Liberalism -- the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I agree 100%. I do not fit either into Modern Liberal or Conservative Worldview.

 

I think this is now the most important voting block .. a block which is growing. The "anti Establishment" movement for example was a big factor in the 2016 election.

This movement has only grown bigger since that time. I think this block had a significant impact on the 2018 results. This block is starting to change the way Politicians operate.

 

Men are such monsters. Men should be ashamed of themselves.



At least for not double -- checking everything they read. According to the Federal Government report on
criminal victimization, there have been 431,000 incidents of rape and sexual assault in 2015, and 300,000 such incidents in 2016 (Table 1). In 2017, there were 121,700 rapes reported to the police.

These reports resulted in about 40,000 convictions. The latest year with comprhensive sentencing statistics is 2006 -- 33,200 felony convictions for rape and sexual assault. All of those convicted are sentenced to lifetime supervision and about half to long prison terms.

Per 1000 rapes and sexual assaults, there are about 90 convictions to a lifetime sentence.

Given that many of those convicted to lifetime supervision are convicted with little corroboration there is a problem.

 

Thank you very much. Most of that block sees both parties as bad. Which is worse?

 

From my experience in USSR up to 1983, political dissent was tolerated better then in Liberal Academia in modern USA.

 

I too see both parties as bad but not so much the parties themselves as the Political and Bureaucratic elite known as the "Establishment". The Establishment is both Red, Blue and includes the big money influence, political lobbies and so on.

Rather than some star chamber or "cabal" - these interests are numerous, varied, and often have competing and conflicting interests. Various "hot button" issues serve to keep the people divided. Abortion, Guns, Gays and so on.

These issues keep the voters distracted from the main issues and keeps them re-electing establishment cronies as one side hates the other so much that they keep voting for their side.

The problem is not in these disagreements but where the establishment agrees. When you have multiple forces acting on an object in the same direction the object moves in that direction. The big money interests disagree on many things, have differing agenda's and so on but, on some things they agree.

We have a pay to play system. When you play - you get paid - and everyone knows it. Sure there are a few who will try to shoot the goose laying the golden eggs or run against a herd of stampeding bulls .. and we know these folks get trampled.

Would you shoot the goose or run against the stampeding bulls ? Its not easy.

Our system is the natural outcropping of self interest and greed.

 

As Churchill said, socialism's only benefit is the equal sharing of misery.

See Venezuela.

 

Pelosi says that drug prices are at the top of her agenda.

She stated that not just to the general public, but in presentations she has made to specific drug corporations at their sites.

But, I do agree. We need legislation that puts controls on political donations. Our elections are incredibly expensive, and pretty much no candidate can win without the help of the giant donors and corporations. Every office holder has to spend significant time from day 1 to raise the cash needed for their reelection.

 

There is a huge gap between the number of incidents that are reported to authorities and how many such incidents actually occur.

Also, there is a big difference between rape and sexual assault when it comes to these stats - including stats on the rate of reporting.

But, even using the number of actual reports of rape and convictions for rape, you have to admit that the conviction rate is PATHETIC. And, the ordeal the woman must go through in many cases should be considered a crime itself.


Now, we have deVoss working to make it EASIER to get away with sexual assault and rape.

 

Surely you jest. Mainstream intellectuals like Jordan Petersen is a perennial target of the campus brown shirts. Myself, I consider Petersen a liberal.

You do have a minuscule say in this. You could oppose pc brown shirt tactics. If enough of us do, they can be defeated.

It is not a totally different rule set to the campus brown shirts who try to intimidate off campus venues into canceling scheduled speakers like Jordan Petersen.

 

My understanding is that Petersen works to remove existing civil rights protections from women.

There may be a way to describe him as "liberal", but I think you'll have to agree that the idea of increasing discrimination against women is WAY outside the direction the majority of Americans and Canadians continue to move.

Those students at McMaster University are striving to prepare themselves for the working world.

Do you really think that they are interested in hearing arguments for increased discrimination against themselves??? Do you think the women there want to hear about how this would be a better continent if only we could discriminate against them?


Also, I don't accept your notion that these students are comparable to paramilitary Nazis. Petersen has found numerous outlets in the press, on the internet, through books, through speaking engagements and through universities to air his arguments against equality for women.

 

I've never heard him say that. I suspect you are misinformed. He sprung to prominence by objecting to a proposed Canadian law that would criminalize "migendering" "trans-sexuals" using a liberal argument that the State ought not to compel speech.

I don't think that this is the case, but I don't see why a majority opinion is justification for silencing dissenters. That seems way more illiberal.

I don't know, do you? The students won't know either unless they get to hear any such argument in the first place because the ptb think they won't want to hear it. Maybe they are very good, convincing arguments. In that case I am sure you wouldn't want them to hear them. Fair enough. But don't pretend you that suppressing speech is a liberal principle.

He may have found numerous outlets, but it is not for lack of trying on the part of campus brown shirts. They would shut him down completely if they could. The question is not how effective they are but whether you condone these activities because you know who and what the students ought to hear.

 

The students at our universities and the universities of Canada are not paramilitary Nazis.

My own view is that student body representation should be at the table when decisions are made concerning who is invited to speak at the university.

Again, Petersen has numerous outlets for promoting his "ideas". It's an unbelievably weak claim that he's being treated unfairly because some university student body didn't want to listen to him. He does NOT have some sort of right to speak there.

 

Some of them are. They mask themselves and violently assault those with who they disagree. What would you liken them to.

Most often the speakers are invited by student groups themselves. Other student groups pressure the administration to cancel the invitations because they fear violence from these other student groups. And if the cancellation is not made they attempt to impede access to the venues or disrupt the proceedings. These I liken to brown shirt tactics. What do you call them?

He is treated unfairly when some university student body tries to intimidate him, his audience or his venues. He does have a right to speak there or anywhere else he is invited to speak.

 

You are very, very wrong. The term 'Liberal' comes from the same root as 'Liberty' - it is a political ideology based around personal freedom. Very different from 'Socialism'. It is the simplistic 'left versus right' scale and two party 'us or them' system in the US that has both skewed understanding and pushed some odd bedfellows together politically.

To put it another way, Modern Liberalism is about 'equality of opportunity', whereas socialism tends to consider 'equality of outcome'. They both get considered vaguely 'left' because they both inevitably involve some social provision to protect against the disadvantage of poverty, but often in slightly different ways and for different underlying ideological reasons. Remember that 'opportunity' versus 'outcome' thing - for Liberals it's about 'levelling the playing field', not 'making sure we all end up with the same'. It's 'redistribution of opportunity', not 'redistribution of wealth'.

Take Universal Healthcare, for example - the UK system was designed by a Liberal, but implemented by a Socialist. The Liberal motivation is essentially to ensure that people aren't held back from success through no fault of their own, in this case by the effects of health problems (and consequent debt, and so on), whereas the socialists are more interested in ensuring that everyone is entitled to equal treatment. That may seem a subtle distinction, but it is an important one - it's the difference between 'a fair safety net for all' (to enable opportunity) and 'making sure that everyone gets the same treatment' (so that everyone has the same outcomes).

To explain it another way, Liberals are, in effect, 'moderate Libertarians' - people who might, in the US, commonly describe themselves as 'Socially Liberal but fiscally Conservative'. They believe in freedom, they believe in opportunity for everyone (including measures against people being disadvantaged by discrimination), they believe in a good safety net to maintain and enhance opportunity for all, and they basically believe in private ownership and free market capitalism. They do believe in sensible government regulation, in the sense of ensuring that markets don't become controlled by monopolies or cartels, but they don't believe in nationalisation and direct government interference or control of markets (as socialists do).

The two party US system has effectively pushed Liberals and Socialists together in opposition to 'the other side', but they disagree about many things. Likewise, of course, it's pushed many outright Libertarians together with Conservatives, and those two groups have some pretty fundamental disagreements (especially on social issues). In many ways Liberals and Libertarians are closer to each other than either Liberals and Socialists or Libertarians and Conservatives, but that's not the way the system has been set up - it's far more about 'left versus right' than 'liberty versus authority/conformity'.

Socialism inevitably involves a high level of direct government control over economy and society, 'supposedly 'for the common good', to supposedly ensure that everyone ends up getting the same (which opponents will point out never works, and is easily manipulated into authoritarianism even if it isn't intended to be quite that to start off with). Liberalism sees government as only a servant of a free people, but with a responsibility to ensure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to succeed in life according to their own talents and efforts (without being held back through disadvantages that are no fault of their own). Socialism wants control, Liberalism wants to ensure that nobody is controlled (by government or by other forces in society). Fundamentally different ideologies.

Unlike the US, the UK does have a prominent 'Liberal' party, in the form of the Liberal Democrats. The opening sentence to the Preamble to their Constitution says this:

"The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity."
https://www.libdems.org.uk/constitution

 

Thank you -- I am sorry I have little Political Science education.

 

How many times have we heard some voice call out drug prices as a "top priority" - Trump included.

Everyone then points to that lone voice and says "LOOK LOOK - we have freedom of speech and competing interests in this nation - what a good system we have"

That lone voice then gets quickly drowned out by the cacophony on the take. Running against a herd of stampeding bulls is not easy.

It matters not who is in power - Red or Blue - the status quo is maintained.

Obamacare does nothing to address the systemic issues that are responsible for the high healthcare cost. It is just another attempt to put lipstick on a pig.

 

Incredible thread!

 

Well, the main purpose of Obamacare was to cover more Americans - those with low income, preexisting conditions, age, etc.

The cost saving portions of Obamacare were removed in order to make it possible for the bill to pass. Those cost cutting features COULD have been implemented after the bill had been passed, but the new Republican majority made it impossible to even discuss, obviously. After all, Republicans ran on the destruction of Obamacare, not on a platform of lowering costs for Americans.

The thing about cost cutting is that it means someone isn't getting paid. And, let's face it - cutting costs would mean insurance companies and big pharma would be paid less. Those are powerful constituencies.

But, you can't arguee that Dems haven't pursued these cost reductions. Obamacare was a major change that put insurace companies at risk. And, they made healthcare coverage for all Ameriicans their top priority for an incredibly long time, given the normal time allotted to congressional issues.