What is the appeal of liberalism?

ShatterAlan

nofools wrote: »

Educate on what?

Seems ok to me.

Farming is capitalist.

First of all can you even define capitalism? I don't think you can. I'm guessing that you think that capitalism is basically running your own business and keeping the proceeds and socialism is you are not allowed to own anything. You work for a collective and get paid the same pittance wage whether you bust you bollocks or sit on your arse all day, right?


Secondly, in the example of farming, if it's so "capitalist" why is it so heavily subsidised by the state?

ShatterAlan

Geuze wrote: »

https://www.pbp.ie/policies/racism-and-immigration-policy/


Summary
Oppose Racism in all its forms – legislate to make racism a hate crime.
Oppose the policy of Fortress Europe – welcome a proportion of those fleeing war and persecution.
Legislate to End Direct Provision System.
Oppose all deportations – treat refugees and asylum seekers with dignity and respect.
Integrate Migrants – Give them Voting Rights.
Oppose all forms of Islamophobia.
Support the right of Muslim people, along with all other religions, to practice their religious beliefs
Reverse Cuts to Traveller Supports – oppose state racism against Travellers.
Establish an Independent National Housing Agency to oversee the delivery of safe and culturally appropriate Traveller Accommodation.
Reverse cuts to Traveller services and the improvement of those services, to include Education, Health, Employment and Equality programmes.
Public inquiry into the Carrickmines Tragedy.
Traveller representation in the Seanad and other organs of the state.
No Platform for Fascists – oppose them on the streets if necessary.



The second, third and fourth points mean more immigration.

The fourth point means allowing illegal immigrants to stay here - it means actually welcoming them.

Genuine refugees are welcomed, and we are accepting 6,900 of them.

The vast majority of AS are bogus, they are illegal immigrants, yet PBP want to welcome them!!!

No they do not. That's your shabby interpretation. It reads "accept a proportion of asylum seekers fleeing war". What the **** is wrong with that? You seem to be the kind of guy who gets off on brown people being bombed for the oil that sits under their feet yet don't want to accept the consequences, i.e. innocent families fleeing the horror.


And you say the vast majority of AS applications are bogus. Do you have proof of this like all those free houses that Roma gypsies are being given or is it just bluster and waffle on your part? You don't want brown people in your country but you are morally conflicted if they are genuinely fleeing persecution. So the best solution to that is to tell yourself "they're not being persecuted or fleeing a warzone. It's all a hoax." Bingo, problem solved.


It also seems you are tying yourself up in knots and talking in circles. You say "genuine refugees are welcome". What in the name of FCuK is that supposed to mean? You think there's a guy at Dublin airport and those arriving rock up to him one by one and he asks "Genuine refugee?" and the brown person replies "Yes". "In ya go. Next! Genuine Refugee?" and the next guy replies "No, bogus. Just chancing my arm." And your man says "Grand so, in ya go. Next".


Application for asylum are PROCESSED and then either approved or rejected.


You think the approved and rejected ones are both allowed to stay and work/sponge/whatever?

Mod: Banned for a day

ShatterAlan

nofools wrote: »

I know that, that is why i raised the distinction.

Modern liberals don't like the idea because they seem to like state control of everything (for our protection or what?)

That is illiberal in my book.

No they fucking don't. Jesus.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

CountNjord wrote: »

Is liberalism a bit like spirituality ??

Eh.. no?

You can make it up as you go along and even worship the no 14 bus if that's what makes you happy ???

What??

Or is it just a word thrown around by people who are obsessed with sociology, and people who are very confused, love moving the goalposts according to the latest trends or what side of the bed they got out of...

Who??

Or am I wrong ???

Were you trying to be right??

ShatterAlan

46 Long wrote: »

A farmer may own the means of production, but he's still going to hire in labour as needed to help with harvests and other busy times of the year.



A working internet connection or five minutes in any of those countries should be more than enough to disabuse you of the notion that socialism or communism is a good idea. Lofty ideals and student union politics have a funny habit of crumbling when you've seen Venezuelans eating from trash cans and prostituting themselves to buy toilet paper.

Ah the ad hominems agai. Yeah I heard those stories too about Venezuelans being forced to eat flamingos. More bollocks. 30,000 flamingos in Venezuela and 30 million citizens. So one flamingo per 1000 people for sustenance. What have they been eating since the great flamingo banquet ended and flamingoes are now extinct in Venezuela? Parakeets maybe? Not much meat on those things either.


So you've witnessed people selling their bodies to buy toilet paper, have you? If you were out of bog-roll and out of money would you head out to suck dick in order to buy some Andrex or would you make do with newspaper or maybe a bucket of water and a wash to clean your arse after you've taken a crap?


Prostituting themselves to buy toilet paper. That's right out of the same ridiculous propaganda playbook as Ghadaffi's viagra, Kim Jong Un having his ex murdered, the flamingos and all that other ridiculous piffle that wouldn't fool a child but somehow is lapped up by gullible adults.

nofools

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Putting the word "modern" before liberal doesn't mean anything as the people you discribe aren't actually liberal in any sense of the word. Not knowing the difference implies a lack of knowledge as to what the word "liberal" actually means.

It does make a difference.

There are new attitudes which are entirely of the current modern era.

nofools

ShatterAlan wrote: »

No they fucking don't. Jesus.

Yes they do, I see what I see.

I don't know the semantics, they seem to morph but I am talking about whatever represents left to hard left views.

The professorships only for women thing would be an example of imposing a control to force a certain outcome.

46 Long

ShatterAlan wrote: »

Ah the ad hominems agai. Yeah I heard those stories too about Venezuelans being forced to eat flamingos. More bollocks. 30,000 flamingos in Venezuela and 30 million citizens. So one flamingo per 1000 people for sustenance. What have they been eating since the great flamingo banquet ended and flamingoes are now extinct in Venezuela? Parakeets maybe? Not much meat on those things either.

Are you genuinely unaware of how bad the situation is on the ground there? Or do you just refuse to accept it to avoid challenging your world view?

ShatterAlan

Geuze wrote: »

If there are people in Ireland who think that all 2 million recipients of welfare are "scammers", then I suggest that those people be ignored.

Clearly, all 2 million recipients are not scammers, and anybody who suggests that they are, is wrong/crazy/deluded.

To focus in on just unemployment payments, again, anybody who suggests that all recipients of JSB and JSA are scammers is wrong.

To be ignored? Yes, I would agree. Doesn't mean they don't exist.



The poster insisted that NOBODY in Ireland thinks all welfare recipients are freeloaders. And this is false because some do.

ShatterAlan

46 Long wrote: »

Are you genuinely unaware of how bad the situation is on the ground there? Or do you just refuse to accept it to avoid challenging your world view?

The situation in Venezuela is tough. Nobody's denying that. But the economic hardships that the people are facing are as a result of US sanctions. These sanctions are a tool to collectively punish a population in the hope that it might overthrow a government that you want to replace in order to install a malleable puppet who will allow you to strip-mine the country's wealth. Not because Maduro or Chavez gutted the exchequer.



Do a bit of due diligence. Investigate how things were under Chavez's predecessor (hundreds shot in the streets every week, but the guy was a Washington puppet so there was no outrage) then find out how many were lifted out of destitution once he was ousted.



Look at the sanctions on Iraq. The Iraqis weren't even allowed to import pencils because some intern fresh out of college in the US and licking arse all the way to the top of the State Department came up with the brilliant idea that pencil "lead" could be turned into bullets. So 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of US sanctions (they weren't even allowed to import basic medicines like cough syrup or disinfectants) but that was all Saddam's fault right? Madeleine Albright even said on camera that such a holocaust of innocent kids was "worth it".

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

nofools wrote: »

It does make a difference.

There are new attitudes which are entirely of the current modern era.

...they may be new (they aren't as new as you'd think, though - you'd be surprised) and they may be "modern" but they aren't liberal!! THAT'S my point.

Liberalism hasn't changed. Liberalism is the same. The emergence of a bunch of people you think are liberal but aren't doesn;t changed that. It's just the basis for an ignorant and lazy comparison that isn't even close to being correct.

Again: in what way are the attitudes you discribed in your previous post "liberal"?

Do you even know what "liberal" actually means?

46 Long

ShatterAlan wrote: »

The situation in Venezuela is tough. Nobody's denying that. But the economic hardships that the people are facing are as a result of US sanctions.

You're deluding yourself.

A report published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that although the "pervasive and devastating economic and social crisis began before the imposition of the first economic sanctions", the new sanctions could worsen the situation. In April 2019, Human Rights Watch and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a joint report noting that most early sanctions did not target the Venezuelan economy in any way, adding that sanctions imposed in 2019 could worsen the situation, but that "the crisis precedes them".

Mad_maxx

ShatterAlan wrote: »

First of all can you even define capitalism? I don't think you can. I'm guessing that you think that capitalism is basically running your own business and keeping the proceeds and socialism is you are not allowed to own anything. You work for a collective and get paid the same pittance wage whether you bust you bollocks or sit on your arse all day, right?


Secondly, in the example of farming, if it's so "capitalist" why is it so heavily subsidised by the state?

because farmers are incredibly powerful politically in the EU , especially in france , subsidies are paid to keep farmers happy , nothing to do with keeping food on the shelves at current prices

ShatterAlan

46 Long wrote: »

Are you genuinely unaware of how bad the situation is on the ground there? Or do you just refuse to accept it to avoid challenging your world view?

To add to that.....are you genuinely unaware of how horrific life is in the Crimea since the Russians just marched in and took their freedom "against their will"?


I've never seen so many scenes of families, and young people and bikini-clad beauties enjoying the beaches this summer.



Amazing.



If people could be so happy after a violent invasion and a rigged referendum then maybe we ought to have more Russian "invasions" all around the world. Maybe send sacks of rice so the local yokels didn't have to eat flamingoes.



Your thoughts?

ShatterAlan

46 Long wrote: »

You're deluding yourself.

Why are sanctions placed on Venezuela?


And Cuba for that matter?

nofools

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

...they may be new (they aren't as new as you'd think, though - you'd be surprised) and they may be "modern" but they aren't liberal!! THAT'S my point.

Liberalism hasn't changed. Liberalism is the same. The emergence of a bunch of people you think are liberal but aren't doesn;t changed that. It's just the basis for an ignorant and lazy comparison that isn't even close to being correct.

Again: in what way are the attitudes you discribed in your previous post "liberal"?

Do you even know what "liberal" actually means?

I know what the word means but you are right i am fairly clueless on these morphing political definitions. I don't bother myself with that ****e.

You are either in favour of live and let live and protecting the weak or you are not. That is liberal in my book

Promoting those freedoms for only certain groups is illiberal.

nofools

ShatterAlan wrote: »

First of all can you even define capitalism? I don't think you can. I'm guessing that you think that capitalism is basically running your own business and keeping the proceeds and socialism is you are not allowed to own anything. You work for a collective and get paid the same pittance wage whether you bust you bollocks or sit on your arse all day, right?


Secondly, in the example of farming, if it's so "capitalist" why is it so heavily subsidised by the state?

I am pretty sure you can.

Without going to a book it involves using your capital to make money somehow.

It appears that there is a worldview that wants all capitalist activity to be evil all the time that doesn't match well with reality.

Ok for kids going through a phase but it gets worrying otherwise.

kowloon

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

The guys who enforced the censorship section 31 are secret reds under the beds.

46 Long

ShatterAlan wrote: »

Why are sanctions placed on Venezuela?


And Cuba for that matter?

This is really basic stuff Alan.

During the crisis in Venezuela, governments of the United States, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Panama and Switzerland applied individual sanctions against people associated with the administration of Nicolás Maduro.

The sanctions were in response to repression during the 2014 Venezuelan protests and the 2017 Venezuelan protests, and activities during the 2017 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly election and the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election.

Sanctions were placed on current and former government officials, including members of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) and the 2017 Constituent National Assembly (ANC), members of the military and security forces, and private individuals accused of being involved in human rights abuses, corruption, degradation in the rule of law and repression of democracy.

Fathom

Aubrie Thousands Suspicion wrote: »

I could never really understand the appeal of having a liberal outlook on life.

There is no universal, world-wide definition of a "liberal outlook." What you may consider liberal in the USA may be middle-of-the-road in other nations. For example, they have universal health care in most developed nations of the world, while USA does not. Certainly you can get great health care in the USA, but only if you can afford it. The more money you have in the USA, the better your health care. Many folks in the USA are financially wiped-out with medical debt, but not in most developed nations.

Aubrie Thousands Suspicion wrote: »

To give a bit of background, I grew up in a conservative household. Both sets of grandparents could only be described as conservative. And I get it. I have thought through their positions and they just make sense. I suppose classical conservatism, as I understand it, is that some values never change. These values are paramount to society.

Once again, there is no universal definition of what constitutes a "conservative household." What you consider "conservatism" in the USA may not represent or be generalizable to the rest of the world; i.e., the USA does not define the world.

Aubrie Thousands Suspicion wrote: »

You work hard to get a good job to support your family.

What happens when your major corporation lays you off because they export your labor to a country where labor costs are cheaper, and more profitable for USA stock market investors? Ever hear of the "rust belt" in the USA? Or more recently, those corporations or smaller businesses let you go because of COVID (like tens of millions of unemployed Americans today)?

Deus Caritas Est wrote: »

You love your country, even if it means you have to sacrifice your life for it.

Are suggesting that only American conservatives love their country? You love and honour God as your creator and (hopefully) your final destination.[/quote] Are you suggesting that only creationists are conservatives?

Aubrie Thousands Suspicion wrote: »

Strong families are the bedrock of society.

Are you suggesting that only USA conservatives can have families that are "the bedrock of society?"

Deus Caritas Est wrote: »

The welfare state promotes laziness and wasted lives.

In comparison, what about the children of the WEATHfare state? Having parents of the top 1 to 3 percent of the population in the USA that control 80 percent of the wealth (see research by Mills, et al). Children who have servants to wipe their noses from birth to death, like the current president Trump, and the children of his 3 families? Do you think that baby Trump had to worry where the next meal came from? Or if he would get good health care? Or a good education? Or have a roof over his head after a corporation laid off his parents to improve the ROI for stock holders? Or the pandemic suddenly unemployed them?

Aubrie Thousands Suspicion wrote: »

Social justice means equality of opportunity not equality of outcome. (This list is in no way exhaustive).

Are you quoting Herbert Spencer or Fox & Friends talking points?

Aubrie Thousands Suspicion wrote: »

On the other hand, my view of liberalism is that we just do whatever we want; we redefine social values (many of which have been established for 1000s of years, going back to Ancient Greece) and create totally new ones.

I am uncertain what you are talking about here. Or how it relates to your discussion on conservatism or liberalism? Specifically, what "Ancient Greece" philosophers are your addressing? There are many. And they are not all in agreement with each other.

ShatterAlan

Anyway.............Liberalism


I'm down with it.


You're "gender fluid"? Dig it. You need a special place to **** and piss? Weird. How different is the jacks in your house?


To me....toilets are like phone boxes. They aren't segregated for sexes..


You want to spend your life living a certain way? Excellent.


You don't want to be told what to do? Me neither.


See you in the park on a sunny day. I'll try some of those lentil and oak bark biscuits you make. Might not be my taste but sure fcuk it.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

nofools wrote: »

I know what the word means but you are right i am fairly clueless on these morphing political definitions. I don't bother myself with that ****e.

You are either in favour of live and let live and protecting the weak or you are not. That is liberal in my book

Promoting those freedoms for only certain groups is illiberal.

Exactly. Illebetal. As n 'not liberal'.

These SJW goons are tricksters - they hide behind the lbanner and pretend to be liberal, but they aren't. And attacking the adjective of 'modern' doesn't change this.

nofools

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Exactly. Illebetal. As n 'not liberal'.

These SJW goons are tricksters - they hide behind the lbanner and pretend to be liberal, but they aren't. And attacking the adjective of 'modern' doesn't change this.

I don't follow. Are you being sarcastic or serious about SJW goons?

BalcombeSt4

ShatterAlan wrote: »

Aren't we talking about liberalism.....a social concept rather than an economic model?


But while you're barking about communism and capitalism....can you define either?

Yes, but the right all lump in political movements that are to the left of Mussolini. Being a Republican & Libertarian Socialist I'm not a fan of Ted Heath or Thatcher, but calling them Fascists would be insincere of me, Thatcher was a Free Market, Laissez-faire capitalist, who believed market forces would sort itself out if left alone. Tony Benn rebuffed her saying any time I see family in debt, a oap who can't manage or a person in London living in a cardboard box, I say to myself they are the victims of forces.

Liberalism, Classical Liberalism, Classical Libertarianism, Libertarian socialism, Fabianism, Communism, Classical Marxism, Leninism, Ho Chi Min thought, Maoism, Bennism, Arab Socialism, Democratic Socialism, Classic Socialism, Robbspierreism, Republicanism, and well I'll be here all day, they all just get lumped together.

I found this Q&A with Chomsky I think is very interesting, on what I would call true emocracy from the bottom up.

Q: "I was curious about your remarks about the millhands of Lowell and that maybe the best idea was for them to own the firms themselves."
NC: Ok let's just talk about the principle.
The principle, as far as I can see, goes right back to the Enlightenment. Like if you go back to classical Enlightenment thought. I'm now talking about Adam Smith, and Jefferson and those guys. The sort of core idea, is: people have the right to control their own work.
Ok that -- here I'll quote a standard formula, back in the 18th century, OF leading heros of the Enlightenment, is: "if a person does beautiful work, [but] under external command" -- meaning for wages -- "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is" -- because he's not a free human being, ok?
That goes all the way through classical liberal thought, Enlightenment thought, I mean .. Alexis de Tocqueville says, "Under wage labor, the art advances, the artisan declines".
Now, you find this going right into the working class movements in Lowell and Lawrence -- I think that's just natural. I wouldn't try to convince anybody of it.
It seems to me [that] if you think about it, yeah, why should you work on command?
I mean, if you work on command, you're some kind of slave, you know?
Why not work because it comes out of your needs and interests?
I mean, it's like cheap for me to say, I'm at a fancy university in a science department and I can do that. One of the nice things about being in a science department at a fancy university is you really do have worker's control -- I mean, to a very large extent -- we control what we do. "Want to work on this topic, or work on that topic?" I mean, you gotta sell it to funders, and this and that, but the degree of workers' control at the elite level is quite substantial. I mean, that's why it's such a privilege to be in a science department. An enormously privileged existence. Forget the money. If they paid you one tenth the money it would still be a much better existence than working on command.
Now, I think people do know that, you know. I don't think that these Enlightenment ideas are hard to grasp. I think people know that if you work under external control, "you may admire what the person does, but we despite what he is", because, his labor, you know, the sort of central part of your life, is being done at somebody else's orders. And you're not controlling the way it's done, or why it's done, or how it's used, or anything else. Well, you can't have every individual controlling every single thing -- but that's why you have democratic structures, 'cause [so] people control things together.
I don't know how to, I wouldn't try to convince anyone of this, 'cause frankly, I just don't believe that everyone doesn't already know it. I think -- maybe I'm sentimental -- but it seems to me that if you sort of cut away waves of, layers of distortion and illusion, these things that were considered pretty obvious 200 years ago, are still obvious.

That's Libertarian/Democratic socialism in a nutshell.

nofools

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

Yes, but the right all lump in political movements that are to the left of Mussolini. Being a Republican & Libertarian Socialist I'm not a fan of Ted Heath or Thatcher, but calling them Fascists would be insincere of me, Thatcher was a Free Market, Laissez-faire capitalist, who believed market forces would sort itself out if left alone. Tony Benn rebuffed her saying any time I see family in debt, a oap who can't manage or a person in London living in a cardboard box, I say to myself they are the victims of forces.

Liberalism, Classical Liberalism, Classical Libertarianism, Libertarian socialism, Fabianism, Communism, Classical Marxism, Leninism, Ho Chi Min thought, Maoism, Bennism, Arab Socialism, Democratic Socialism, Classic Socialism, Robbspierreism, Republicanism, and well I'll be here all day, they all just get lumped together.

I found this Q&A with Chomsky I think is very interesting, on what I would call true emocracy from the bottom up.


That's Libertarian/Democratic socialism in a nutshell.

Sounds good but outside of Switzerland there isn't a whole lot of agency associated with being democratic (in name only imo).

Is there a place you can think of that has got the balance right?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

nofools wrote: »

I don't follow. Are you being sarcastic or serious about SJW goons?

Serious. They are not liberal.

BalcombeSt4

nofools wrote: »

I don't follow. Are you being sarcastic or serious about SJW goons?

I don't know if he s, but I'm sure people who campaigned for civil rights in the North 1968, Hume, Devlin, McCann etc... would have been labelled SJWs, or the people who campaigned for the Guildford Four or Birmingham 6. Or people like Sister Dianna Ortiz a Ursuline who was brutally tortured & gang raped for seaking out against the US backed Mayan genocide.

If that's what a SJW is then call me one, I'd be honoured.

nofools

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Serious. They are not liberal.

I agree but the problem is they would say that they are , wouldn't they?

ShatterAlan

nofools wrote: »

Sounds good but outside of Switzerland there isn't a whole lot of agency associated with being democratic (in name only imo).

Is there a place you can think of that has got the balance right?

That's not the point.


It doesn't matter if a "country" has it "right" no moreso than if I was a doctor banging holes in your daughter's head as she slowly lost her eyesight and then the ability to walk because I was the expert who could cure her teenage acne.


It's always..."what's the alternative, if this way is so sh1t?"


And we're now talking about Switzerland here. Those little darlings of peace and neutrality who sent thousands from their borders back to Belsen and Sachsenhausen just down the autobahn.


Are you looking for a utopian state or are you just trying to decry liberalism.....the concept that nobody will impose upon you their restrictions?

nofools

ShatterAlan wrote: »

That's not the point.


It doesn't matter if a "country" has it "right" no moreso than if I was a doctor banging holes in your daughter's head as she slowly lost her eyesight and then the ability to walk because I was the expert who could cure her teenage acne.


It's always..."what's the alternative, if this way is so sh1t?"


And we're now talking about Switzerland here. Those little darlings of peace and neutrality who sent thousands from their borders back to Belsen and Sachsenhausen just down the autobahn.


Are you looking for a utopian state or are you just trying to decry liberalism.....the concept that nobody will impose upon you their restrictions?

You lost me with most of that, i was making a point that we don't really have democracy except in name. I have no say.

I feel like i am a real liberal and I'm worried about the illiberal forces "for good" I see forming.

Utopia would be great, wouldn't it.