Liberalism is western democracy/civilization moron.

Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis)[1] is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights.[2] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, and freedom of religion.[3][4][5][6][7] These ideas are widely accepted, even by political groups that do not openly profess a liberal ideological orientation. Liberalism encompasses several intellectual trends and traditions, but the dominant variants are classical liberalism, which became popular in the eighteenth century, and social liberalism, which became popular in the twentieth century.

Liberalism first became a powerful force in the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting several foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as nobility, established religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. The early liberal thinker John Locke, who is often credited for the creation of liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition, employed the concept of natural rights and the social contract to argue that the rule of law should replace absolutism in government, that rulers were subject to the consent of the governed, and that private individuals had a fundamental right to life, liberty, and property.

The revolutionaries in the American Revolution and the French Revolution used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of tyrannical rule. The nineteenth century saw liberal governments established in nations across Europe, Latin America, and North America. Liberal ideas spread even further in the twentieth century, when liberal democracies triumphed in two world wars and survived major ideological challenges from fascism and communism.

Today, liberalism in its many forms remains as a political force to varying degrees of power and influence on all major continents.>> ^quantumushroom:

The real illness in that Orwellian police state is found in the mental weaklings (proles) who called the cops over hateful, offensive speech. If the roles had been reversed and it was a Black person spouting racist rubbish, there would be no arrest or "bobbies" looking for her. It won't be much longer.

>> ^Skeeve:
While her tirade makes me sick, the fact that she was arrested for this makes me even more sick.
Freedom of speech means nothing if you don't have the freedom to offend people. The aim should be to draw the line where it causes harm - whether by inciting violence or by denying someone a job, etc.

The real illness in that Orwellian police state is found in the mental weaklings (proles) who called the cops over hateful, offensive speech. If the roles had been reversed and it was a Black person spouting racist rubbish, there would be no arrest or "bobbies" looking for her. It won't be much longer.


>> ^Skeeve:

While her tirade makes me sick, the fact that she was arrested for this makes me even more sick.
Freedom of speech means nothing if you don't have the freedom to offend people. The aim should be to draw the line where it causes harm - whether by inciting violence or by denying someone a job, etc.

Oh critics say something...well they must be right...make crimes harder to prosecute...yeah must be true. Please present some evidence for your claims.

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-01-29/local/me-25875_1_hate-crime-cases

Also I disagree it's Orwellian unless it's the powerful subjugating the weak with thought crimes. When it's a law for protecting the weak and minorities, I don't agree. Just doesn't make sense unless the scales are balanced.

What's more powerful than government and its badly written, randomly-enforced laws?


----

Here is the simplest way I can think of to describe it. @quantumushroom

Say some teenagers spray paint their names on one side of a Mosque and a neo-nazi group spray paints 'death to all Muslims' on the other side. Is there a difference between these crimes? Is there a difference in intent? Absolutely. The teenagers have committed vandalism. The neo-nazis have committed both vandalism and a targeted act of terrorism against a group of people.

Attacking someone because of their sexual orientation is both battery and a calculated act of terrorism against a group of people.

You don't have to agree with it, but do you at least get the distinction?

I'm aware of the difference, however, if someone hands out flyers and holds a sign saying "Exterminate all left-handed albinos", that is protected speech. What the 'hate crime' lobby is saying is, if the same individual spray paints this message on a wall that is not his property, he is to be punished both for vandalism AND the message; the latter would then be punishment of thoughtcrime.

---

The idea is that the crime is politically motivated. It is their status within society that is being targeted not themselves as individuals. What makes it a hate crime is the likelihood of it triggering others to do the same in a way that a non-politically motivated instance of crime would not.

You are smart enough to know this already QM.

Per my previous excellent examples, we can only make assumptions as to the intent of a criminal. Do you seriously think some violent teenaged punk targeting a weaker target has political motivations? How do you prove it? You cannot. A much more plausible but equally unknowable motive is that this school does not swiftly punish offenders for committing acts of violence.


Changing tracks slightly, this video is also an excellent example of how you cannot expect government to save your bacon and watch over you all the time. Every feminine-acting boy--indeed, every picked-on youth--must decide for himself at some point, though he may not like training, whether it would be worthwhile to learn rudimentary boxing or martial arts, or at the very least, how to take a punch. Krav maga on youtube: 25K videos.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Orwellian "hate crimes" are total bullsh1te. Does it matter why some thug attacks an innocent? Maybe he hated the logo on the victim's jacket. Maybe earlier he saw the victim had a large amount of cash and attacked him to steal it under the guise of bullying. Not only are hate crimes unconstitutional, as critics point out, they make crimes harder to prosecute.
Punish the crime, not what is the assumed motive.


Oh critics say something...well they must be right...make crimes harder to prosecute...yeah must be true. Please present some evidence for your claims.

Also I disagree it's Orwellian unless it's the powerful subjugating the weak with thought crimes. When it's a law for protecting the weak and minorities, I don't agree. Just doesn't make sense unless the scales are balanced.

Orwellian "hate crimes" are total bullsh1te. Does it matter why some thug attacks an innocent? Maybe he hated the logo on the victim's jacket. Maybe earlier he saw the victim had a large amount of cash and attacked him to steal it under the guise of bullying. Not only are hate crimes unconstitutional, as critics point out, they make crimes harder to prosecute.

Punish the crime, not what is the assumed motive.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^marbles:
Title is incorrect. The independent journalist interviewed says the mainstream media is pushing NATO propaganda.
"Claims of rebel advances dismissed as misinformation by eyewitnesses" = Gaddafi is ready to die in Tripolis / The rebels win!
Orwellian doublespeak at it's finest.
Edit: video content deserves up vote even though the title is inaccurate.

I'm afraid I have bad news for you marbles. The great and beloved leader of the Libyan people truly has been overthrown by the Imperialistic puppets that western propaganda has labelled the Libyan opposition/rebels. It's a sad day for freedom hating people the world over.


You sound like George Bush. I guess you think we liberated Iraq too.

Title is incorrect. The independent journalist interviewed says the mainstream media is pushing NATO propaganda.

"Claims of rebel advances dismissed as misinformation by eyewitnesses" = Gaddafi is ready to die in Tripolis / The rebels win!

Orwellian doublespeak at it's finest.

Edit: video content deserves up vote even though the title is inaccurate.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^blankfist:
Oh, I get it. Krugman says something Orwellian and now we're all the wingnuts.

Who else would be paranoid enough to think it's something anyone would actually try, and not just a silly, nerdy way to make a point?

No one thinks Krugman is entertaining this idea seriously. It's that he thinks it would be a good idea to manufacture a catastrophe with potentially huge life-loss that makes us wonder why people like you think he's the best thing since sliced bread.

Why would an entirely hypothetical, fake alien invasion lead to life-loss?
Like I said, it's a silly, nerdy way to make a point. Why are you pretending it's something worth getting even slightly upset about?
Is it any worse than Perry talking about Texans roughing up Ben Bernanke or accusing him of treason for doing the job the previous Governor of Texas appointed him to do?


Krugman thinks wars are excellent ways to stimulate the economy (even jovially alludes to it with his comment about WWII). The bigger the war, the bigger the stimulus. He's kidding about aliens invading, but follow his logic here. What's bigger than a war against another nation? Answer: a war against another planet.

Krugman doesn't care about the casualties, it's about the numbers. To him war is good because it creates jobs and stimulates the economy. Peace is bad.

This is why Keynesian economics is such bullshit.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^blankfist:
Oh, I get it. Krugman says something Orwellian and now we're all the wingnuts.

Who else would be paranoid enough to think it's something anyone would actually try, and not just a silly, nerdy way to make a point?

No one thinks Krugman is entertaining this idea seriously. It's that he thinks it would be a good idea to manufacture a catastrophe with potentially huge life-loss that makes us wonder why people like you think he's the best thing since sliced bread.


Why would an entirely hypothetical, fake alien invasion lead to life-loss?

Like I said, it's a silly, nerdy way to make a point. Why are you pretending it's something worth getting even slightly upset about?

Is it any worse than Perry talking about Texans roughing up Ben Bernanke or accusing him of treason for doing the job the previous Governor of Texas appointed him to do?

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
Oh, I get it. Krugman says something Orwellian and now we're all the wingnuts.

Who else would be paranoid enough to think it's something anyone would actually try, and not just a silly, nerdy way to make a point?


No one thinks Krugman is entertaining this idea seriously. It's that he thinks it would be a good idea to manufacture a catastrophe with potentially huge life-loss that makes us wonder why people like you think he's the best thing since sliced bread.

>> ^blankfist:

Oh, I get it. Krugman says something Orwellian and now we're all the wingnuts.


Who else would be paranoid enough to think it's something anyone would actually try, and not just a silly, nerdy way to make a point?

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^hpqp:
Ha, this is the first thing I thought of as well.
>> ^blankfist:
Krugman is Ozymandias from Watchmen. A central planner.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/08/15/watchmen-paul-krugman-a
lien-invasion/
[thanks to @gwiz665 for the link]


That's actually the whole reason I sifted this clip.
I didn't really expect people to come and talk about the actual economics, I expected people to blather on about Ozzy and Watchmen and the NWO and Agenda 21 and the NAFTA Superhighway...


Oh, I get it. Krugman says something Orwellian and now we're all the wingnuts.

>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^VoodooV:
The sooner we abolish parties, the better. Party politics is what got us here.

How exactly would you do that?
You'd pretty much have to take away people's right to freely assemble, or forbid politicians from saying what they think about the issues before they're elected...

Uhh...no, not quite taking it that far. Not interested in slashing the Bill of Rights. There will always be unofficial groups and coalitions and there will be nothing you can do to stop that, nor should you. But what we can do is just refuse to recognize people as Reps or Dems, we can abolish any sort of official backing. Disband the RNC and the DNC. Simply refuse to give it legitimacy. When the state of the union happens, refuse to give a "opposition party rebuttal" At the very least! abolish this whole "reps sit on one side of the aisle, dems sit on the other side" nonsense. There is nothing wrong with people getting together, but the gov't doesn't have to recognize it and give it legitimacy so that the party eclipses the person as it is now.
The founders were definitely wary of parties and rightfully so. I don't see any problem with a concerted effort to at the VERY LEAST, discourage parties. We're seeing first hand the damage that can be done when party comes before country.
That and make all elections publicly funded..period. You'd see some drastic changes for the better


I guess my point is you're not being realistic about the dynamic at work. What's that going to cure? Are blankfist and I going to accidentally start voting for the same candidates? Probably not. Will liberals and conservatives generally refuse to organize into voting blocs to maximize their influence? Definitely not.

More to the point, what mechanism would prevent unofficial voting blocs from forming in the House and Senate? Once they form, are we really making things better by forcing them to pretend they don't exist? By refusing to let people come up with some shorthand word for them like Democrat or Republican (or Green, Monster Raving Looney, etc.)? By refusing to give TV air time to someone who wants to rebut the President?

It'd be a bit like trying to ban "alliances" in the game of Survivor. You'd have to intervene in almost every conversation to successfully do it, and even then people will still constantly be trying to do it under the radar, because the advantages are just too great. And that's a situation with at most 20 people under the most Orwellian level of surveillance possible...

Publicly funded elections on the other hand are a great idea, but that's wholly different from trying to kill organized parties. Publicly funded elections are about trying to neutralize the effect of money on the electoral process, and that's the real issue, IMO.