Politics is largely an argument between liberalism and conservatism. At one far end:
• Either all crimes are dealt with by mandatory mental health support, or permissible as an eccentricity.
• Everything is means tested, or currency doesn't exist.
• Equity rules.
• Nobody is aloud to be seen as failing at any task.
• Society is a min/maxed over time towards the trivialisation of everything.
At the other end:
• Everything that's not illegal is mandatory.
• All crimes carry the death penalty.
• Everything is framed as groups against other groups, where only one group can survive in each match up.
• Running out of money means starvation.
• The practical consequences of mass starvation caused by (for example) an insufficient number of jobs and no social security, such as civil disobedience and vandalism are not to be discussed.
• Consumer rights are one sidedly seen as oppressive against companies.
• Companies own their employees.
• Protesting becomes a crime.
• An assumption of innocence until proven guilty is gone.
• Character building through suffering is seen as essential to the human condition and impossible to do without.
Clearly neither end is entirely realistic, although the liberal end seems better if just one is chosen, but realistically somewhere in the middle is preferred.
Anger against conservatism comes from an imbalance towards excessive political conservatism, if that imbalance wasn't so extreme then expression of the "full liberalism" position would be very rare.
@JussiVilleHeiskanen Liberals accept protesting, nobody is obligated to listen, but it's accepted as an important right, and it's benifical to know if people are angry and why to address those angers. There are conservatives who don't get this and treat it like a type of crime, and others who accept it, but very few conservatives will protest themselves, kind of like they see it being bad form.
@AlanTennant Well, just this past day, one dude didn't want to wear a rainbow jersy, while playing ice hockey, and that seemed to be an issue with the leader of the finnish greens.
@AlanTennant What is a "liberal" to you, though? What is "liberalism?" The way you're using it seems to be how conservatives tend to use it...& what would you call the Tea Party protests? Or January 6th? Or when streets fill with MAGA counter-protestors?
@ChurlishGambit I'm in favour of liberalism over conservatism regarding the ballence we have had for the last few years (excessively conservative). I'm also trying to be fair at what would happen if liberalism were taken to the extremes that conservatism is taken to, then I'd probably be conservative instead, as it stands I've never considered myself politically conservative.
True, MAGA counter protesters does seem like conservatives protesting, or at least the far right protesting, if it's being done in good faith.
@ChurlishGambit The two sides are idealism, and a society built around liberal idealism is certainly better than one built around conservative idealism. But it's all a bit like saying "fresh water security is an important ideal, so lets all live in a fresh water lake", trying to implement an ideal version of the idealism directly like this doesn't work.
Those I've listed for liberals are the ideals I think liberals want, they're not extreme, and also cannot be implemented in a 100% pure form any more than conservative ideals can, liberal ideals are at least somewhat rooted in the practicality of how we keep society ticking over smoothly.
Correction is an important part of the criminal system, it's totally self-defeating for criminals to learn more about how not to get caught next time when on the inside and make no progress towards being appreciated members of society, but liberals don't tend to ask for "no punishment for murderers" that's just not practical as far as seems the case at the moment.
There is an irony that as soon as things become meaningfully post scarce then conservatives will be utilising it as much as everyone else.
There's not much of a case for as much disparity as there is, but liberals are not insisting on a switch to communism to correct it either.
But improvement is desirable.
Conservative values like self-determination and being allowed to succeed and fail and compete as is your destiny might be valuable ideals too. We (neither USA or UK) don't use the civil service to force households to use the long term investment funds that the service has deemed most likely to give the best returns and be the most stable, to protect people from themselves, but we don't force people who need food stamps to eat "compete successfully or starve to death" either.
@AlanTennant but what IS "liberalism," to you? You still seem reluctant, or perhaps unable, to define it.
You've boiled it down to two sides here, but that doesn't really encompass real political thought. You're really just describing moderate & extreme conservativism, but claiming that's all there is. Your "liberalism" here is a loose straw man of Bill Maher complaints, more than a coherent ideology.
@AlanTennant This is driving me a little crazy, that's your only response to all of that? Why do you continue to refuse to define "liberalism?" It makes it seem like you don't know what you mean when you say it, & it's hard to discuss your thoughts in any depth if you yourself don't know what you mean.
@ChurlishGambit Because it's a list of things rather than one thing, I cannot wrap it in a simple definition, if you can then what's your definition? Support, defaulting to treating everybody as valuable, organisation, protection from exploitation, pulling together, but other ideals too. Some environmentalism such as EV's has a case on either side, but ends up being lumped in too, there are conservative friendly merits to that as well.
@marvingardens Yeah exactly...
@AlanTennant Bullet points of policies, is not an ideology. You're not describing an -ism, here. It sounds like you don't actually know what you mean by "liberalism" & "conservatism."
These terms do have definitions; somehow, all kinds of people are able to define them. I promise, it's possible.
Conservatism: An ideology that seeks to both preserve "traditional" values, policies, modes of being, & also to enforce hierarchies.
Liberalism: An ideology that focuses on individual rights, private property rights, & equal rights under the law.
These are not in opposition to one another. Right-wingers have come to use "liberal" as a derogatory label, to describe anyone to their left, which is partly why you're so confused, but that's just PR trickery. Many adhere to both, particularly in the United States, though no current Republican would dare admit it to themselves. The Democrats & Republicans are BOTH conservative parties; one more to the center, one far on the right.
Not everything revolves around these two ideologies, & the ideological space is so much more vast than these two things. Anarchists, for example, typically are neither liberal nor conservative, as they seek to smash the status quo, obliterate the focus on market economies, upend hierarchies, & so forth.
@ChurlishGambit And furthermore, politics -- the negotiation and exercise of power, the organization of society -- does not flow from these two poles. The jockeying of elite factions is not motivated by promoting a particular group of abstract cultural values. They have economic interests coming from their economic circumstances. That's the bottom line of the headlines you see. Not two grand opposing cultural projects. Silicon Valley doesn't flirt with Trump or Newsom due to their positions on traditional values.
@ChurlishGambit Not straightforwardly, it's applied to the existing political landscape in complicated ways.
@AlanTennant Sure. But you just wrote a whole essay about "liberalism." You can't tell me what you think that word means? How are we supposed to understand your essay, if you don't understand it?
@ChurlishGambit they do. It's just that they can't explain it simply enough. Some things cannot be explained simply.
Note. To be fair, it does show that they are not very clear about their essay, but then it's probably a collection of thoughts, not a single essay.
@100Anonymous If you can't explain "liberalism" simply, then you probably shouldn't be weighing in on politics.
@ChurlishGambit true but what they are trying to say here is that the definition differs for different places and people.
@100Anonymous Right, and I'm just asking the guy who wrote this essay, what he thinks it means, & it's a little weird he can't define it, you know?