Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

If I understand you a'right, you are positing a historical chain of liberals and that each new generation of liberals denounces previous generations of liberals. You have created the impression that you yourself belong to one or other of these past generations of liberals but that cannot be, because a) you would understand that all liberals are proved to have been in error eventually and b) AE principles do not allow you to be a liberal of any stripe, of any generation.

Is that right?

[Wile E. Coyote]

1) Everything else being equal, liberals are morally and culturally superior, to the rest of us.

It is not a fashionable view, but there you go, liberals embrace not just each other (they are normally touchy feely types) but equality, justice, generosity, toleration, animal welfare, they are open to new ideas, cultures, whilst they oppose racism, cruelty and the death penalty.

Consider the democratic debate. They were discussing the level of reparations that needed to be paid to people of colour for having ancestors who were slaves.

[Wile E. Coyote]

2) Everything else being equal, liberal morality will continue to displace or reinvent traditional religious belief whilst remaining tolerant towards newer minority beliefs.

People increasingly now tend to choose their religion on the basis of their own values. As liberalism is morally and culturally superior to other isms, it is not surprising that liberalism is displacing or reinventing traditional religious belief, that might otherwise be a threat to liberal values.

Minority beliefs that pose no immediate threat will however be tolerated.

Liberalism is morally and culturally superior to religion.

[Wile E. Coyote]

3) The economic success of western liberalism has led to the development of a new improved system of compassionate morality, namely liberal morality.

Whilst this is not a simple relationship, there is an undeniable relationship, namely the morality would not exist without the economic progress.

[Mick Harper]

You do know how to provoke one, Wiley.

[Mick Harper]

[Grant]

Liberals are pretty dumb. Consider how they hate Donald Trump so much they are proposing reparations for black people, the one thing that will guarantee that Trump wins. Even the Hispanics will vote for him next year if they do that.

[Mick Harper]

I am often asked which are dumber, liberals or conservatives? This is not as easy as both sides believe. It is true that conservatives are correct more of the time but since they are defending the known (.i.e. the status quo) they are dealing with easier problems. Liberals are posed difficult questions and while it is true they don't have to think them up for themselves -- radicals do that -- they do have to choose the answers and then get them applied. But, would come the conservative rejoinder, we have to clear up the mess and that's never straightforward. I'll have to get back to you on this one.

[Wile E. Coyote]

4) Everything else being equal liberalism will defeat utopian attempts to reorganise society more collectively in opposition to liberal values. Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Anarchism.etc are in essence primitive early attempts to disrupt progressive liberalism.

[Mick Harper]

Actually, Wiley, what you are saying (and it was worth saying) is that liberalism is the default position. We lose sight of this because it is only in a minority of countries (in the world and in history) that it is technically feasible. Most of the time conditions are such that the state has to be organised in a top-down way. (I took your inclusion of anarchism as humorous.)

You can see this more clearly in discussions of 'capitalism', 'the free market', 'the unseen hand' and so forth. In every society human beings enter into relatively unorganised, self-regulating and across-the-board economic relationships. It is the default and only when it is interfered with do we have to give it a name. Liberalism is really only the normal way social animals with brains organise themselves to mutual advantage, for better or worse. It is a typical error of both left and right commentators that they believe this benign state of affairs is going to come to an end any time soon. Freedom is not achieved by eternal vigilance, it just is. Sometimes it becomes isn't but eternal vigilance is more likely to bring that about than just leaving well alone.

This is why, Wiley, you are a liberal no matter how much you squirm.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Wile E. Coyote]

5) Liberals feel guilty because of their widespread belief that the earliest phases of economic liberalism were largely unregulated, and resulted in much misery. This results in a real (in their eyes) debt owed to less affluent people by more affluent people.

Neoliberalism is perceived as a return to the earlier, now hated form of economic liberalism, but worse.

Whereas early forms of economic liberalism are seen to be economically progressive but culturally and morally regressive, neoliberalism is seen to be economically, culturally and morally regressive.

Neoliberalism is as a consequence often conflated with fascism by liberals.

[Wile E. Coyote]

6) Everything else being equal liberals will slowly take over all traditional institutions, for example this is now occurring in the house of lords and (cripes) monarchy!

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Although Boris and Trump (and most of the populists emerging all over the shop) are buffoons, it has to be accepted that the current liberal logjam is better overthrown by buffoons than by people who know what they are doing.