Political Leanings QuizFollow

I assume that he's talking about your "white pride" comments. Though maybe that's just a smaller part of the whole, I can't speak for Ugly on that.

I don't like the guy, but I'll at least give Shador credit for this: he seems to occasionally demonstrate a sense of shame and a willingness to reconsider his own viewpoints.

Arrogant.

Ok, I understand the dislike over the gun, the flip-flopping, and various statements (that were never made).

But I still can't fathom how anyone could hate Stephany.

No. It's not. In the same way that stopping someone from burning down your house doesn't change your condition, but burning it down does. Or preventing someone from robbing you doesn't affect you, but robbing you does. Are you actually claiming to be unable to mentally understand this difference?



Except that you've replaced the definition of liberalism with the one for democracy/republic. Liberalism is about the degree of liberty the citizens have, not how they are represented. While some form of democracy is certainly the best way to go, that's not what defines liberalism. Liberalism is about not having a government that intrudes upon your life.



I do grasp it. You're the one operating on incorrect assumptions.



Liberal government isn't just one in which the people have a say, and if you'd studied any US history, you'd understand this. One of the greatest fears of the founders was that if they didn't put sufficient protections into their system, it might become a tyranny of the majority. They absolutely understood that the mob is capable of imposing on society just as much as any king sitting on a throne. And that danger is made all the more real exactly because many people (like yourself) mistakenly assume that as long as you have democracy, you can't have authoritarianism.

That's absolutely false. You're just wrong. I can't say this more clearly.



What the hell are you talking about? First off, you keep insisting on bringing in a new term "fascism", which isn't present in this discussion. We're talking about "libertarianism" versus "authoritarianism". Libertarianism (or classical liberalism if you prefer) is entirely about not having a government which intrudes on your life. Authoritarianism is the opposite (should be obvious by the name). In this context, these are opposite ends of that axis. Stop pretending we're talking about something else.



You're inventing definitions to make your word use work. That's *not* what the two things in question mean.

LMAO

No, he isn't. There's nothing about liberalism that demands anarchy.

[EDIT]


Thanks for putting words in my mouth. I said that the people = the government. I never said that majority ruled.

Edited, May 9th 2011 6:09pm by idiggory

No, he has a willingness to reject his viewpoints when they become embarrassing to him, and immediately embrace the next radical ideology he wanders across. These are very different things.

I didn't say anarchy. I said "government which intrudes on the individuals as little as possible". Read the bolded section. I'll also point out that you're using the definition of "liberalism", which unfortunately includes both classical and social versions. Hence, why the second part of your definition includes using the government to fix social inequities.

Libertarianism, which is the word we started with, is associated with "classical liberalism". Using a modern reference to liberalism as a whole will include social liberalism, which includes assumptions about government which libertarians absolutely disagree with.

You are, once again, attempting to play with the word use and cherry pick definitions to suite you.

Stop trying to come up with ways to make something appear to be correct and look at what we started with. We had an axis which included "libertarianism" on one end and "authoritarianism" on the other. This should suggest to any reasonably intelligent person that contradictory word usage aside, we're using the word "libertarian" to mean "the opposite of authoritarian". Do you see how pulling in out of context definitions of words that are semantically close doesn't really work?



Wow! You really haven't thought through what you are saying, have you? You just got done insisting that as long as government is acting based on the will of "the people", that it can't be authoritarian. So how is that not acceptance of "majority rule"?

The assumption held by libertarians is that unless government is limited in its actions to "preventing harm", then it can and will become authoritarian because there is no end to what the people may demand in the name of creating positive social outcomes. What prevents a democracy from becoming a "majority rules" authoritarian system is the limited government concept of libertarianism. Take that away and you take away what prevents the government from intruding endlessly into our lives.


It honestly seems like you just completely don't understand the principle I'm talking about. To me, it's very easy to see the dividing line between a system in which the government is limited to preventing harm by one person against another (stopping a negative), and a government which attempts to generate positive outcomes. It's night and day, but it's like you just can't see the difference. Can you? Even hypothetically?

Wait, Shador is/was a Mormon?

Oh god, is that like lycanthropy?

Note to self, approach Mormons ONLY WITH EXTREME CARE.

Oh, damn, that's right. My bad. As I was typing that, I was thinking, "Wait, was it Mormon or Latter Day Saints...?" For got the JW.

Thanks.

That Jesus was a door to door salesman, I think.