Stoically liberal, fiscally conservator, and pragmatic ...
I was hoping Dr Zoid would chime in with his anti liberalism.
Why would I? I am super liberal. In every regard. You seem really really confused about this.
A missunderstanding about conservatives is that they're against change. They're not.
Both categories go back to the French revolution, or more precisely, what to do about the Jacobins.
The Jacobins were about instating sweeping and rapid reform, because the world, they thought, wasn't fair. They wanted to quickly fix it.
Edmund Burke's reply was that, what if the Jacobins didn't quite understand exactly why the things that were working was working, and how society all hangs together? If we have misunderstood anything along the way, reforms can lead to a catastrophy. Which is what happened in the revolution. This is what liberals and conservatives have been arguing about since
The fundamental difference in strategy is that liberals want to fix everything now now now, and if anything goes wrong, we'll deal with that later, with more reform. On balance they think it's worth it.
While conservatives want to change one thing at a time, slowly slowly slowly. It might not be fair. But at least it's working.
Personally, I think the fact that these are both in operation is why modern liberal democracies are so powerful. The fact that both sides yell at eachother and call the other idiot, is a fundamental aspect about the modern world, and we should both be grateful the other side exist. If liberals got to do everything they wanted, it would lead to unstable catastrophy. If conservatives got everything they wanted, society would just grind to a halt, and also lead to dynsfunctional catastrophe. I do think it's, fundamentally, a symbiotic relationship.
But I do enjoy calling conservatives idiots and making fun of them. And liberals tend to be more pleasant to hang out with.
Terms can be confusng, and some people are easily confused.
I posted the generall description of post WWII liberalism. Western liberal democracy. Liberal meaning individual rights.
But liberal, in popular parlance does not mean individual rights any longer. Liberals are for individual personal rights, but are highly collectivistic in what civic duties citizens are expected to finance. That's collectivism. Conservatives are for fiscal liberties. But expect citizens to hold to more constrained social norms. That's also collectivism. Just another form of it.
And just to be extra clear. You can flip this dichotomy, and argue that both are for freedom, and against collectivism. But against different forms of collectivism. It's just play with words. It's glass half full vs glass half empty.
Freedom = What is free? What is it free from? How is it free? Both are for freedom. They're just implying different forms of freedom.
The question today has been for some time is liberalism going to survive. We are being tested by Trump and his supporters, Europe is being tested by the right. Elections were closely followed over here.
How many prime ministers has the UK had in recent years? How many governments in Italy?
In the 1980'ies gays were routinely attacked in the streets. Today blue haired non-binaries are crying about not being able to walk unmolested around alone drunk at night with their boobs out.
In the 1980'ies saying that you were racist was a normal thing normal people said. Today it's unthinkable. Even by racists.
How exactly is liberalism in trouble?
From the 1990'ies onward the world has been increasingly liberal. Gradualy gaining dominance until we reached a point (ca 2015) where, if you were a public speaker on not openly an intersectional feminst... good luck getting a booking. Every Hollywood movie and TV series were falling over themselves to make every movie a Benetton ad (old reference).
Here's a thing liberal doomsayers of today fail to acknowledge, and that is that the 1980'ies were way more politically correct/woke than this recent woke trend. The difference is that the hysterical woke liberals of 1980'ies could just be ignored by the conservative mainstream. The conservatives could go about their day as usual. In this last woke trend that was no longer possible. Woke was all pervasive and conservatives were forced to obey. That's why they got so annoyed about liberals (and voted for Trump).
From the 1990'ies liberalism took 10 steps forward. Now we're forced to take 1 step back. We're still 9 ahead. The world is nowhere near as conservative now as we were in 1985.
In the 1980'ies the liberal minority had their fingers jammed firmly into their ears convinced they ruled the world, while surrounded by evidence they were not in control. Today the liberal majority are in control, have our fingers jammed in our ears and crying about not being in control. The old conservative quip that nothing will satisfy a liberal... is true.
No matter how free a liberal gets, they will always cry and whine about not getting that next thing. Yes, I am aware I am talking about myself. That's always been a facet of liberal culture and rhetoric. Never satisfied.
AI Overview
Since the end of World War II in 1945, Italy has had 69 governments (cabinets), averaging one new government roughly every 1.1 years.
AI Overview
The United Kingdom has had 7 prime ministers over the past 10 years (since 2016). This rapid turnover includes David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and current leader Andy Burnham.
Can liberalism survive in the long run? A question in 19th century America was whether democracy and rule by the people could focus and deal with issues without a king. Right now it looks like no.
I just don't see the same crisis you see. The world is in better shape now than it's been for decades.
Russia attacking Ukraine was a much needed reality check to the deluded western liberals who thought the liberal world order was working. It wasn't. Any liberal who thought Russia's attack was shocking, this was evidence, you were living in a fantasy bubble. The west being deluded about the shape of the world is dangerous.
The west neglected it's armies and disaster response, thinking the world looked exactly as it had done in 1960 but without USSR. The west thought that the rise of the economic power of the developing world would lead to a glorious liberal future, completely neglecting that all of these countries are extremely conservative.
I think western liberals have, in the last 25 years or so, been criminally negligent.
Russia's attack on Ukraine shook the west from it's deluded slumber.
Why Trump is in power, UK governments are unstable, I think, is because the liberal elites, who have been in power, brought us to this point. The voting public can now see how negligent the politicians (and old media) have been, and instead cared about stuff like DEI and carbon emissions, instead of the very real military threat China and Russia poses. The people are, understandably, angry.
This is my old hobby horse, the big split is between the old political elites, who kept power by being in an alliance with the old newspapers. They served the people stories so they'd vote for stuff in the interest of the newspaper demographic, urban middle-class liberal elites. The politicians played the game, so they stayed in power. This was, in reality, the same group of people. The rise of internet wrecked this system. The newspapers no longer could control the flow of information. Politicians who realised this won elections. Trump, Farage... etc. That's the reality.
What we're seeing is a "changing of the guard". The old political elite will be replaced by a new political elite. We're witnessing this shift right now.
The old media elite, who used to control the flow of information they're already gone. They're now reduced to fighting an increasingly shrinking media pie, as well as fighting a losing battle of attention against the new social media stars.
I see this ONLY as a good thing.
Trump is a symptom of a problem, ie the old political and media elite were continuing ignoring their voter base, as they'd always done, but now their voter base cannot be silenced (because of social media).
I don't think anyone voted FOR Trump. What Trump has going for him is that he's rich enough to survive the rest of the political and media elite turning on him. What got Trump elected was the fact that he's anything other than the old elites. People are so sick at being talked down to by a slick and slimey politician. They'd rather have an idiot whose at least honest about being a lying scumbag. They didn't for for Trump. They voted AGAINST all the others.
Or as a philosopher friend put it, to survive in politics today you have to be authentic. If you lie, you will be caught and executed in the media. Whoever talks straight with people will rise to the top. I don't think we're ready yet. I think the media climate still wants to be lied to by our politicians. But that's cracking a part bit by bit. Once this new breed of politicians rise, Trump and has ilk will be gone forever.
Europe is rearming. Without an army you are irrelevant in geopolitics. Yay.
The world is no longer unipolar. It's now a fractured multi-polar chess board. Since 1990 it's been true. We just haven't wanted to accept it until now. But now we have to.
From 1990 to 2020 liberals have been drunk with power. Now we're having to sober up. And that's a good thing.
I don't see the start of a crisis. I see the end of one.
Yay
Fiscal_conservatism has a well known meaning
