Rich wrote:I have spoken to my representative on two occasions. I'm considering going to speak to the new MP shortly. Its completely untrue in Britain at least that you have to rich to get to speak to your representative.
That's true enough, and I was low balling for new members that didn't want a wall of text yet—but to go on with the point in general, do you
really think that your opinion is as important to the representative as the opinion of the UK director of BP?
When you honestly think about it, I don't see how one could say it is true. Is your freedom of expression as free as Rupert Murcoch's? I would dare say that he can express himself in a far more clear and open manner than you can. Is the freedom to lower production costs in your factory the same for you as for a factory owner?
In these, and really any, form of abstract freedom a liberal regime provides, the wealthy actually can exercise that freedom. The poor get the assurance that they could if they were theoretically in another class.
Rich wrote:The Bolsheviks on the on the other hand really were a dictatorship. Every form of independent working class organisation was ruthlessly smashed.
Actually, the Bolshevik Party was notoriously pro-working class organizations. What you're referring to would have happened under the Communist Party post Lenin. Remember,
Lenin argued that unions were needed to keep the government, which was not a workers' government, in check. The theory of Socialism in One Country, later, is what damned the policy.
And anyway, is there a liberal country that didn't destroy every independent working class organization that they had?
In the United States and UK, all over the western world, the solution to workers asking for a union was to send the police and then the military out to crush them.
Rich wrote:When the workers of Kronstadt ,the vanguard of the 1917 revolution, rose up to ask for free elections, Trotsky boasted that "We shot them down like partridges." The whole Russian empire was turned into one giant slave labour camp.
Yes, you love to use this argument and then slither away from the thread when it falls apart.
1.
Trotsky was not even at the Kronstadt rebellion, nor was he in charge of the Red Army at the time.
2. The workers of Kronstadt from the 1917 revolution
were not there in 1921 (
here if you want a secondary source).
More than that, you're a smart guy. Let's say that you founded a new state. Now let's say that there's a civil war. Let's throw on that almost every other major country is also simultaneously invading you.
Would you really take your best, most loyal troops and put them on the far end of the board where there was no trouble to sit for half a decade? Or would you use those troops where needed and replace the far end of the board where there is no trouble with your less dependable troops?
The facts, and basic logic, are clear enough. The people rebelling against the Bolsheviks in 1921 were not the Bolsheviks in 1917.
southwest88 wrote:If a dictatorship is government by force - @ bayonet point, for instance; then no, liberalism - concerned about the process as well as the content of government - can't be a dictatorship. The USSR, Communist China, Cuba & other similar governments are not liberal. They are dictatorships - where the government (or better still, the party) arrogate to themselves all legitimate power & force of arms. Any power or force outside their purview is defined as illegitimate.
But we both know that I could find a dozen instances where the US, UK, France, or whatever, had a government that used force. Which would mean that, in your theory, there is no such thing as liberalism.
Iron Ant wrote:Let me see...
You can't disagree with a liberal in any way or get called a hater and a bigot.
You can't say no to them.
They will not let you defend yourself.
They have no sense of innocent until proven guilty or benefit of the doubt.
The only thing liberals care about is money and power.
They never hold themselves to the same standards they demand everybody else.
They are an ends justify the means people. It's okay to hurt people to correct their behavior to liberal ideology through shaming, smearing, and blaming.
Yep.
They do not value freedom of speech nor the constiution, nor can they understand that the constitution was meant to limit government power.
They want an all powerful all seeing government to take care of everybody.
Yep. I'd call that a dictatorship.
Of course, I want to underline, that in the context many of us are using conservatives are liberals too. We're using the actual (not political, which in some contexts is still acceptable) definition of liberalism:
Britannica wrote:Liberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others; but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty...
...Their [economic] advice to government was “laissez faire, laissez passer” (“let it be, leave it alone”). This laissez-faire doctrine found its most thorough and influential exposition in The Wealth of Nations (1776), by the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith. Free trade benefits all parties, according to Smith, because competition leads to the production of more and better goods at lower prices. Leaving individuals free to pursue their self-interest in an exchange economy based upon a division of labour will necessarily enhance the welfare of the group as a whole. The self-seeking individual becomes harnessed to the public good because in an exchange economy he must serve others in order to serve himself. But it is only in a genuinely free market that this positive consequence is possible; any other arrangement, whether state control or monopoly, must lead to regimentation, exploitation, and economic stagnation.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!