Are the ‘Liberals’ of Today Really Liberals?
Posted by freedomforall 3 days, 13 hours ago to Philosophy
Excerpt:
"Until recently, I had not come across anyone questioning the meaning of ‘liberal,’ until I listened to Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin’s interview with Alex Jones, where the Russian reminds us that ‘We are dealing with a new kind of totalitarianism – A liberal totalitarianism!’ It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it, especially in light of the initial elaboration on the meaning of ‘liberal,’ above? At the same time, it displays the complexity of the term insofar as the events alluded to above have shown in no uncertain terms that those who still – incongruously – claim the epithet ‘liberal’ for themselves today, have increasingly shown, through their words and deeds, that they are, in fact, totalitarian neo-fascists. Can they be both? "
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Regular posters here in the Gulch have understood this for years if not decades.
Neither political party protects individual liberty as a so-called 'liberal' should.
"Until recently, I had not come across anyone questioning the meaning of ‘liberal,’ until I listened to Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin’s interview with Alex Jones, where the Russian reminds us that ‘We are dealing with a new kind of totalitarianism – A liberal totalitarianism!’ It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it, especially in light of the initial elaboration on the meaning of ‘liberal,’ above? At the same time, it displays the complexity of the term insofar as the events alluded to above have shown in no uncertain terms that those who still – incongruously – claim the epithet ‘liberal’ for themselves today, have increasingly shown, through their words and deeds, that they are, in fact, totalitarian neo-fascists. Can they be both? "
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Regular posters here in the Gulch have understood this for years if not decades.
Neither political party protects individual liberty as a so-called 'liberal' should.
"There is a difference between a country that recognizes the principle of individual rights, but does not implement it fully in practice, and a country that denies and flouts it explicitly. All "mixed economies" are in a precarious state of transition which, ultimately, has to turn to freedom or collapse into dictatorship. There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule – executions without trial or with a mock trial, for political offenses – the nationalization or expropriation of private property – and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw. Observe, on this particular issue, the shameful end-of-trail and the intellectual disintegration of modern 'liberals'."
Notice those four characteristics and how they have crept into our current political reality. The division created by ceding to an all-knowing, all-powerful State undermines the rugged individualism and fundamental principles that our founding fathers expressed in crafting the Constitution. We must never let that slip away. As paraphrased by the eighteenth-century statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke,
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
"The liberals will defeat the conservatives; the progressives will defeat the liberals; the socialists will defeat the progressives; the communists will defeat the socialists."
As Rand concluded, when the Marxist communists win, total European collectivism will be achieved: the sacrifice of all individuals to the state, resulting in an inevitable authoritarian dictatorship.
To be an enslaved conformist would be much more like it.
Ayn Rand was trying to describe people who think in a (by the old definition) liberal manner, while distancing themselves from he anti-Conservative control freaks that had already come into power 80 years ago. Her buddy Rose Wilder Lane (Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter, in real life!) coined the word "Libertarian" to denote the difference.
Unfortunately, people don't often support those 'liberal' policies.
Instead many support socialist policies.