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Who is a Liberal ?


ravishingravi

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There was a time I thought this was a very obvious question. I would certainly have considered myself as one. But now, I am not sure. 

 

In my mind, a liberal was someone who believed in freedom and equality of opportunity for all. When I see this apologists, knee jerk appeasing non sense, I am not sure what to make of it. I can perfectly understand why people voted for extreme right wing in some cases. 

 

So, according to you, who are what is a liberal ? 

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India definitely has its share of 'extreme' liberals who indulge in ridiculous rhetoric in the guise of being 'liberal'.  Most of these guys don't understand what being liberal means, they are just aligning their biases and tribalism across a certain axis.  

 

That being said, the normalization of soft bigotry in India is definitely undesirable.  Even ICF, in the last 5-7 years has gotten infected with naked prejudice.  Its sad and disappointing. 

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I empathize, but there's no fixed meaning tbh.

 

Firstly, its is a relative term.There is a comment in the dictator movie where Sacha calls Bush/Cheney's policies as liberal. Now that's silly/funny but compare middle East vs USA, it makes sense. 

 

Secondly, there's a contextual interpretation as well. The burqa debate is a case in point. Freedom from the constraints of covering head to toe is a liberal view as is the freedom to cover oneself head to toe. A liberal may want state sponsored college education but does that mean the liberal wants the high school pass worker to subsidize college for children of the rich in any way ?

 

Lastly, there is always an avenue of the fringe hijacking an ideology or even become mainstream. That applies to all sides.

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Liberal is a positive word in lexicon of the current global "intellectual" zeitgeist, therefore seemingly everyone, no matter how illiberal their ideology/thoughts/individual beliefs are, will try to appropriate the term.  

 

The true liberals on the planet are the same as when Liberalism as an overarching philosophy was invented, during the Enlightenment era in Europe: Classical Liberals and Libertarians(these two only differ in degree of adherence, not on fundamental principles of ideology). The summarized version is non-interference in neither economic nor social lives of individuals. The last word is the key: everyone should be judged, treated, policed, legislated etc etc as individuals, not communities or other groups(sex, income, "race", "gender"). These people are hardly 5% of even Western populations, and I am being generous and overestimating their numbers here.      

 

Everyone who doesn't follow that, is either a Rightist or a Leftist: no ifs, ands, or buts. Conservative, in this case, applies to both Right and Left groups, so long as they are in opposition to Liberal policies, ie: supporting Welfare states, Community based laws etc etc are illiberal

 

The only political party approaching liberal status in India is the one floated by Jayprakash Narayan of Lok Satta Party (Hyderabad). Everyone else is a poser/ dhongee liberal. 

 

^That is from a Western-centric-globalized perspective. (I am neither endorsing nor condemning it). 

 

If I were to give my opinion on what would be a Dharmic perspective. The core of Dharmic "conservatism" would be Nationalism, Deep Ecology, and arguably Dharmic Monarchism. The last one is arguable, the first two are not. Branching off of that definition, any native type liberalism would have to be in direct opposition to those three pillars. One can add traditional social structure to this as well. 

 

Edited to clarify some stuff

Edited by Tibarn
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24 minutes ago, Tibarn said:

Liberal is a positive word in lexicon of the current global "intellectual" zeitgeist, therefore seemingly everyone, no matter how illiberal their ideology/thoughts/individual beliefs are, will try to appropriate the term.  

 

The true liberals on the planet are the same as when Liberalism as an overarching philosophy was invented, during the Enlightenment era in Europe: Classical Liberals and Libertarians(these two only differ in degree of adherence, not on fundamental principles of ideology). The summarized version is non-interference in neither economic nor social lives of individuals. The last word is the key: everyone should be judged, treated, policed, legislated etc etc as individuals, not communities or other groups(sex, income, "race", "gender"). These people are hardly 5% of even Western populations, and I am being generous and overestimating their numbers here.      

 

Everyone who doesn't follow that, is either a Rightist or a Leftist: no ifs, ands, or buts. Conservative, in this case, applies to both Right and Left groups, so long as they are in opposition to Liberal policies, ie Welfare states, Community based laws etc etc. 

 

The only political party approaching liberal status in India is the one floated by Jayprakash Narayan of Lok Satta Party (Hyderabad). Everyone else is a poser/ dhongee liberal. 

 

^That is from a Western-centric-globalized perspective. (I am neither endorsing nor condemning it). 

 

If I were to give my opinion on what would be a Dharmic perspective. The core of Dharmic "conservatism" would be Nationalism, Deep Ecology, and arguably Dharmic Monarchism. The last one is arguable, the first two are not. Branching off of that definition, any native type liberalism would have to be in direct opposition to those three pillars. 

 

Agreed.

 

Although I believe that Left always stays closer to the true Liberal Values as compared to the right. 

 

While BJP at moment is not a right party, but it is landing somewhere near "far right", along with it allies like Yogi, Bajrangdal, RSS etc. Due to this, unfortunately BJP is far away from the true liberal values. 

 

It would be in interest of BJP itself, if it tries to get rid of this extremist elements and lands somewhere near "right centre". 

 

Leaders like Wajpai (and perhaps Shushma Sahiba at present) land somewhere near right centre, and thus they are respected by all factions in India. 

 

 

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4 hours ago, ravishingravi said:

There was a time I thought this was a very obvious question. I would certainly have considered myself as one. But now, I am not sure. 

 

In my mind, a liberal was someone who believed in freedom and equality of opportunity for all. When I see this apologists, knee jerk appeasing non sense, I am not sure what to make of it. I can perfectly understand why people voted for extreme right wing in some cases. 

 

So, according to you, who are what is a liberal ? 

A liberal is simply someone who believes in the following:

1. Individual culpability & responsibility and not that of the group ( ie, if person X comits a crime, punishment should be to person X, not the ethnicity/identity of person X)

 

2. Someone who does not subscribe to ascendancy of traditionalism or orthodoxy of various religions in dictating social & legal norms. Ie, if you don't care what the religious books say on issue X but what logic/reasoning/facts say, then you are a liberal.

 

3. Someone who believes in freedom of expression and freedom of speech, to the fullest degree that does not do quantified, empiric harm. Ie, you are allowed to say whatever you wish/do whatever you wish, so long as you are not calling for blatant harm to someone ( eg: person X deserves to be killed/raped etc) for them expressing their views or engaging in libel/slander. 

 

This is what i define as liberal and as such, i identify as a liberal. 

Edited by Muloghonto
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11 minutes ago, coffee_rules said:

Liberals are useful idiots that Islamists need now and don't need once they dominate a society.

It may be correct.

 

But answer to Muslim extremism is not the RW Hindutva extremism, which is in itself a problem like Muslim extremism. 

 

The answer is the Left Extremism. They should confront both Muslims and Islam at all levels. And this process has already been started. At least the "Atheist Liberals" are confronting Muslims/Islam at huge level. And they have already started achieving success too. 

 

You could see it from the results. There are hardly any organised centre for atheists, but still atheism is making its space among the Muslim ranks. There are already thousands or perhaps millions of ex-Muslims who are atheists now. 

 

No other religion (be is Christianity or be it Hinduism) ever succeed in making space among the Muslim ranks. But only atheism was able to achieve it. 

 

Mullahs don't fear Christianity or Hinduism, or any Muslim killings by them while they know killing Muslims will make Mullahs and Islam more popular among rest of Muslim population of world. 

But Mullahs are extremely fearful of atheism. 

 

Could you believe that Arab countries like Saudi Arabia have declared that atheists will be dealt as Terrorists in their laws. This thing never happened in whole Islamic history. This shows how much afraid they are of atheism. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Tibarn said:

Liberal is a positive word in lexicon of the current global "intellectual" zeitgeist, therefore seemingly everyone, no matter how illiberal their ideology/thoughts/individual beliefs are, will try to appropriate the term.  

 

The true liberals on the planet are the same as when Liberalism as an overarching philosophy was invented, during the Enlightenment era in Europe: Classical Liberals and Libertarians(these two only differ in degree of adherence, not on fundamental principles of ideology). The summarized version is non-interference in neither economic nor social lives of individuals. The last word is the key: everyone should be judged, treated, policed, legislated etc etc as individuals, not communities or other groups(sex, income, "race", "gender"). These people are hardly 5% of even Western populations, and I am being generous and overestimating their numbers here.      

 

Everyone who doesn't follow that, is either a Rightist or a Leftist: no ifs, ands, or buts. Conservative, in this case, applies to both Right and Left groups, so long as they are in opposition to Liberal policies, ie: supporting Welfare states, Community based laws etc etc are illiberal

 

The only political party approaching liberal status in India is the one floated by Jayprakash Narayan of Lok Satta Party (Hyderabad). Everyone else is a poser/ dhongee liberal. 

 

^That is from a Western-centric-globalized perspective. (I am neither endorsing nor condemning it). 

 

If I were to give my opinion on what would be a Dharmic perspective. The core of Dharmic "conservatism" would be Nationalism, Deep Ecology, and arguably Dharmic Monarchism. The last one is arguable, the first two are not. Branching off of that definition, any native type liberalism would have to be in direct opposition to those three pillars. One can add traditional social structure to this as well. 

 

Edited to clarify some stuff

The problem with your synopsis are as such:

 

1. In the 'west centric' idea, everyone but anarchists are illiberal. Why ? Because of taxation. To have complete non-interference in individual economics, there has to be zero taxation. This is a fundamental pillar of Libertarianism, where taxation for ANY collective purpose - building infrastructure even- is considered impingement of rights. 

 

2. The dharmic perspective is interesting, though I don't see what gives conservatism the right to monopolize nationalism or ecology. I myself am a liberal and am more patriotic than the average.  Monarchism has no objective basis into this, neither can monarchism be effectively justified without divine or elitist agency in the first place. In a meritocratic world, it has zero place. 

 

3. You have not addressed the fundamental basis of liberalism vs conservatism: the fundamental basis is liberals stand for change, conservatives stand for satus quo anti bellum. This is seen the world over, irrespective of western or eastern systems. Ultra-liberals want to change everything, for their ideology is any change is better than incumbency of any sort. Ultra-conservatives want to change nothing and their fundamental motto is ' dont change what has worked in the past'. 

The fundamental bone between liberals and conservatives, is being pro or anti change. This is why most people who are liberal are centrist-liberals: they mostly stand for change that can be justified based on quantified gains/results, shunning the orthodoxy of no change when suited but also the radicalism of change for change's sake. 

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3 hours ago, chewy said:

hard to be a liberal in India, liberal (western style) has evolved from Christian faith, where importance is given on individual soul

I believe, if actual Hindu Dharam is really more liberal than Christianity, then it should not be harder. 

 

One reason seems to me is this that Hindus in India lived for a long long time with Muslims of India, and thus they adopted some of the social values of Muslims too, which is perhaps making things harder for them today to become liberal. 

 

Another reason seems to be this that they are feeling themselves endangered from Islam and Christianity, and want to preserve their identity, and they fear to loose their identity by being a liberal. They are using conservatism in order to protect their identity. 

 

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Alam_dar said:

I believe, if actual Hindu Dharam is really more liberal than Christianity, then it should not be harder. 

 

One reason seems to me is this that Hindus in India lived for a long long time with Muslims of India, and thus they adopted some of the social values of Muslims too, which is perhaps making things harder for them today to become liberal. 

 

Another reason seems to be this that they are feeling themselves endangered from Islam and Christianity, and want to preserve their identity, and they fear to loose their identity by being a liberal. They are using conservatism in order to protect their identity. 

 

 

 

first time this year he is bang on. Ironically, liberalism we see in the west is just a modern echo of the centuries old indian liberalism. 

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21 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

1. In the 'west centric' idea, everyone but anarchists are illiberal. Why ? Because of taxation. To have complete non-interference in individual economics, there has to be zero taxation. This is a fundamental pillar of Libertarianism, where taxation for ANY collective purpose - building infrastructure even- is considered impingement of rights. 

This is inaccurate, IMO:

 

The original "liberals" are Classical Liberals(Classical Liberalism), who believe in minimum but necessary taxation for those essential services which the deem are in the justifiable role of the government: military, police, infrastructure etc. Essentially those which they view as what allows society to function and to allow for individuals to achieve their happiness (utilitarianism).  I was trying to use the term "liberals" to refer to them. 

 

They are the basis of the definition as they are the founders of the ideology in of Liberalism in a political/philosophical sense. 

 

Libertarians are a more extreme version, in a sense, of Classical Liberals where they differ in viewing even less of a role for government in the function of society: some Libertarians would privatize everything from infrastructure to police/fire departments out of the power of government. They view the role of government to be even less, but they still view it as existent. In general terms, Libertarians still view the government as having a role in enforcing property rights, adjudicating disputes, etc: basically providing a basic legal framework and enforcing it at some level. 

 

The Classical Liberals and Libertarians vary only in degree, with the latter being more extreme in their interpretation, but the former being the "pure" version. 

 

Anarchists are fundamentally outside of this continuum: they don't believe in a government at all. Therefore, they fall outside of the realm of political Liberalism. 

 

One could say that only Anarchists truly believe in maximizing individual freedom by maximizing government non-interference in individual lives(setting it to 0 by removing the existence of a government), but I don't think it accurately falls into the philosophy of Liberalism as the originators of the philosophy never intended for government to disappear in its entirety, only for its power and scope to be limited to the benefit of individual happiness. 

 

Anarchists belong in their own category external to Liberalism: with the starting point being the absence of government rather than the maximization of individual rights/freedoms( as is the basis of Classical Liberalism/Libertarianism).  From that tree, of absence of government, one gets all the branches of Anarchism: Anarcho-capitalism, Anarcho-Socialism, Anarcho-Communism, etc etc. 

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2. The dharmic perspective is interesting, though I don't see what gives conservatism the right to monopolize nationalism or ecology.

The basis of the my definition of conservative and liberal, in the Dharmic sense, is based off of a definition of "conservative" as "traditional"/"original" in Hindu society. From my reading, Nationalism and Deep Ecology are deeply ingrained in Hindu society.

 

Therefore, those two ideas are starting points for any conservatism in a Hindu sense.  

 

Movement away from Nationalism and Deep Ecology would be a liberal, ie "change", position in terms of Hindu/Dharmic society.

 

To illustrate better what I am trying to say I will use Islam and Hinduism in comparison here:

 

Islam is inherently globalist/universalist (spread the Ummah and Caliphate to the entire world and Islam is the perfect and True religion for all people, regardless of their being Indian/African/Chinese, etc etc).  If one were to follow Islam purely, there would be no nation in the first place, IIRC there is a specific verse I read that condemns nations as Shirk. 

 

From the above, an Islamic society, one based on Islam/Mohammed, would, at its starting point try to "conserve" a globalized world, under the Caliph of Islam, as the traditional Islamic view of how society is to be organized. A liberal, or change position, would be to divide the globe into nations/countries, which is explicitly shirk in Islam. 

 

Taking the above purely on the basis of nationalism : ISIS/pre-US invasion Afghanistan are true conservative Islamic societies, where there is no loyalty to country, but rather fighting for the expansion/glory of Islam (remember: pre-US invasion Afghanistan had Jihadis as fighters for Al-Qaeda from across the Islamic world, not purely Afghan groups). On this issue, a country like Bakistan is actually a liberal Islamic country (oh the irony :rofl:) as they are moving away from what is traditionally Islamic: shunning of nations/countries. 

 

Again, for Hinduism, Nationalism and Deep Ecology are ingrained in its philosophy and therefore are "conservative". Movements away from that, such as Universalism or unrestrained exploitation of the environment/living out of sync with the environment are "liberal" ~ "change" positions.  

 

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I don't see what gives conservatism the right to monopolize nationalism or ecology.

I myself am a liberal and am more patriotic than the average.   

Deep Ecology =/= Ecology. The former is much deeper than what most people support as Ecology. 

 

There is no question of monopoly here, as most people, I would wager, aren't solely conservative/liberal on most issues. People are just mixed bags of what they "think"/believe and then label themselves liberal/conservative, right/left, etc etc based off what appeals to them more. 

 

Using my articulation of a Dharmic perspective above: a person can be "conservative" by supporting Deep Ecology, but "liberal" by supporting universalization of Indian values.  

 

Other examples are Muslim Feminists and Gay Republicans (I actually met a Gay, Drag Queen Christian the other week :scared:). People will always pick and choose what they like from whichever basket; I hardly expect them to neatly fit into solid categories of "conservative" and "liberal".      

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Monarchism has no objective basis into this,

Sure it does (although, again, I said it is arguable not defining), if the basis of defining Dharmic conservatism is what is "traditional", then a Dharmic monarchy is pretty traditional. The arguable portion comes into this when someone like Ambedkar argued, after finding the existence of Republics in pre-Islamic Bharat, that Hindu civilization has very old experience with the Republic-based form of government as well. This is why either form can't be exclusively defined as "conservative" or "liberal" from a Dharmic perspective.    

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neither can monarchism be effectively justified without divine or elitist agency in the first place.

Those two caveats don't rule it out though. Divine agency or elitist agency aren't in and of themselves bad necessarily, and they, if they were the basis for traditional government formation in society, would be a conservative position for the formation of a monarchical government.   

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In a meritocratic world, it has zero place.

That is arguable due to many issues: 

 

There are those that argue that merit doesn't actually exist. 

 

There are those that selectively use the term merit when convenient. 

 

There are those that view a society based on merit as inherently discriminatory. 

 

There are those who argue discrimination when the results of meritocracy aren't to their liking. 

 

Divine right and/or elitist agency themselves can be viewed as merit in some people's eyes. (Whether others disagree or agree is a different story). 

 

Selection of government also doesn't necessarily affect the rest of society or reflect its organization. An example: Ancient China where the bureaucratic system was meritocratic, but the government head was an emperor. One can compare it to Republican India where, in many fields/sectors, birth caste or religion influence outcomes more than ability/achievement. This is despite India having the largest democratic exercise in human history every time it elects a prime minister. 

 

Neither does lacking meritocracy in one sector, preclude another sector from having meritocracy: the Indian IT industry is very meritocratic, but the Judiciary and Bollywood are hereditary fiefdoms. 

 

 

Some of the problem comes from the somewhat fuzzy definition

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mer·it
/ˈmerət/
noun
 
  1. 1.
    the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward.

Meritocracy is more accurately, at least based on the above definition of merit, IMO, defined as having a set of consistent standards within a field/sector so that the most qualified in that field/sector, based on those set standards, advances to higher positions on the ladder. 

 

 

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3. You have not addressed the fundamental basis of liberalism vs conservatism: the fundamental basis is liberals stand for change, conservatives stand for satus quo anti bellum. This is seen the world over, irrespective of western or eastern systems. Ultra-liberals want to change everything, for their ideology is any change is better than incumbency of any sort. Ultra-conservatives want to change nothing and their fundamental motto is ' dont change what has worked in the past'. 

The fundamental bone between liberals and conservatives, is being pro or anti change. This is why most people who are liberal are centrist-liberals: they mostly stand for change that can be justified based on quantified gains/results, shunning the orthodoxy of no change when suited but also the radicalism of change for change's sake.

See way above.

 

Also, in case there is conflation here between the words "conservative"/"liberal" and the actual political philosophy of Liberalism. There is a reason I am trying to use a big "L" and small "l" in my posts(although I should have probably made it more clear what I was talking about). 

 

The words "liberal" and "conservative" are relative to the cultures, broad or specific, from which they originate. This is why, as I showed earlier, the same belief can be conservative or liberal depending on where it comes from. 

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I myself am a liberal

The importance is the distinction between little "l" and big "L".

 

I doubt anyone, barring a selective few, are solely in the "liberal" or "conservative" buckets. Most likely you are a mixed bag of both, regardless of ratio. There is an added complexity here because you are torn between two world: Canada and India, so your supporting one thing could be "conservative" in India and "liberal" in Canada at the same time (and vice versa). 

 

Based on the Western-perspective, from whatever I remember you saying before, you aren't a big "L" Liberal, ie, a follower of Classical Liberalism or Libertarianism, although, IIRC, you said you were once a Libertarian in college. You are more of a Statist, right or left is a different axis, as opposed to a Liberal. 

22 hours ago, Alam_dar said:

Although I believe that Left always stays closer to the true Liberal Values as compared to the right.

Not really, Left parties are the farthest away from both Classical Liberal and Libertarian values in India. They are phony Liberals.

Edited by Tibarn
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3 hours ago, Tibarn said:

<snip for space>

First, thank you for a detailed response. Its always a pleasure to debate you, even when we don't see eye to eye sometimes. 
I will not disagree with much here, except a few points:

 

1. By libertarian standards, at least from what I've encountered, there is no 'sliding scale' of what taxation is justified and what isn't. To them, its a 'slippery slope' : once you justify taxation for infrastructure or defense, you can also justify taxation for the welfare state programs. As such, I've found that libertarianism essentially is de-facto anarchism in all but one aspect: government enforcement and arbitration of property rights.

 

2. I am not sold that Hinduism is a 'nationalist' religion. Indeed, 'vasudeva kutumbakam' is a big pillar of hinduism and is the reason why hinduism spread to SE Asia in the first place. Hinduism is definitively statist, as in it recognizes and endorses the authority of the state. 

 

3. What is this 'deep ecology' you speak of, if its not just a scientific & nuanced articulation of ecology ? 

 

4. If you define traditional = conservative, then conservatism becomes equally defunct as radical liberalism: we live in a changing universe and sticking to the past in every single scenario is equally disastrous as continously changing things regardless of whether the said thing is still relevant or not.

 

5. The idea of 'hindu civilization' is IMO, defamation/demeaning to the Jains and Buddhists - who in the past combined were likely a majoritarian demographic for a period. I'd prefer the term dharmic civilization, since it does not intrinsically put hindu paramountcy on a civilization that has had decisive and quantified inputs from the non-hindu elements of it. For the Dharmic civilization to thrive or even survive, we must look beyond the Abrahamic 'need' of declaring superiority of one branch over another or identity of one branch over the other. 

 

6. The idea that 'hindu civilization' had republics in the past, ergo republicanism is 'traditional' is inconsistent with the idea that tradition = conservative. At the time we founded those republics, they were a 'radical change' from the past monarchial systems. If the whole basis of 'conservative' is in tradition, then we can argue that any and all change done today, provided it lasts a thousand years, becomes 'conservative'. Its inconsistent with the long term definitions/ideologies of conservatism vs liberalism, which is why i see the 'for change' vs 'for no change' as the eternal definition - it isn't impacted even in a thousand years.

 

7. My main gripe against monarchy is two-folds: 

    a) I think its safe to say I am significantly older than you and one 'normal' trait i share with most humans, is that the older you get, the more pragmatic and less idealistic you get. I used to be far more left 20 years ago than I am today ( though being a Bong and seeing first hand the disaster of the commie left, never 'that' left). 
As such, I find that my desire of a government is NOT one that does the greatest good, but the one that does the LEAST harm. I don't care if in my lifetime of 100 years, 90 of them are dominated by the 'Fredrick the Great or Amoghavarsha' types only to have the last 10 years being 'Aurangzeb or Alauddin Khilji' types. I end up dead or the work of the 90 years of 'awesome autocrats' is undone by the work of 1 unhinged one. Give me 100 years of MMS over that any day of the week - we will see less progress but we will also see less regress. This is fundamental to my political view.

 

 b) I urge you to read tragedy of the commons by Garrett Harding. Its an illuminating light on the fundamental tussle between the individual and the society long term, which has been ongoing in every society known to man, for aeons : inheritence and the nepotism that comes with it. An autocracy, by definition and by practice, accelerates this unbalance of society - where too many people with extremely low skills or competence inherit great amounts of power and wealth. Democracy by definition and in practice, puts the breaks on this process 

 

8. The idea of meritocracy is very simple- if you are more qualified/deserving of being in the position you are in, you should be, regardless of your birth or social power you exude. I don't know where the whole ' lack of merit in one field doesn't preclude merit in another' is coming from - its inherent to the definition of meritocracy. I have practically zero meritocratic basis on being the economic or finance minister of a nation. That doesn't mean I don't have the merit to be the R&D or Tech minister of the said nation.

 

9. I am what you'd call a 'hard-nosed Liberal' with a big "L". Ie, i am in favor of taxation and the nanny state for what i consider essential to the functioning of the state: tax funded infrastructure, defense, law & order, education, medicine and social help to those who need it. By those who need it, i mean single mothers/families living in jhoprees and such. But if you are the standard typical 'i have anxiety and i feel broken' 6'2 200 pound 25 year old leech, i have zero f*cks to give about your 'hard situation'. 

 

I used to be libertarian but then the utilitarian in me prevailed: libertarian societies will ALWAYS lose to a more statist society and therefore, statism is the winning side. 

Edited by Muloghonto
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4 hours ago, rkt.india said:

Why leftists are called liberals? I don't think people linked to a particular ideology should be called liberals. 

Leftists can never be liberals, well especially the extreme leftists

Alot of leftist ideology contradicts liberalism, it's a big sham in India "leftists" are considered liberal. 

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