nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

When did "Liberal" become a bad word?

TheIrishGrover

In the US (And increasingly here) the term "Liberal" is bandied about as a bad word. As if it is a bad thing to be a "Liberal". I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT US PARTIES: Democrat and Republican. I'm talking about liberal thinking versus conservative thinking.

In my opinion (Which is of value only to me and nobody else. Just the same as other's opinions) conservative thinking is about maintaining the current situation: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Some think maybe some things need to be rolled back.

But liberal thinking is what progresses us as a people. Ireland would originally have been considered a very conservative country (especially in relation to mainland Europe) and is still, in many ways still considered so.

But here's the thing: Liberal thinking gave women the vote; allowed equal rights for people regardless of gender, race, creed or sexual orientation (In theory anyway); the ability for people to marry who they want; freed the slaves; improved living standards etc....

I mean what is "wrong" about that? Again, I am NOT talking US Party politics as, in the US, many of these acts were implemented under Republican legislation.

Again, in my OPINION ONLY, staying put, not thinking outside the box is, while not "wrong", not advancing us as a people. Is not opening us up to new ways of thinking.

Now, I know this thread is probably going to descend into name calling and general nastiness on both sides but can someone explain it to me why liberalism is "wrong" in their eyes?

And please PLEASE try to keep it civil. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and everyone's opinion is just as valid and important to them as yours is to you.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

marieholmfan

super_furry wrote: »

How do Irish universities and RTE/TV3/The Indo resemble the USSR?

Trinity certainly resembles the USSR. A wild expanse of snowy Taiga the solitude broken only by tiny shepherd's huts.

NO SORRY I MEANT NUIM

Ulysses Gaze

marieholmfan wrote: »

Trinity certainly resembles the USSR. A wild expanse of snowy Taiga the solitude broken only by tiny shepherd's huts.

NO SORRY I MEANT NUIM[/QUOTE]

Now. Now. NUIM has changed a lot since the 1990's when I was there.
They now have Lidl there :eek:

wexie

Just did a quick search of this thread and noticed there has been no mention of :

Muslims
Religion
Church
Immigration
Migrants
Refugee
Snowflake
Cuck
Libtard
Trump

I'm oddly impressed

odyssey06

megaten wrote: »

Isn't the current US style usage just a result of republicans feeling like they need a word for people who don't define themselves as conservative?

No, because Republicans don't have feelings according to liberals so we don't think of them as people. Just prey.

marieholmfan

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

marieholmfan wrote: »

Trinity certainly resembles the USSR. A wild expanse of snowy Taiga the solitude broken only by tiny shepherd's huts.

NO SORRY I MEANT NUIM[/QUOTE]

Now. Now. NUIM has changed a lot since the 1990's when I was there.
They now have Lidl there :eek:

НИЕТ KOMPAD VEE HAVE АLDИ AND ПОТАТО

NOW NO POTATO

super_furry

odyssey06 wrote: »

No, because Republicans don't have feelings according to liberals so we don't think of them as people. Just prey.

Republicans? What have Sinn Fein got to do with this?

blue note

I haven't read the whole thread, but basically as far as I can see liberal has become a bad word since it has started to be misused. In the past it was about freedom, now it's about conforming to the current social "best practice" if you understand what I mean. You can constantly see examples where equality, freedom of expression / speech are not compatible with "liberal" thinking.

And throughout all of this I keep thinking about how hard it would have been to achieve equal rights for women, gays, blacks, etc if the current "liberal" philosophy had been followed 50 years ago. When the accepted right thing was that women were homemakers or that black people shouldn't be able to sit on the same seats as white people - people came out and protested these injustices. But more and more, we see people's opportunity to speak in opposition of social norms curtailed. Speakers being banned from universities, I remember hearing about a university in the UK where the daily mail and a couple of other newspapers weren't allowed to be sold, people saying something unpopular on social media or the like and then they get sacked from their job or banned on twitter. And certainly lynched in the media in an effort to discredit them.

To be honest, 50 years ago there were probably similar blocks to speaking out against social norms. I'd say in Ireland if the Catholic Church didn't like what you were saying you could find yourself a pariah in no time. But the thing that frightens me is that we're going in the wrong direction now. 10 years ago you were a lot more free to say whatever you wanted without fear of persecution (unless it was really bad!). Now, it's not so acceptable.

Ulysses Gaze

marieholmfan wrote: »

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

НИЕТ KOMPAD VEE HAVE АLDИ AND ПОТАТО

NOW NO POTATO

ENDUT! HOCH HECH!

Lux23

It's the new 'political correctness'. Certain people use 'liberal' when they come across an idea or a situation they don't understand or like.

odyssey06

super_furry wrote: »

Republicans? What have Sinn Fein got to do with this?

That was Republicans with a capital R not small 'r' republicans.
The Lincoln, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Quayle, Bush, Cheney, Trump variety.

super_furry

odyssey06 wrote: »

That was Republicans with a capital R not small 'r' republicans.
The Lincoln, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Quayle, Bush, Cheney, Trump variety.

Ah right so, more Yank nonsense which has exactly zero relevance here.

odyssey06

super_furry wrote: »

Ah right so, more Yank nonsense which has exactly zero relevance here.

We share the same language, the political language and thoughts used by those parties in the states makes its way across the Atlantic on our TV screens, in newspapers and even when our political parties hire US spin-doctors as consultants. You are not going to be able to understand current political thought without considering American politics, it is the elephant and the donkey in the room.

Wanderer78

Another bogeyman word really, another group to blame things on

hatrickpatrick

Essentially, self-styled liberals have stopped being liberal, similar to how self-styled feminists have stopped being feminist. The word "liberal" is now paradoxically adopted by a large cohort of radical left-authoritarians, as opposed to left-liberals as it used to be. When you hear someone use the word "liberal" as a bad word, they're not referring to classic socially liberal and economically left wing individuals, they're referring to the "ban everything offensive", "get people fired for making off colour jokes on Twitter", "censor classic literature to protect sensibilities", "boycott radio stations for playing songs with offensive lyrics" cultural authoritarians.

Essentially what's happened is that a gulf has opened up between cultural libertarians (there should be no rules around content beyond what is and isn't illegal) and cultural authoritarians (anything which has the potential to offend anyone for any reason should be condemned and its authors lives ruined), with very little middle ground - and both groups still use the word "liberal" to describe themselves. In the case of the latter group, it seems totally paradoxical, which is why they get mocked and derided.

Lux23

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Essentially, self-styled liberals have stopped being liberal, similar to how self-styled feminists have stopped being feminist. The word "liberal" is now paradoxically adopted by a large cohort of radical left-authoritarians, as opposed to left-liberals as it used to be. When you hear someone use the word "liberal" as a bad word, they're not referring to classic socially liberal and economically left wing individuals, they're referring to the "ban everything offensive", "get people fired for making off colour jokes on Twitter", "censor classic literature to protect sensibilities", "boycott radio stations for playing songs with offensive lyrics" cultural authoritarians.

You left out treating people with respect.

marieholmfan

odyssey06 wrote: »

We share the same language, the political language and thoughts used by those parties in the states makes its way across the Atlantic on our TV screens, in newspapers and even when our political parties hire US spin-doctors as consultants. You are not going to be able to understand current political thought without considering American politics, it is the elephant and the donkey in the room.

It isn't relevant to our society.

hatrickpatrick

Lux23 wrote: »

You left out treating people with respect.

On which side, exactly? Neither cultural libertarians nor authoritarians are particularly concerned with that, their divergence is merely over who deserves respect and who doesn't.

Franz Von Peppercorn

marieholmfan wrote: »

It isn't relevant to our society.

Neither is the Americanist left cant, but we still get it.

Lux23

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

On which side, exactly? Neither cultural libertarians nor authoritarians are particularly concerned with that, their divergence is merely over who deserves respect and who doesn't.

At the very least, libertarianism is essentially a school of thought that legitimises behaving disrespectfully towards different groups in society. Freedom of speech so I can refer to gay people as pansies, women as pussy and much, much worse.

megaten

odyssey06 wrote: »

We share the same language, the political language and thoughts used by those parties in the states makes its way across the Atlantic on our TV screens, in newspapers and even when our political parties hire US spin-doctors as consultants. You are not going to be able to understand current political thought without considering American politics, it is the elephant and the donkey in the room.

It doesn't really. I'd struggle to see any proof of this. Irish politicians are probably more influenced by English political tactics in terms of foreign influence. I think Fine Gael hired a Tory crowd to do the election marketing for the least election and it backfired badly because even with our closet neighbour were still not close Cunego for the same strategies to work.

Taytoland

odyssey06 wrote: »

super_furry wrote: »

Republicans? What have Sinn Fein got to do with this?

That was Republicans with a capital R not small 'r' republicans.
The Lincoln, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Quayle, Bush, Cheney, Trump variety.

You would think Lincoln would be a democrat today but Lincoln is proof that you can't shift views from the 19th century onto those of the 21st and judge it equally because Lincoln's views on race would base him on the fringe within the Republican Party today, if at all and yet some would say he would be a Democrat today as you would imagine he would have "evolved" views today.

odyssey06

megaten wrote: »

It doesn't really. I'd struggle to see any proof of this. Irish politicians are probably more influenced by English political tactics in terms of foreign influence. I think Fine Gael hired a Tory crowd to do the election marketing for the least election and it backfired badly because even with our closet neighbour were still not close Cunego for the same strategies to work.

There's well known cross currents between Conservatives & Republicans, and Labour & Democrats, so it's possible for US influence to arrive here via the UK also.

Our political thought is influenced horizontally from abroad, and vertically from our past. You can't understand Irish politics in isolation to the rest of the world.

But yes, it will only get you so far... I don't think Irish party politics is especially prone to this liberal \ conservative divide, so you could argue how relevant any of it is. Thatcherite, shinner have probably been used more as terms of opprobrium. Do FG use it to insult FF? Do Labour use it against FG?

odyssey06

marieholmfan wrote: »

It isn't relevant to our society.

What happens in the White House is as relevant to us as what happens in the Dail, sometimes more important especially with regard to the economy. If the US sneezes, we catch a cold.

odyssey06

Lux23 wrote: »

At the very least, libertarianism is essentially a school of thought that legitimises behaving disrespectfully towards different groups in society. Freedom of speech so I can refer to gay people as pansies, women as pussy and much, much worse.

You can but why would you want to.

Billy86

Mutant z wrote: »

Liberal certainly is not a bad word the problem is certain folks idea of what a liberal is supposed to be for them its those who share their world view and anyone who doesn't share it are all bigots. Funny enough they claim to be liberal but are in favour of censorship which is about as illiberal as it gets.

That's not fully accurate though, as the likes of protections against hate speech are censorship, and would have been deemed as liberal policy. Even the likes of John Locke were for forms of censorship.

There are at times good reasons for censorship of some forms and for others there are not, but it's not an exclusively liberal nor conservative issue, and today both sides push for censorship on an ongoing basis.

Gbear

Lux23 wrote: »

At the very least, libertarianism is essentially a school of thought that legitimises behaving disrespectfully towards different groups in society. Freedom of speech so I can refer to gay people as pansies, women as pussy and much, much worse.

Nonsense. It makes absolutely no claims at all about how you should behave.

It merely stops making it a matter that's resolved at the barrel of a gun.

If you think of something like divorce - the conservative position is that society has a vested interest in the nuclear family and should conserve this with the legal weight of the state.

The liberal, or libertarian position, is that it's none of the states business and it should be between the two people effected, but that doesn't mean it's promoting the breakup of marriage.

It's a recognition that it's not a matter for the state to decide one way or another.

There is no shortage of authoritarians who hide behind freedom of speech when acting like **** and then whine about oppression when the shoe is on the other foot, but that is separate from the principle of freedom of speech.

Captain Obvious

A few things happened, op. First of all, you had vocal hard left groups such as Black Lives Matter and AntiFa start doing stupid hypocritical things and bringing a lot of bad perception on the more moderate on the left. You also had the DNC corruption and populism collapse in on them and leaving the left, at least in the US, with very little direction or strong leadership. Then you had the empowerment of the alt right who suddenly felt emboldened by the likes of Trump, Alex Jones and Milo. It was no longer necessary to act like a decent empathetic human being. You could wear your swastika proudly and march through the street. They also got well on to the propaganda machine.

super_furry

Every single one of our main political parties would be left of the American Democrat party and there has never been the appetite for a party even approaching the right-wing politics of the Republican party, despite several people trying over the years.

Ireland is a Liberal country with a Liberal political scene.

People can get as wrapped up in the American right-wing political internet scene as they want and they certainly never tire of trying to impart their views to forums like this one, but the reality is, Ireland doesn't care.

Ipso

Gbear wrote: »

Nonsense. It makes absolutely no claims at all about how you should behave.

It merely stops making it a matter that's resolved at the barrel of a gun.

If you think of something like divorce - the conservative position is that society has a vested interest in the nuclear family and should conserve this with the legal weight of the state.

The liberal, or libertarian position, is that it's none of the states business and it should be between the two people effected, but that doesn't mean it's promoting the breakup of marriage.

It's a recognition that it's not a matter for the state to decide one way or another.

There is no shortage of authoritarians who hide behind freedom of speech when acting like **** and then whine about oppression when the shoe is on the other foot, but that is separate from the principle of freedom of speech.

But aren't conservatives agin the government telling people what to do, but many want to tell married people what they should do.
Not having a go at conservatives specifically, but I think labels are thrown around too easily (not meant in a self help type way).
Every topic is now broken down into to different areas; left/right, liberal/conservative.
There is no nuance or grey areas anymore, every single complicated topic can only be approached from one of two ways.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Conservatives, especially in America, tend to mislabel regressive leftists as liberals.

The regressives themselves will often claim to be 'liberal', so this furthers the confusion.