Defining the noun "Liberal"

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Bowser, Nov 18, 2016.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    No. Again, this is the US. The problem with racism is what its establishment in a society on a limited landscape necessarily involves, what it does to the people in the targeted races. Attitude is not significant.
    It's structural. If you forbid aggression, you forbid establishment of racism - gated communities of racists involve aggression against the targeted race as soon as the population of racists in the landscape is significant. You cannot, physically, have non-agressive and non-violent sundown towns in a majority white landscape.
    That's because those libertarians live in a fantasy world where scale doesn't matter. Racist immigration policies on a town or county scale severely restrict travel, mobility, and opportunity, for individuals in the targeted races. On a single dwelling scale, or a large nation scale, they do not. It's a property of the physical, two dimensional, resource-limited landscape in which human beings actually live.

    Again: the US has experience with this stuff. You can correct your theories according to evidence. Actual liberty is increased, for everyone, by forbidding the physical establishment of racism on the landscape at the town, city, county, or State level.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2016
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    Wrong. If racist gated communities do not use aggression during their creation (simply because there are already no members of the wrong races living there, or because they make exceptions for those who already live there, or pay them to leave) they do not involve any aggression. Gated communities are private property, the owners do what they like, and this is nobodies business. The question of how many racists are living nearby is completely irrelevant. You don't have to enter them, you do not even have a right to enter them, so there is no problem at all if only members of one race are allowed to enter.

    Instead, given that the racists among the whites (not all whites are racists) will tend to live in such gated communities, the population not living in these racist gated communities will tend to be less racist than now.
    1.) Much less than the same policies done by whole states. 2.) Scale matters a lot for libertarians. If you own a home, you can decide about everything what happens inside, as the owner, and this is accepted by libertarians. If you own, as a king, a large state, this is not accepted by libertarians. Some (like Hoppe) argue that this is less harmful than democracy, but being less evil does not mean acceptable for libertarians. 3.) A gated community is quite important because of its scale. It is so small, that the "social contract" may be a real contract, really voluntarily signed by all participants, and therefore qualitatively different from a state, which can never get complete voluntary agreement to its laws simply because of its size.

    The size matters here a) because of the number of people involved, b) because kids, becoming adults, may be faced with the alternative or to accept the rules voluntarily, or to leave. The alternative to leave is a problem in a large state, where emigration means you have to learn another language, adopt another culture, are far away, so that it is unacceptable for many people, so that the acceptance of the rules is no longer really voluntary.

    But, given the importance of small size of gated communities, the restrictions for travel, opportunity and so on for outsiders are minimal and can be ignored as irrelevant. And, by the way, the point of a "sunset town" is that travel through the town during daytime is not forbidden.

    From what I can see from outside, the US has a serious problem with racism. Allowing racist gated communities would have the same effect of segregation of the most rabid racists as incarcerating them for "hate" - which would be another form of putting them into "gated communities". People outside these communities would be much better protected from them than now. But with much less costs, because they would not try to run away, but voluntarily come into these gated communities.

    Libertarianism means a no to state-enforced segregation (apartheid), and also a no to state-enforced equality and integration. But support for volitional segregation. Those who want to segregate segregate, and live in gated communities among those they like. Those without such prejudices live together with other people. This minimizes conflicts, and maximizes cooperation.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    This manner of uneducated trash has no place in civilized society; nor do the pathetically weak poseurs who push it.

    One of the great faults of libertarianism in general is its focus on formal notions instead of living experience.

    Libertarianism means no state-enforced segregation. It also means no state-enforced human rights. And that may be your goal, Schmelzer, but these are the United States of America, and that bit of psychomoral sickness right there is why the very word "libertarianism" is an hilarious lie.

    I don't know if you've noticed, but that libertarianism, in the U.S., results in Nazi celebration.

    Or, you know, the anti-human authoritarian from Germany; yeah, maybe there is a reason you admire this stuff.

    In any case, advocacy of racism and hatred really doesn't have a place in civilized society. I always wonder about those people who are so weak they can't feel better without trying to wreck everything for everyone. It's childish, stupid, uneducated, and tragic.
     
    joepistole likes this.
  8. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    What to do if staff members start defamations?

    Whatever, he has received a "joepistole likes this". That's already good enough as a characterization of the content.
     
  9. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    It's not a defamation if it is true comrade.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    No, I'm right. I live in the US, and speak from direct personal experience - physical evidence, backed by correction of an originally oversimplified theory to account for economic realities of several kinds.
    That's an illusion created by an oversimplified theory uncorrected by physical reality. In the real, physical world, the creation of such communities necessarily involves aggression as soon as the percentage of racists on the landscape is anything but negligible.

    It turns out, for example, that very few people have enough money to pay lots of their neighbors to become homeless or leave their family farms and gardens for life in miserable circumstances.

    Like I said: in the US we've seen this, the real thing. The voluntary racist gated community was - and is, btw - a common sight. They cannot be formed or maintained without violent subjugation and deprivation of the people belonging to the despised race. And once you see why and how that is, you can correct your theory to account for these basic physical facts - economic, geographic, demographic, psychological, political.
    Actually, much more - there's more room inside and outside a State. Town by town, the elbow room inside and outside is much more cramped on a human scale - a landscape covered with sundown towns is much more oppressive than a landscape divided into a couple of large racial States, within which residents have freedom to travel etc. It's that scale thingy.
    In the US, we had tens of thousands of them. All over the landscape. Including all the best land, best water sources, transportation routes and facilities, utilities and financial resources and so forth.
    So even a "libertarian" of the wingnut variety can recognize an argument from absurdity - although making the new insight consistent with the old principles is going to be a bit difficult. How about if some guy and his buddies own, as rich guys who bought it, all the significant resources (such as the arable land and water) of a State size region? If he's white, and racist?
    Once again, as several times before: you don't know jack shit about racism in the US, and you will post nothing but goofy nonsense like that until you learn to quit talking about it.

    And just to bring it around, that is a primary reason you don't know what liberalism looks like in the US. The term itself - "liberal" - has been rendered almost meaningless by Republican propaganda campaigns, but the entity or category it formerly labeled is still extant.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2016
  11. wellwisher Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,160
    One of the problems when discussing racism is connected to the observation that Liberal and Democratic propaganda lies about racism, and about their role in this. For example, the break up of the family unit and the push in favor of atheism has led to the downfall of many blacks. The inner cities of say Chicago, can be very violent, as fatherless and godless teenage boys sublimate fatherly needs, by belonging to gangs. If white people try to leave that violent dysfunctional environment, it is not because of racism, but because of personal and family safety and a hope for a better future.

    When Martin Luther King was around, all he wanted was a level playing field so black people could be judged by content of character. The family was strong in his day allowing a continuity. The liberal way is not about character. Relative morality does not allow the concept of character; relative character. Liberals divide people down the lines of male-female, black-white, straight-other, with character not a variable they use. If a white family leaves the violence of the inner city, the liberals see racism, while conservatives see good people separating from evil and violence. It has nothing to do with white and black. Evil existed, according to Martin Luther King, due to a system which judge based on superficial divides; black and white, not character.

    In liberal philosophy, intention means more than results. If the mother feels sorry for the spoiled child, this is good liberalism, since liberalism is not about results but about showing you care. Conservative is about long term results, even if that means putting your foot down in the short term. Liberalism is short term thinking; spoiling the brat is good in the short term, since he is made happy. Conservative is about long term. This can look harsh in the short term POV of Liberalism. However, it will help the spoiled child learn to be more balanced.

    The breakup of the family is an example of short term thinking. It may have helped some couples with irreconcilable difference, but it leaves behind it all types of long term chaos in its wake; children and their future. This is evident in the inner city. Lack of character as extrapolated to mean divorce is a type of dating, that does not have to consider the needs of others who will be impacted.

    What needs to happen, which will be resisted by liberalism, is we need to divide all groups in the liberal polarization, into character and no character; good and evil people. There are good whites, good blacks, good women, good atheists, good Christians, good gays, good lesbians, good immigrants, etc., There are also mean and/or lawless people in each group, who have little character. All the good people could unify, since they have the character to accept each other. The evil in all the groups cannot unify as one team, since they are the source of division between each other. It is not about short term feelings; criminal rights, but a long term victory for good.

    The liberal way is to maintain the divides along superficial lines while blurring the lines between good and evil in each group, blaming the entire group based on those in the group who lack character. Or in the case of their voter blocks, attribute good to the entire group and ignore the lack of character in the evil members of the group which do not deserve such privileges. We may need to cut the head off the liberal snake; free the good people.
     
  12. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,549
    Yawn. I wonder if you can actually make sense of your own blogging. 'Look Ma, I have typing skills. But no meaningful content to use it it with.'
     
    joepistole likes this.
  13. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    It is not an illusion, because I have not said anything about the probability that such things will happen without aggression. Instead, I have given a moral clarification.

    This is an important method to impose totalitarian orders. Behavior A may be completely unproblematic, under some well-defined circumstances. Namely, one should not do B to do A. Now iceaura observes that, somehow, one can expect (my personal experience!!!111! I have seen some guy doing B to do A!!!!11!!) that under some conditions A will often be done together with B. And, therefore, one has to forbid A.

    The just law would be to forbid the aggression which, IYO, is "necessarily" involved (even if the condition when it is "necessarily" involved clarifies that it is not necessary at all). But not the creation of such gated communities. As a consequence, it becomes difficult to create such gated communities, given that aggression is forbidden. So what? Even if only a few of them will be created, they become attractive places for live of the most stupid racists, which decreases the percentage of rabid racists outside these communities.
    Nonsense. They can be formed as well as maintained without aggression. Which is not an empirical question at all, because it is about the possibility. A question very different from the question of the real history of their creation. All states have been created by war, means, by murdering people. Some anarchists use this as a decisive argument against the state. I'm not. But as far as I remember you support the state, that means, you have to reject this historical argument as sufficient to reject the state. But, then, similarly, you have to reject the historical argument against gated communities that some/most of them have been created using aggression.

    So, what remains is if their maintenance requires aggression. Sorry, no. People of the wrong race are forbidden to enter the gated community. But all people are forbidden to enter private property without agreement of the owner. So, the argument makes sense only if the private property owned by the gated community is too large, so large that one should somehow forbid private ownership of land of that size in general.

    But this makes no sense. Gated communities make sense in sufficiently small areas, much smaller than that of a big factory which is usually privately owned. A typical gated community can be a small dead-end street and all the buildings along the street, with a gate at the begin of the street. What would be the "aggression" necessary for maintenance of this gated community?
    First of all, the people living there will find optimal sizes. The own flat is the minimal size, and even today open for every racist. The own house, the own street, the own quarter, the own village, the own town, the own county are other possibilities. It is better to create them in a compact way - this gives the racist more freedom to travel without the danger of meeting the wrong race. But to create big entities is also more difficult - much more people would have to move.
    So the point is simply to change ownership of these nice things, from those who have owned it in the past (as usual, by war) in favor of the poor? Fine, expel and kill all these whites, anyway they are despicable racists, and take their property. But simple robbery of property, even if it may in some cases be morally justified because of the history of its acquisition, is not justified by libertarian principles. You may argue that the way a particular property was acquired was unjust, and, therefore, the property claim unjustified. Then, the property has to be returned to the just owner. That's all. If the just owner appears to be a rich racist, you have to live with this.
    I don't have to, once I talk about principles of justice. Libertarianism is about principles of justice. I don't have to know personally how stupid, evil and despicable actual American racists are, and how nice and lovely American black people are, once the principles of justice tell me that all people have equal rights.

    All people having equal rights is, by the way, a liberal principle (European tradition), which is incompatible with any state support for whatever minorities.
     
  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    It has nothing to do with probability. It is physically impossible to cover the landscape of a State with racist gated communities without doing harm to the maligned race by coercion and violence. It's inherent in the physical situation - limited resources, two dimensional planetary surface, etc.
    That was attempted, in the US. It required massive and intrusive Federal government intervention (beginning with full scale war) to even attempt, and it didn't work - partly because the level of governmental intrusion necessary to regulate people's behavior in that detail is onerous and itself contrary to the prescriptions of liberty. Nobody in America wants to live in a totalitarian State.
    The point is to prevent those despicable whites from doing harm to their neighbors, as much as possible. Allowing them to use their control of the community resources - the commons - to oppress and injure people would be wrong, correct?
    Yes, you do. Otherwise, you post nonsense about "possibility" that does not exist - and, btw, undermine the credibility of your principles: how great can they be if they lead someone to post ignorance at the level you exhibit in this matter?
    In American liberalism, it is not incompatible - from experience having corrected a naive theory, we know that equal rights for all people requires government support in the self defense of the vulnerable under concerted assault.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2016
  15. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    ...or truthful content.
     
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    Hmm....it kind of brings to mind old Forrest Gump's famous words, "stupid is as stupid does". Aside from getting everything wrong as you are wont to do, you put very little effort into learning. Instead, you just mindlessly repeat the right wing partisan drivel you pick up from Republican entertainers.

    What you are doing here is scapegoating "liberals", i.e. anyone who doesn't mindlessly buy into right wing extremism, as divisive. Your post is in and of itself evidence of the right wing divisiveness you are trying to pin on "liberals", e.g. "cut the head off the liberal snake". You don't even see the contradictions in your own post much less the fictions.

    Unfortunately for you and your fellow right wing extremists, not everyone is a dittohead. Some people are informed. Some people can think. We have seen a lot of right wing divisiveness over the years culminating in the body of one Donald J. Trump. Until this election cycle, I had never before seen the presidential candidate of a major American party receive Nazi salutes, e.g. Trump. When fascist parties, like the Nazi Party, are on your side, the Republican side, as they are now, that should cause you some concern. But it doesn't. Instead, you continue to post all this false and misleading crap. Instead, you should be wondering why you and the Nazi Party are sharing a bed and have been sharing that bed for the last year and a half.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2016
  17. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    Sorry, but this is nonsense. A gated community is typically (as explained) some sufficiently small area. To live in such pure white areas is interesting only to racists, and not all whites are racists (if you think different, this is your problem). So, there is no necessity to cover the whole landscape. A topological problem appears only if you have enclaves with black people encircled completely by white only regions. There is no necessity for such a construction. Then, anyway many towns and villages have today ring roads around them, so the village itself can be gated as a whole without disturbing traffic. Moreover, a sundown town allows to travel through it during daylight, not? So even in this extremal case of an enclave the blacks would not be imprisoned in their enclave.

    Again, that X is not allowed to go inside A is, of course, some harm for X, but this is usual harm accepted for private property. Gated communities are of sizes typical for many pieces of private property, like factories.

    Sorry, this makes no sense to me. To forbid the use of violence is impossible because it requires some totalitarian state, but to forbid gated communities is unproblematic?
    For libertarians, commons make no sense. They are owned by somebody. This somebody may be the commune. Once the commune is ruled in a democratic way, the majority decides how these commons are used. Democracy is, by definition, an evil society where it is fine if the majority decides, and that majority does not have to care if that harms some minority, so, no, for a democrat this cannot be wrong, it is democracy in action. If you reject democracy, fine, as a libertarian I'm on your side.

    Some "you are stupid" nonsense disposed.
    So American liberalism has nothing to do with the original liberalism, except that it misuses the same popular name for something completely different. All are equal, and some are more equal.

    Or you have a liberal state, with all people having equal rights, or you have a feudalist or apartheid state, with some people having more rights than others. Your choice.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    You have no idea what a landscape dominated by thousands of such communities is like, and your theory is inadequate for dealing with that situation.

    We who live in America have experience living in a landscape covered by voluntarily segregated racist white communities. I am informing you of the physical facts of this situation, and pointing to the modifications these physical realities make necessary in your theory, so that you can make them.
    It is inevitable, and in the US very common. Also: The "topological problem" begins long before complete encirclement - it starts with the best land, the water resources and supply, the routing of railways and roads and airports and electrical power and sewer systems, the locations of schools and hospitals, and so forth.
    It's not unproblematic, merely a reasonable way to handle the situation. Much more reasonable, if you care about liberty, than the degree of authoritarian imposition necessary otherwise.
    They are "owned" - in the sense of governed, or controlled - by the community involved. So?
    So you don't know how a constitutional democratic republic, like the US, functions. That is not surprising.
    It has much to do with the "original" liberalism (America predates it), but as mentioned earlier European perceptions of American liberalism are likely to be confused by the fact that some liberal principles are traditional in the US - "conservatives" hold them, as well as liberals.

    Meanwhile, the misuse of "liberal" is not by actual liberals in the US, but by authoritarian propagandists - recently, rightwing ones overwhelmingly.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2016
  19. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    Of course, if one lives in a landscape where most of the people hate you, this is quite uncomfortable. Such is life. This is what one has to expect if one decides to live in such a place. There is a simple solution for this problem: To move to another place.

    Feel free to inform me about other facts. Up to now you have not presented any facts which would make modifications of libertarian theory necessary.
    What is reasonable is to require that there is a possibility to travel. The "sundown town" model obviously suggests, by its name and explanation, that such a possibility is given - during daylight, you can travel through that town. Such rules, similar to transit through airports in the case of states, allow for travel through a state despite that one is not allowed to enter the state itself. Similarly, travelling with a train would be unproblematic, and if there is a big station where people change trains, this would be reasonably allowed too.

    All the other infrastructure is necessary only for those who live in the given village or town. So, if the gated community is too small for having an own school, their children have to use one outside. What is the problem? Emergency relief is necessary only in cases of emergency. For such exceptional cases one can find solutions.

    Then, as explained, if you don't own the best resources, this is not nice, but otherwise irrelevant.
    Sorry, it makes no sense. You are forbidden to do much more things - to create an otherwise allowed gated community - while violence is forbidden in above cases, but this state of more freedom is more authoritarian? Sorry, this is Orwellian newspeak.
    Nonsense. I was talking about democracy in general, and it has these properties in general: The majority can decide many questions, without caring about the harm it does to minorities. In a constitutional democracy this freedom is slightly restricted by the constitution, but this does not change the point that minorities may be harmed in a lot of constitutional ways. In particular, the majority can tax the minority and distribute the tax to the majority. If this is not harm done to the minority, what is?
    Once American "liberals" openly propose anti-liberal things like the rejection of equal rights for all people, these "liberals" have to be blamed for using a misleading label for themselves.
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    The black people in the US did not decide where to live. That's kind of important. There are millions of them. And their attempts to move to another place, travel and live and work here and there, make a long, dramatic, and worthwhile history for some ignorant European jackass to read up on, in the course of coming up with a "libertarian" political philosophy that makes the beginnings of sense in the real world.
    In the US, the fact that assuring equality of rights requires that persecuted minorities denied those rights by their neighbors be protected by their government cannot be ignored. We had slavery in this country - it's basic economic structure was at least partly maintained by force of law until less than fifty years ago, and by violence-backed custom since. American liberals have always lived in country structured by slavery and its social support, and have direct experience with the issues involved - European liberals can learn from them.
    The restriction is not "slight", in the US. It's a very big deal.
     
  21. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    Your problem is that this interesting history is quite irrelevant for the general political philosophy. Such general political philosophies propose universal principles. If they are meaningful in the real world, as universal principles, is usually discussed by inventing artificial extremal situations. Which are much more extremal than what happens in the real world. If the principles make sense even in such extremal, theoretical situations, they are acceptable as general principles.
    In a society with equal rights, not only that persecuted minority deserves protection by the government, but all people. And protection of equal rights.

    If not, you have another apartheid state. One may think that such a reversal of apartheid, or reversed slavery or so, is somehow justified, "historical justice" or so. But this is certainly not a liberal society.
    Feel free to think it is a very big deal. I look at the US prison system, and at various laws, which allow to imprison people for very long time, if not forever, and this tells me that the protections given by the US constitution are not really a big deal.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    It's not history, you jackass. It's current reality. Your "universal principles" are in conflict with the physical facts of reality. If you want to apply them in the real world, you have to make the necessary changes.
    So you still haven't bothered to inform yourself about US politics. No problem - you probably can't dig out of this hole you've posted yourself into anyway.
    Yes. And since in physical reality the persecuted minority's rights are being specifically and immediately threatened, a liberal government would of course address that immediate threat, specifically. Protecting the rights of those whose rights are in fact threatened would be an obvious aspect of protecting everyone's equal rights. Otherwise you're not protecting anyone's rights - see how that works?
     
  23. wellwisher Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,160
    One artifact of liberalism are words games are often used to confuse realty and slant the playing field. For example, liberalism confuses the concepts of rights and entitlements, often calling entitlements, rights, while trying to limit rights, but treating these as entitlements. Rights apply to all, while entitlements only apply to select subgroups. These entitled groups usually vote Democrat.

    As an example of the contrast, consider the right to bear arms; own guns, and the right to have an abortion. The right to bear arms is a classic example of a right. It applies equally to all; men, women, children with adult supervision, black ,white, gay, etc, can all own guns. As a right, the individual has a choice and has to provide for themselves; pursuit of happiness. For example, if a poor person wanted shotgun, but cannot afford one, they can't expect the government to buy guns for them, even if there is a right to own guns. This would make it an entitlement. Rights are connected to freedom and self reliance.

    Abortion is not a right, because it does not apply to all, since men have no say. Also, women are not all required to provide for their own, like the right to own a gun. If government resources are diverted, to pay for a group, this is an entitlement. If Planned Parenthood is defunded, this does not alter the right to have an abortion. Doctors can still perform abortions and women can still legally find these doctors. Women would be placed in the same position as those who practice the right to bear arms. They will lose the entitlement, but not the right.

    The reason an entitlement is not a right is an entitlement creates extra expenses for others, via higher taxes. As such, it limits the rights of other citizens to pursue their own happiness. The work around is the right to have an abortion, becomes connected to a charity. An abortion charity, where liberals donate, provides money, while making Liberals happy who give; right to pursue happiness. It becomes like the parent who buys a gun for their child, who can't afford one but is mature enough to have one. That father uses charity and does not place hardship on his neighbors through a group tax.

    Many liberals groups are upset about the prospect of President Trump. They chant their fear at a loss of rights. Trump will not take away rights, but he might limit entitlements, so what is left are only the rights. Criminal rights are not rights but entitlements. Criminals should not cost the tax payer huge sums of tax payer money to maintain. Criminals may need to earn their own way, or be funded by liberal charities.
     

Share This Page