I have to clarify what I mean by "liberals." I mean people who lean towards leftist tendencies -- not classical liberals. Originally from my blog WindUpRubberFinger 06/07/11
I was always wondering something similar but from a different perspective.
I completely agree that conservative philosophy is of personal responsibility and individual freedom
On the opposite end is the leftwing philosophy of sharing / socialism
However, when you make an aggregation on a population level of rightwing or leftwing individuals you always end up with the completely opposite countries in style?!?!
You would never think of a theocracy as a leftwing system? The epitome of "wanting others to provide for you; to take the fall for you"
The same is with monarchy where right of monarch sat proponents of the divine right to rule (backing the monarch and dichotomy of plebs vs nobles) and on the left sat liberals demanding the old system be dismantled and replaced with something new where citizens would have more say. Rightwing states usually support authoritarian systems, leftwing want everyone to participate on more equal footing.
From my perspective, right wingers want personal responsibility but strangely immediately flock to the strongest leader that facilitates authoritarianism that often demands they surrender the personal freedoms ?!?. Even if the shepherd intends to eat them they follow...
Leftwingers want collectivism and resent authoritarianism that makes any system less likely to work. Their flock runs in so many different directions its impossible to direct towards the common good they want?!?! But end up in a democracy with all its flaws.
Ironically it is the leftwingers that demand individual freedoms in any authoritarian system while it is always the rightwingers that demand everyone conform to the majority and just follow what those above say. So this is actually completely different from what you conclude.
I cannot agree on your first point that liberals defend things they dont understand since a lot of studies have linked educational attainment with liberal mindset. I find it the other way around where rightwing holdouts usually claim the world is flat, medicine doenst work, supreme leader knows best about tarifs... etc without understanding of the science behind.
For the second point i agree that there is no fixed belief system in liberals. They care not about religion, country, etc... they care about fairness and stopping particular belief systems from divesting people from their liberties (again ironically)
for the point 4. you can never know enough. Claiming that one understand all precludes growth and i find that to be a flaw in conservatives. Only in the past one can remain unchanging. Dont forget that meme which says "Tradition is peer pressure from dead people". Often rightly suggesting that the world did change since the guys died.
"To follow man blindly means that you must believe man is naturally good, or naturally looks out for the best interest of others" isnt this exactly what the right did in the last election? Rightwingers blindly voted for a known cheater (both in law sense and in marriage) that literally harmed their interests by giving even more power to oligarchy the last time he was in charge (and this time as well...shocking...right?). And oligarchs do not have the best interest of the citizens in mind
"Liberals shun personal responsibility because someone else knows what's best" this is completely wrong since liberals everywhere will immediately rise against any despot (king, ayatolah, governer, dear leader) who demands blind obedience without justification.
Rightwingers usually have no spine to call them out. Barring few like Adam Kinzinger
Re your last comment: Ironically the direct descendant of Marxist doctrine (Communism) is Russia. Dont tell me you see Putin as a leftwinger? (defenestrating political opponents, nationalistic fervor, oligarchy, prohibiting gays, gulags)
Europe is socialistic (leftwing). and as i said before it outperforms USA on humanistic values like education, healthcare, expected lifespan, sick leave, vacation days and other trappings of the civilized world...
Like Denmark, Sweeden, Estonia, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland....
"Most conservative" states (rightwing) on the other hand are North Korea.... Afganistan...China... Saudi Arabia... Russia
now tell me again with the straight face "Which of these philosophies have most contributed to improving the human condition". If you had to move would you try to go to Denmark (and make it more like Russia) or would you aim for North Korea (Russia if GDP is better) as your paradise?
While this fully explains why both lines of thought are neccessary, it doesnt really say why
I won’t pretend to be able to “convince” you of anything, however, you need to understand the difference between “classical liberalism” and leftism. Classical liberalism is not authoritarian, while leftism is 100% totalitarian.
Now you might want to argue on this point; however, consider what happens (in practice) — don’t get bogged down with labels — look at the actual outcomes.
Leftists are always the “No true Scotsman” types. Every time there is a failure they say, “Well those aren’t ‘real socialists.’” But then, where are the real socialists?
The world may never know.
There’s a great debate on this issue between William F. Buckley Jr. and someone with a name that escapes me. I’ll have to upload the video if I can find it.
I can attach it to this article. You might enjoy it. The socialist guy does a great job of defending his position.
However, I wish for minimal control, and leftists / leftism will never result in that.
But you again glossed over the fact that all conservative states are in fact way more authoritarian
Hungary is one of the few illiberal states and it is certainly close to rightwing policies especially of the Trump persuasion
Do you see any country where everyone is forced to be gay? Do you see any country where noone is allowed to be gay?
The point of liberal is to be at liberty to choose for oneself. The point of conservatism is that it was the ancestors who decided what is acceptable forever with no personal choice in anything that deviates
It is certainly true that communists became authoritarian. But communism is as far as i know strongly frowned upon in EU exactly for being illiberal for exactly the same reason nacism and facism are.
Again there is absolutely no argument that makes China or Russia leftist that i have seen seroiusly mentioned. I am hopeful that the video you mentioned will cover that ...
Maybe you assign the leftist label to authorianism? Despite the fact that political scientists consider authoritanism to be rightwing? Again starting as far as to the origin of the world?
Im writing from my phone...but look for the political compass website that tries to differentiate econimic left right from the personal liberty left right. But even there ones that i would consider leftists are not authoritarian. Ie Bernie Sanders while communist Stalin is certainly authoritarian
Anyway...try out their questionaire and let me know what quadrant you fall in (im bottom left obviously... social security and rejecting authority)
When I say "Conservative" I don't mean theocratic "Iranian Conservative." Which technically, depending on how you view Islam -- isn't really that conservative.
I mean American Conservatism (which is actually closer to classic liberal).
Let’s first define some terms here.
Leftism results in statism, which is authoritarian in nature. It's through the state that everything must emanate, otherwise things can't be kept / made equal. This is always the case 100% of the time.
American Conservatism is closer to classical liberal / Libertarian.
That's why for the purposes of our discussion, left and right, are not good terms. The left right argument is always a nonsense debate, because neither side will ever agree to each others terms.
We must start by clearly defining our terms to continue this discussion productively.
and therefore i resent statements like "Leftism results in statism" since in my view righwingism leads to fascism and monarchy and both are statist (autoritarian) by definition. meaning that the government (mussolini, Putin or any other monarch) gets to decide too much without anyone having a say. In extreme cases they also get to say who lives or dies on a whim as well. As was in communism so was in Italy and now Russia, China and more and more in Hungary and USA, with Trump being able to close down Law firms/newspapers/congress created agencies on a whim if they angered him. or abduct people from the street. This is the epitome of unchecked statism brought by the right. Gulag or el salvador without due process is not substantially different
again Europe is liberal but not really statist. I have yet to hear that any EU company had to close simply because it angered any EU politician. There is always lobbying and legislation but there was so far never punitive decisionmaking or incerceration that i know of.
However, i am all for dropping left/right and use the statism scale, anarchy - unrestricted liberty to complete illiberal authoritanism on the far end if this would be better for you.
I will just point out that Milton Friedman (again...i like the guy) supposedly claimed something i can stand behind completely
"Human beings are not angels, in his view, so they need government to restrain them. He thought government had a wide role to maintain law and order, dispense justice, define the rules of property, promote competition, maintain sound money, and protect the destitute"
I guess that Adam smith institute and Friedman himself are libertarian enough but even he somehow got labeled as statist???
Anyway, Friedman agreed that some form of government was required and to that i guess both sides agree. Also everyone sane also agrees that full retard statism is bad. The question was always about where on the scale from anarchy to hive mind the utopia lives for the common people
in my opinion a state is needed to provide everything Friedman supposedly asked of it "law and order, justice, rules of property, promote competition, money, and protect the destitute"
I see the government as a protection against coercion so that ALL transactions can be truly freely made. Also ALL means of coercion should be regulated. From my point of view conservatives and libertarians want to pick and choose which methods of coercion they still get to use while the plebs preferably get no way of payback.
Our world/civilization evolved from tribalism where physical power was top dog by regulating the use of force and prohibiting highway robbery. Chiefs were often the strongest and could abuse their power however they wished, but they could also be challenged by strength and the mandate to rule would be taken by the victor.
Following early tribes we invented monarchy where now it was the "divine right" by religion. Then a stronger guy couldnt simply beat the first guy and take over but it was more regulated by status. (noble blood, divine mandate...). But the nobles had the right to kill any peasant and otherwise abuse their power
Our world evolved (very recently) again where citizens now took the power from nobility/church and more or less restricted the capacity of abuse by "status power" of those institutions (in some parts of the world). You couldnt be charged with heresy and burned willy nilly. Nobles couldnt kill you for not moving quickly enough from their horses path... and power is now decided by elections.
However, the current stage of evolution allows people with monetary power to still abuse those without. This is only partially addressed and is in my opinion our next stage of evolution.
1) I resent someone being able to force me or someone else to do something deleterious by the difference in our relative physical powers (robbery, theft, murder...). We passed that milestone YAAY!
2) I resent someone being able to force me or someone else against my wishes to conform to their expectations by the difference in our relative status powers (nobility, religion, nationality, race, ...). We somewhat passed that milestone unless you are gay in theocracies or dissident in Russia .. Yay?
3) I resent someone being able to force me or someone else into deleterious financial decisions by the differences in our relative financial powers (monopoly, political donations, inelastic demand services...). Well there is some progress and some setbacks....
i guess you are all for point 1 (you are against crime and want strong police deterrence).
I guess you are at least partially for point 2 (but would still like to be the master race, which is all fine until you find yourself on the wrong side of the same strong police from above)
but i feel that libertarians (possibly you) are against point 3. Here you are all for personal responsibility - meaning sux to be you if you are poor or sick and have to sell your house to maybe get treatment that works (inelastic demand - people dont haggle for their life) . You are all for monopolies even though the prices would skyrocket without competition. Are you really all for Elon buying presidencies to get more contracts/handouts/taxbreaks paid from your money? He will always outmoney you no matter the size of government. But will the goventment be able to keep him in check if he wants to abuse the power (buy congress seats, judges, competition)?
in my opinion you got scammed by the oligarchs (unless you are one which i doubt) that want you to enable THEM getting rich and protected from everyone else by the strong repressive state. This is in SF often called a distopia where the new nobility are the corpos and the rest are plebs with as much power as peons in feudalism had. With the exception that modern armies/police will decimate any civilian so no french revolution will ever be possible. The modern survailance state will make Orvells distopia a disney production in comparison
“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
― G. M. Gilbert the US Army psychologist assigned to watching the Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg trials
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
Again, you're literally making things up. Stop assuming my position on any issue and just ask me. Ascribing political or philosophical positions to me -- then arguing against those made up positions is not helpful to the discussion.
I'm not going to waste my time refuting claims, statements, or beliefs that are not mine.
How about we do this, let's slow this down, and take things one issue at a time. You've listed dozens of disconnected issues in one reply -- everything from monopolies to my "supposed" lack of empathy. LOL
obviously i cannot go through each and every possible position and ask you for your thought one by one... but general idea might help
alternatively if you really wish me to pick a particular topic then i would fall back and ask a very simple positional question implied in the last comment
Do you feel you could stand behind what is ascribed to Milton Friedman?
"Friedman thought of himself as a liberal rather than a libertarian, and 'the consistent liberal,' he once argued, 'is not an anarchist.' Human beings are not angels, in his view, so they need government to restrain them. He thought government had a wide role to maintain law and order, dispense justice, define the rules of property, promote competition, maintain sound money, and protect the destitute"
Or do you feel he was a statist as well and if so what is the acceptable level of government to you?
I was always wondering something similar but from a different perspective.
I completely agree that conservative philosophy is of personal responsibility and individual freedom
On the opposite end is the leftwing philosophy of sharing / socialism
However, when you make an aggregation on a population level of rightwing or leftwing individuals you always end up with the completely opposite countries in style?!?!
You would never think of a theocracy as a leftwing system? The epitome of "wanting others to provide for you; to take the fall for you"
The same is with monarchy where right of monarch sat proponents of the divine right to rule (backing the monarch and dichotomy of plebs vs nobles) and on the left sat liberals demanding the old system be dismantled and replaced with something new where citizens would have more say. Rightwing states usually support authoritarian systems, leftwing want everyone to participate on more equal footing.
On the origins or terms see youtube.com/watch?v=MYoA1R38cuc&t=92s
From my perspective, right wingers want personal responsibility but strangely immediately flock to the strongest leader that facilitates authoritarianism that often demands they surrender the personal freedoms ?!?. Even if the shepherd intends to eat them they follow...
Leftwingers want collectivism and resent authoritarianism that makes any system less likely to work. Their flock runs in so many different directions its impossible to direct towards the common good they want?!?! But end up in a democracy with all its flaws.
Ironically it is the leftwingers that demand individual freedoms in any authoritarian system while it is always the rightwingers that demand everyone conform to the majority and just follow what those above say. So this is actually completely different from what you conclude.
A must watch video is the TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_liberals_and_conservatives
I cannot agree on your first point that liberals defend things they dont understand since a lot of studies have linked educational attainment with liberal mindset. I find it the other way around where rightwing holdouts usually claim the world is flat, medicine doenst work, supreme leader knows best about tarifs... etc without understanding of the science behind.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/09/15/educational-divide-in-vote-preferences-on-track-to-be-wider-than-in-recent-elections/
For the second point i agree that there is no fixed belief system in liberals. They care not about religion, country, etc... they care about fairness and stopping particular belief systems from divesting people from their liberties (again ironically)
for the point 4. you can never know enough. Claiming that one understand all precludes growth and i find that to be a flaw in conservatives. Only in the past one can remain unchanging. Dont forget that meme which says "Tradition is peer pressure from dead people". Often rightly suggesting that the world did change since the guys died.
"To follow man blindly means that you must believe man is naturally good, or naturally looks out for the best interest of others" isnt this exactly what the right did in the last election? Rightwingers blindly voted for a known cheater (both in law sense and in marriage) that literally harmed their interests by giving even more power to oligarchy the last time he was in charge (and this time as well...shocking...right?). And oligarchs do not have the best interest of the citizens in mind
"Liberals shun personal responsibility because someone else knows what's best" this is completely wrong since liberals everywhere will immediately rise against any despot (king, ayatolah, governer, dear leader) who demands blind obedience without justification.
Rightwingers usually have no spine to call them out. Barring few like Adam Kinzinger
Re your last comment: Ironically the direct descendant of Marxist doctrine (Communism) is Russia. Dont tell me you see Putin as a leftwinger? (defenestrating political opponents, nationalistic fervor, oligarchy, prohibiting gays, gulags)
Europe is socialistic (leftwing). and as i said before it outperforms USA on humanistic values like education, healthcare, expected lifespan, sick leave, vacation days and other trappings of the civilized world...
Like Denmark, Sweeden, Estonia, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland....
"Most conservative" states (rightwing) on the other hand are North Korea.... Afganistan...China... Saudi Arabia... Russia
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-conservative-countries
now tell me again with the straight face "Which of these philosophies have most contributed to improving the human condition". If you had to move would you try to go to Denmark (and make it more like Russia) or would you aim for North Korea (Russia if GDP is better) as your paradise?
While this fully explains why both lines of thought are neccessary, it doesnt really say why
I won’t pretend to be able to “convince” you of anything, however, you need to understand the difference between “classical liberalism” and leftism. Classical liberalism is not authoritarian, while leftism is 100% totalitarian.
Now you might want to argue on this point; however, consider what happens (in practice) — don’t get bogged down with labels — look at the actual outcomes.
Leftists are always the “No true Scotsman” types. Every time there is a failure they say, “Well those aren’t ‘real socialists.’” But then, where are the real socialists?
The world may never know.
There’s a great debate on this issue between William F. Buckley Jr. and someone with a name that escapes me. I’ll have to upload the video if I can find it.
I can attach it to this article. You might enjoy it. The socialist guy does a great job of defending his position.
However, I wish for minimal control, and leftists / leftism will never result in that.
I will certainly look at the vid
But you again glossed over the fact that all conservative states are in fact way more authoritarian
Hungary is one of the few illiberal states and it is certainly close to rightwing policies especially of the Trump persuasion
Do you see any country where everyone is forced to be gay? Do you see any country where noone is allowed to be gay?
The point of liberal is to be at liberty to choose for oneself. The point of conservatism is that it was the ancestors who decided what is acceptable forever with no personal choice in anything that deviates
It is certainly true that communists became authoritarian. But communism is as far as i know strongly frowned upon in EU exactly for being illiberal for exactly the same reason nacism and facism are.
Again there is absolutely no argument that makes China or Russia leftist that i have seen seroiusly mentioned. I am hopeful that the video you mentioned will cover that ...
Maybe you assign the leftist label to authorianism? Despite the fact that political scientists consider authoritanism to be rightwing? Again starting as far as to the origin of the world?
Im writing from my phone...but look for the political compass website that tries to differentiate econimic left right from the personal liberty left right. But even there ones that i would consider leftists are not authoritarian. Ie Bernie Sanders while communist Stalin is certainly authoritarian
Anyway...try out their questionaire and let me know what quadrant you fall in (im bottom left obviously... social security and rejecting authority)
When I say "Conservative" I don't mean theocratic "Iranian Conservative." Which technically, depending on how you view Islam -- isn't really that conservative.
I mean American Conservatism (which is actually closer to classic liberal).
Let’s first define some terms here.
Leftism results in statism, which is authoritarian in nature. It's through the state that everything must emanate, otherwise things can't be kept / made equal. This is always the case 100% of the time.
American Conservatism is closer to classical liberal / Libertarian.
That's why for the purposes of our discussion, left and right, are not good terms. The left right argument is always a nonsense debate, because neither side will ever agree to each others terms.
We must start by clearly defining our terms to continue this discussion productively.
Otherwise we're arguing *past* each other.
im all for clearly defining terms
and therefore i resent statements like "Leftism results in statism" since in my view righwingism leads to fascism and monarchy and both are statist (autoritarian) by definition. meaning that the government (mussolini, Putin or any other monarch) gets to decide too much without anyone having a say. In extreme cases they also get to say who lives or dies on a whim as well. As was in communism so was in Italy and now Russia, China and more and more in Hungary and USA, with Trump being able to close down Law firms/newspapers/congress created agencies on a whim if they angered him. or abduct people from the street. This is the epitome of unchecked statism brought by the right. Gulag or el salvador without due process is not substantially different
again Europe is liberal but not really statist. I have yet to hear that any EU company had to close simply because it angered any EU politician. There is always lobbying and legislation but there was so far never punitive decisionmaking or incerceration that i know of.
However, i am all for dropping left/right and use the statism scale, anarchy - unrestricted liberty to complete illiberal authoritanism on the far end if this would be better for you.
I will just point out that Milton Friedman (again...i like the guy) supposedly claimed something i can stand behind completely
"Human beings are not angels, in his view, so they need government to restrain them. He thought government had a wide role to maintain law and order, dispense justice, define the rules of property, promote competition, maintain sound money, and protect the destitute"
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/milton-friedman-libertarian-or-statist
I guess that Adam smith institute and Friedman himself are libertarian enough but even he somehow got labeled as statist???
Anyway, Friedman agreed that some form of government was required and to that i guess both sides agree. Also everyone sane also agrees that full retard statism is bad. The question was always about where on the scale from anarchy to hive mind the utopia lives for the common people
in my opinion a state is needed to provide everything Friedman supposedly asked of it "law and order, justice, rules of property, promote competition, money, and protect the destitute"
I see the government as a protection against coercion so that ALL transactions can be truly freely made. Also ALL means of coercion should be regulated. From my point of view conservatives and libertarians want to pick and choose which methods of coercion they still get to use while the plebs preferably get no way of payback.
Our world/civilization evolved from tribalism where physical power was top dog by regulating the use of force and prohibiting highway robbery. Chiefs were often the strongest and could abuse their power however they wished, but they could also be challenged by strength and the mandate to rule would be taken by the victor.
Following early tribes we invented monarchy where now it was the "divine right" by religion. Then a stronger guy couldnt simply beat the first guy and take over but it was more regulated by status. (noble blood, divine mandate...). But the nobles had the right to kill any peasant and otherwise abuse their power
Our world evolved (very recently) again where citizens now took the power from nobility/church and more or less restricted the capacity of abuse by "status power" of those institutions (in some parts of the world). You couldnt be charged with heresy and burned willy nilly. Nobles couldnt kill you for not moving quickly enough from their horses path... and power is now decided by elections.
However, the current stage of evolution allows people with monetary power to still abuse those without. This is only partially addressed and is in my opinion our next stage of evolution.
1) I resent someone being able to force me or someone else to do something deleterious by the difference in our relative physical powers (robbery, theft, murder...). We passed that milestone YAAY!
2) I resent someone being able to force me or someone else against my wishes to conform to their expectations by the difference in our relative status powers (nobility, religion, nationality, race, ...). We somewhat passed that milestone unless you are gay in theocracies or dissident in Russia .. Yay?
3) I resent someone being able to force me or someone else into deleterious financial decisions by the differences in our relative financial powers (monopoly, political donations, inelastic demand services...). Well there is some progress and some setbacks....
i guess you are all for point 1 (you are against crime and want strong police deterrence).
I guess you are at least partially for point 2 (but would still like to be the master race, which is all fine until you find yourself on the wrong side of the same strong police from above)
but i feel that libertarians (possibly you) are against point 3. Here you are all for personal responsibility - meaning sux to be you if you are poor or sick and have to sell your house to maybe get treatment that works (inelastic demand - people dont haggle for their life) . You are all for monopolies even though the prices would skyrocket without competition. Are you really all for Elon buying presidencies to get more contracts/handouts/taxbreaks paid from your money? He will always outmoney you no matter the size of government. But will the goventment be able to keep him in check if he wants to abuse the power (buy congress seats, judges, competition)?
in my opinion you got scammed by the oligarchs (unless you are one which i doubt) that want you to enable THEM getting rich and protected from everyone else by the strong repressive state. This is in SF often called a distopia where the new nobility are the corpos and the rest are plebs with as much power as peons in feudalism had. With the exception that modern armies/police will decimate any civilian so no french revolution will ever be possible. The modern survailance state will make Orvells distopia a disney production in comparison
“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
― G. M. Gilbert the US Army psychologist assigned to watching the Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg trials
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3004324.Gustave_Mark_Gilbert
vs
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge/index.html
so...where on the empathy scale are you?
Again, you're literally making things up. Stop assuming my position on any issue and just ask me. Ascribing political or philosophical positions to me -- then arguing against those made up positions is not helpful to the discussion.
I'm not going to waste my time refuting claims, statements, or beliefs that are not mine.
How about we do this, let's slow this down, and take things one issue at a time. You've listed dozens of disconnected issues in one reply -- everything from monopolies to my "supposed" lack of empathy. LOL
Do you think you can do that?
fair enough...
i had to assume a lot since you do not volunteer much.
i am sorry if the walls of text (its a flaw of mine) made you miss my more direct questions.
I asked how you fit in the political compass questionaire so i can understand your position better in general https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
obviously i cannot go through each and every possible position and ask you for your thought one by one... but general idea might help
alternatively if you really wish me to pick a particular topic then i would fall back and ask a very simple positional question implied in the last comment
Do you feel you could stand behind what is ascribed to Milton Friedman?
"Friedman thought of himself as a liberal rather than a libertarian, and 'the consistent liberal,' he once argued, 'is not an anarchist.' Human beings are not angels, in his view, so they need government to restrain them. He thought government had a wide role to maintain law and order, dispense justice, define the rules of property, promote competition, maintain sound money, and protect the destitute"
Or do you feel he was a statist as well and if so what is the acceptable level of government to you?