Anti-Liberalism

[Laika]

I'm in a strange place at the moment as my "faith" in communism has virtually died, but it still has a lasting impact in some very deep objections to economic and political liberalism. This has made it a lot harder to find "alternatives" as it closes the door on them. So I'm going to say something's, see what people's reactions are and just take it from there.

Liberalism appeals to natural law, a "human nature" which is said to be universal. it is often implied that it is eternal as well, both in the assumption that people have always operated for selfish purposes, and that liberalism represents "the end of history"; if human nature doesn't change, neither will society.

This is however, a myth. "human nature" represents an intangible quality in human beings. It has no physical characteristics, or a relationship with the physical nature of man. This is because Liberalism is a product of Judaeo-Christian thought and "human nature" is really another way of saying "the soul". So when a Liberal proclaims "universal human rights" derived from "human nature", they are doing nothing of the sort. they are imposing a western belief system onto the world.

Liberals hate violence. They condemn the Holocaust and the Nazis as a "unique evil". Communists are treated the same way for committing mass murder. Of course, Liberals get a free pass. Every single "crime against humanity" ever committed by a liberal is never a reflection of Liberalism itself. There are two possible reasons for this;

the first is that the liberal acted as an "individual" and so therefore the actions of the individual are not representative of the group. Whereas the actions Nazis and Communists are considered representative because they are collectivistic, and therefore that the individual has no will, no freedom and therefore no "self" by which to be held responsible. Consequently, in trying to "understand" what motivated Communists and Nazis, it consists largely of making claims that border-line on mysticism; on demonising Nazis and Communists as "inhuman" or as instruments of a "idea" or "leader" or "state". The important factor is that liberals deny the humanity of their enemies, and consequently their human rights. To a liberal, it is perfectly acceptable to violate human rights if you deny a person's humanity, again demonstrating that 'human nature' has little to do with the physical nature of man.

the second is that liberalism is considered "natural". Because liberalism is the "correct" and "true" understanding of human nature, it follows that Nazis and Communists were "delusional", or were in some way psychologically disturbed. Liberals overwhelmingly spend most of their time saying how evil group X, Y, Z are whilst having only a marginal understanding of an ideology, thereby imposing their convictions on them. In the US this is why there is such an absurd use of the tem "socialism" to cover Adolf Hitler, pol pot, Stalin, Mao, Barack Obama, or even Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. Liberals assert a "special" relationship with reality that makes them "realistic" and everyone else "utopian". In asserting the "realism" of their beliefs, this leads to an ethical double standard where Liberals are more than justified in committing extra ordinary acts of violence, such as the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the carpet bombing of Cambodia, because they are "realistic" whereas the Nazis were deluded by their "ideology" into committing the holocaust. The former are justified at the time whereas the latter is not justified. liberals can, should and have committed crimes against humanity- but they are the ones who determine what qualifies as "humanity".

This all comes down to the "Paradox of tolerance": that is, you can only tolerate those people who are "tolerant" or else by tolerating groups such s communists, nazis, Islamists, etc, you diminish the overall level of tolerance. Of course, what that is saying is that liberals can only tolerate liberals because it is only by working within a liberal system, accepting it's values that you can be considered "tolerant". If a group falls outside of that, depending on the severity of the circumstances, liberals can and will support widespread human rights abuses in order to defend "tolerance" or "freedom and democracy" or "human rights" or else be willing to support dictatorial groups that advance their agenda, whether they be fascist dictatorships, Islamic fundamentalists, and on rare occasion, Communist dictatorships. it is the perverse, self-contradictory nature of this set of beliefs which means I find it extremely difficult to entertain the idea of becoming anything remotely like a liberal or accept the status quo. If it is wrong from communists to commit genocide, it surely follows that he same is true for liberals. Only in practice, it clearly doesn't.

Liberals profess freedom of the press, when in reality it has become the freedom to engage in systematic, widespread mass indoctrination to manipulate "public opinion". No matter how many lies or distortions are told in commercial or political "advertising", it is defended in the name of free speech. This indoctrination renders any notion of "democracy" useless because the people are neither informed, nor trusted to make an informed decision. They are herded like cattle into shopping malls, polling booths where they are "freely" to as they are told and buy things they 't need, or vote for parties based on whether the leader demonstrates adequate skill eating a bacon sandwich. The people wave the flag as their country bombs peoples around the world because "freedom and democracy" are so unequivocally good, they demand a human sacrifice. Liberals defend free trade; in the 19th century that included the sale of human beings in the enslavement of African Americans, or forcibly opening up Chinese markets so that the west could "freely" supply the Chinese people with opium. "forced" famines are condemned as genocide, but mass starvation due to free trade is exonerated because it is the "human right" of property owners to deny people food as it is there "private property".

The only legitimate reason to defend liberalism is the "lack of coercion" as a qualification for "freedom" even if it is rendered absolutely futile by the inequalities within a society. but it should be clear that "nonaggression" is not the "normal" state of affairs. individual liberty is dependent on the existence of the state and therefore on violence. The "universal" nature of human rights was established by European colonial conquest and genocide in the 19th century. Whilst appealing to the "eternal" human nature, liberals fail to take into account the evolution of the concept of human rights where a black person goes from being property to president of the united states.

Those who profess that communism could never succeed because of the innate selfishness of human nature, contort their arguments to avoid the conclusion that it is totalitarianism, rather than freedom which is man's natural state. If man is driven by selfishness, why it is more natural for people to be driven by greed than the sadistic lust for power through violence?

So, both out of mixture of rage at hypocrisy and genuinely stumped by the self-contradictory nature of liberalism I want to ask, given the corrupt and pseudo-totalitarian nature of liberalism, why be a liberal at all?

 

[Sunstone]

I'm in a strange place at the moment as my "faith" in communism has virtually died, but it still has a lasting impact in some very deep objections to economic and political liberalism. This has made it a lot harder to find "alternatives" as it closes the door on them. So I'm going to say something's, see what people's reactions are and just take it from there.

Liberalism appeals to natural law, a "human nature" which is said to be universal. it is often implied that it is eternal as well, both in the assumption that people have always operated for selfish purposes, and that liberalism represents "the end of history"; if human nature doesn't change, neither will society.

This is however, a myth. "human nature" represents an intangible quality in human beings. It has no physical characteristics, or a relationship with the physical nature of man. This is because Liberalism is a product of Judaeo-Christian thought and "human nature" is really another way of saying "the soul". So when a Liberal proclaims "universal human rights" derived from "human nature", they are doing nothing of the sort. they are imposing a western belief system onto the world.

Liberals hate violence. They condemn the Holocaust and the Nazis as a "unique evil". Communists are treated the same way for committing mass murder. Of course, Liberals get a free pass. Every single "crime against humanity" ever committed by a liberal is never a reflection of Liberalism itself. There are two possible reasons for this;

the first is that the liberal acted as an "individual" and so therefore the actions of the individual are not representative of the group. Whereas the actions Nazis and Communists are considered representative because they are collectivistic, and therefore that the individual has no will, no freedom and therefore no "self" by which to be held responsible. Consequently, in trying to "understand" what motivated Communists and Nazis, it consists largely of making claims that border-line on mysticism; on demonising Nazis and Communists as "inhuman" or as instruments of a "idea" or "leader" or "state". The important factor is that liberals deny the humanity of their enemies, and consequently their human rights. To a liberal, it is perfectly acceptable to violate human rights if you deny a person's humanity, again demonstrating that 'human nature' has little to do with the physical nature of man.

the second is that liberalism is considered "natural". Because liberalism is the "correct" and "true" understanding of human nature, it follows that Nazis and Communists were "delusional", or were in some way psychologically disturbed. Liberals overwhelmingly spend most of their time saying how evil group X, Y, Z are whilst having only a marginal understanding of an ideology, thereby imposing their convictions on them. In the US this is why there is such an absurd use of the tem "socialism" to cover Adolf Hitler, pol pot, Stalin, Mao, Barack Obama, or even Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. Liberals assert a "special" relationship with reality that makes them "realistic" and everyone else "utopian". In asserting the "realism" of their beliefs, this leads to an ethical double standard where Liberals are more than justified in committing extra ordinary acts of violence, such as the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the carpet bombing of Cambodia, because they are "realistic" whereas the Nazis were deluded by their "ideology" into committing the holocaust. The former are justified at the time whereas the latter is not justified. liberals can, should and have committed crimes against humanity- but they are the ones who determine what qualifies as "humanity".

This all comes down to the "Paradox of tolerance": that is, you can only tolerate those people who are "tolerant" or else by tolerating groups such s communists, nazis, Islamists, etc, you diminish the overall level of tolerance. Of course, what that is saying is that liberals can only tolerate liberals because it is only by working within a liberal system, accepting it's values that you can be considered "tolerant". If a group falls outside of that, depending on the severity of the circumstances, liberals can and will support widespread human rights abuses in order to defend "tolerance" or "freedom and democracy" or "human rights" or else be willing to support dictatorial groups that advance their agenda, whether they be fascist dictatorships, Islamic fundamentalists, and on rare occasion, Communist dictatorships. it is the perverse, self-contradictory nature of this set of beliefs which means I find it extremely difficult to entertain the idea of becoming anything remotely like a liberal or accept the status quo. If it is wrong from communists to commit genocide, it surely follows that he same is true for liberals. Only in practice, it clearly doesn't.

Liberals profess freedom of the press, when in reality it has become the freedom to engage in systematic, widespread mass indoctrination to manipulate "public opinion". No matter how many lies or distortions are told in commercial or political "advertising", it is defended in the name of free speech. This indoctrination renders any notion of "democracy" useless because the people are neither informed, nor trusted to make an informed decision. They are herded like cattle into shopping malls, polling booths where they are "freely" to as they are told and buy things they 't need, or vote for parties based on whether the leader demonstrates adequate skill eating a bacon sandwich. The people wave the flag as their country bombs peoples around the world because "freedom and democracy" are so unequivocally good, they demand a human sacrifice. Liberals defend free trade; in the 19th century that included the sale of human beings in the enslavement of African Americans, or forcibly opening up Chinese markets so that the west could "freely" supply the Chinese people with opium. "forced" famines are condemned as genocide, but mass starvation due to free trade is exonerated because it is the "human right" of property owners to deny people food as it is there "private property".

The only legitimate reason to defend liberalism is the "lack of coercion" as a qualification for "freedom" even if it is rendered absolutely futile by the inequalities within a society. but it should be clear that "nonaggression" is not the "normal" state of affairs. individual liberty is dependent on the existence of the state and therefore on violence. The "universal" nature of human rights was established by European colonial conquest and genocide in the 19th century. Whilst appealing to the "eternal" human nature, liberals fail to take into account the evolution of the concept of human rights where a black person goes from being property to president of the united states.

Those who profess that communism could never succeed because of the innate selfishness of human nature, contort their arguments to avoid the conclusion that it is totalitarianism, rather than freedom which is man's natural state. If man is driven by selfishness, why it is more natural for people to be driven by greed than the sadistic lust for power through violence?

So, both out of mixture of rage at hypocrisy and genuinely stumped by the self-contradictory nature of liberalism I want to ask, given the corrupt and pseudo-totalitarian nature of liberalism, why be a liberal at all?

I do not mean to offend, my friend, but your post is to liberalism what black face is to Blacks. That is, it is no more accurate, and no less superficial, than that. You can do better. Much better.

You've got a good head. You should go to the primary sources yourself, study them, and over time and with learning arrive at your own thoughts about them. I presume you have not done that here, but have rather relied too heavily on the criticisms of liberalism originated and espoused by others.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Laika
It is a pity that you have no inkling about Liberal philosophy, as you have so clearly demonstrated in your OP.
any one who separates Liberalism into Political, economic and social partitions Has not understood that Liberal philosophy embraces all these areas equally.
And that they are inseparable. except perhaps to someone suffering from Multiple personality disorder.

 

[Augustus]

Liberalism appeals to natural law, a "human nature" which is said to be universal.

For many of the early secular proponents of natural law, the universalism was only limited to the 'advanced races' of course, the lower ones considered to be more akin to fauna than they were to the white race. This gave legitimacy to colonialism, which was as much a progressive ideology as it was of the right. Attempts to civilise the 'inferior races' is still a trait exhibited amongst both progressive and conservative liberals, Iraq being the most obvious recent example. The white man's burden never truly went away.

Liberals hate violence. They condemn the Holocaust and the Nazis as a "unique evil". Communists are treated the same way for committing mass murder. Of course, Liberals get a free pass. Every single "crime against humanity" ever committed by a liberal is never a reflection of Liberalism itself.

This relies on the ability to distance normative ideology from positive experience: How easy is this to achieve?

It is easier for the US Christian to create distance between the normative 'peaceful Jesus' and Christian extremists groups, than it is for the US Muslim. This is in part due to religious doctrines, but more significantly due to people's perception towards and knowledge of Islam. An 'alien' culture with an unfamiliar mythology finds this distance harder to create.

Liberalism can create this normative distance even more easily than Christianity. You can even start a war of aggression and claim the moral high-ground whilst doing so, you kill people to protect their freedom and human rights.

Liberalism has been good in providing wealth and security for most people living in liberal countries, but it needs to be acknowledged that it has not always been so good for many of the rest. It has arguably been the most violent of all philosophies, and if not the most, certainly highly bloodthirsty.

While many see violence as 'inhuman', unfortunately, nothing is more human than violence.

So, both out of mixture of rage at hypocrisy and genuinely stumped by the self-contradictory nature of liberalism I want to ask, given the corrupt and pseudo-totalitarian nature of liberalism, why be a liberal at all?

It probably starts with throwing away all of the myths that have built up around Liberalism. It is an ideology based on faith as much as reason, it's not universal, it's not inherently peaceful and liberal countries have a history of exploiting and destroying rival cultures, especially the 'primitive' ones.

It is a product of its time and environment, assuming it will naturally be replicated in different environments is a fantasy. And when the environment changes in its heartlands, its time will be up there too.

Hobbes gave greater importance to avoidance of evil than 'liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. While he viewed humans as loving of freedom, he also saw them as proud pursuers of glory and 'dominion over others'.

His view was that freedom had to be limited to stop man's failings from creating ongoing violent conflict. As all men fear violent death, avoiding this greatest evil was the purpose of government. Man will sacrifice freedom for security.

But as history shows that the hunt for glory and excitement often trumps this fear of death, many people like war either as active participants or passive cheerleaders. Roman nobility often desired nothing more than the chance to command an army in battle and its promise of glory. Russians today will give up some freedoms for the strong leadership of Putin and the restoration of national pride and love him for it. Many Western liberals find this hard to comprehend.

Liberalism and liberal economics grew out of Christian universal monotheism, but now it is largely secularised. The question of whether or not you can remove the foundation stone of a belief system without having any effect on the rest of it is certainly relevant. How well can its claim to universalism and underlying social and economic tenets stand up with no creator or Divine Providence to guide the process?

A defence of liberalism would have to jettison the teleological view of history and accept liberalism will one day disappear. It would look at its many impressive achievements in providing wealth and security for most citizens, but also acknowledge that many of the harms it does are logical effects of the philosophy rather than outliers or bad apples. I'm never too optimistic about society learning from its mistakes though.

If liberalism is seen as something that will one day disappear, then people need to consider what the most likely causes of this could be, environmental degradation, severe economic problems, global warfare for example, and to modify the aspects of liberalism that are expediting the arrival of these. If liberalism is to be protected as the best available option, then it needs to think about its long term prospects. Unfortunately, the 'end of history' type mythology blinds people to the need to do this, creating hubristic overconfidence.

For all its failings, I still think liberalism (with a strong commitment to social justice), is better than the alternatives in most contemporary societies. That it is deeply flawed reflects the fact that humans are complex and deeply flawed


[I'm just going to stop writing now, can't articulate myself properly. My brain has given up and is telling me to cook pork chops instead. What I've written is probably half-baked and not very coherent as well as being tl;dr]

 

[Laika]

I do not mean to offend, my friend, but your post is to liberalism what black face is to Blacks. That is, it is no more accurate, and no less superficial, than that. You can do better. Much better.

You've got a good head. You should go to the primary sources yourself, study them, and over time and with learning arrive at your own thoughts about them. I presume you have not done that here, but have rather relied too heavily on the criticisms of liberalism originated and espoused by others.

That's sort of a compliment and I'll try to take it as one.

Much of my past beliefs are now in ruins and "recovery" is going to be slow, which ever direction I take. My rejection of communism, partial as it is, is based on emotional revulsion rather than rational objections. I agree that they did things that were bad- but the extent to which such criticism is taken renders it hypocritical. it is therefore not a very sound basis to oppose or reject communism because of liberalism. Communism is condemned as inherently evil for actions which also have been undertaken by liberal governments in the 18th, 19th centuries, or were used to defend liberalism from communism in the Cold War. Any principled opposition to communism as a system, would therefore also entail opposition to liberalism as a system.

In practice, it doesn't happen. liberalism is given special treatment, meaning that most of the problems are hidden or dismissed. Stalin is condemned for running a vast empire of forced labour camps, whilst the founding fathers are celebrated for words on "inalienable rights" of man, whilst owning slaves. Communists are condemned for having one-party states which deny the consent of the governed, whilst through most of the 19th and 20th century universal suffrage involved exemptions on the basis of property, race and gender. Wars of aggression such as Korea in 1950 are examples of the ambition to world domination, whilst liberalism success in conquering the world in the 19th century is simply further evidence of how "natural" it is. One is a deliberate crime for which a whole tradition of ideas is condemned, the other is a terrible accident which is written out of the history books. it rings alarm bells given past experience and makes me question how much difference there is between the two.

I find the notion that a Western, European, Judeao-Christian ideology developed in the last 200 or 300 hundred years, proclaims itself the 'one true faith' for which all others in the 10,000 years preceding it, and a fair number following it, are relegated as delusions because they are "unnatural" to be an extra-ordinary claim. I consider it consistent with free thought to question a belief which for most is taken for granted as "self-evident" truths. I feel like a flat-earther or worse for even questioning liberalism and it sucks. but it is disservice both to my self to conform because society says on the one hand I am "free to chose" whilst on the other saying "there is no alternative".

I have been at the other end of liberal arguments for 12 years even if I may not have read primary sources. I have spent time reading a few, so I am not completely uniformed. I feel I have earned the right to call out hypocrisy rather than conform blindly. That is consistent with both communist and liberal beliefs. I'm going to lose the argument, but I feel I have to try before I completely give up my ideals for the tyrannical "reality" of living in a society where people have the freedom to chose and then chose to elect dictators because they hate themselves so much. its too sad and hateful to think that "liberty, fraternity and equality" have been reduced to the watching the shopping channel.

Laika
It is a pity that you have no inkling about Liberal philosophy, as you have so clearly demonstrated in your OP.
any one who separates Liberalism into Political, economic and social partitions Has not understood that Liberal philosophy embraces all these areas equally.
And that they are inseparable. except perhaps to someone suffering from Multiple personality disorder.

Well, no actually. Economic and Political Liberalism were separable until the 1930's when as part of the challenges posed by Fascism and Communism, certain groups of liberals arrived at the conclusion that free markets were the economic basis for political liberalism. This is well stated in Hayek's The Road to Serfdom but the irony of course if that by treating economic and determining politics is a Marxian idea.

In the 19th century political liberalism, can and did exist separately for economic liberalism as a set of ideas. People accepted the idea of a "democratic" or "liberal" socialism. This is also why people like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky were allowed to live in the UK because they were not perceived as a threat to the status quo; the scope of tolerance was perhaps much larger in the 19th century than it is today. Today, virtually any form of socialism, irrespective of the professed intentions of its adherents, is treated as totalitarian by virtue of the "laws of nature" which mean the egotism and selfishness take precedence over the capacity for human reason to change our behaviour.

When economic and political liberalism are treated as joined, economic liberalism is treated as the source of political liberalism. i.e. private property and self-ownership is the source of all other human rights. Taken to it's logical extremes, you end up either with arguments that it is necessary to defend free markets by dictatorial means as happened in the Cold War with neo-liberal economic experiments in Chile or McCarthyism in the US in the 50's, or that free markets can exist without a state in the form of anarchist-capitalism because liberty is derived from natural laws not man-made ones.

 

[Sunstone]

If you are going to asset that liberalism is an ideology responsible for the nonsense of a White Man's burden, or the exploitation of brown peoples, etc, etc, then please prove it. Show me where liberal ideology says, "Go forth and exploit".

I can assert the moon is made out of cheese, but I can't prove it. And I doubt you can prove that liberalism is an ideology responsible for the things you are claiming it is responsible for because liberalism is based on principles that directly and indirectly contradict such notions as the White Man's burden, or the exploitation of other peoples, etc.

 

[Augustus]

If you are going to asset that liberalism is an ideology responsible for the nonsense of a White Man's burden, or the exploitation of brown peoples, etc, etc, then please prove it. Show me where liberal ideology says, "Go forth and exploit".

I can assert the moon is made out of cheese, but I can't prove it. And I doubt you can prove that liberalism is an ideology responsible for the things you are claiming it is responsible for because liberalism is based on principles that directly and indirectly contradict such notions as the White Man's burden, or the exploitation of other peoples, etc.

Many Enlightenment thinkers (Locke, Kant, etc) were proponents of scientific theories of race which was a driving force behind colonialism. It was viewed as genuine science then not the pseudo-science it's seen as now. People like to forget this or pretend it didn't happen as it is inconvenient.

Locke, who was one of the architects of English colonial policy – he drafted the Constitution of the Carolinas, for example – saw Indians and Africans as failing to mix their labours with the land. As a result of this failing they had no right to property. They had lost their liberty ‘by some Act that deserves Death’ (opposing the Europeans) and hence could be enslaved.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7j_ei697XA0C&pg=PT96&lpg=PT96&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false

That is the "father of liberalism", John Locke.

 

[Laika]

If you are going to asset that liberalism is an ideology responsible for the nonsense of a White Man's burden, or the exploitation of brown peoples, etc, etc, then please prove it. Show me where liberal ideology says, "Go forth and exploit".

I can assert the moon is made out of cheese, but I can't prove it. And I doubt you can prove that liberalism is an ideology responsible for the things you are claiming it is responsible for because liberalism is based on principles that directly and indirectly contradict such notions as the White Man's burden, or the exploitation of other peoples, etc.

Ok. I'm going to try to demonstrate the existence of a double standard and it's relationship to Liberalism. we can start with three (Cold War era) examples that might get the ball rolling.

The "Chicago Boys" and Augusto Pinochet

A Group of Chilean economists, trained at the Chicago School of economics under Milton Freidman, known as the "Chicago Boys" worked with Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile to privatise and de-regulate the economy in response to the nationalisation under Allende. Milton Freidman said that the “Chilean economy did very well, but more importantly, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.” My point is here, to demonstrate the it is acceptable to use dictatorship as an expedient to defend or promote free markets.

[There is not however evidence that the CIA was directly involved in the 1973 coup overthrowing Allende despite widespread rumours of such]

Communist Control Act of 1954

The Communist Control Act of 1954 was passed in the United States "To outlaw the Communist Party, to prohibit members of Communist organizations from serving in certain representative capacities, and for other purposes." It passed in the Senate (85-0) and in the House of Representatives (305-2). Section 3, of the act reads as follows.

Sec. 3. The Communist Party of the United States, or any successors of such party regardless of the assumed name, whose object or purpose is to overthrow the Government of the United States, or the government of any State, Territory, District, or possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein by force and violence, are not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof; and whatever rights, privileges, and immunities which have heretofore been granted to said party or any subsidiary organization by reason of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof, are hereby terminated: Provided, however, That nothing in this section shall be construed as amending the Internal Security Act of 1950, as amended.

This act remains on the Statue book in the US but has not been enforced (mainly due to bad wording). In 1961, the Supreme court ruled that the act did not deny the right to unemployment insurance. The supreme court has not ruled on it constitutionality.

In so far as this demonstrates the suspension of constitutional rights, it shows that the United States, as a liberal system of government does not necessarily protect or secure right to free speech as a natural or inalienable right existing independently of the government. The reason this is important is because it shows that i) liberal systems of government do violate people's rights and ii) that these rights are made by men, enforced by the state and therefore do not exist "objectively" to the will of the state or the individual. i.e. there is no such thing as "inalienable" or "natural" rights.

Indonesian Killings on 1965-66

following a failed coup attempt in 1965, the Indonesia government killed 500,000 people associated with Indonesian Communist Party. The CIA helped compile and provided with lists.

"The details of what individual Western governments did are somewhat obscure, but for example the United States provided cash for the death squad and the army, weapons, radios so the army could coordinate the killing campaigns across the 17,000-island archipelago, and death lists. I interviewed two retired CIA agents and a retired state department official whose job was to compile lists generally of public figures known publically to the army, compiled lists of thousands of names of people the U.S. wanted killed, and hand these names over to the army and then check off which ones had been killed. They would get the list back with the names ticked off [designating] who had been captured and killed."

i.e. In order to win the Cold War for the "free world" the US government, and the CIA were willing to actively assist serious human rights abuses.

 

[Sunstone]

Many Enlightenment thinkers (Locke, Kant, etc) were proponents of scientific theories of race which was a driving force behind colonialism. It was viewed as genuine science then not the pseudo-science it's seen as now. People like to forget this or pretend it didn't happen as it is inconvenient.

Locke, who was one of the architects of English colonial policy – he drafted the Constitution of the Carolinas, for example – saw Indians and Africans as failing to mix their labours with the land. As a result of this failing they had no right to property. They had lost their liberty ‘by some Act that deserves Death’ (opposing the Europeans) and hence could be enslaved.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7j_ei697XA0C&pg=PT96&lpg=PT96&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false

That is the "father of liberalism", John Locke.

Locke is giving bad reasons for contradicting his own principle of the consent of the governed. This does not mean that his principle, consent of the governed, is any less valid than it is. And consent of the governed undermines his (most likely) expedient notion that Indians and Africans can be rightfully enslaved.

Secondly, for your point to be a condemnation of all liberalism you would need to assume the ridiculous notion that liberalism cannot evolve and progress. But that's like saying that a science cannot evolve and progress. You are somewhat in the position of a creationist who is criticizing evolution for something Darwin said, rather than for its current manifestation.

 

[Sunstone]

Ok. I'm going to try to demonstrate the existence of a double standard and it's relationship to Liberalism. we can start with three (Cold War era) examples that might get the ball rolling.

The "Chicago Boys" and Augusto Pinochet

A Group of Chilean economists, trained at the Chicago School of economics under Milton Freidman, known as the "Chicago Boys" worked with Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile to privatise and de-regulate the economy in response to the nationalisation under Allende. Milton Freidman said that the “Chilean economy did very well, but more importantly, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.” My point is here, to demonstrate the it is acceptable to use dictatorship as an expedient to defend or promote free markets.

[There is not however evidence that the CIA was directly involved in the 1973 coup overthrowing Allende despite widespread rumours of such]

Communist Control Act of 1954

The Communist Control Act of 1954 was passed in the United States "To outlaw the Communist Party, to prohibit members of Communist organizations from serving in certain representative capacities, and for other purposes." It passed in the Senate (85-0) and in the House of Representatives (305-2). Section 3, of the act reads as follows.

Sec. 3. The Communist Party of the United States, or any successors of such party regardless of the assumed name, whose object or purpose is to overthrow the Government of the United States, or the government of any State, Territory, District, or possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein by force and violence, are not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof; and whatever rights, privileges, and immunities which have heretofore been granted to said party or any subsidiary organization by reason of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof, are hereby terminated: Provided, however, That nothing in this section shall be construed as amending the Internal Security Act of 1950, as amended.

This act remains on the Statue book in the US but has not been enforced (mainly due to bad wording). In 1961, the Supreme court ruled that the act did not deny the right to unemployment insurance. The supreme court has not ruled on it constitutionality.

In so far as this demonstrates the suspension of constitutional rights, it shows that the United States, as a liberal system of government does not necessarily protect or secure right to free speech as a natural or inalienable right existing independently of the government. The reason this is important is because it shows that i) liberal systems of government do violate people's rights and ii) that these rights are made by men, enforced by the state and therefore do not exist "objectively" to the will of the state or the individual. i.e. there is no such thing as "inalienable" or "natural" rights.

Indonesian Killings on 1965-66

following a failed coup attempt in 1965, the Indonesia government killed 500,000 people associated with Indonesian Communist Party. The CIA helped compile and provided with lists.

"The details of what individual Western governments did are somewhat obscure, but for example the United States provided cash for the death squad and the army, weapons, radios so the army could coordinate the killing campaigns across the 17,000-island archipelago, and death lists. I interviewed two retired CIA agents and a retired state department official whose job was to compile lists generally of public figures known publically to the army, compiled lists of thousands of names of people the U.S. wanted killed, and hand these names over to the army and then check off which ones had been killed. They would get the list back with the names ticked off [designating] who had been captured and killed."

i.e. In order to win the Cold War for the "free world" the US government, and the CIA were willing to actively assist serious human rights abuses.

I ask that you show me where the ideology of liberalism justifies exploiting people and you only show me where people who consider themselves in some sense liberal have abandoned the ideology. Is that logically sufficient grounds for asserting that the ideology of liberalism justifies exploiting people?

 

[Laika]

I ask that you show me where the ideology of liberalism justifies exploiting people and you only show me where people who consider themselves in some sense liberal have abandoned the ideology. Is that logically sufficient grounds for asserting that the ideology of liberalism justifies exploiting people?

If your looking for a "smoking gun" from the ideology to specific injustices to demonstrate direct causation, that is hard to do particularly because it greatly simplifies the decision making involved. Here is an attempt in an area of history I am not intimately familiar with but is none the less damming.

"To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.... In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation."

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Henry Harrison in 1803, whilst he is President of the United States on the subject of Indian Removal.

"You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed possession. They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach."

Jefferson in a letter to Alexander von Humboldt in 1813.

 

[Sunstone]

If you could only show me how principles and ideas like "the consent of the governed", "the right to life, liberty, and property", "the right to life, liberty, and happiness", the notion that the sole legitimate justification for beliefs is some combination of logical reasoning and empirical evidence -- if you could only show me how these principles and ideas of liberalism logically lead to exploiting people I would be satisfied with your claims that liberal ideology is inherently exploitative.

 

[Augustus]

Locke is giving bad reasons for contradicting his own principle of the consent of the governed. This does not mean that his principle, consent of the governed, is any less valid than it is. And consent of the governed undermines his (most likely) expedient notion that Indians and Africans can be rightfully enslaved.

Secondly, for your point to be a condemnation of all liberalism you would need to assume the ridiculous notion that liberalism cannot evolve and progress. But that's like saying that a science cannot evolve and progress. You are somewhat in the position of a creationist who is criticizing evolution for something Darwin said, rather than for its current manifestation.

I didn't condemn all liberalism, I actually supported it to some extent in my 1st post. I think that for liberalism to evolve it needs to acknowledge its history and understand the problems and harms that this can bring. This isn't just about ancient past, the Iraq war was a war for liberalism.

Even peaceful liberalism isn't benign though, it is expansive. Much of what Marx said about capitalism was correct, especially regarding its relentless commodification of culture.

Much of the trouble in the world today is a backlash against liberalism, people should understand why.

 

[Laika]

If you could only show me how principles and ideas like "the consent of the governed", "the right to life, liberty, and property", "the right to life, liberty, and happiness", the notion that the sole legitimate justification for beliefs is some combination of logical reasoning and empirical evidence -- if you could only show me how these principles and ideas of liberalism logically lead to exploiting people I would be satisfied with your claims that liberal ideology is inherently exploitative.

Here's the Soviet Constitution of 1936.

ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.

This is protection for "freedom of religious worship", whilst tacitly admitting the existence of the league of militant atheists and persecution of religion in the "freedom of antireligious propaganda". In most cases where we are dealing with Nazis and Communists, and couldn't care less about the presumption of innocence or individual responsibility because they are the "enemy", complicity or association is sufficient to be considered a form of guilt. It is taken for granted that the legality of their actions does not count as a basis for considering their actions as moral.

Here's the US Constitution,

Article 1, Section 2.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons.

"three fifths of all other persons" means the slaves. The constitution neither prohibited nor authorised slavery but it is just there, hiding in plain sight. The argument for direct causation is whether you think a constitution which de-facto recognises the practice of slavery in fact creates the conditions to allow the practice to continue based on the individual right to private property.

 

[Laika]

If you could only show me how principles and ideas like "the consent of the governed", "the right to life, liberty, and property", "the right to life, liberty, and happiness", the notion that the sole legitimate justification for beliefs is some combination of logical reasoning and empirical evidence -- if you could only show me how these principles and ideas of liberalism logically lead to exploiting people I would be satisfied with your claims that liberal ideology is inherently exploitative.

I apologise Sunstone as this thread was not directed against you or anyone else specifically. I have honestly just wanted to "return fire" against the sheer number of accusations I've faced as a communist over the years, because of how horrendously abusive it is. it isn't rational, just human. So I'm sorry you were on the other end of it. you are far more reasonable than many of the people I had in mind.

 

[Sunstone]

I apologise Sunstone as this thread was not directed against you or anyone else specifically. I have honestly just wanted to "return fire" against the sheer number of accusations I've faced as a communist over the years, because of how horrendously abusive it is. it isn't rational, just human. So I'm sorry you were on the other end of it. you are far more reasonable than many of the people I had in mind.

No need for an apology. At my age, your bones creak, your thoughts get lost, your eyes water, but you have often enough learned that you will now and then disagree even with people you admire and with your friends.

 

[Laika]

No need for an apology. At my age, your bones creak, your thoughts get lost, your eyes water, but you have often enough learned that you will now and then disagree even with people you admire and with your friends.

that's very sweet. many thanks.

its a rough patch. it will pass soon enough.

 

[Steven Kowalski]

Liberalism promotes the freest possibility. The freedom to choose is what we have been granted. The law is what restricts us. So - where is it OK to be liberal and where is it OK to be conservative? For a government to be liberal yet remain within the realm of the law gives more rights to the people to choose. Less government without going against that which could never be justified. Federal law is more attractive when it offers an opportunity to choose from acceptable options. Does the federal government need to decide whether or not we should wear clothes to conceal the body, and to what degree? There are obvious truths about making a selection on the dress code for a certain place. Would we want to rule out the possibility of a place within our borders where people cover their face and don't speak in public? No... that would be conservative liberalism (which is what I think you were mentioning). I think both sides can agree that to rule an option in or out based on a 51-49 vote is insane. Statistically speaking that's approximately 50-50, which means it could go one way or the other. It is liberal and justifiable to allow a group of people to practice their justified religion. It could be strict, or it could be liberal. If somebody demands that you be a free spirit, they are dogmatic in their proposal. I would remind this person that being liberal means being open to all walks of life. As you can see, there are different rules wherever you go. And the rules of the street are not the rules of a hotel lobby. Rules.
You can effect everyone's life with a single rule composed of only four words: You can do nothing. Imagine how the world would be if you couldn't do anything. Imagine how the world would be if you could do anything you wanted. Both of these are terrible ideas. No matter what, there are certain things you just cannot do, and there are certain things you can't forbid. The law gains its respect when it sees through to pure justice.

 

[Laika]

Liberalism promotes the freest possibility. The freedom to choose is what we have been granted. The law is what restricts us. So - where is it OK to be liberal and where is it OK to be conservative? For a government to be liberal yet remain within the realm of the law gives more rights to the people to choose. Less government without going against that which could never be justified. Federal law is more attractive when it offers an opportunity to choose from acceptable options.

On the contary even the most Liberal government can significantly restrict people's choices simply by insisting that the people are "free" in one way but not another. Freedom is perhaps the wrong word; what I mean is that liberal governments deny the raw power of the people by requiring the obedience to the law. The Social Contract is based on the consent of the governed because the people are assumed to have voluntrily surrender rights to exercise force and power for themselves, giving the state the monoply of force within a territory as a soverign. Without the state, there is no "liberty" because liberty is a legal concept that does not correspond to what is actually possible for people to do. At the heart of liberalism is a dualistic understanding of reality, divided between the mind and the real world. The real world operates on the basis of physical laws, whereas the mind is said to be based on free will. Consequently, simply saying I have free will does not mean I can defy the laws of gravity. If I jump of a building, no matter how hard I wish for it to be otherwise, I'm stilling going to fall to my likely demise.

Liberal societies work on the same dillemma. No matter how much you tell the unemployed to get a job assuming that because they have free will and are at "liberty" to chose, if there aren't any jobs- they can't magically make them appear out of thin air. nor can they set up a bussiness by an act of will alone because of the sunk costs required to invest in doing so. nor can they feed their families. the freedom to buy and sell land, means that property rights have to be enforced and therefore the land is enclosed and people are denied access to what was once a common resource. it is possible that government could be smaller and not have determintal effects. But too often liberals equate the "will" to do something with the "ability" to do it. without the means to exercise our freedom, we are free in name only.As FDR put it "necessitious men are not free men." it is this dellusional qualitity of liberals that "natural rights" somehow take on physical existence of being "real" when they are infact attributes of the mind that makes freedom puzzling. this is also why legal equality is insufficient to actually realise social equality.

Just because people can vote doesn't mean they aren't idiots are who capable of making the wrong choices that are determintal to their own interests or are pusuaded to by the power of mass media to make them identify with a dictator.. there is no reason to assume the individual liberty is automatically good or that people are rational. This is not the same as saying that X,Y or Z should be banned, but only that we should be much more cautious about legalising things and changing the status quo. It is the responsibility of the people themselves to remain free: the freedom to elect our own dictators is not freedom at all.

Does the federal government need to decide whether or not we should wear clothes to conceal the body, and to what degree? There are obvious truths about making a selection on the dress code for a certain place. Would we want to rule out the possibility of a place within our borders where people cover their face and don't speak in public? No... that would be conservative liberalism (which is what I think you were mentioning). I think both sides can agree that to rule an option in or out based on a 51-49 vote is insane. Statistically speaking that's approximately 50-50, which means it could go one way or the other. It is liberal and justifiable to allow a group of people to practice their justified religion. It could be strict, or it could be liberal. If somebody demands that you be a free spirit, they are dogmatic in their proposal. I would remind this person that being liberal means being open to all walks of life. As you can see, there are different rules wherever you go. And the rules of the street are not the rules of a hotel lobby. Rules.

In North Korea there are 28 government approved haircuts. Men have 10 options, whilst Women have 18. In the West, we can call this insane, and we often do. But it is the sheer number of cultural practices that we consider insane that is rather illuminating on the level of intolerance and the absolute insistence that liberalism is the only correct view of man and society. Liberals have spent an aweful lot of time saying that "this is natural" and then forcing people to behave that way. It is strange that an ideology that promotes freedom is one that insists that everyone should behave according to exactly the same set of ethical rules based on assuming there is only one correct understanding of freedom and humanity. A belief in "human rights" entails a belief in "human wrongs" so liberty is not a value-neutral, objective or universal standard.

You can effect everyone's life with a single rule composed of only four words: You can do nothing. Imagine how the world would be if you couldn't do anything. Imagine how the world would be if you could do anything you wanted. Both of these are terrible ideas. No matter what, there are certain things you just cannot do, and there are certain things you can't forbid. The law gains its respect when it sees through to pure justice.

People break the law. The law exists only on paper and it is dependent on people's actions, both of those with authority and those who submit to it to actually make it a reality. The Prohibition of Alchol in the US comes to mind as an example where this didn't happen. People still watched listen to banned radio in North Korea. If the people chose to and have the means and numbers to achieve it, they can overthrow the government including a liberal one. What Governments can do- and it is highly debatable whether they should- is assert a morality through the law and use the limited power of the law to compell people to internalise the state's morality as there own. it is this relationship between the law and morality that makes a totalitarian system, but also makes a liberal system as well. We are conditioned to think liberalism is natural because we live in such a society and therefore come to accept it as moral by virtue of never knowing anything else or believing that no other system of government is possible.