So Are The New Dev's Siding With Darwoth's Racism?

[Inotdead]

I think Claeyt is a troll, and that he laughs every time anyone believes that he is serious in his posts.

[loftar]

WTF claeyt is Liberal? How? True liberals doesn't try to force other people to share their beliefs, only US pseudo-liberals do that.

What keeps confusing me is that the word 'liberal' has two completely opposite associations in Europe and America.

They're the same thing. Liberalism springs mainly from a rather infantile notion of liberty as being the absence of authority, the belief that society can be free from conflicts, and some strange notion of "equality" of all men (note that these are not three different and separate ideas, but rather the three persons of an unholy trinity). This can take slightly different forms, ranging from a form of anarchy wherein modern, enlightened people will be able to live in harmony since the old sources of conflict are considered obsolete for educated man, to socialism where man's every need is regulated by an enlightened class of planners. As demonstrated by the ideals of communism, however, these two forms, and all the other heads of the hydra, are essentially the same.

Since liberalism is, in this way, a rather infantile belief system, it is also commonly paired with an unawareness of the reality of social structure (and hence a belief that society can and should be remade according to the whims of some mental system), and also with an unawareness of the very real benefits that the liberal himself gains from said social structures in his daily life, which he merely takes for granted.

[Brona]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*Gasp*AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[Spazzmaticus]

What keeps confusing me is that the word 'liberal' has two completely opposite associations in Europe and America.

Here in Europe, at least, here in the Netherlands, 'liberals' is a term reserved for conservative, right wing politicians.
While it seems in the US, 'liberals' is a term used to describe people who are usually regarded as progressive, and on the left wing side of the political spectrum.

I doubt that either of these popular uses of the word still have anyting to do with classical liberal values.

The american right simply hi-jacked the term "liberal" to describe political opposition once "communist" became ridiculous.

Since most european nations have systems of governance based on positive liberty (welfare states, political socialism, etc.) we generally use the word "liberal" to refer to a new wave of neo-liberalism in europe. Neo-liberalism is closer the what americans often call "liberty" and "freedom", that is freedom from government oppression and arbitrary rules and regulations that restrict the common citizen.
In short, europeans emphasize positive liberty and americans emphasize negative liberty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty

It only sounds confusing because it is.

[jorb]

The american right simply hi-jacked the term "liberal" to describe political opposition once "communist" became ridiculous.

Communism only became ridiculous because the American Power structure in the 1950s-60s internalized communism to the point where it became invisible. What is the point in guarding against Moscow, when Washington has already implemented anything and everything that Moscow could ever want done? America is presently for all intents and purposes a communist Empire, spreading a communist ideology to its various client states. This is easily observed in such things as the entire western academic discourse peddling multiculturalism, women's lib, and the rest of the postmodernist dissolution of all knowledge and reason, and in that this development is very much driven by policy made in the Babylon-upon-Potomac that is Washington D.C. is. As loftar pointed out, liberalism and communism are essentially the same thing, and they are opposed only by the position of what we could perhaps call the true Right, that is to say traditionalism according to whatever mos maiorum happens to be applicable to your society.

Arguably, America has in fact been a den of revolution and Jacobinism since 1776. Keep in mind that the Bolshevik revolution, for example, was bankrolled on Wall Street.

[Feone]

Left, right, liberal, conservative, communist, fascist etc.
Most people havn't a clue what they mean, it's just used as insult for whomever the speaker disagrees with.


Hurr you're a liberalcommienazifascistleftwingconservative.
Nananana can't hear you.
I'm right you're wrong.
Nanananananananananannananananananana.
...

We shall call it politics.

[Inotdead]

Left, right, liberal, conservative, communist, fascist etc.
Most people havn't a clue what they mean, it's just used as insult for whomever the speaker disagrees with.

Wut?
Since when is a shout out to one's political / religious / sexual or whatever else affiliation insulting?
It's exactly the opposite, the people who do care about this stuff, actually wear it with pride.

[Feone]

Left, right, liberal, conservative, communist, fascist etc.
Most people havn't a clue what they mean, it's just used as insult for whomever the speaker disagrees with.

Wut?
Since when is a shout out to one's political / religious / sexual or whatever else affiliation insulting?
It's exactly the opposite, the people who do care about this stuff, actually wear it with pride.

Because a lot of people will automatically disregard everything said by someone with a different political view.
Thus, they call someone a <term here> and many will simply stop listening.

[loftar]

It's exactly the opposite, the people who do care about this stuff, actually wear it with pride.

People who don some or another ideological label with no or little reservation likely haven't thought it through properly, since it implies you're just accepting someone else's worldview.

[Claeyt]

What keeps confusing me is that the word 'liberal' has two completely opposite associations in Europe and America.

Here in Europe, at least, here in the Netherlands, 'liberals' is a term reserved for conservative, right wing politicians.
While it seems in the US, 'liberals' is a term used to describe people who are usually regarded as progressive, and on the left wing side of the political spectrum.

I doubt that either of these popular uses of the word still have anyting to do with classical liberal values.

Exactly. I describe myself as a Progressive Democratic-Socialist generally. I am not a radical Liberal.