[–] 1 point 16 hours ago

Those are some fair points and you're right it's a vague idea. Liberal is an adjective that's applied across the political spectrum so it requires people to be specific about what they mean. The term liberal can be contradictory but classical and social liberalisms are two very different things and need to be treated as such.

Most of Lemmy (OP included in this case) tend to refer to social, centre/centre left liberals when they talk about liberals. Here in Aus, and in a lot of other places it more refers to the classical centre right/right laissez-faire RWNJ definition of liberal.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Ahh I think we may have a misunderstanding. Im not saying it's a good ideology, what I am saying is that it is a very well defined ideology that has been around for hundreds of years. People have written tomes of text on the concept over the centuries and the Wikipedia article distills that. I haven't read all the tomes, but the article does line up with what I have read on the topic.

    I think almost all political ideologies have flaws, some significantly bigger than others. For every one you might believe is best, there will always be someone who disagrees with you, either on the overarching ideology, the finer details or even the feasibility of implementation.

    That said you mention a contradiction in the definition but I'm not sure where you're reading that. It highlights right to property sure, but it is pretty specific about the freedoms it espouses:

    political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. None of those even loosely equate to the freedom of all human beings to access and use the very surface of the planet they live on.

    For what it's worth I think you're right that the right to private property is at loggerheads with what you define as freedom and liberalism doesn't deal with that issue. Instead its stuck within the basic capitalist structure present in most western countries.

    Modern liberalism only pushes for a social safety net within that capitalist structure with a goal of using increased government regulation and operation of critical infrastructure for the benefit of the people. The structure's flaws remain and could be argued are inherent and easily warped to benefit some individuals over others. But the same can be said about potentially all other societal structures.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (10 children)

    Its the difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism. Classic liberals believe in laissez-fare policies and the free market, while modern liberals still believe in a market economy but support more social policy and government involvement in things like infrastructure, health, education etc.

    In most places "liberal" refers to classical liberal, whereas a modern liberals would more likely be termed progressives or the centre left. In the US liberal tends to refer to modern liberals while classical liberals are referred to as conservatives.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    Any candidate not taking bribes from AIPAC should be running ads highlighting how much money their opponents have taken from them and questioning their opponents loyalty

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    Some pretty salient points from Malcolm Turnbull. Morrisons shit subramine deal is going to haunt us for decades to come.

    I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt that by patriotism he means a focus on serving our country rather than the nationalism it tends be associated with. I'm not a huge fan of Turnbull but he has always been pretty well spoken.

    I think his idea that the Liberal party are good economic managers died about 25 years ago with Howard. It could be argued they've always been shit at economics, just noone called them out on it in the old days. I agree that they should be pushing back to the centre of they want to deal with Hanson's racist arsehole party.

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