What is a liberal?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Leo2, Dec 23, 2013.

  1. Leo2

    Leo2 Well-Known Member

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    The term 'liberal' in the socio-political sense is not in common use in my world. I know that the ultra-conservative Australian political party calls itself the Liberal Party, but I do not believe the term is used to denote conservatism elsewhere.

    I know that the definition of the word liberal includes such things as generosity; willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas; favourable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms; (and in the political context) favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform: and so on.

    However, this does not appear to be the context in which the term is used, either in the USA, or on these pages.

    So would some American kindly define precisely what he/she means when using the word 'liberal', either as an adjective or a noun?

    I am tired of trying to interpret blanket accusations such as 'you liberals' and devine what is meant. Socialists, Communists, Marxists, etc. are quite clearly understood categorisations - but given the generally complimentary definitions of the word - what is meant in the pejorative sense by 'liberals'? :)
     
  2. Bluespade

    Bluespade Banned

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    Liberal is a term that has morphed over the years. Today's liberals are nothing more than authoritarians and statist.
     
  3. Frank Grimes

    Frank Grimes New Member Past Donor

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    A liberal is one whose religion includes the following tenets:

    1. Government can cure human suffering by taking from those who have
    2. Equality of outcomes is the goal of economics
    3. All cultures, except those deemed unacceptable by various liberal teachings, are equal.
    4. Diversity is a strength
    5. Capitalism is tolerated as long as those getting rich also belong to the religion, otherwise it is clearly greedy and evil.
    6. Subjective feelings are favored over the empirical and objective, e.g. fairness is a highly valued yet undefined concept


    Under the guise of open-mindedness and progress, they desire to censor and silence opposition. They have no qualms about using force or paradoxical means to their ends of making you part of their vision. Some imaginary end state for society is imagined as an ideal and supposedly rooted in empathy.

    Addendum for white liberals: A special kind, one who thinks that given all things being equal that others will want to be like them, and they can also use others' money to achieve this, giving the illusion of control. e.g. Swedes thought muslims would change and become traditional swedes, imagine their shock.
     
  4. Beevee

    Beevee Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A liberal is the butt of conservative jokes since he/she does not fit into what conservatives consider to be the norm.

    However, without liberals the United States would still be considered the greatest nation in 100,000,000 hemispheres, so perhaps liberals have done something right after all.
     
  5. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Liberals, islamists, facists, socialists and communists are all possesed of the same benevolent arrogance and the same desire to have their very best intentions imposed on others.

    A liberal does not see the imposition of their best intentions upon others as a usurpation of other people's best intentions for themselves; they see it as an alternative to that which is substandard. In my opinion, such a benevolent arrogance should be reserved to God and the parents of small children.

    Liberty is authority over and reponsibility for self. Liberty has a voluntary nature.
    Ironicly, liberals today are defined by their opposition to liberty.
     
  6. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    In political circles, when someone calls someone else a liberal, it means they don't have any good reason to not want society to move forward so they resort to calling names to make themselves feel significant.
    They try to make the name demeaning, not knowing they show their ignorance.
     
  7. Ctrl

    Ctrl Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A liberal believes in strong centralized government, empowered, in part, for the protection of loose social values. They tend to, in my opinion, confuse egalitarianism with socialism.
     
  8. Sadanie

    Sadanie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Glad you answered that. I was just noticing how it seems that the only people interested in answering that "question" and giving a "definition" to the term Liberal were those who use that term with the intent to insult or belittle "Liberals!"

    I obviously totally agree with you.

    I believe a liberal is interested in using the government for the betterment of the country, by looking to the government to basically "level" the playing field by trying to make sure that money is not spent ONLY in wealthy areas and on infrastructures that benefit the wealthy, but also in infrastructures that benefits less developed areas and facilitate the progression to the future.

    Liberals are not interested in imposing laws that impose restriction on personal issues (they are generally pro-choice, pro gay rights, pro-education, pro-freedom of religions. . .or no religions, and they are generally more accepting or at least tolerant of diversity). They value HARD WORK, not ONLY if the hard work pays off with large increase in wealth, but also if the hard work is of service to the community, to the country.

    They are not pro-wars, they are generally not pro-guns, although many do own guns, few are fascinated by the gun culture and most would welcome increased gun control.

    Liberals are more people oriented, and less "business" or "organized religion" oriented. Liberals believe in Capitalism, but are aware of the danger and the cost to society as a whole of the "unfettered capitalism" that has invaded this country. I would say that Liberals (in the American sense) would be close in ideology to the "social capitalism" that is
    a capitalist system where the benefit of capitalism are used to better the life of ALL people, rather than to build up more wealth at the very top while ignoring the most disenfranchised.

    Obviously, this is only my opinion. . .and I am proud of being called "a liberal," even when that term is used by many in this forum with the clear intent to insult.
     
  9. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    Wrong. I am labeled liberal by most everyone at PF. I don't want a strong centralized gov't.
    What are loose social values?
     
  10. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    As has already been mentioned today's liberals stand for nothing more than collectivism and equality of outcomes but NOT equality under the law which is what "classical liberalism" was all about. Today's liberals are obnoxious busy bodies who can't help but constantly intrude on other people's lives. Today's liberals want to dictate how everyone lives on a daily basis which is why I find them far more disgusting that social conservatives who are obnoxious on a much narrower set of issues.

    Regarind Liberals being more tolerant that is complete bunk. I experienced first hand how spiteful and arrogant liberals are towards people who don't agree with them even if they used to be friends. I no longer talk to a couple of liberals that I used to get along with just fine until the recall in Wisconsin.

    http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/...ngs/Social-networking-sites-and-politics.aspx

    The generosity thing is also complete bull(*)(*)(*)(*). There have been many studies showing that Liberals are less generous with charities or giving blood or donating time in soup kitches etc. Conservatives clean the liberals clocks when it actually come to doing things for poor people. All liberals do is run their mouths alot about how they care about poor people and right wing extremists hate the poor blah blah blah! Yet they never actually do anything to help the poor themselves. They are arrogant hypocrites.
     
  11. Ctrl

    Ctrl Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Whether or not the term is correctly applied has nothing to do with me... I was asked to define it.
    Not conservative social values. I think it is cheap to define a thing by its antonym, but as all social values are arbitrary, in this case I find it necessary.
     
  12. johnmayo

    johnmayo New Member Past Donor

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    They are more liberal then how it is used in America which mostly has to do with taking from others.

    Yeah, right wing stuff. Nothing generous about high taxes

    No, in America a "liberal" is someone who takes others money and gives it to government, and then tells people what to do, and thinks the Gap and Chilis are out to get them

    Noun, synonymous with statists.

    They are all in the same boat, all are statists Communism, fascism, socialism, "liberalism" in the American sense are all statist ideologies, all forms of lefterism
     
  13. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    All I did was point out your definition is to broad and made it wrong.
     
  14. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Liberty is authority over and responsibility for self. Liberty has a voluntary nature.

    Liberals are defined by their opposition to liberty.
     
  15. FAW

    FAW Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Liberal is the term that Progressives used to call themselves, before the term Liberal was successfully demonized.
     
  16. apoState

    apoState New Member

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    Words like liberal and libertarian have been completely bastardized by Americans. But in general liberal in American politics means one believes in social equality, equality of opportunity, universal access to health care and education. Liberals tend to believe in giving a leg up to those who were born disadvantaged. Liberals tend to acknowledge that hard work is only one variable in what makes a person succesful. They also recognize that luck and the family you were born into can play as big of a role.

    Liberals tend to believe that the federal government should take an active role in ensuring such equality of opportunity.

    Liberals don't necessarily believe in socialism but most of them do support many social programs and believe in a regulated market and progressive taxation.

    They tend to believe that a person should have autonomy of their own body and that prisons should focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

    They tend not accept tradition as a reason in and of itself for doing something. While a smaller percentage of liberals profess to be religious than conservatives, the majority of liberals are still religious or at least believe in God, but even the ardently religious liberals tend to want to keep a distinct wall between Church and State.

    That is just what I could come up with off the top of my head. As an anarchist I don't fit well on the traditional American political spectrum but I think most liberals would agree with my descriptions.
     
    Sadanie and (deleted member) like this.
  17. Sadanie

    Sadanie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Only in your head!
     
  18. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    I would agree with most of that with the exception to equality of opportunity. You CANNOT support affirmative action and at the same time support equality of opportunity since by definition you are excluding someone else. Countless Asian students were denied the ability to attend top level universities in California like Berkeley because of affirmative action. Today half the student body is Asian despite only making up 13% of the population because of the ban on affirmative action on prop 208 or 209 whichever one it was. The rate for blacks and hispanics dropped while Asians increased but at least now it is based on their actual performance.......and only their performance.

    I would add that liberals are more accepting of new ideas than conservatives who tend to be more analytical and cautious in their approach to change. This is both good and bad depending on the situation. On one hand conservatives are late to the table on the issues of gay marriage which as a Libertarian should clearly be a state issue, instead conservatives pushed the DOMA a couple years back. Thankfully SCOTUS shot it down. On the other hand you have Obamacare which is basically government porn for liberals who never thought it through and now you see all the predictions that conservatives made coming true even though the liberals poo pooed them not even a year ago.
     
  19. bricklayer

    bricklayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A liberal is someone who is opposed to: personal-responsibility, voluntary-associations, tolerance and charity.

    A liberal is someone who is a proponent of public-authority, mandatory-associations, the imposition of their best intentions upon others
    and the mandatory transfer of wealth.
     
  20. johnmayo

    johnmayo New Member Past Donor

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    American "Liberals" do not believe in equality under the law, or equality of opportunity. Otherwise explain their position on vouchers, isn't educational opportunity the most important? Of course it is.

    They are concerned with equality of outcome. That is when you redistribute and all that. That is their goal, dont get it confused.

    - - - Updated - - -

    DOMA....that is the one the Clintons campaigned on and signed right?
     
  21. dairyair

    dairyair Well-Known Member

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    This is a pretty good example of my post.
    TY for sharing.
     
  22. johnmayo

    johnmayo New Member Past Donor

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    Correct though You cant name one "liberal" economic policy that doesnt follow that set.
     
  23. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    Yes but it was pushed overwhelmingly by the social conservatives who I have very little patience for. Just as with liberals they don't care if they trample over the constitution if it means they can push their agenda on other people. The only reason I vote Republican is because I only have two choices (third party vote is a wasted vote) and the religious right are less obnoxious than the left.

    Clinton wasn't a liberal as he just did whatever was politically expedient in any given moment. I don't think he had any particularly strong core beliefs at all to begin with.
     
  24. apoState

    apoState New Member

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    I wish more members on this board had this type of balanced view. So many liberals and conservatives on this board have a "we're the good guys, they are the bad guys" view of the world. Just look at most of the descriptions given of liberals by the non-liberals in this thread. I'm sure it would be just as derogatory if the question had been "What is a conservative?"

    People need to learn to put themselves in the other person's shoes. When it comes to defining liberalism how do liberals define it? When it comes to defining conservatism how do conservatives define it?

    Do conservatives really believe that liberals are sitting there thinking, "People are too stupid to take care of themselves. We need the almighty State to come in and show us the way?"

    Do liberals really believe that conservatives are sitting there thinking, "Screw the poor. As long as I got mine that is all that matters?"

    Of course most conservatives and liberals don't think that way. Liberals tend to believe the government should help those that need to be helped because we are all stuck on this planet together. Conservatives tend to believe that the best way to help someone is by ingraining in them a sense of personal responsibility.

    I think it is intellectual laziness to refuse to try and see the world from other people's perspectives.
     
  25. banchie

    banchie New Member

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    The Care Of. In that you will find Liberals are humanitarians, environmentalist, scientist seeking cures, psychiatrists seeking healing, socialists easing ways for lower classes to survive and live, progressivism to advance society, a Constitution that is a living document for all Americans, not a few Americans.
     

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