing to extend freedoms which are protected. In contempory US politics, you can see the distinction is that Democrats generally want people to be able to have increased sexual liberties and modes of personal expression in the form of the LBGTQ+ movement. Conservatives want "free speech", but only for the people who currently have it and only on topics that are currently considered "acceptable" - in other words, they aren't actually arguing for a greater or broader degree of freedoms, but only for the existing status quo, justified through arguments of tradition. You can see how this aligns with the backslide into fascism, where they want to not only stop further liberizations but also to reverse the trends, using authoritarian structures in deliberate contradiction to the "free speech" ideal they claim to uphold. Libertarians (in the abstract) are also liberals, where they are arguing for decreased regulation of free trade, increased sexual freedoms  , and less government influence on personal choice. The Libertarian party is pretty hollowed out in the US, so in practice it is more of a sock-puppet for the Republicans than anything, but you do occasionally see individuals that push for a consistent ideology, like the gun rights white dudes that went anti-cop and pro-BLM while everyone around them went "what the gently caress, how did you miss the memo".The socialists are co-opted into the Democrats by the two party system, but there is an obvious fault line there as has been frequently pointed out. Socialist ideals require an increase in centralized power and a decrease in free trade sentiment to be functional, and these things run counter to the abstract "liberal" ideas. Still, at least at present, the Dems seem to be the coalition of the "free-expression" liberals and socialists while the Reps are "free-market" liberals along with the conservative and fascist elements I do somewhat agree with the people that are saying the definition portion of this is questionably useful when so many people have chaotic and inconsistent ideals. I also think that Liberalism has pretty well been split, with free-market and free-expression becoming pretty crystallized as independent from each other. However, I think there is some use to viewing these things more abstractly in terms of the overall body-politic, as it lets us think about what the "convincables" might look like, both the red-to-blue and blue-to-red, and it helps to more clearly define the clusters instead of thinking about it as an evenly-distributed sliding scale. Basically, even though "the Republicans" have both liberal and conservative elements, the contradiction is generally avoided because individual voter priorities are more likely to center on a couple policies rather than the overall platform, and having this theory lets us explain why abortion as an issue is activating a lot of people
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Sep 19, 2022 13:58
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Wouldn't a good argument/counter argument for this whole liberals will support/not support fascism be to look at how many Democrats support or favourably look at the Jan 6 insurrections?
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Sep 19, 2022 14:55
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Fister Roboto posted:Broadly speaking, someone who believes that the government should stay out of its citizens' personal lives, but also that the government should stay out of the affairs of private industry (ie private control of the means of production). The latter half is the key difference that separates them from socialists. There are varying degrees of this, from libertarians to neoliberals to social democrats, but I think that's an accurate broad definition. You're describing libertarianism. Liberalism includes forms which enshrine the use of government structures to protect rights. Madkal posted:Wouldn't a good argument/counter argument for this whole liberals will support/not support fascism be to look at how many Democrats support or favourably look at the Jan 6 insurrections? No because 1. the underlying classes are nebulously defined as a tactic to avoid falsification, 2. the claims are also nebulously categorical, also making them hard to falsify. Because of this, there wind up being at least two problems with using Dem support for the jan 6 insurrection: a. for non-categorical forms of the claim, the Jan 6 insurrection isn't a broadly representative example of fascism (and indeed isn't specifically fascist in character so much as it's antidemocratic, which is not quite automatically the same thing). b. It's also unclear how well the "liberal" term applies to or is represented by the Democrats. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 15:00
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Hershel Walker finally agreed to a debate with Raphael Warnock. I think he may have taken the common advice of "lower expectations prior to the debate" a little too far, though. https://twitter.com/mattholt33/status/1571830647836278784 He immediately went off script and said Warnock was scared that Walker was going to destroy Warnock at the debate when asked why he had previously refused to debate. quote:But when asked about why he declined to debate Warnock initially, he became aggravated and said he had to hunt down Warnock and told him to “put his big man pants on.” Walker also thinks that Joe Biden is taking away dockworkers and security guards in Georgia, forcefully relocating them to Washington D.C., and then making all the dock workers and security guards become forensic accountants... for some reason. quote:Walker toured the Port of Savannah ahead of the press conference, but when asked what he learned about the tour, Walker said it was “very interesting” and then deviated from the topic to talk about Biden’s proposed hiring of thousands of IRS agents and how many of those could have taken jobs at the Port – and in schools.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:02
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Discendo Vox posted:Here's my old 2019 midlevel effortpost on liberalism. The only thing I'd add since then is that both on SA and among other reactionary groups, "liberal" has become a generic otherizing term of abuse that's used to avoid making other more useful distinctions. "term of abuse that's used to avoid making other more useful distinctions." This is not abuse. Stop calling it abuse. Use a thesaurus or something, especially if you're going to whine about people's secret discussion-wrecking tendencies and accuse vast swathes of posters as constantly posting in bad faith. If you think this is what people are doing then the forum is irredeemable and I don't know why you would want to post here.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:25
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Walker also thinks that Joe Biden is taking away dockworkers and security guards in Georgia, forcefully relocating them to Washington D.C., and then making all the dock workers and security guards become forensic accountants... for some reason. Sounds like he's a fan of centralized planning?
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Sep 19, 2022 15:26
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Bear Enthusiast posted:"term of abuse that's used to avoid making other more useful distinctions." Using lib as an epithet has been pretty common on the forums over the last couple of years though I think it's been overused so much it's falling out of favor.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:27
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Tiny Timbs posted:Using lib as an epithet has been pretty common on the forums over the last couple of years though I think it's been overused so much it's falling out of favor. It is definitely in no way a form of abuse, however.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:32
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Tiny Timbs posted:Using lib as an epithet has been pretty common on the forums over the last couple of years though I think it's been overused so much it's falling out of favor. Using it isn't abuse, and it isn't being used purely as a bad faith way of messing up discussion.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:32
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Bear Enthusiast posted:Using it isn't abuse, and it isn't being used purely as a bad faith way of messing up discussion. Using it as an epithet is. Aren't you the one who suggested people consult a thesaurus?
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Sep 19, 2022 15:37
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Tiny Timbs posted:Using it as an epithet is. Aren't you the one who suggested people consult a thesaurus? Yeah because "abuse" has connotations beyond the dictionary definition, and they are inappropriate in this context.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:39
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Verbal abuse is abuse meant to make people feel bad and shut down discussion, even if people treat it casually in internet forums. Fuckface.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:41
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Tiny Timbs posted:Verbal abuse is abuse meant to make people feel bad and shut down discussion, even if people treat it casually in internet forums. Fuckface.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:44
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Just don't call me a member of the Democrat party
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Sep 19, 2022 15:45
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Bear Enthusiast posted:Yeah because "abuse" has connotations beyond the dictionary definition, and they are inappropriate in this context. imo a good contrast would be: if I think that someone would have to be lacking in morals to think that calling someone a liberal is a form of abuse, then by the dictionary definition I'd be correct to call them a pervert. But you call someone a pervert and obviously everyone is gonna think it involves something sexual because that's just the way it's typically used in society! Srice fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Sep 19, 2022 |
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Sep 19, 2022 15:45
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Sometimes things are abusive, sometimes they're not. Posting truly is a land of contrasts.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:45
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Please don't get into a multi-page derail about how different dictionaries define a word. I haven't seen the 60 minutes interview, so not sure if there was anything else that got crowded out by this news. But, the the biggest thing that media orgs are running are that Biden said the U.S. would defend Taiwan if China invaded. But, the White House put out a statement immeadiately afterwards saying that the U.S. position on Taiwan has not changed (the official U.S. position on Taiwan has always been "strategic ambiguity" where the U.S. has never actually ruled out or confirmed that they would defend Taiwan). Biden also said that the pandemic was "over," but latter corrected himself and said he agreed with the head of the WHO that said the "initial phase of the pandemic is over" and that a full "end" is within sight. Oopsie. Not sure if there was anything else important in the interview or if those two gaffes and hasty corrections crowded out anything interesting. https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1571654050407337984
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Sep 19, 2022 15:49
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E: this post was a poor choice.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:49
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projecthalaxy posted:E: this post was a poor choice. Yeah the post asking me to go down to a domestic violence shelter to see if they agreed that they have it as bad as being insulted on an internet forum was definitely a bad choice. The point isn't that all forms of abuse are equal in impact, just that there are different forms of abuse and calling someone a "loving lib" is meant to be a form of verbal abuse and conversation ender in a way that "this is something that liberals think" isn't.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:51
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Fister Roboto posted:Broadly speaking, someone who believes that the government should stay out of its citizens' personal lives, but also that the government should stay out of the affairs of private industry (ie private control of the means of production). The latter half is the key difference that separates them from socialists. There are varying degrees of this, from libertarians to neoliberals to social democrats, but I think that's an accurate broad definition. There's a huge spectrum between "that the government should stay out of the affairs of private industry" and public ownership of the means of production. This definition essentially splits the world into socialists and liberals, and seems broad to the point of uselessness.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:52
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The problem is that "liberal" and "liberalism" have very established definitions within political science but the average American has been taught it means "I'm a good person" and things get messy when the average American tries to have a discussion with someone who understands the political science terms. This sub and thread are generally full of the average American so it does make sense to just admit we're not going to stick to academic meanings.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:58
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Walker also thinks that Joe Biden is taking away dockworkers and security guards in Georgia, forcefully relocating them to Washington D.C., and then making all the dock workers and security guards become forensic accountants... for some reason. "Ship a bunch of people from other states down here to take our well-paying jobs" is a bold political strategy, I can't wait to see how well it works out for him.
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Sep 19, 2022 15:59
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