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Are Liberals Misanthropes? (Disturbing Essay, Episode #6)

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posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 12:11 AM
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reply to post by charles1952
 



I hope he was not saying that, but if he was, I disagree that this is the best post of all. It would be claiming that socialism is for smart people and capitalism is for stupid people. People who do not support socialism are stupid?

And do you think that capitalists are opposed to working together? People who don't work together are subsistence farmers. This is not a country built by subsistence farmers, or socialism.

When I said it was the "best post of all", I was just saying it's the most warped and confusing post of all. The main point I was trying to make is how much we have drifted away from the original meaning of liberal to something which means essentially the exact opposite of what a classical liberal is supposed to be. Of course, I consider myself to be a classical liberal, and I believe that individualism and capitalism are superior to socialism and welfarism.
edit on 1/9/2013 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 12:15 AM
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Originally posted by charles1952
Do you really think that Americans trust their government? Of course they don't. Do they like it? Not the president, but the government? They don't. It is reasonable to distrust government and not particularly like it.

Would you say that it is common amongst conservatives?

If so, why would you say this is?


edit on 1-9-2013 by daskakik because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 12:42 AM
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reply to post by daskakik
 

Dear daskakik,

Excellent question. I'm afraid I can only give you an opinion without doing serious research.

I think the distrust has grown over time. I suspect people were largely in love with government at the time of Kennedy, and that while many disliked him, the trust was there. Of course, some didn't trust the government from the time of the New Deal, and the attempt to pack the Supreme Court, and some just fundamentally don't trust government.

I think the shift began with President Johnson, the Viet Nam war, the War on Poverty, and the growing entitlement and bureaucratic state. Nixon made a huge splash with Watergate. Ford didn't leave much of an impression. Carter didn't do us many favors with gasoline and energy rationing, Black Hawk Down, and his "Malaise" speech. Reagan added Iran-Contra (partially balanced with the fall of the Soviet Union and the freeing of hostages the day he was sworn in). The first Bush added "Read my lips." Clinton was famous primarily for being impeached and is still known as "Slick Willy." Bush added Iraq, and created the feeling on the right that he was a big spender and a very moderate Republican.

But all of that aside, Obama has really created fear and distrust and confusion. He based his campaign on promises he wouldn't fulfill, almost too many to list. And has created the impression that government is out to get you in a brand new way. Just about every agency has it's scandal (or several), and most see him as acting outside his presidential authority, including several federal courts. There is controversy over whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I think the fear is that there is no effective check on him, and that the country is being "transformed" in ways many don't like. Add to this his habit of demonizing, threatening, and even damaging his enemies, and you have a distasteful stew.

Again, off the top of my head, but it may be the start of an answer.

With respect,
Charles1952



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 01:57 AM
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reply to post by charles1952
 

Let me just say that I didn't think much of the article in the OP. Despite Beezer's assertion that conservatives tend to deal with issues practically, all I saw was a blatent appeal to emotion.

I will say that I do believe that liberals are misanthropes. Not in the "human hating" way the article tries to portray them but, in their belief that not "everyone" is going to "do the right thing" without a little pressure.

Now, the questions in my post were loaded questions. The point that I was trying to get at, and I think you drove home by listing past presidents and their shortcomings is, that people distrust government because of the human element. This makes them misanthropes as well. Again, not in the "human hating" way but in the belief that not "everyone" is going to "do the right thing".

I can't help but see a case of the pot and kettle and yes maybe we all have a little soot on us.



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 02:26 AM
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Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by Bluesma
 

Dear Bluesma,
........
The point of the article was, again, that liberals believe that most humans subject to their governance are not deserving of the full rights and freedoms because they are either to stupid or perverse to use them properly. Firearms, large soft drinks, motorcycle helmets, Bucky Balls (ordered off the market by the Feds), NSA snooping, IRS targeted audits, all these and many more say "We don't trust you, you're stupid or evil."


And my point was- that is false. That is NOT the motivation, belief, or value system of the liberal minds.




No one is criticizing interdependence, denying that groups are more survivable than individuals, or rejecting the idea of defending against outside threats. No one claimed that people should be isolated individuals with no protection against external enemies.


The article was not refering to these things because it was throwing out red herrings instead of examining the real values, beliefs and motivations of the liberal mind.





The article is claiming the government should have the maximum power, because people need to be controlled. People are (according to the liberal belief) "bitter clingers" who need to be controlled.


No it's not. It is claiming that liberals think that. It is a false interpretation.


edit on 1-9-2013 by Bluesma because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 10:22 AM
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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.

Well done "brit" for me anyway you have proven out the OPs post quit well, your rant is full of hate, spin, no facts and the old liberal standard "if you don't agree with me you are all these things".

OH and your last paragraph is spot on if you were trying to explain a liberal Brit.............just my opinion.



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 10:41 AM
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Generalize much Charlie?..Get off your high horse dude.I could make a thread saying that Conservatives are Pr*cks,but,I'm not because I don't lump everybody into a category...
Btw,I don't like your condescending attitude.



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 11:09 AM
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Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by jimmyx
 

Dear jimmyx,

The article may very well come from a slanted source. I'm not sure whether the author is. But, again, that's not the point.

If the article is wrong, please discuss it so I can set it aside as refuted. But attacking the publishers doesn't advance the discussion at all.

With respect,
Charles1952


you want me to refute "are liberals misanthropes"? here's the definition
www.merriam-webster.com...

I don't even regard the title of your thread as being up for a "discussion"... it simply is a false premise, disguised as some type of pseudo-intellectual babble by this author, to separate and marginalize an entire political belief, into a subhuman "them"
edit on 1-9-2013 by jimmyx because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 12:05 PM
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I actually considered going through each point this child made in his article, and offering argumentation for each,
but it just is too ridiculous!

Like the claim 'Liberals hate individual freedom and seek to repress it at every corner."
Then a couple paragraphs down, refering to the liberal stance of pro-abortion rights... I don't think anyone could miss the self contradiction there.
Obviously, the liberal and the conservative simply do not agree on which individual rights shall be the culturally accepted ones, and which should be refused.

In any case, a society, a community, is a grouping of humans living in close proximity and having a social order, sharing the same values, morals, and laws.

There has to be limits to individual freedom, because of the close proximity- your freedom stops where anothers begins.

If ones person freedom is constricting and limiting that of another, you have a problem, and a line has to be drawn.

Only in all adult male groupings can total freedom exist, so that culling of weaker males can happen.
In a society that includes females, pregnant, with children, or involved in caring for the young, injured and sick, rules to protect those members of the group are necessary for the survival of the whole.

A radical Muslim could use the argument that stopping him from beating and killing his wife, or his child, is restricting his individual freedom. What do conservatives answer to that?

But like I pointed out- the argument the author presented is self contradictive.
I do understand the philosophical argument exercise- sometimes it is a fun game to take an absurd statement and see if you can make a truly convincing logical argument for it- but even looked at that way, I don't think it was well played.

Just my opinion.



edit on 1-9-2013 by Bluesma because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 01:14 PM
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So this world is only inhabited by liberals and conservatives? At least it is not the old black & white - or is it?
In my world we have a lot of different opinions and views, which don't fit in that one drawer or the other. And liberals and conservatives are not really two poles on the different ends. My country is ruled by a conservative and liberal coalition. There are a lot of parties on the left side and a few fascists on the right side of them.

I think, this categorization does not give credit to all the other movements and political wings that exist in the world. This is like a view through a keyhole, where you only can see a chair and a bed and think, this is the whole room. Needing some good & bad, you can explain, the chair is the bad one or the bed. It simply does not make any sense.



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 01:35 PM
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Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by badgerprints

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by charles1952
 



I don't think liberals hate, but I do often feel as though their perceptions are coloured emotionally.

Sincerest regards,

beez



So conservatives aren't emotional but they hate?
Liberals are emotional but they don't hate?

This is the problem with people in politics.
They arbitrarily pick and choose how they are going to feel about others, then they make up some twisted set of rules to justify what they think.






When/where did I say conservatives hate?
I did state that liberal ideology is more emotional-based.

My opinion.



Nah,
Not you in particular. Just a summation of the things I'm reading.
Didn't mean to single you out.

I have liberal and conservative friends. When they are at my place and each start reciting reasons why the other is a minion of the antichrist I just hose em down with the sprayer from the kitchen sink.

It thins out the party but everyone who is worth being around seems to be fine with it.



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 01:43 PM
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reply to post by Bluesma
 

Dear Bluesma,

Thank you for sticking with thread, I appreciate your interest. But, please, reconsider your comments and perhaps try a different approach.

If I understand the article, it claims that liberals don't like people, and they show that dislike by limiting peoples' freedom and power, reducing their standard of living, killing them or wishing them dead, or some combination thereof. It does this by presenting several examples, all seeming to support the claim.

Your counter-argument is: That's false, they're red herrings, and that's a false interpretation. Actually, I shouldn't say that that is your counter-argument, it's really your opinion. I understand that you disagree with the essay, could you show me why it's wrong?

With respect,
Charles1952



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 01:50 PM
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reply to post by greydaze
 

Dear greydaze,

Of course the article generalizes. You can't use the word "liberal" without generalizing. The very first response in this thread raised that point, and the post after that was my response.

And while I'm sorry that you don't happen to care for my attitude, 1) I don't think I am being condescending. 2) Consider the context. and 3) My attitude has no bearing on the validity of the author's argument.

With respect,
Charles1952



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 02:02 PM
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reply to post by jimmyx
 

Dear jimmyx,

Thanks for an interesting post.

As I mentioned just above, however, it seems that you're providing me with an opinion rather than an argument. Yes, I would like you to refute "Are Liberals Misanthropes." If that is false, I don't want to be burdened by having a falsehood in my brain. I would rather know for a certainity that liberals are wonderful people full of love and trust for others, than have a false opinion.

But if your refutation is simply a link to this definition:

a person who hates or distrusts humankind

You've hardly found a refutation. You're merely restating the author's position.


I don't even regard the title of your thread as being up for a "discussion"...
What? It's the title of the article, what's the problem? The author presents his belief, then supports it through inductive reasoning.


it simply is a false premise, disguised as some type of pseudo-intellectual babble by this author, to separate and marginalize an entire political belief, into a subhuman "them"
Again, I understand you don't like his opinion, but calling it names doesn't disprove it.

With respect,
Charles1952



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 02:12 PM
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Originally posted by charles1952
Again, I understand you don't like his opinion, but calling it names doesn't disprove it.

You are dismissing everyones arguments as mere opinions and here you conceed that the article is also just someones opinion.

Makes for a rather pointless interchange.



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 02:18 PM
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Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by Bluesma
 


If I understand the article, it claims that liberals don't like people, and they show that dislike by limiting peoples' freedom and power, reducing their standard of living, killing them or wishing them dead, or some combination thereof. It does this by presenting several examples, all seeming to support the claim.

I understand that you disagree with the essay, could you show me why it's wrong?


I have, but will repeat if necessary.

The claim that limitations placed upon individuals freedom and power is "proof" of misanthropy is false because:

To live in a society, that includes members who are female, young, elderly, injured, or sick (in a state of vulnerability)

Limits to individual rights has to be made somewhere, to protect them.


That is important for two reasons;

- Their rights as individuals. When one persons individual freedom begins to repress anothers, then a line must drawn somewhere- as in the example of the man who can claim that not allowing him to beat and kill his children and wife (or anyone for that matter) is repressing his individual freedom.

-For the survival of the group as a whole. If the young and reproducing, those in need of medical care and those giving it, are not protected from the more aggressive and ambitious of the group, the genetic line will die. It is a group suicide to not do so.

If the original assertion was true (that intents at limiting the freedom of individuals means they are misanthropes) then this same writer would have to logically conclude that conservatives who are anti-abortion are misanthropes.
(which he denies, therefore destroying his assertion).

For a civilisation to survive, it needs to have common laws and principles that the members adhere to. Too much individualism causes fragmentation and the eventual fall of that society.

Therefore, attempts and intents to designate laws and principles that serve as a basic framework which limits the freedom of members in some way, cannot be assumed to be hatred of humans, since it has the effect of increasing human's chance of survival.


It could be logically deduced that caring about social structure and survival of the group as a whole, is a more probable intent and motivation.

People can go too far with that concern, into extremes, which cease to be effective, just as they can with individualism. But I am refering directly to the claim made that the intents and wishes of the liberal can be determined with this logic. It doesn't hold up.

I also disagree with the authors opinion that the distinguishing characteristic of human beings is freewill.
What we know now about genetics, about sociology, behaviorism, anthropology, psychology, biology, and neurology have shown that we cannot assert with any conviction that freewill exists.

On the other hand, we can assert with more confidence that human beings distinguish themselves from other animals through their usage of written and verbal language. (except for a handful of individual primates that have been trained and worked with intensively by humans).

I think that this capability of communicating very complex ideas, and experiences, between each other, is probably the base on which all our other inventions came to be.
edit on 1-9-2013 by Bluesma because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 02:48 PM
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reply to post by Bluesma
 

Dear Bluesma,

This is off the subject, but I envy your living in France. If you travel 1000 miles (that's 47 1/2 square kilograms, if I have my conversions correct
), you can visit just about any place in Europe, although Russia and Turkey might be a little tough. You can see all of the history, the art, the universities. If I travel 1000 miles, I can visit Canada.

Well, back to work. But before that, I owe you my honest appreciation and thanks.
You've taken the time to come up with an actual argument against the author's position. You've avoided empty name-calling and presented something that needs to be dealt with seriously. Thank you. That makes for a worthwhile discussion. May your tribe increase.

It seems you have two main objections to present. One is that the article is self contradictory, and, two, that humans need some restraints on them.

I just finished posting a response in which I said that I thought the author was attempting to support his charge of liberal misanthropy by presenting examples in three areas.

1) Liberals believe in (or their policies result in), strict controls on personal choice, because people are too stupid, evil, or both, to make the "approved" choice.
2) They also believe in reducing the living standard of people and encouraging more to become dependent on government programs. In effect becoming government "slaves."
3) Liberals believe that people cause more trouble than their worth, and an individual human isn't of much use. Having vast numbers killed or die off, can be justified on various grounds.

Granted, I have slightly exaggerated, and greatly condensed, what I think his beliefs are. They are more complex. I'm willing to explore those complexities if it would serve any purpose. But, now, let's get to abortion, which you claim is evidence of self-contradiction.

I do hope we don't start an abortion argument, that would be wildly off-topic. But, to address the charge of self contradiction, I would look primarily at claim 3) above. Isn't it fairly clear that abortion helps people die off? Since 1973, it is estimated that about 55 million people have been killed by abortion. (If you don't like that phrasing, then 55 million people were prevented from coming into existence.) Abortion is not a contradiction of the author's thesis, it is confirmation of it.

Your other point was that humans need some laws. I agree, the author agrees, and all God's chillun agree. The author's point (see point 1, above) is that liberals seem to prefer regulations and conservatives seem to prefer freedom. Conservatives know that some laws are needed, just as liberals know (I hope they do) that some freedom is needed. But, just because neither side is wedded to the exaggerated implementation of their policies, it doesn't mean that there isn't a sharp difference.

I hesitate to over rely on one example, but I firmly believe no conservative would ever have even thought of Mayor Bloomberg's ban on large soft drink containers. It was sold as good for our health. That is a clear example of the liberal belief that people can't be trusted to make their own decisions, so the government must control them.

With respect,
Charles1952



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 02:56 PM
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reply to post by daskakik
 

Dear daskakik,

YOU CAUGHT ME! I WAS WRONG!


Again, I understand you don't like his opinion, but calling it names doesn't disprove it.

You are dismissing everyones arguments as mere opinions and here you conceed that the article is also just someones opinion.
You are right, my writing was sloppy. I meant to say position. But let's agree that it is his opinion. Still, it is an opinion supported by a broad array of examples. An opinion's value is measured by the evidence one has to support it, and the reasoning applied to that evidence.

Rather than being a pointless interchange, this is very pointed. He's made a claim, backed it with evidence, and unless I've missed it, no one has been able to contradict his evidence or his reasoning.

As I said earlier, I truly wish someone would show him to be wrong. I don't like the conclusion he comes to, it says bad things about us as a nation. But, like it or not, the question is "Is it true?"

With respect,
Charles1952



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 03:06 PM
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reply to post by Siddharta
 

Dear Siddharta,

You raise a valuable point. It is largely correct, and exposes a great area of weakness in me, the political opinions of the rest of the world. Many countries have a wide array of political parties or groups represented in their legislatures. In the Us there is also a very wide spread of beliefs in the legislature, but they are all found within the two parties (and the occasional socialist or independent).

Those two parties (or rather philosophies, conservative and liberal) tend to support opposite points of view on the importance of the individual, and I think it was that the author wanted to discuss.

I beleive the author was only referring to the United States, but you bring up a fascinating idea with which I am not capable of dealing. Sometimes, in the US, a division is made between those who want a large, powerful government, and those who want a smaller, less intrusive one Would you consider doing a thread on how those ideas are expressed in the real world outside of the US? It might be fascinating and I'd be glad to visit it in order to learn. Well, think about it.

With respect,
Charles1952



posted on Sep, 1 2013 @ 03:08 PM
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reply to post by charles1952
 

You have done it to more than one poster on this thread so it wasn't just a slip.

You want proof of how slanted the article is?

Liberals support the right to bare arms.
The liberal gun club

Liberals own and enjoy gas driven vehicles.
Liberal Motorcycle Riders of Raleigh Durham

Paul Newman liberal and motorsports enthusiast.

I'm sure there are many more examples which would prove how untrue the claims in that article are.

The truth is that the author of that article didn't offer any solid proof for their claims. I don't see how you can come on here and ask us to prove him wrong when it should be obvious to everyone how shoddy the article really is.




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