From a reply in a thread @ HotAir on the just-released Finance Committee Healthcare Reform Bill:
Liberalism at its core is coercion and force. For all the moral preening the Left does about how much they care and how heartless we conservatives are the truth is quite the opposite. There is nothing kind about using the force of government to compel ostensibly free citizens to surrender significant portions of their labor and property (income) to the state to serve the purposes not of the nation but of the State, i.e. the government.
Liberalism makes half the population servants to the other half of the population through various social programs that cannot be opted out of even though our lives are diminished by the confiscation of our earnings.
Liberalism root and branch is anathema to the American tradition of individualism as well as poisonous to liberty for how can liberty exist when the state seeks to control the lives of individuals rather than the individual himself? Liberals are always trying to claim the moral high ground but how can this be a valid claim when their entire agenda can only be enacted by force?
Conservatism is the truly compassionate ideology because it seeks to free, and keep free, the individual from the state. I do not now and will never work for the state and will die fighting against it if I must.
DerKrieger on October 19, 2009
Talk about cutting to the chase. I don't know who DerKrieger is, but I'd vote for him.
Oh boy, here come those Santa Ana winds again
Used to live near Ventura - know exactly what you mean.
Is it heartless to expect people to learn to survive? If they are down, do we help them up or do we leave them down and do everything for them? What will happen the day the Gov't can not provide for those people who are so dependent on it? What will happen when there is no more money they can take from anyone?
Rich people are the ones that give the Gov't the check book it has, makes me wonder why they like biting the hand that feeds them.
5...4...3...2...1 One of my favorite liberals will show up any minute, and turn this into a moratorium about themselves, so I'll sit this one out. Astute observation by the OP, however.
Both extremes are bad. Liberalism AND Conservatism both lead to a form of livelyhood where only a few people are well off and the rest is supressed if allowed to go to extremes. I find it difficult to find only bad words or good words for both political ideologies.
If a liberal state is left to develop freely it might very well end up in a dictatorship like government where free will is supressed for the greater good and a selected elite is exempt from the rules they lay down for the rest.
If a conservative neolibertarian state is left to develop freely it might very well end up in a dictatorship in form of huge corporation and lobbyism that have the the government on its payroll. Cartells would form and a free market would just be as impossible as it is in a overregulated planned economy.
I guess what you have - because the US has only a two party system - will always be a slalom between those two positions. What you need is a more heterogenous political spectrum, and this whole debate would be a lot more interesting. If big parties are only able to for a ruling administration with smaller parties, there are no extreme positions possible because you always have to find a compromise that suits all.
Who's morals?
I agree.
I break this down to the family unit but it can be applied in other areas such as the political as well.
A Dad who, with his iron fist says on a daily basis, "this is my house, my rules, my roof. If you do anything to violate it, out you go." He gives them nothing but a hard time wanting them to fend for themselves. He's speaking truth but with no love.
On the other hand, just as bad is the Dad who sets no boundaries and loves his kids totally with no restrictions, no conditions. He gives them whatever they want whenever they want it.
IMO both are immoral. The first case is legalism and the second is liberalism. We need a balance of the two. Truth without love is abusive and love without truth is also abusive.
Spelling correction: Whose morals?
You could equally say conservatism is immoral, because it entrenches selfishness, encourages a denial of common purpose, and leads to the alienation of the poor for no net benefit.
It's no coincidence that a good social net of some sort (even if it's just bread and circuses) has been a hallmark of every stable government.
HEAR_HEAR! I couldn't agree more. Soon we may need an underground network to go after lobiest's & split-up spcial intrest raidicalizim
liberalism is evil. And the founding fathers would agree vehemently with the author of those remarks.
You could, but you would be wrong.
1. boohoo cry me a river. "lets not be extreme, we must all just take the average approach" How banal. Often there is a right and a wrong choice, middle ground is an insult when the choice is between good and evil, wrong and right.
2. No, both "extremes" do not lead to it. Freedom and equality do not lead to the suffering that oppression and government orchestrated theft.
hah Tal.. good and evil? Wrong and right? Just who decides what that is anyway in your little concept of how things should be? Sounds like you would love to call Batman and Robin to the rescue against the "Evil" in the white house.
I find it a bit absurd to use concepts like good vs evil while talking about political ideologies in the US or anywhere else in western countries. It would be refreshing to actually name what "evil" principles you detest and why and based on which philosophy
(because it all comes down to philosophy in the end, like your ideals of freedom and equality in the constitution stem from the enlightenment movement)
you make your arguments.
You would vote for a German and you don't even know anything about him. That's really fucking brilliant.
The only thing I could find on Der Krieger is that it's the partial title of a movie.
lol. Krieger = warrior. Der = masculine article and yes, german still has masculine, feminine and neutral n its grammar. So Der Krieger simply means the warrior. Sort of juvenile choice if you ask me, but so is infidel lol