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Liberals can’t like humanity. It would be contrary to everything else they believe.
Reducing an individual’s freedom diminishes that person and makes him smaller, makes him have less of what makes us human.
Individual freedom is a low priority for liberals. In fact, they see individual freedom as a problem, not a blessing. Liberals fear freedom. They don’t like freedom because they don’t like what people do with their freedom. If you don’t like humans and don’t approve of their behavior, you will not want them to be free. If you dislike humans, you’ll dislike liberty. In their view, humans are just no damn good.
Liberals love government. They advocate taking choice away from individuals and putting it in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. That is a dehumanizing process.
Dislike of humans explains why liberals love regulations. Left on their own humans will buy large sugary soft drinks, showerheads that use too much water, watch Fox News and listen to conservative talk radio. Liberals never met a regulation they didn’t like.
Liberals don’t want humans to enjoy themselves. They feel guilty about living and existing, and especially about living opulently.
If they feel guilty they have convicted themselves of some wrongdoing. They seek absolution by buying Priuses and recycling. Driving a hybrid is the modern equivalent to sacrificing a goat to appease the earth gods. It’s like going to confession and a way of doing penance for too much consuming.
We are being governed by people who don’t like us.
Those beliefs aren't the sole property of liberals. Depending on what you meant by the ideal of respect for the powerless over the powerful, those are all conservative ideals.
I believe that liberal ideals promote compassion for ones fellow man, understanding of hardship, and a respect for the majority of the powerless, over the minority of the powerful. Thats the way it ought to be, the way all politicians ought to feel.
But the article isn't discussing such things, it is discussing entire areas of policies which have been identified as liberal, not the strange behavior of some politicians.
That is the problem, that is the issue that we face at this time. Liberalism would be fine without the influence of fincances and bloody stupid control freaks. Unfortunately, there seems to be no escape from these things at the higher echelons of politics, regardless of affiliation.
Is your position that conservatives are cannibals and genocidal maniacs? Or are you saying that they want to eat immigrants? I don't want to narrow the discussion to immigration, but I will say that the efforts of our government to get as many new immigrants as possible on government benefits (and vote liberal) reminds me less of a country encouraging people to be free and independent, and more of a jailer holding an open house.
As for normal people who follow the liberal tradition, none of the liberals I have met or spoken too, come across as genocidal maniacs who want to kill the rich and use thier still warm flesh to feed the hungry, or anything as mad as that, so that puts them well above folk who are constantly banging on about immigrants,
Human’s make generalizations and associations…..that’s how we survived natural selection.
For a start, any statement, or collection thereof, which address an entire realm of thinking in such unfavourable terms, is at risk, nay entirely guilty of MASSIVE generalisation.
It’s crossed my mind. The fact that it’s crossed yours (and mine) throws out your previous argument about generalizations. Otherwise, how could you come up with such a suggestion?
Yes, there are liberals who would probably get behind a program to wipe the human race out so that there can finally be total peace on planet Earth, and if you are honest, you probably felt that way once in your life at some point too!
I think both camps have sane people.
But both these camps must have people in them who are NOT entirely psychotic, deluded, self obsessed, self indulgent, petulant five year olds in adult bodies!
NOW I’M CONFUSED!!! I thought that was the case! I know the part about “buck toothed weirdos who speak the Queens English” is accurate.
To mark the entire liberal movement as people hating destroyers of freedom, is no more accurate than saying that all Britons are buck toothed weirdos who speak the Queens English, ride horses to work, and take the flag of the realm with them on holiday which they fully intend to plant through the bloated corpses of the local population, while claiming that territory as belonging to Queen Elizabeth , huzzar, spit spot, poppycock and so forth.
Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by charles1952
Charles, believe it or not, I come in the defense of liberals.
Liberals tend to deal with issues emotionally. Conservatives tend to deal with issues practically.
We see this in the most often used terms and phrases.
Liberals feel for people.
Don't you CARE about the environment?
Don't you FEEL for the homeless?
Don't you have a HEART for the environment?
Conservatives on the other hand, use phrases like "Equal oppourtunity, not equal outcome".
Responsibility.
Individualism.
Ethics.
Work ethics.
I don't think liberals hate, but I do often feel as though their perceptions are coloured emotionally.
Sincerest regards,
beez
Originally posted by seabag
They do have a dislike for people.....people who disagree with them!
I hope you can understand that this is why I've been posting the Disturbing Essay series. They either have startling information, or connect old information in surprising ways, or reach unconvential conclusions. It's really not a sufficient counter-argument to say "Blah blah."
This however was cheap. Examples: Liberals don't want you to enjoy yourselves. Liberals hate humanity. Blah blah.
But that's what the essay was. May I encourage you to reread it? He provides a half dozen examples.
A essay about how the liberal part of liberals is contradicting, with actual examples of policies, would be much better.
That's the emotional element.
en.wikipedia.org...
In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates defines the misanthrope in relation to his fellow man: "Misanthropy develops when without art one puts complete trust in somebody thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable and then a little later discovers him to be bad and unreliable...and when it happens to someone often...he ends up...hating everyone."
And whatever your preferred classification might be, the author would claim that is a solidly conservative foundation. The people the author describes as liberals are the people that believe there should be fewer individual freedoms because they don't trust people to use them the "right" way. As seabag pointed out, liberals have no trouble caring for those who support them in their efforts to restrain others, either politically, ideologically, or economically.
I have no desire to take away any other persons freedoms
What individualists seem to want is a reduction of the "government eat dog" mentality. The individualists would prefer to give their money away of their own free will, and they do, even today.
But these are personal beliefs and I understand that rugged individualists disagree and prefer a dog eat dog approach.
I absolutely agree.
Ultimately I am liberal because I feel that the most precious commodity we have on this plant is people. Not gold, tungsten, platinum, plutonium, diamond, carbon, water, oxygen... but life - particularly human life, as humans have the capacity to become something more than animal. We possess a potential to become so much more than we are. THAT is what I value above all else.
It isn't, and thats why I wonder about the accuracy of your self-classification.
How, by definition, can a deep respect for and love of humanity be misanthropic by nature?
Originally posted by TrueBrit
reply to post by charles1952
" I find it hilarious that anyone could have the sheer balls to pass this off as anything other than a heavily biased anti-liberal rant.
For a start, any statement, or collection thereof, which address an entire realm of thinking in such unfavourable terms, is at risk, nay entirely guilty of MASSIVE generalisation. Yes, there are liberals who would probably get behind a program to wipe the human race out so that there can finally be total peace on planet Earth, and if you are honest, you probably felt that way once in your life at some point too!
However, the same could be said, for different reasons, of the more conservative thinkers out there. There are going to be a few who would like to shoot all the people who are a different colour, creed, religion, pay grade, have a strange haircut, or any other excuse. But both these camps must have people in them who are NOT entirely psychotic, deluded, self obsessed, self indulgent, petulant five year olds in adult bodies!
To mark the entire liberal movement as people hating destroyers of freedom, is no more accurate than saying that all Britons are buck toothed weirdos who speak the Queens English, ride horses to work, and take the flag of the realm with them on holiday which they fully intend to plant through the bloated corpses of the local population, while claiming that territory as belonging to Queen Elizabeth , huzzar, spit spot, poppycock and so forth. "
Hmm....Spoken like a True Misanthrope....................
Originally posted by charles1952
I just had a thought. How about assigning liberals the task of discovering problems, and conservatives the task of finding the best way to deal with it?
With respect,
Charles1952