Modern liberalism is an intolerant totalitarian ideology

[renard_ruse]

I sort of put it all together today in understanding why exactly I am so bothered by the ideology known as broadly as liberalism.

It is fundamentally an intolerant ideology that does not accept or tolerate any deviation from its idea of what is right and how people are supposed to live. This is of course the exact opposite of what it claims and what, sadly, most people seem to believe it stands for. And just to be clear I'm using liberal in the broad sense, including "classic liberalism" as well as modern left-liberalism / social democracy / etc and much of both center and even right-liberalism (under various names or forms).

I realized that despite what liberals always claim, and that I sometimes might even start to believe myself, I do not I wish "to impose my values and beliefs on others." In fact its the liberal that almost always wishes to deny others the right to deviate from what it believes is best for all.

In particular, I read an article about current hysteria going on in Israel against the Haredi community (often called the "ultra-Orthodox"):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredi-secular_conflict_in_Israel_in_winter_of_2011-2012

While various establishment media articles (both Israeli and foreign western) attempt to made the Haredi out to be the aggressors who are somehow a threat to the way of life of the rest of society, the Wikipedia article is (suprisingly in this case) more balanced. The reality is that a minority of 10% is not a threat to the freedom and liberty of the rest of society, that's just silly. In fact, its quite clear that this is another case where liberal "secularists" wish to eliminate a community which chooses to live differently then they do, via whatever means. Recently, Haredi have come under a demonization campaign from radical "secularists," mainstream media and politicians, and have had social accomodations that already existed taken from them, while simultaneously being labelled the aggressor. This situation, not surprisingly, repeats itself over and over around the "liberal" world when a community that wishes to live differently in more traditional and socially or culturally conservative manner from the modern liberal "norm" exists. The liberal never seems able to simply "live and let live" and leave the other community (almost always a numerical minority) alone to live as it chooses but has to demonize it, claim its a "threat" of some sort (often in some contemporarily politically incorrect way), and then seek to eliminate via whatever necessary means (often simply through belittlement, entertainment based ridicule, etc, though sometimes through more concrete methods). The Haredi in Israel today are just a very good example of the phenomena, but it is a far broader issue and takes many forms with many target groups in different societies (not always religious minorities).

What it comes down primarily is that liberalism, in its ego-maniacal worship of the human individual, is fundamentally intolerant of others who wish to live different in groups or communities. If its an isolated individual living differently the liberal can simply call such person a "crackpot" or "socially maladjusted" or whatever and dismiss him or her. A community of individuals as a group seems to be a threat to the liberal, and must be eliminated or destroyed to maintain totalitarian liberal hold over society.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Then why has it never produced a totalitarian state?

 

[ChinaBandit]

Then why has it never produced a totalitarian state?

Because fortunately there are not enough of them.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Because fortunately there are not enough of them.

Not enough liberals to swing things in America? Where have you been for the past eighty years?

 

[RightField]

Yes, but understanding it is the first step in correcting it.

The New Authoritarianism
A firm hand for a “nation of dodos”
6 January 2012


“I refuse to take ‘No’ for an answer,” said President Obama this week as he claimed new powers for himself in making recess appointments while Congress wasn’t legally in recess. The chief executive’s power grab in naming appointees to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board has been depicted by administration supporters as one forced upon a reluctant Obama by Republican intransigence. But this isn’t the first example of the president’s increasing tendency to govern with executive-branch powers. He has already explained that “where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead and do it ourselves.” On a variety of issues, from immigration to the environment to labor law, that’s just what he’s been doing—and he may try it even more boldly should he win reelection. This “go it alone” philosophy reflects an authoritarian trend emerging on the political left since the conservative triumph in the 2010 elections.

The president and his coterie could have responded to the 2010 elections by conceding the widespread public hostility to excessive government spending and regulation. That’s what the more clued-in Clintonites did after their 1994 midterm defeats. But unlike Clinton, who came from the party’s moderate wing and hailed from the rural South, the highly urban progressive rump that is Obama’s true base of support has little appreciation for suburban or rural Democrats. In fact, some liberals even celebrated the 2010 demise of the Blue Dog and Plains States Democrats, concluding that the purged party could embrace a purer version of the liberal agenda. So instead of appealing to the middle, the White House has pressed ahead with Keynesian spending and a progressive regulatory agenda.

Much of the administration’s approach has to do with a change in the nature of liberal politics. Today’s progressives cannot be viewed primarily as pragmatic Truman- or Clinton-style majoritarians. Rather, they resemble the medieval clerical class. Their goal is governmental control over everything from what sort of climate science is permissible to how we choose to live our lives. Many of today’s progressives can be as dogmatic in their beliefs as the most strident evangelical minister or mullah. Like Al Gore declaring the debate over climate change closed, despite the Climategate e-mails and widespread skepticism, the clerisy takes its beliefs as based on absolute truth. Critics lie beyond the pale.

The problem for the clerisy lies in political reality. The country’s largely suburban and increasingly Southern electorate does not see big government as its friend or wise liberal mandarins as the source of its salvation. This sets up a potential political crisis between those who know what’s good and a presumptively ignorant majority. Obama is burdened, says Joe Klein of Time, by governing a “nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive,” as the title of his story puts it, without the guidance of our president. But if the people are too deluded to cooperate, elements in the progressive tradition have a solution: European-style governance by a largely unelected bureaucratic class.

The tension between self-government and “good” government has existed since the origins of modern liberalism. Thinkers such as Herbert Croly and Randolph Bourne staked a claim to a priestly wisdom far greater than that possessed by the ordinary mortal. As Croly explained, “any increase in centralized power and responsibility . . . is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy. But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition” and the fact that “the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.”

During the first two years of the Obama administration, the progressives persuaded themselves that favorable demographics and the consequences of the George W. Bush years would assure the consent of the electorate. They drew parallels with how growing urbanization and Herbert Hoover’s legacy worked for FDR in the 1930s. But FDR enhanced his majority in his first midterm election in 1934; the current progressive agenda, by contrast, was roundly thrashed in 2010. Obama may compare himself to Roosevelt and even to Lincoln, but the electorate does not appear to share this assessment.

After the 2010 thrashing, progressives seemed uninterested in moderating their agenda. Left-wing standard bearers Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation and Robert Borosage of the Institute for Policy Studies went so far as to argue that Obama should bypass Congress whenever necessary and govern using his executive authority over the government’s regulatory agencies. This autocratic agenda of enhanced executive authority has strong support with people close to White House, such as John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, a left-liberal think tank. “The U.S. Constitution and the laws of our nation grant the president significant authority to make and implement policy,” Podesta has written. “These authorities can be used to ensure positive progress on many of the key issues facing the country.”

Podesta has proposed what amounts to a national, more ideological variant of what in Obama’s home state is known as “The Chicago Way.” Under that system, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune explains, “citizens, even Republicans, are expected to take what big government gives them. If the political boss suggests that you purchase some expensive wrought-iron fence to decorate your corporate headquarters, and the guy selling insurance to the wrought-iron boys is the boss’ little brother, you write the check.” But the American clerisy isn’t merely a bunch of corrupt politicians and bureaucratic lifers, and the United States isn’t one-party Chicago. The clerisy are more like an ideological vanguard, one based largely in academe and the media as well as part of the high-tech community.

Their authoritarian progressivism—at odds with the democratic, pluralistic traditions within liberalism—tends to evoke science, however contested, to justify its authority. The progressives themselves are, in Daniel Bell’s telling phrase, “the priests of the machine.” Their views are fairly uniform and can be seen in “progressive legal theory,” which displaces the seeming plain meaning of the Constitution with constructions derived from the perceived needs of a changing political environment. Belief in affirmative action, environmental justice, health-care reform, and redistribution from the middle class to the poor all find foundation there. More important still is a radical environmental agenda fervently committed to the idea that climate change has a human origin—a kind of secular notion of original sin. But these ideas are not widely shared by most people. The clerisy may see in Obama “reason incarnate,” as George Packer of The New Yorker put it, but the majority of the population remains more concerned about long-term unemployment and a struggling economy than about rising sea levels or the need to maintain racial quotas.

Despite the president’s clear political weaknesses—his job-approval ratings remain below 50 percent—he retains a reasonable shot at reelection. In the coming months, he will likely avoid pushing too hard on such things as overregulating business, particularly on the environmental front, which would undermine the nascent recovery and stir too much opposition from corporate donors. American voters may also be less than enthusiastic about the Republican alternatives topping the ticket. And one should never underestimate the power of even a less-than-popular president. Obama can count on a strong chorus of support from the media and many of the top high-tech firms, which have enjoyed lavish subsidies and government loans for “green” projects.

If Obama does win, 2013 could possibly bring something approaching a constitutional crisis. With the House and perhaps the Senate in Republican hands, Obama’s clerisy may be tempted to use the full range of executive power. The logic for running the country from the executive has been laid out already. Republican control of just the House, argues Chicago congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., has made America ungovernable. Obama, he said during the fight over the debt limit, needed to bypass the Constitution because, as in 1861, the South (in this case, the Southern Republicans) was “in a state of rebellion” against lawful authority. Beverley Perdue, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, concurred: she wanted to have elections suspended for a stretch. (Perdue’s office later insisted this was a joke, but most jokes aren’t told deadpan or punctuated with “I really hope someone can agree with me on that.” Also: Nobody laughed.)

The Left’s growing support for a soft authoritarianism is reminiscent of the 1930s, when many on both right and left looked favorably at either Stalin’s Soviet experiment or its fascist and National Socialist rivals. Tom Friedman of the New York Times recently praised Chinese-style authoritarianism for advancing the green agenda. The “reasonably enlightened group” running China, he asserted, was superior to our messy democracy in such things as subsidizing green industry. Steven Rattner, the investment banker and former Obama car czar, dismisses the problems posed by China’s economic and environmental foibles and declares himself “staunchly optimistic” about the future of that country’s Communist Party dictatorship. And it’s not just the gentry liberals identifying China as their model: labor leader Andy Stern, formerly the president of the Service Employees International Union and a close ally of the White House, celebrates Chinese authoritarianism and says that our capitalistic pluralism is headed for “the trash heap of history.” The Chinese, Stern argues, get things done.

A victorious Obama administration could embrace a soft version of the Chinese model. The mechanisms of control already exist. The bureaucratic apparatus, the array of policy czars and regulatory enforcers commissioned by the executive branch, has grown dramatically under Obama. Their ability to control and prosecute people for violations relating to issues like labor and the environment—once largely the province of states and localities—can be further enhanced. In the post-election environment, the president, using agencies like the EPA, could successfully strangle whole industries—notably the burgeoning oil and natural gas sector—and drag whole regions into recession. The newly announced EPA rules on extremely small levels of mercury and other toxins, for example, will sharply raise electricity rates in much of the country, particularly in the industrial heartland; greenhouse-gas policy, including, perhaps, an administratively imposed “cap and trade,” would greatly impact entrepreneurs and new investors forced to purchase credits from existing polluters. On a host of social issues, the new progressive regime could employ the Justice Department to impose national rulings well out of sync with local sentiments. Expansions of affirmative action, gay rights, and abortion rights could become mandated from Washington even in areas, such as the South, where such views are anathema.

This future can already been seen in fiscally challenged California. The state should be leading a recovery, not lagging behind the rest of the country. But in a place where Obama-style progressives rule without effective opposition, the clerisy has already enacted a score of regulatory mandates that are chasing businesses, particularly in manufacturing, out of the state. It has also passed land-use policies designed to enforce density, in effect eliminating the dream of single-family homes for all but the very rich in much of the state.

A nightmare scenario would be a constitutional crisis pitting a relentless executive power against a disgruntled, alienated opposition lacking strong, intelligent leadership. Over time, the new authoritarians would elicit even more opposition from the “dodos” who make up the majority of Americans residing in the great landmass outside the coastal strips and Chicago. The legacy of the Obama years—once so breathlessly associated with hope and reconciliation—may instead be growing pessimism and polarization.

 

[renard_ruse]

Now re: the Haredi, specifically, the argument is that they wish to "impose their beliefs" on the rest of society but if you look more closely (and beyond the manufactured lies and hysteria) they seem to simply want to preserve and maintain a space for themselves within the society. Its secularists who are going into their neighborhoods and demanding they change, not the other way around so who is the aggressor? Well, they shouldn't have their own neighborhoods the liberal would argue, and that I guess is the crux of the problem. The liberal feels you can deviate from its norms only within your own house (if even there) but never in a public space or as a community. I'm using Haredi as an example but it applies throughout the world to other social communities the liberal wishes to eliminate. They use the knife of "individual freedom" as a way to deny individual freedom to those who aren't "liberal like us." They deny the freedom of association of others who are different. That is why liberalism is actually the antithesis of true freedom and doesn't really believe in freedom at all. Its a totalitarian ideology that pretends to liberate people from totalitarianism. Its could be argued its the most evil ideology ever invented because it isn't even honest about its goals.

 

[KingOrfeo]

TVTropes, having probably about as many contributors from other English-speaking countries as from the U.S., provides an interesting non-U.S.-centric perspective in its Useful Notes page on the American Political System:

Political Parties

The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution with the intent of creating a state free from the influence of Factions (political parties). In this they failed, as parties began forming while the ink was still wet on the parchment, arguing over whether the federal government or individual states should have the greater power. Though parties have less official influence than they do in most countries, they still hold an immense amount of sway in the government, largely due to the funding they can collect for candidates who agree with their policies.

There are two major parties in the US today. The general feeling among Americans about these parties is that one of them is evil, and the other is incompetent. Which is which depends on whom you ask. Neither party is as heavily united ideologically as parties in other countries, although a great deal of common ground exists, and officials known as "party whips" are employed to keep each party's representatives in line.

• The Democratic Party is traditionally viewed as being center-left, although in most Western countries, they would be considered centrist or tepidly social-democratic. Somewhat socially liberal and fiscally left-wing (although they have a small fiscally conservative contingent). Strong in urban areas, the Northeast, and the West Coast, and among minorities and poor-to-middle class voters. They currently hold the presidency, with Barack Obama, and the Senate.

• The Republican Party, or the GOP (Grand Old Party, despite being younger than the Democrats), is the center-right party in American politics. Unified by fiscal conservatism, and a lot (but not all) of them are social conservatives. Strong in rural areas and the South, and among evangelical Protestants and middle class-to-affluent voters. They currently hold the House of Representatives.

These definitions apply to the current time; the Democrats used to be the party of white landowners and former slaveholders in the South, but lost their support — and several legislators — due to the Civil Rights Acts, and Nixon and Reagan both campaigned to disillusioned Southern voters. Conversely, the Democrats picked up African-Americans because they were disillusioned by the Republican "Southern Strategy". The Republicans were established from the remains of the leftist Whig Party, and it used to be even worse— for a good 30-year period, both parties had right and left wings, which ended shortly before World War One.

The distinction on geography is very important. The South tends to be more conservative and less favourable to minorities than the North and West, and the Rocky Mountain states and the Midwest somewhere in the middle, which is a phenomenon that has existed most likely since the nation's inception. So a Maine Republican might be more liberal than a Mississippi Democrat. The historical shift of the parties can be seen very vividly in this context: the (Northern) Republicans under Lincoln "ended slavery", the Civil Rights Act 1964 was nearly unanimously opposed by Southern legislators and supported by the rest, and these days, it's often a (Southern) Republican who will disfavour ethnic minorities. The West tends to be more socially liberal but economically conservative. Once again, these are all generalizations.

It's important to note that the American definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are rather different from how the terms are used in most of the rest of the world. In most societies, a liberal favors letting events take their course unimpeded by government control, while a conservative wants government to maintain the status quo through laws and regulations. In the US, however, these meanings are reversed, particularly on economic matters — it is conservatives (Republicans) who favor small government and the free market, while liberals (Democrats) call for fair markets and consumer protection through regulation. These are huge generalizations, of course.

For social and moral issues, it's more complicated, and generally extremists on both ends tend to favor government policies that enforce their values and restrict (or outright prohibit) behavior they disapprove of, while moderates, who make up the vast majority of the American populace, would rather they all just shut up about it.

 

[ChinaBandit]

Not enough liberals to swing things in America? Where have you been for the past eighty years?

Your orginal question had to do with a totalitarian state, correct?

 

[KingOrfeo]

Your orginal question had to do with a totalitarian state, correct?

Exactly. Why didn't FDR, or LBJ, impose anything approaching totalitarianism when they had Congress behind them?

 

[ChinaBandit]

Exactly. Why didn't FDR, or LBJ, impose anything approaching totalitarianism when they had Congress behind them?

I'm half joking...

Of course, I think liberalism, by it's very essence, is the antithesis to totalitarian values, for lack of a better word.

It's ridiculous, and incredibly stupid, to think it could produce an authoritarian state.

 

[renard_ruse]

For social and moral issues, it's more complicated, and generally extremists on both ends tend to favor government policies that enforce their values and restrict (or outright prohibit) behavior they disapprove of, while moderates, who make up the vast majority of the American populace, would rather they all just shut up about it.

First off, this statement is completely biased as it refers to people as "extremists." Just because you disagree with someone doesn't make them an "extremist." Secondly, there is no evidence that the "vast majority" of Americans are not concerned about the declining moral standards in the country over the past fifty years. Thirdly, the playing field is not equal because the entertainment industry is clearly propagandizing for those who are anti-traditional morals with no real counterweight providing an opposing view to the same extent (notice there is no condemnation of Lindsey Lohan in the same way there is of Tim Tebow as one example).

 

[renard_ruse]

Exactly. Why didn't FDR, or LBJ, impose anything approaching totalitarianism when they had Congress behind them?

The argument I'm making is that we have sleath totalitarianism, we just don't realize it.

 

[ChinaBandit]

What are people's thoughts about the prevelance of CCTV, everywhere?

 

[badbabysitter]

I sort of put it all together today in understanding why exactly I am so bothered by the ideology known as broadly as liberalism.

It is fundamentally an intolerant ideology that does not accept or tolerate any deviation from its idea of what is right and how people are supposed to live. This is of course the exact opposite of what it claims and what, sadly, most people seem to believe it stands for. And just to be clear I'm using liberal in the broad sense, including "classic liberalism" as well as modern left-liberalism / social democracy / etc and much of both center and even right-liberalism (under various names or forms).

I realized that despite what liberals always claim, and that I sometimes might even start to believe myself, I do not I wish "to impose my values and beliefs on others." In fact its the liberal that almost always wishes to deny others the right to deviate from what it believes is best for all.

In particular, I read an article about current hysteria going on in Israel against the Haredi community (often called the "ultra-Orthodox"):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredi-secular_conflict_in_Israel_in_winter_of_2011-2012

While various establishment media articles (both Israeli and foreign western) attempt to made the Haredi out to be the aggressors who are somehow a threat to the way of life of the rest of society, the Wikipedia article is (suprisingly in this case) more balanced. The reality is that a minority of 10% is not a threat to the freedom and liberty of the rest of society, that's just silly. In fact, its quite clear that this is another case where liberal "secularists" wish to eliminate a community which chooses to live differently then they do, via whatever means. Recently, Haredi have come under a demonization campaign from radical "secularists," mainstream media and politicians, and have had social accomodations that already existed taken from them, while simultaneously being labelled the aggressor. This situation, not surprisingly, repeats itself over and over around the "liberal" world when a community that wishes to live differently in more traditional and socially or culturally conservative manner from the modern liberal "norm" exists. The liberal never seems able to simply "live and let live" and leave the other community (almost always a numerical minority) alone to live as it chooses but has to demonize it, claim its a "threat" of some sort (often in some contemporarily politically incorrect way), and then seek to eliminate via whatever necessary means (often simply through belittlement, entertainment based ridicule, etc, though sometimes through more concrete methods). The Haredi in Israel today are just a very good example of the phenomena, but it is a far broader issue and takes many forms with many target groups in different societies (not always religious minorities).

What it comes down primarily is that liberalism, in its ego-maniacal worship of the human individual, is fundamentally intolerant of others who wish to live different in groups or communities. If its an isolated individual living differently the liberal can simply call such person a "crackpot" or "socially maladjusted" or whatever and dismiss him or her. A community of individuals as a group seems to be a threat to the liberal, and must be eliminated or destroyed to maintain totalitarian liberal hold over society.

well.. the Haredi have assaulted children on the street, have intentionally limited the number of non-Haredi young girls from attending their schools, and then protested their being called on this by dressing up as Nazi death camp prisoners

no one is saying they are a threat to society's freedom...but they are trying to impose their traditions and values on others.. sometimes visciously

this isnt about liberals or conservatives fighting..it's about one group trying to live theocratically in a nation that isnt theocratic...for instance, imagine the uproar thier would be if Christian children were spit upon my Muslims in..lets say... Miami...or told that Christian girls weren't allowed to attend the public schools they dominated.. this would hardly be a case of " liberal versus conservative"... it would be intolerance.. and that's exactly the case with the Haredi

and please don't tell me that liberals spout the intolerance line.. if that's true... why is there such a deep rooted concern on the American right that any politician they vette MUST be Christian, and if they aren't.. they get suspicion cast on them... if tolerance for other groups was such a big deal, why did Herman Cain state he would never hire a Muslim?....why was there such a far ranging conspiracy theory about Obama being Muslim if there was such tolerance and understanding of those who live in different communities coming from the right?

 

[badbabysitter]

Now re: the Haredi, specifically, the argument is that they wish to "impose their beliefs" on the rest of society but if you look more closely (and beyond the manufactured lies and hysteria) they seem to simply want to preserve and maintain a space for themselves within the society. Its secularists who are going into their neighborhoods and demanding they change, not the other way around so who is the aggressor? Well, they shouldn't have their own neighborhoods the liberal would argue, and that I guess is the crux of the problem. The liberal feels you can deviate from its norms only within your own house (if even there) but never in a public space or as a community. I'm using Haredi as an example but it applies throughout the world to other social communities the liberal wishes to eliminate. They use the knife of "individual freedom" as a way to deny individual freedom to those who aren't "liberal like us." They deny the freedom of association of others who are different. That is why liberalism is actually the antithesis of true freedom and doesn't really believe in freedom at all. Its a totalitarian ideology that pretends to liberate people from totalitarianism. Its could be argued its the most evil ideology ever invented because it isn't even honest about its goals.

except the Haredi didnt stop at just wanting to live apart.. not allowing children into thier public schools, harrassing people on the street....thats when you cross the line from living free to forcing your values on others..

secularists going into thier neighborhoods? many have lived thier entire lives.. should they be forced to leave because the dominant group says you have to act a certain way?

how exactly have liberals denied the freedom of assosciation.. please give me one actual example

 

[badbabysitter]

The argument I'm making is that we have sleath totalitarianism, we just don't realize it.

but you havent been able to give a single example..that's the problem

 

[KingOrfeo]

The argument I'm making is that we have sleath totalitarianism, we just don't realize it.

"Stealth totalitarianism"? What modern industralized democracy is less totalitarian than this one?!

 

[badbabysitter]

"Stealth totalitarianism"? What modern industralized democracy is less totalitarian than this one?!

Canada

we're watching you from our Fortress of Canuckitude

http://www.oocities.org/theanticanadapage/canada.jpg

 

[RobDownSouth]

That's right, Renard Ben Zonah, Haredi Jews are always the victims....they're VICTIMS, DAMMIT!

Even when they're the aggressors, bravely spitting on slutty schoolgirls, stoning non-segregated buses, sexually harrassing female Israeli soldiers, or worse.

Those damned Libruls are interferin' with the Haredim's religious FREEEEEDOM.

 

[patrick1]

This is a mystifying thread. What evidence is there that 'liberals' are doing anything towards the Haredim?

Here's an article from Haaretz back in December about the divisions within the Haredim community, which suggests that 'moderates' within the Haredim community actually want outside media and representatives of authority to intervene:

http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...media-to-help-rid-them-of-extremists-1.403778

I read through this 'liberal' article from the UK Independent yesterday - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/sexism-and-the-state-of-israel-6287448.html - but I can't see evidence of 'liberals' trying to intervene in Haredim affairs. There does seem to be a fair amount of evidence of the opposite though - of some of the Haredim publicly dissenting from, and protesting at, public social arrangements that treat women as equals. Is the original poster suggesting that they should be allowed to do that in public spaces - e.g. try and prevent women sitting where they want on a bus?

Patrick

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Modern liberalism is nuthin more than a teenage state of mind. Outta one side of her mouth she screams DIVERSITY! TOLERANCE! and FREEDOM!, outta the other he demands CONFORMITY, OBEDIENCE, and LIMITS!

 

[sufisaint]

I'm half joking...

Of course, I think liberalism, by it's very essence, is the antithesis to totalitarian values, for lack of a better word.

It's ridiculous, and incredibly stupid, to think it could produce an authoritarian state.

Libertarianism is the antithesis to totalitarianism, the essence of liberalism is a government imposed equality.

 

[RobDownSouth]

This is a mystifying thread. What evidence is there that 'liberals' are doing anything towards the Haredim?

Renard Ben Zonah blames everything from nuclear weapons development to his soggy corn flakes on libruls. Modern psychologists call this "JenInFlorida Syndrome".

 

[KingOrfeo]

Canada

we're watching you from our Fortress of Canuckitude

http://www.oocities.org/theanticanadapage/canada.jpg

But . . . but . . . You guys have that totalitarian public-health-insurance thing!

 

[Shagly]

What are people's thoughts about the prevelance of CCTV, everywhere?

It's Ottawa's fault.