What exactly is a "Liberal" ?
Discussion
Poster "MilesGiles" in the thread about limiting NP and E posts to 5 per day said,
"Nah. I like seeing the libs tie themselves in knots with their mental gymnastics"
Now, I sort of think I know what a liberal is, but it seems to be seen by folk like Miles as a bad thing ?
I asked AI what the basic tenets of Liberalism are, posted below, a lot of "freedom" mentioned in there, its funny as Americans seem to hate "liberals" but rattle on, often in the same sentence about freedom, the list below reads a bit like the constitution in parts.
So whats so bad about being liberal ?
Individual Freedom & Autonomy
Personal Liberty: The belief that every individual has the right to live, think, and act as they choose, provided they do not harm others in the process.
Freedom of Expression: Robust protection for free speech, a free press, and the open exchange of ideas, even those that are controversial or unpopular.
Freedom of Belief: Total freedom of conscience and religion, alongside the belief that the state should remain secular and neutral on religious matters.
Governance & The Law
The Rule of Law: The principle that laws must apply equally to all citizens—including leaders, billionaires, and politicians—with no one being above the law.
Consent of the Governed: Government power is only legitimate if it is derived from the people through democratic, free, and fair elections.
Limited Government: The state's power must be kept in check by a constitution and a system of checks and balances to prevent tyrannical overreach.
Society & Human Rights
Universal Human Rights: The conviction that all human beings possess inherent rights from birth (such as life and liberty) that no government can justly take away.
Tolerance and Diversity: Pluralism—the belief that society is enriched by hosting a diverse array of lifestyles, cultures, opinions, and moral viewpoints.
Equality of Opportunity: Ensuring that individuals are not held back by their background, gender, race, or class, giving everyone a fair baseline to succeed through their own merit.
Economy & Progress
Property Rights: Protection for private property and the freedom of individuals to buy, sell, and own assets securely.
Free Markets: A general preference for economic freedom and open competition, though modern liberals support varying degrees of government regulation to prevent monopolies, protect the environment, and provide social safety nets.
Belief in Progress: An optimistic worldview that human society can be continuously improved over time through reason, science, education, and social reform, rather than relying strictly on static tradition.
"Nah. I like seeing the libs tie themselves in knots with their mental gymnastics"
Now, I sort of think I know what a liberal is, but it seems to be seen by folk like Miles as a bad thing ?
I asked AI what the basic tenets of Liberalism are, posted below, a lot of "freedom" mentioned in there, its funny as Americans seem to hate "liberals" but rattle on, often in the same sentence about freedom, the list below reads a bit like the constitution in parts.
So whats so bad about being liberal ?
Individual Freedom & Autonomy
Personal Liberty: The belief that every individual has the right to live, think, and act as they choose, provided they do not harm others in the process.
Freedom of Expression: Robust protection for free speech, a free press, and the open exchange of ideas, even those that are controversial or unpopular.
Freedom of Belief: Total freedom of conscience and religion, alongside the belief that the state should remain secular and neutral on religious matters.
Governance & The Law
The Rule of Law: The principle that laws must apply equally to all citizens—including leaders, billionaires, and politicians—with no one being above the law.
Consent of the Governed: Government power is only legitimate if it is derived from the people through democratic, free, and fair elections.
Limited Government: The state's power must be kept in check by a constitution and a system of checks and balances to prevent tyrannical overreach.
Society & Human Rights
Universal Human Rights: The conviction that all human beings possess inherent rights from birth (such as life and liberty) that no government can justly take away.
Tolerance and Diversity: Pluralism—the belief that society is enriched by hosting a diverse array of lifestyles, cultures, opinions, and moral viewpoints.
Equality of Opportunity: Ensuring that individuals are not held back by their background, gender, race, or class, giving everyone a fair baseline to succeed through their own merit.
Economy & Progress
Property Rights: Protection for private property and the freedom of individuals to buy, sell, and own assets securely.
Free Markets: A general preference for economic freedom and open competition, though modern liberals support varying degrees of government regulation to prevent monopolies, protect the environment, and provide social safety nets.
Belief in Progress: An optimistic worldview that human society can be continuously improved over time through reason, science, education, and social reform, rather than relying strictly on static tradition.
He's been turned into an American by social media who think liberalism is all about being a communist, hating God and hating yourself and that true freedom consists of being owned by private equity and told you're great while hugging a flag.
British Liberalism goes back centuries. Both the Conservatives and Lib Dems are largely Liberal parties. The logo for the Conservatives was the torch of Liberty before David Cameron, in a mark of how much he cared about anything, changed it into a tree.
British Liberalism goes back centuries. Both the Conservatives and Lib Dems are largely Liberal parties. The logo for the Conservatives was the torch of Liberty before David Cameron, in a mark of how much he cared about anything, changed it into a tree.
Edited by glazbagun on Tuesday 7th July 09:44
Randy Winkman said:
I think it's just like saying "woke". It's irrelevant what the actual definition is. Or even like calling someone a cock. That has nothing to do with chickens.
It's basically this. It's a useful indicator of where the poster is getting their political news from, so it does have it's use.Randy Winkman said:
I think it's just like saying "woke".
Yup - there's a proud tradition in the gutter right (which is not, of course, all of the right) of taking a term and using it repeatedly to mean something completely different. So rather than discuss, they just try to make "liberal" mean "authoritarian". See also the right wing gutter press coming up with "loony left" when they realised they couldn't field a compelling (or even coherent) argument against the policies, and decided it was easier to insult and demonise.
Sporky said:
Yup - there's a proud tradition in the gutter right (which is not, of course, all of the right) of taking a term and using it repeatedly to mean something completely different. So rather than discuss, they just try to make "liberal" mean "authoritarian".
See also the right wing gutter press coming up with "loony left" when they realised they couldn't field a compelling (or even coherent) argument against the policies, and decided it was easier to insult and demonise.
I was literally just about to post something along the lines of "He's on the other side of the argument to those who keep harping on about all the press and the BBC being right wing" because their reporting doesn't fit in with the desired narrative. See also the right wing gutter press coming up with "loony left" when they realised they couldn't field a compelling (or even coherent) argument against the policies, and decided it was easier to insult and demonise.
Which kind of explains your post.
being a liberal is a bit like being a feminist
Originally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
Originally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
simon_harris said:
being a liberal is a bit like being a feminist
Originally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
Yes it is basically the term being redefined by a proportion of those who use it and their enemies.Originally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
The term that should be used is progressive and a modern progressive is often very much opposed to basic tenets of liberalism, such as freedom of speech.
The term is used as an insult because those that call themselves liberal are often anything but. Anyone that believes in a large state where the government controls more and more of your life cannot truly be described as a liberal.
See also "Liberal Democrats" who are neither Liberal nor Democratic in their views.
See also "Liberal Democrats" who are neither Liberal nor Democratic in their views.
simon_harris said:
being a liberal is a bit like being a feminist
Originally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
Ha ha, what a load of old sOriginally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
t. You just want to believe it because it would make extreme right wing positioning look more moderate if it were true.It's meaning is defined in the original post in this thread. You tell me what policies of today's Liberal parties in UK politics are "aligned with hardcore leftwing ideology" (whatever that is), as that is your assertion. Shouldn't be hard as it was so easy to write it, eh.
Anyone snarling out 'liberal' as a pejorative, especially in the form of 'liberal left' is telling that they've cooked their brain too much on American political media and discourse.
Their Overton window is so right-skewed that they effectively have two right-wing parties, and the mainstream Democrats are pretty much textbook liberals, which is why the American right now growls about 'liberals' as their enemies and then tries to conflate liberalism with spooky things like socialism and communism. Even the DSA are barely left-wing in the sense of the true political spectrum - they'd be a middle-of-the-road establishment left bloc in most of Europe.
As a social democrat lefty it always amuses me when people clock me as a 'liberal'. I am not a liberal. Liberalism is a fundamentally right-wing ideology, and a lot of lefties will consider liberals to be their true opponents. Conservatives are honest and open about being opposed to a lot of left-wing principles. Reactionaries and lefties will often be in lock-step in identifying the problems, but differ hugely on what the causes and solutions would be. Liberals are the real roadblocks, because they are often more truly conservative than the self-styled conservatives - opposed to fundamental change because we live in a system that is fundamentally built by and for liberals.
The Conservative Party is a liberal party. Not in the "oh, they all went woke under Cameron and Boris put up the taxes and let all the immigrants in" sense. Margaret Thatcher's key political work was turning the Conservative Party from a, well, a conservative party into a liberal one. Her means and her ends were liberalism, not traditional Toryism. The small government, low taxes, free markets, free enterprise, individualism and (heavy quote marks) 'equality of opportunity' are all classical liberalism, not the well the Tories had traditionally drawn from.
That's why the Liberal Party ceased existing. Labour had already largely stolen the Liberals' social ground and the Thatcherite Conservatives moved onto their economic turf. Which is why they ended up combining with the SDP - the two parties shared a social outlook but had very different economic ones. Under the likes of Ashdown and Kennedy the Lib Dems more closely resembled the SDP, then under Campbell and Clegg they went back some way towards the old Liberal economic platform - which is why (at the top level at least, if not among their members and voters) they gelled so well with Cameron's Conservatives.
Although you can't really apply modern political terms to the distant past (not least because large swathes of society were excluded from politics), in the 19th century when the British political system we know was emerging, it was the Liberals who were often the more 'right wing' party.
The Tories largely represented the old pre-modern society - the monarchy, the aristocracy, the Church, the landowners, the military. They had their power and wealth in the old feudal system of owning and inheriting land and extracting rents. They were conservative in that they wanted to preserve that old social order, and largely believed that people were inherently different and naturally unequal in terms of social status. The Rich Man In His Castle, The Poor Man At His Gate, He Made Them High and Lowly, He Ordered Their Estate.
The Liberals were descended from the Whiggish traditions of the Enlightenment. The mercantile capitalism of Smith and Ricardo, free trade and free markets, individual liberty, 'all men are created equal', rational science and natural philosophy. Liberals still believed in a social hierarchy, but they believed that power was tied with wealth, that anyone could get wealthy through personal enterprise and so anyone could be powerful. They believed in equality of opportunity, which is not what true Tories believed in. Because the Tory Party was also closely linked with the Church of England, the Liberals also had a strong non-conformist and dissenting tradition. The Liberal Party became the natural home of the newly-emerged British middle class (with money made from industry, trade and investments rather than inherited land) and the Catholics, Methodists, Jews and others who were - explicitly or not - excluded from the Tory voter base.
Socially, this had some perhaps unexpected outcomes. The Tories were primarily about maintaining the traditional social order and the power and wealth of the 'old money'. But because their philosophy was also based on the idea that the ruling class was born to rule and the working class was born to work (and the middle class was an aberration), the condition and status of the working class wasn't their fault. It was the duty of the superior ruling class to manage, control and improve the lot of the lower orders. Noblesse oblige. Paternalism. Being concerned with maintaining their place at the top of the hierarchy, the Tories were also very keen to avoid a republican, radical or socialist revolution in Britain such as those which had swept across Europe in the mid century.
Meanwhile the Liberals, full of philosophy about how everyone was inherently equal, personal liberty and responsibility and the right to personal advancement and enterprise, had no such social qualms. Every man was responsible for his own condition. If he grew rich, it was because of his own morals, choices and actions. If he was poor, that was also his fault. He had no recourse to seek society's help and society - certainly the state - had no obligation to give it. Individual philanthropy and charity was admirable, but only if it was a free individual choice and went to the deserving poor. Anything else was an affront to the natural values of mankind and risked dangerously rewarding the weak and indolent.
So, from those stances you see the Tories being more (to our eyes) 'progressive' in the 19th century than the Liberals. The Tories were largely against free trade (seeking to protect prices for those who owned land and the jobs of those who worked it - and the social order that went with them) while the Liberals were evangelical free traders, maintaining that it was better ('the greater good') for the market to lower prices through greater supply, even if it led to widespread rural poverty (which, as a by-product, also produced a steady stream of displaced ex-farm workers into the cities to work in the mills and factories owned by prominent Liberals). The Liberals were strongly of the view that things like prisons and workhouses should be as punishing and austere and crushing and demoralising as possible.
The Tories generally baulked at such things, favouring a more paternalistic approach, believing that government (i.e. the ruling class) had a moral duty to use its power to advance the social, material and moral condition of the poor. It was the Tories (under Disraeli, who coined the term 'One Nation Conservatism') who passed things like the Public Health Act, the new Factory Acts and other bills which gave workers new condition protections , new laws to allow picketing and workers to sue their employers for breach of contract, the Labourer's Dwellings Improvement Act, the Elementary Education Act, the Sale of Food and Drugs Act and more - all of which advanced the condition and status of the working class and usually passed against protests from Liberals. He also passed the 1867 Reform Act which extended the vote to men who leased or rented property above a certain value, thus enfranchising most of the working class with a skilled trade or a steady industrial job.
That's what 'Liberalism' really is in a British context, and why it's so funny when it gets used as a catch-all insult against those seen as the left, when it's actually from an entirely different philosophical root and based around entirely different values.
Their Overton window is so right-skewed that they effectively have two right-wing parties, and the mainstream Democrats are pretty much textbook liberals, which is why the American right now growls about 'liberals' as their enemies and then tries to conflate liberalism with spooky things like socialism and communism. Even the DSA are barely left-wing in the sense of the true political spectrum - they'd be a middle-of-the-road establishment left bloc in most of Europe.
As a social democrat lefty it always amuses me when people clock me as a 'liberal'. I am not a liberal. Liberalism is a fundamentally right-wing ideology, and a lot of lefties will consider liberals to be their true opponents. Conservatives are honest and open about being opposed to a lot of left-wing principles. Reactionaries and lefties will often be in lock-step in identifying the problems, but differ hugely on what the causes and solutions would be. Liberals are the real roadblocks, because they are often more truly conservative than the self-styled conservatives - opposed to fundamental change because we live in a system that is fundamentally built by and for liberals.
The Conservative Party is a liberal party. Not in the "oh, they all went woke under Cameron and Boris put up the taxes and let all the immigrants in" sense. Margaret Thatcher's key political work was turning the Conservative Party from a, well, a conservative party into a liberal one. Her means and her ends were liberalism, not traditional Toryism. The small government, low taxes, free markets, free enterprise, individualism and (heavy quote marks) 'equality of opportunity' are all classical liberalism, not the well the Tories had traditionally drawn from.
That's why the Liberal Party ceased existing. Labour had already largely stolen the Liberals' social ground and the Thatcherite Conservatives moved onto their economic turf. Which is why they ended up combining with the SDP - the two parties shared a social outlook but had very different economic ones. Under the likes of Ashdown and Kennedy the Lib Dems more closely resembled the SDP, then under Campbell and Clegg they went back some way towards the old Liberal economic platform - which is why (at the top level at least, if not among their members and voters) they gelled so well with Cameron's Conservatives.
Although you can't really apply modern political terms to the distant past (not least because large swathes of society were excluded from politics), in the 19th century when the British political system we know was emerging, it was the Liberals who were often the more 'right wing' party.
The Tories largely represented the old pre-modern society - the monarchy, the aristocracy, the Church, the landowners, the military. They had their power and wealth in the old feudal system of owning and inheriting land and extracting rents. They were conservative in that they wanted to preserve that old social order, and largely believed that people were inherently different and naturally unequal in terms of social status. The Rich Man In His Castle, The Poor Man At His Gate, He Made Them High and Lowly, He Ordered Their Estate.
The Liberals were descended from the Whiggish traditions of the Enlightenment. The mercantile capitalism of Smith and Ricardo, free trade and free markets, individual liberty, 'all men are created equal', rational science and natural philosophy. Liberals still believed in a social hierarchy, but they believed that power was tied with wealth, that anyone could get wealthy through personal enterprise and so anyone could be powerful. They believed in equality of opportunity, which is not what true Tories believed in. Because the Tory Party was also closely linked with the Church of England, the Liberals also had a strong non-conformist and dissenting tradition. The Liberal Party became the natural home of the newly-emerged British middle class (with money made from industry, trade and investments rather than inherited land) and the Catholics, Methodists, Jews and others who were - explicitly or not - excluded from the Tory voter base.
Socially, this had some perhaps unexpected outcomes. The Tories were primarily about maintaining the traditional social order and the power and wealth of the 'old money'. But because their philosophy was also based on the idea that the ruling class was born to rule and the working class was born to work (and the middle class was an aberration), the condition and status of the working class wasn't their fault. It was the duty of the superior ruling class to manage, control and improve the lot of the lower orders. Noblesse oblige. Paternalism. Being concerned with maintaining their place at the top of the hierarchy, the Tories were also very keen to avoid a republican, radical or socialist revolution in Britain such as those which had swept across Europe in the mid century.
Meanwhile the Liberals, full of philosophy about how everyone was inherently equal, personal liberty and responsibility and the right to personal advancement and enterprise, had no such social qualms. Every man was responsible for his own condition. If he grew rich, it was because of his own morals, choices and actions. If he was poor, that was also his fault. He had no recourse to seek society's help and society - certainly the state - had no obligation to give it. Individual philanthropy and charity was admirable, but only if it was a free individual choice and went to the deserving poor. Anything else was an affront to the natural values of mankind and risked dangerously rewarding the weak and indolent.
So, from those stances you see the Tories being more (to our eyes) 'progressive' in the 19th century than the Liberals. The Tories were largely against free trade (seeking to protect prices for those who owned land and the jobs of those who worked it - and the social order that went with them) while the Liberals were evangelical free traders, maintaining that it was better ('the greater good') for the market to lower prices through greater supply, even if it led to widespread rural poverty (which, as a by-product, also produced a steady stream of displaced ex-farm workers into the cities to work in the mills and factories owned by prominent Liberals). The Liberals were strongly of the view that things like prisons and workhouses should be as punishing and austere and crushing and demoralising as possible.
The Tories generally baulked at such things, favouring a more paternalistic approach, believing that government (i.e. the ruling class) had a moral duty to use its power to advance the social, material and moral condition of the poor. It was the Tories (under Disraeli, who coined the term 'One Nation Conservatism') who passed things like the Public Health Act, the new Factory Acts and other bills which gave workers new condition protections , new laws to allow picketing and workers to sue their employers for breach of contract, the Labourer's Dwellings Improvement Act, the Elementary Education Act, the Sale of Food and Drugs Act and more - all of which advanced the condition and status of the working class and usually passed against protests from Liberals. He also passed the 1867 Reform Act which extended the vote to men who leased or rented property above a certain value, thus enfranchising most of the working class with a skilled trade or a steady industrial job.
That's what 'Liberalism' really is in a British context, and why it's so funny when it gets used as a catch-all insult against those seen as the left, when it's actually from an entirely different philosophical root and based around entirely different values.
Skodillac said:
simon_harris said:
being a liberal is a bit like being a feminist
Originally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
Ha ha, what a load of old sOriginally to be a feminist was about equality for women, the same opportunities in law etc, then we had 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave feminism and now to be a feminist is to demand that women with penises must be allowed to beat women without penises at sport and if you say that you are a woman you must be a woman and you must believe all women no matter how their story doesn't stack up and so on.
Liberalism is much the same what started out as a sensible combination of self accountability, limited government and a sensible, reasonable welfare state limiting the worst excess of both left and right wing politics has aligned itself with much more hardcore left wing ideology and causes of the day.
Many many people will still consider themselves liberal (and indeed feminist) much more along the original ideologies of the words rather than the current incarnation as espoused by the tiny minorities of both that are the most vocal about it.
t. You just want to believe it because it would make extreme right wing positioning look more moderate if it were true.It's meaning is defined in the original post in this thread. You tell me what policies of today's Liberal parties in UK politics are "aligned with hardcore leftwing ideology" (whatever that is), as that is your assertion. Shouldn't be hard as it was so easy to write it, eh.
But to clarify my point that was apparently to difficult for you to comprehend, those that seem to currently be most vocal about declaring that they are "liberals" are most often more aligned with the lefter side of politics, not that they are actually "real" liberals as pointed out by 2_Chevs.
So I am not trying to believe anything I am just pointing out reality, look at libs of tiktok if you need an example.
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