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I blame the broken ass left/right political spectrum that's so popular in the U.S. Liberal != Leftist And neither a leftist nor a liberal has to answer for Co

I blame the broken ass left/right political spectrum that's so popular in the U.S. Liberal != Leftist And neither a leftist nor a liberal has to answer for Communist China. Nor do you gain any special "objectivity" about China by being either one.

AmericanChopper 3y ago
The left/right view of the political spectrum doesn’t accurately characterise politics anywhere. Almost every political party in western democracies are “liberal” in the classical sense. The only generalisation I think reliably separates left/right is the level of government intervention, in both economic and social issues, that they ideologically support. But I don’t think that translates very well into the level of intervention they end up implementing. That also doesn’t really relate very well to the actual core ideas of liberalism or conservatism. But that’s messed up everywhere. It’s only that most of the world generally pays attention to US politics.
- CuriousSkeptic 3y ago
  > Almost every political party in western democracies are “liberal” in the classical sense. There is an interesting case made[1] that while this used to be true, it is actually not the case any more and that things are starting to become rather anti-liberal on both sides of the political spectrum. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102146148-what-s-our-problem https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102146148-what-s-our-pro...
  - AmericanChopper 3y ago
    I’m not sure I buy that argument. When I was a kid I remember we had the PMRC, panic over violence in video games, and endless debates over a different flavour of “political correctness”. They purveyors of moral panic has a different cast today (on both sides of the political spectrum), but I don’t really buy into this “everything is worse than it used to be” idea. I guess government encroachment on civil liberties tends to only head in one direction, but I’m not sure that’s the topic of the book?
    - DubiousPusher 3y ago
      I think the biggest change is that a lot of people just came out of an era where there was a national media narrative that was highly agreed upon and very New England, classically "liberal". Except around sex and drugs of course. This narrative dominated TV, print and to a lesser extent radio. It really created the notion in people's heads that this narrow band was really what people thought about. What people are reacting to in large part is the newly visible presence of alternative perspectives. They were always there. They were just strategically locked out by people who decided what was "fringe". Basically anything that didn't support institutions was ignored or disparaged. Waco and Cuba are two prime examples. Waco was written off in the national media because the people in the compound were so "weird". And for years the national media has underwritten the American foreign policy blob's almost neurotic fixation with Cuba.
    - CuriousSkeptic 3y ago
      The argument put forward in the book is that the extreme polarisation is in fact quite new, and that it has lead to a situation where extreme, anti-liberal ideologies, has been given more room to act within their respective communities and been given power to punish non-believers into submission and suppress free speech. Creating a form of vicious spiral. A quote from the page I was just reading: > “When Speech First brought a lawsuit against Michigan, alleging that their bias response teams were unconstitutional and “flagrantly violate the First Amendment,” the court agreed, ruling against the school. As of 2022, 456 U.S. colleges⬥ have bias response teams (almost double the 2017 total of 232),49 and very few have been subject to investigations like the one at Michigan.” Excerpt From What's Our Problem? Tim Urban https://books.apple.com/se/book/whats-our-problem/id6445642236?l=en https://books.apple.com/se/book/whats-our-problem/id64456422... This material may be protected by copyright.
  - whitemary 3y ago
    The term for this is "neoliberal." Classical liberalism birthed the Gilded Age and the series of economic failures that gave rise to communism and WW2. Neoliberalism encompasses a series of ongoing experiments with micromanaging economic tendencies. It will most likely die an even worse death than classical liberalism.
- whitemary 3y ago
  > Almost every political party in western democracies are “liberal” in the classical sense. Wrong. They are neoliberal, not classically liberal. Classical liberalism (belief in naturalistic free market economics) failed in the 20th century and neoliberalism took its place, characterized by top-down micromanagement of economic ecosystem. In other words, classical liberalism insists markets will thrive only when left to their own devices. Neoliberalism insists markets will thrive only when managed by competent administrators (see Federal Reserve).

AmericanChopper 3y ago

The left/right view of the political spectrum doesn’t accurately characterise politics anywhere. Almost every political party in western democracies are “liberal” in the classical sense. The only generalisation I think reliably separates left/right is the level of government intervention, in both economic and social issues, that they ideologically support. But I don’t think that translates very well into the level of intervention they end up implementing. That also doesn’t really relate very well to the actual core ideas of liberalism or conservatism. But that’s messed up everywhere. It’s only that most of the world generally pays attention to US politics.

CuriousSkeptic 3y ago
> Almost every political party in western democracies are “liberal” in the classical sense. There is an interesting case made[1] that while this used to be true, it is actually not the case any more and that things are starting to become rather anti-liberal on both sides of the political spectrum. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102146148-what-s-our-problem https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/102146148-what-s-our-pro...
- AmericanChopper 3y ago
  I’m not sure I buy that argument. When I was a kid I remember we had the PMRC, panic over violence in video games, and endless debates over a different flavour of “political correctness”. They purveyors of moral panic has a different cast today (on both sides of the political spectrum), but I don’t really buy into this “everything is worse than it used to be” idea. I guess government encroachment on civil liberties tends to only head in one direction, but I’m not sure that’s the topic of the book?
  - DubiousPusher 3y ago
    I think the biggest change is that a lot of people just came out of an era where there was a national media narrative that was highly agreed upon and very New England, classically "liberal". Except around sex and drugs of course. This narrative dominated TV, print and to a lesser extent radio. It really created the notion in people's heads that this narrow band was really what people thought about. What people are reacting to in large part is the newly visible presence of alternative perspectives. They were always there. They were just strategically locked out by people who decided what was "fringe". Basically anything that didn't support institutions was ignored or disparaged. Waco and Cuba are two prime examples. Waco was written off in the national media because the people in the compound were so "weird". And for years the national media has underwritten the American foreign policy blob's almost neurotic fixation with Cuba.
  - CuriousSkeptic 3y ago
    The argument put forward in the book is that the extreme polarisation is in fact quite new, and that it has lead to a situation where extreme, anti-liberal ideologies, has been given more room to act within their respective communities and been given power to punish non-believers into submission and suppress free speech. Creating a form of vicious spiral. A quote from the page I was just reading: > “When Speech First brought a lawsuit against Michigan, alleging that their bias response teams were unconstitutional and “flagrantly violate the First Amendment,” the court agreed, ruling against the school. As of 2022, 456 U.S. colleges⬥ have bias response teams (almost double the 2017 total of 232),49 and very few have been subject to investigations like the one at Michigan.” Excerpt From What's Our Problem? Tim Urban https://books.apple.com/se/book/whats-our-problem/id6445642236?l=en https://books.apple.com/se/book/whats-our-problem/id64456422... This material may be protected by copyright.
- whitemary 3y ago
  The term for this is "neoliberal." Classical liberalism birthed the Gilded Age and the series of economic failures that gave rise to communism and WW2. Neoliberalism encompasses a series of ongoing experiments with micromanaging economic tendencies. It will most likely die an even worse death than classical liberalism.
whitemary 3y ago
> Almost every political party in western democracies are “liberal” in the classical sense. Wrong. They are neoliberal, not classically liberal. Classical liberalism (belief in naturalistic free market economics) failed in the 20th century and neoliberalism took its place, characterized by top-down micromanagement of economic ecosystem. In other words, classical liberalism insists markets will thrive only when left to their own devices. Neoliberalism insists markets will thrive only when managed by competent administrators (see Federal Reserve).