The Future is Here!

[Tigermike 3,054]

. I tend to place authoritarianism on the left and individual freedom on the right.

Well, you have to "place" them there since that's not where you find them.

How about legalizing prostitution? Legalizing narcotics? The right to marry a person of any race? The right of all races to vote? The right to not be wiretapped without a warrant? Where do you "place" those positions?

It seems as far as this thread goes Tex is wanting to narrowly define the left as classic liberals. Which he knows very well is not the case with the far left loons pushing the democrat agenda on the DNC and the entire nation.

Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism[1] and laissez-faire liberalism,[2] or, in much of the world, simply called liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom and limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitations of government, free markets, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill,[3] Montesquieu, Voltaire,[4] Thomas Paine and others.

"a doctrine stressing individual freedom and limited government." The far left loons of the democrat party seem to think individual freedom means people can do and say whatever they want as long as they agree with the libs. Do you actually think there are any on the left who advocate limited government? Who? Surely not Obama. Surely not Hillary. Surely not Screaming Dean.

"natural rights" = Liberals in the U.S. take this to mean they have the natural right to abortion at any point of the pregnancy.

human rationality - the far left exemplifies rationality don't they?

individual property rights - Can you think of any recent incidences of local lib actions that subverted individual property rights? Emminent domain so the city or town can sell to developers for the good of all? How about libs enviromentalists burning a development to "make a point"?

constitutional limitations of government, - libs today want to limit the governmtnts ability to fight the WOT and intercept telephone transmissions of known terrorists overseas. Or even those known terrorists talking to friends and coharts in the U.S.

free markets - Obama and Hillary have been trying to out do each other in demogouging the very idea of free markets. So another big BS on this.

Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which expands this environment by confining government intervention to market failures. - Which would explain the dems being protectionists with the large labor unions especially the teachers union.

individual freedom from restraint - In the dem world they can do whatever they want and those mean ole Republicians have no say in anything.

If you read a book on western history in the 18th and 19th centuries, you can see just how far liberalism has evolved. In fact, if yesterday's liberals were alive today, they would feel most comfortable in the GOP or the Liberatrian parties. If today's liberals were to have lived then, they would be in line with the socialists of that day. And that is why I have often referred to Obama as a socialist lite. He or his supporters just don't have the balls to admit it.

The original liberals were a response to absolutism and stood for freedom, liberty, and the right to self determination (with the exception of the French, who turned liberalism into a form of elitist tyranny and yet another example of trading one form of tyranny for another).

The founding fathers of this nation were liberals. They were free-market capitalists and self-sufficient at it. They never envisioned the people serving the government, but rather they believed that government should serve the people. Keeping the government small and out of people's lives was a priority.

Today's liberals are quite the opposite. They have managed to dupe a significant amount of people into believing that the government needs to be involved in more and more of the people's lives, thus reducing the freedoms cherished by the early liberals. They are not particularly fond of free market capitalism, in fact they have adopted an ideology that would have made Marx, Lenin, and Mao extremely proud. At every step, these modern day Robin Hoods are trying to circumvent any legitimate attempt to make it easier for businesses to create jobs, through the false assumptions that even distribution of wealth is an inherent right.

They ask the government to intervene in the private sector in order to gain an advantage over those that own capital, those take the necessary risks with that capital, and those that create opportunities with that capital. They do it through frivolous lawsuits and socialist legislation, designed to cripple the ability to create wealth.

What they fail to see is that there have always been wealthy landowners, owners of factories, and owners of other forms of capital. If you took all of the money and capital in the world, took it and divided it equally with everyone getting an equal share, the same people that have it now would get it all back in due time.

Hope that helps.

[TitanTiger 20,511]

Update: School backs down

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/13/skittles....tion=cnn_latest