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Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Reason: Elizabeth Nolan Brown- What Libertarianism Isn't: Also What Liberalism Isn't


Source: Reason Magazine-
Source:Reason 

I'm getting tired of hearing people say when I tell them or explain in my blogs about what liberalism really is which is about individual rights, individual freedom both personal and economic. Rule of law, constitutional law, equal rights, creating opportunity, education, responsibility, freedom is worth defending even the costs of defending it. Tolerance, open to different views and evidence with the willingness to change. These are the true liberal values and why the ideology was founded and what it was founded on. And I'm getting tired of hearing people say "that is not what liberalism is about now".

Values of an ideology doesn't change. Otherwise it is no longer that ideology especially if now looks a hell of a lot different and that ideology. It becomes something different that should have a different name and label. Only people change and when people who have different ideological values, but claim to be part of a another ideology then from one they claim to be associated with like a Socialist or some other type of collectivist on the Left claiming to be a Liberal, then the ideology loses it's meaning and becomes something else that should have a different label to it.

The MSNBC talk lineup and their audience (even as small as it is) to go along with all of the so-called liberal or even so-called progressive blogs and other publications like The Nation, AlterNet, Salon the modern New Republic (lets call it) are not liberal media outlets. They call themselves liberal except for maybe the AlterNet, TruthDig and TruthOut, which is has the guts to use the socialist label. Because they are afraid of what comes from the political stereotypes and political stigma with being associated with Socialists and socialism.

There is nothing liberal about fascism. Liberals wrote the First Amendment and created Free Speech for crying out loud. But if you listen to these collectivists and communitarians on the Left they seem to think "fascism is what is needed to create their progressive utopia". Or whatever except they don't call it fascism when they try to get a right-wing radio host or columnist shutdown even through government force when they say things that goes against their values. Especially as it relates to women's issues as we saw with Rush Limbaugh in 2012 and George Will in 2014.

There is nothing liberal about nationalizing the news media even so the progressive message can get out. Which was proposed by Fred Jerome in Salon back in February or January. There is nothing liberal about proposing to nationalize Google even "for the better good of the general public". As Richard Eskow proposed to do last week in the AlterNet. See what is supposed to pass as liberalism today is not just about the welfare state and a collectivist state with no poor or rich where we are all the same. Because government would be so big to make sure that everyone has what they need to live well.

So-called modern liberalism has also become about the nanny state and telling people what is good for them even if it means protecting people from themselves. As it has to do with junk food, bike helmets, soft drinks, how we are able to talk to each other and even what we say in the media. So-called modern liberalism which again is not liberalism, but something different has become about using the state meaning the national government to look after the general welfare of people for them. Which includes both economic policy and how we live our personal lives as well. "That freedom is dangerous and must be regulated to the point if there is any freedom so people don't make bad choices and hurt themselves.

Liberalism is about the liberal values that I mentioned early on. And you might think that sounds like libertarianism. Well I agree and great ideologies tend to overlap because they have values that are so great that other people want to share them as well. But Liberals aren't anti-government that at least the modern Libertarian tends to sound like they are. Liberals just want a limited government to do for the people what we can't do for ourselves. Which is a topic for a different blog, but it is smaller than what these modern collectivists on the Left want and a little bigger than what Conservative Libertarians advocate for now.
Keith Hughes: What is a Libertarian?

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John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat

John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat
Source: U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960