The Liberal Advantage

Wrong again!

The Founding Fathers were liberal progressives!

 

Not at all.

 

he wasn't so far left as to support the weather underground which modern progressives seem to do. the weather underground were terrorists and they should have been rounded up and shot.

 

Kneejerk denialism duly noted FTR.

 

I don't think modern progrssives support the WU...

 

I'm glad someone's keeping track!

But yeah, you're wrong.

 

Based on what I've seen from progressives here they do..

 

I don't think anyone here supports the WU - not even people on the far left.

 

It seems that multiple times per year, you start a trolling thread with some version of you bragging about how liberals run big tech.

Do you not get bored having this exact same discussion over, and over, and over, and over.....?

It is bizarre. It feels like that movie Groundhog Day.

Being that you talk about this constantly, how could you possibly need to be "reminded"?

 

I've heard them referred to as patriots and heroes on here..

 

John Stuart Mills pushed the idea that the greatest good is that which brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.

Thomas Jefferson promoted public education and progressive taxes as a way of preventing any one person from gaining too much wealth or power. And he was the one who coined the term, a "wall of separation", as he thought religion had no place in the public sphere.

David Hume also thought that religion was mostly bunk. Wrote a rather nice book on the subject. One of his closest friends wrote The Wealth of Nations. Both thought there should be worker protections in a capitalist society.

John Stuart Mills said something to the effect of, I didn't mean to say conservatives were stupid but rather that stupid people tend to join the conservative party.

I first decided that I must be a liberal by reading the writings and biographies of Enlightenment era philosophers. As the above examples show, I do share many of their views. Liberalism didn't arise among common folk, but rather it arose from the educated class. The central core of liberal thought is that through ever increasing scientific understanding and technological advancements that the human condition can be continually improved. My life's work has been as a bit part in that effort.

I can understand your confusion. After all the right wing has been trying to paint liberals as communists, socialists, and lazy people who just want to sit around and take money from hard working Americans. It isn't true but apparently many conservatives like to pretend it is.

 

These people were liberals, as they term was used 250 years ago.
Not as the term is used today.
Why do you continue to perpetuate a myth you know is false?

 

The problem is that all those things you described are not what modern "liberals" are saying they want.

Modern "liberals" want slavery reparations, free health care, free college, they want to force businesses they don't like out of business, they want control over how people defend themselves.

Like i said mostly liberism is a good thing, modern Democrats however are not liberals.

 

In order for a society to thrive, it must find common ground, and must be willing to live by at least fundamental rules all reasonable people can agree to. The way most people define and apply a label has more to do with the person applying it than those they apply it too. When people can talk without using insults as their introductory statements, and can agree to some kind of respect of others who have differing opinions, there is a start. But then- they must also agree that choice rather than force is the way to go forward. You don't enact laws to steal from one and give to another, you don't apply laws unequally, and you don't destroy anyone's freedom of choice in their personal decisions. The for your own good argument is self-serving hogwash. While those specific words aren't mentioned much anymore, the motive for many who would re-construct our society is exactly that.

I believe that many liberals tell themselves they have a right to do many of those things. I arrive at that view because of what they support, what they do. No matter what people claim- what you do is who you are.

I think also that you make a serious error is assuming that a university education defines intelligence or capacity. Life itself is the real university, those who are eager to learn have access to everything, and learn no matter what because they are hungry to learn. However, as opposed to a college educated person, their education is actually more liberal- they are free to observe everything, consider everything, while the college student is being "programmed" into a limited scope that some group or professor has decided is what they should believe. You should examine that, because allowing yourself to be programmed in this way is perhaps a greater limitation than a benefit- it is often a restraint. Some of the most successful people in our history did not have a college education, some not even high school. And before there were people selling diplomas to give people the illusion of superior knowledge- there were people taking others under their wing and helping them learn a great many things you will never find in a college. Obviously, there are many in the presence of that university that aren't paying attention or learning, and neither of us can force them to. Neither of us should protect them from the consequences of their own choices, either.

Now I'm old, and there is no question I'm not as sharp or quick as I was long ago. I do not have a degree.... But I did have a 158 IQ. I've developed many skills and areas of knowledge on my own- and I've been hired to teach teachers in secondary education, had many psychologists in my classes, been paid to coach fortune 500 managers in my specialties- which were learned in life from life by someone very determined, not in college from someone programming limits into their students. I think I've spent a lot more hours in class than you have, because I'm still attending that school, and I know I will never learn it all.
I'm not opposed to higher education, I'm in favor of it- provided it's not taught by limited close-minded teachers as I think many are today, and those who graduate realize it is preparation to learn in real life, rather than final accomplishment. I'm very good at what I know- better than most, including those with degrees. But nobody knows everything, and there are many areas where I know very little. When I have to deal with a situation calling for knowledge or skill I don't have- I hire someone who does. But I don't ask for their degree- I look at what they have accomplished. The more they tell me how qualified they are because of their education, the more I doubt they are qualified at all.

 

"I'm a liberal, I'm better than you and boy do I know it". I can weld and fabricate, bet the OP cant.

 

I've never seen that, but I'm not saying you haven't.

This would be a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority, however - man bites dog stuff.

 

Well, I don't know about the welding...

 

Our fabrications are distinctly different *wink

 

Oh, he fabricates all the time - have you read his stories about himself?

 

But mine are tangible and physically real and some can be pedaled down the road. I know how very "liberal" of me, so creative and innovative, so compassionate, making special needs machines. Might as well, toot my horn also. I have another client just ordered one. Build number 3.

 

Also he claimed Henry Ford was a "liberal" IRRC he was a bicycle fabricator (or at least used bicycle wheels on his prototype) so maybe I'm a good, "liberal visionary" in the making? LOL I know the Wright brothers were bicycle fabricators. According to not Oliver, anyone who ever did anything noteworthy was a "liberal"...sometimes flamebait threads are fun!

 

Steve Jobs banned his children from having iPhones because they stunt critical child brain developement, but he marketed the same iPhones to your children to make more money off them/you.

Is that 'Liberal'?

Was that in the movie?

 

The fault lies with right wing indoctrination that pretends liberals are other than they are. It is one of those things that has always caused me to have such a low opinion of conservatives, that y'all like to pretend that liberals are other than we are.

 

Kind of funny, that you think I need to be educated into the Right way of thinking.

 

It is called the gzrt factor. It is where information is introduced that conflicts with belief. Your repeated attempts to insult and discredit me are seen for what they are.