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Well said: "In my world there's always a place for you; you can disagree with me; you can even insult me; I will not fire back because that is your freedom of
by chernevik 5y ago
Well said:
"In my world there's always a place for you; you can disagree with me; you can even insult me; I will not fire back because that is your freedom of expression, however
In your world there's no place for me; you want to eliminate me and even my family from the world just because I disagree with your government or your ideology; this is puzzling isn't it?"
- kizer 5y agoBeautiful and the essence of a liberal mind
- zymhan 5y agoNow that is an evergreen quote.
- lucb1e 5y agoFeels the same to me, makes me wonder who'd ever disagree with it. Does the person this was written in response to really feel like it is false and that people should not be allowed to exist if they think certain things?
- BoxOfRain 5y agoBeautifully put, what an excellent way to demonstrate what seperates the authoritarian mindset from the liberal mindset.
- avgcorrection 5y ago[flagged]
- dnautics 5y agoand also China invaded Vietnam after the US did. Everyone is a piece of shit.
- avgcorrection 5y agoWhich was my point.
- dnautics 5y agoWhy are you comparing universities to states?
- avgcorrection 5y agoI am?
- dnautics 5y agoyes, you are.
- avgcorrection 5y agoI don’t think that I am. My flagged reply was to a comment about the difference between the “liberal” and the “authoritarian” mindset. Some university has not invaded any country. In fact it hasn’t even done anything wrong—it has just condemned political persecution, which is just admirable if anything. Could a reply to some statement like “the X mindset” be about ideologies in general and not directly about what we just read in the linked article? Several replies from the top of the thread? No. Surely not.
- dnautics 5y agowell, at least it seems like you understand why people flagged your comment in the first place. Maybe in the future don't bring up unnecessary generalizations that muddy the discussion?
- avgcorrection 5y agoYes sir, I have learned my lesson. Not really haha. I have no problem replying to a generalization—and “the liberal and authorian mindset” are definitely generalizations! People flagged my comment because they are attached to the “liberal mindset”. That much is obvious.
- ddoolin 5y agoWhat's your point? That doesn't exclude US Americans from offering criticism. We are not all one entity, there's ~300M of us. Many of us had nothing to do with Vietnam and I can damn near guarantee wouldn't repeat that decision today.
- avgcorrection 5y ago> That doesn't exclude US Americans from offering criticism. I wasn’t replying to the criticism. I was replying to the comparison to the “liberal mindset”. If liberal democracies hadn’t invaded countries in order to stop the spread of ideas then the comment would have been fine.
- CamperBob2 5y agoWhile flawed in practice, I think the so-called "domino theory" had some valid roots in the so-called Paradox of Tolerance. It's hard to dispute one historical aspect of communism in particular, namely that it cannot tolerate competing ideologies. The only way to implement communism is through the use of force; it's not something free people will adopt voluntarily. I may think of myself as a tolerant person, but if you have to stick a gun in my back to make me practice your ideology -- which you do -- why should I be required to tolerate that? It can be argued that it's a moral responsibility to stop the spread of such a pathological system of thought by any means necessary, just as if we were fighting an infectious disease. I won't go that far personally, but others in America did, and the wars in Korea and Viet Nam were the result. Not so much an apology as an (admittedly oversimplified) explanation.
- avgcorrection 5y agoNice abuse of Popper’s phrase. Of course you have just hoisted yourself on your own petard: it’s hard to dispute that American capitalism cannot tolerate competing ideologies, evidenced by (e.g.) The Vietnam War and Korean War. But now I am just repeating my original comment. You also have another glaring problem to address: it is very easy and simple to tolerate the kind of socialism/communism where an independent nation state wants to use it’s own national resources instead of opening it up to foreign private interests. No one is harmed by that.[1] I guess the CIA just had a very eccentric interpretation of Popper. [1] Unless you want to get real Red Scare and concoct some crazy theory about how those small nation states are really puppets of the Soviet Union who will use those resources to eventually nuke the Free World… and therefore War is Peace, Paradox of Tolerance and all that.
- iszomer 5y agoWhat a strange parallel to draw when it comes to the actions of the current Democrats and Republicans in our House and Senate along with the current presidency and adminstration.
- drak0n1c 5y agoIt's pretty clear that in the context of the comment the usage of small-l liberal was referring to the classical ideal, not the homonym label misused in contemporary American politics.
- iszomer 5y agoI meant to mention that, thanks for clarifying.
- userbinator 5y agoPerhaps libertarian would be a closer match.
- lou1306 5y agoThis reminds me of a bit of trivia from Italian politics. A few years after WWII, a senator from the main post-Fascist party greeted a fellow senator from the Socialist party (who had fought for the Resistance), saying: "We fought gallantly on opposite sides, now we can shake hands". The other replied: "Yeah, then we won so you could become a senator. If you had won, I'd still be a prisoner".
- steve76 5y ago[dead]
- chmod600 5y agoDoes that mean freedom is self-defeating? It comes down to a simple formula: are people learning and appreciating freedom faster than it's being diluted by people who are ignorant or disdainful of freedom? There's no fundamental reason one rate must remain above the other. Education, immigration trends, business, and culture all play a part. But once the anti-freedom are greater in number than the pro-freedom, then freedom democratically self-destructs. Non-free governments don't have this problem, because they aren't democracies. In other words, losing freedom can be peaceful and even consistent with the principles of freedom (you're free to give up your freedom). But getting freedom requires some non-free (or at least non-democratic) things to happen.
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoI believe the answer is 'yes' and it's also true for most 'noble' causes. Analogous to this quote from George Bernard Shaw: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man ."
- paxys 5y agoYes, it is. We all like to believe in ideals like turn the other cheek, take the high road, welcome opposing views no matter how extreme etc. Looking back through human history though, the only way to combat intolerance has been to be intolerant yourself. Freedoms need to be defended, sometimes with blood. Look at WW2 for example. Appeasement didn't go very far, direct action did.
- lelandfe 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- imgabe 5y agoFreedom is never absolute. You can respect other people's freedom to disagree with you, but not their freedom to kill you. You can choose to only stop them from the latter, but not the former.
- userbinator 5y ago"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."