What Non-Liberals Dislike About Liberalism (restored)

I believe this is the first time I have ever seen Teiman angry.

No really angry. I know people don’t change instantly. We are not robots. We have inertia.

A bit frustrated, maybe. At the topic of the thread. Is a closed door with the words “plese enter”.

There’s no reason to say that. If you want to criticize liberalism, then do it. I just don’t think that you have yet.

The idea that liberalism = fascism given our current political situation in the US is pretty laughable. Hard not to comment on such a statement, particularly given the non-weight of the ‘evidence’ used so far. But I am getting a good laugh at it, so there’s that.

Pizzagate! Benghazi! Emails! Those darned fascist liberal students getting those darned liberal professors fired! Yeah, a good laugh indeed.

For me it’s often the arrogance.

Oh boy. Those liberals is uppity.

No, just stupid and naive far too often. But completely filled with conviction that they’re omniscient for some reason.

We do seem to have the courage of conviction, us liberals, and it seems to get us in a spot of trouble.

To create the worst analogy light, Liberals strive to create the Federation, as seen in Star Trek, while Conservative strive to Prevent the rise of the Empire, as seen in Star Wars.

There are some studies that show conservatives more motivated by fear compared to liberals, so you can see how preventing something might be the emphasis.

Sadly, although liberals have failed to create the Federation, I feel like Conservatives, especially with the most recent election, have failed to prevent the Rise of the Empire, in the form of Donald Trump and McConnell.

Obviously, this is all a rather silly analogy, but I think it works.

I’ll concur that this is often a valid criticism of liberals. Can you give more specific examples of ways that liberals are stupid and naive?

Probably? I mean just off the top of my head their tendency to trust government with massive amounts of power and to attack rights is up there. Even with Trump in charge they still strongly trend towards that.

We should make it illegal to say bad things. Cause someone like Trump wouldn’t abuse that. Even with actual examples along these lines being used against minorities and to protect dictators and the like, they still think it’s a great idea.

Then there is always the old canard of “Communism is good, we just haven’t really tried it yet.”

Good grief.

I just want to say that if you want to make a thread called “Hey Conservatives, Come Here And Let Me Tell You Why You’re Wrong,” you have the power to do that.

Don’t tempt me. Or @ArmandoPenblade

That’s an interesting view of liberals, but not one I subscribe too.

If I may, I personally see nations like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Korea, Japan and France seeming to succeed in areas that we have failed, and I want to know why?

In most of these nations, people -
Live Longer
Have happier lives
Have better and cheaper internet connections
Have more vacation days and holidays
Have better access to affordable healthcare
Have stricter environment laws
Have free or cheap higher education
Have free kindergarten
Have paid family leave
More economic mobility
Better roads and infrastructure
In the case of Germany, have higher productivity

Now, outside of Norway, no country is perfect some of why can’t we have some of these features. Maybe not all of them, but some of them.

So, what do these countries have? High taxes, strong centralized government, largely homogeneous populations, low birthrates, less innovation and poor treatment of immigrants.

So, I would like to avoid those downsides, but I don’t mind higher taxes if it means people get 4 weeks of vacation and affordable healthcare.
I don’t mind a strong centralized government if it means better education and roads.

I do mind the immigration things, but not so much the lack of new business.

Anyway it seems that the big differences are caused by large corporations, once the drivers of innovation in the 50s and 60s, now destroying our way to make a buck.

Its not that we like big government, it’s that big business has taken over, and our government is the only thing of size that can make it fair for the little guy.

Obviously, regulatory capture is a thing, and sucks.

None of those things contradicts my criticisms though.

You can have good healthcare and roads and still have real Free Speech and you don’t need Communism to get them.

Most assuredly. There is no patriotism behind them. Hell, there isn’t even long term concern for the company themselves in most cases. Short term profits and to hell with the consequences is the standard most places.

I’d agree with that. But that doesn’t really intersect with our rights in most cases, barring something like Citizen’s United, which isn’t a ruling I’m in favor of for the most part. I get how they got there, but their pretending bribery doesn’t exist and isn’t an issue is fucking stupid.

This is also a massive issue. But that kind of goes back to bribery being effectively legal in almost every scenario. I mean the Founders knew it was a problem and concern, but suddenly it doesn’t exist or something because Scalia didn’t believe in it or whatever.

Wait, is the Federation considered Communist? Cause I will definitely take some of that, even if it means dealing with the Prime Directive.

Eh… the Federation is mostly magical fairy dust.

“We don’t use money.”

Yeah, that… wouldn’t work. Replicators would help a ton, but you still need commerce and the like. Otherwise why would anyone do any difficult or unfun job? Cause literally the only reason anyone does anything in the Federation is because they really, really love it. Which might work for guys on a starship exploring the galaxy, but sure doesn’t work for 99.9% of the population.

It’s mostly hand-waving Utopia that is poorly or not at all explained.

I was watching DS9 again and Sisko is telling Jake he needs to get a job. Because… reasons? I mean Jake is basically a high school kid. He doesn’t need money to get a car or anything. But normal people in our time do it, so the writers thought it was relatable or something. The whole thing breaks down once you look at it too hard.

I mean Jake is setting up his dad with a woman who is shipping crap. Why? Why is she being a truck driver for other people? Couldn’t make the cut to Star Fleet and really loves… hauling heavy shit around? I guess? The motivation for a lot of people breaks down beyond, “they really, really love doing it” in the Federation. Which is silly because they’re humans. If you could blow off work whenever you wanted with no downside, you’d do it all the time. Yet shit still gets done in the Federation and it gets done pretty efficiently despite there being no reason to do so barring scenarios where everyone dies if they don’t.

Okay, I want “magical fairy dust”. That is my new idealogy!

Ya, the economy is star trek really was weird… Because you had cases where things bumped up against actual economies, with people trading gold and stuff.

Maybe it’s like, if you live at the heart of the federation, you can just live a cush life, but if you want freedom, you need to go out to the edges and get a job.

I think a big issue with this thread is that people have very different ideas of what liberalism actually is. Asking non-liberals to define liberalism is going to get a whole lot of ill-informed GOP/Fox talking points that aren’t actually true of liberalism. Makes it tough to stand by and see that sort of mis-information being repeated as facts that define liberalism, when it’s actually just political propaganda designed to piss off the GOP/Fox viewers and thereby strengthen the hatred for liberals that has been so carefully wrought over the last 25 years.