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View Full Version : The Decline of Liberalism?




Conservationist
10-25-2008, 12:49 PM
Diversity, civil rights, multiculturalism and other 1968-era programs are old now. They're so old we can hear them creak. The only reason we don't say that is so many old biddies are proud of their 1968 rebellion, and they scream when you call them old. But they're old. We all get old and die.

The Swedes love their logical-emotional links, and so they dove into liberalism faster than the rest of Europe -- and it has taken it longer to prove a train wreck, since Sweden has a natively high IQ, tidy society, almost no wars, and so on.

But now that the tide is turning on multiple fronts, they're re-thinking government entirely. The Richard Florida model of "creative" communities is crap. The liberal model of education is garbage. The liberal model of social "culture" turns ancient societies into pop-culture, tv-driven junk. They're rethinking all of that.

The Americans are just starting to learn too. With this election, they're seeing that their country is hopelessly divided between a small realistic elite and masses of people who want illusions: entitlements, revenge, mystical unspecified "Change," and so on. They're going to need two countries, one of which will be first world and one of which will descend into the third world.

The Great Swedish Civil Rights Experiment Crumbles (http://www.corrupt.org/news/the_great_swedish_civil_rights_experiment_crumbles )


While this article focuses on civil law, more than that is crumbling.

Liberal economics is slowly being shown wrong.

Science is disproving many liberal (and some conservative fundamentalist) ideas about reality and genetics.

The liberal idea of big governments representing everyone with a single idea is collapsing.

Anyone else notice this?

sailor
10-25-2008, 12:59 PM
What I want to know is how the hell Liberalism came to mean Socialist Democracy?

Conservationist
10-25-2008, 02:06 PM
What I want to know is how the hell Liberalism came to mean Socialist Democracy?

I think it naturally expands to that.

Argue from better direction for the state = you gain control of power.

Fear power, argue from independence for individuals = deconstruction without end.

Andrew-Austin
10-25-2008, 03:00 PM
I think it naturally expands to that.

Argue from better direction for the state = you gain control of power.

Fear power, argue from independence for individuals = deconstruction without end.

I think he was referring to classical liberalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism), what liberalism used to mean way back when.

That is the first thing I thought of too when I read this. Most articles like this one should specify what exactly they mean by liberalism... - to be precise, and too illuminate those who do not already know the historical transformation of the word.

Kludge
10-25-2008, 04:45 PM
I think he was referring to classical liberalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism), what liberalism used to mean way back when.


**What liberalism STILL means. The new "liberal" is a euphemism (seriously) for "Social Liberal" (Socialist).

Conservationist
10-26-2008, 08:45 AM
I think he was referring to classical liberalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism), what liberalism used to mean way back when.

That is the first thing I thought of too when I read this. Most articles like this one should specify what exactly they mean by liberalism... - to be precise, and too illuminate those who do not already know the historical transformation of the word.

Yes, that's what I assumed he was referring to:



Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism[1], laissez-faire liberalism[2], market liberalism[3] or, in much of the world, simply liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom and limited government.


One leads to the other.

You don't want a hierarchy in charge? Fine, stress individual freedom -- but then don't get surprised when the individual becomes more important than the collective, his or her needs become absolute, and you get Social Liberalism.

sailor
10-26-2008, 09:33 AM
You don't want a hierarchy in charge? Fine, stress individual freedom -- but then don't get surprised when the individual becomes more important than the collective, his or her needs become absolute, and you get Social Liberalism.

I don`t see how that is possibly true. Modern "Liberalism" has plenty of collective concerns. Welfare, healthcare, political correctness, minority status...