Let’s get it right, Democrats are on board, but they aren’t liberals. Of the two parties, they are more left than Republicans, but still conservative, not even moderate. The US has no dominant liberal party at all. Democrats would like you to think they’re liberal but only because it’s a convenient talking point when debating Republicans.
You’re so close, but that’s alright, we learn something new every day.
They are liberal, you just don’t know what liberal means. You probably think of liberal as the same as progressive, but these empire serving regime change wars are basic liberalism.
Liberal by itself is an ambiguous term, so it’s generally best to prefix it with another word / prefix to clarify.
e.g. Neoliberal / Classical liberal - aligned to what I think parent post is saying. Implies economic right.
Socially liberal - probably what the GP post means, meaning in favour of social liberties. Can be associated with economic left (usually coupled with positive protection of social liberties) or the economic right (e.g. libertarianism - usually believe government shouldn’t trample social liberties, but businesses can).
Liberal is also a political party in many countries - e.g. in Australia it is a (declining, but formerly in power) right-wing party.
That said, I believe most wars are started for reasons of cronyism / crony capitalism, to distract from issues or project an image for the leader and/or for reasons of nationalism, and politicians from all sides will give an insincere pretext aligned to the politics people expect them to have.
The original Liberalism was an anti-conservative, anti-monarchy movement founded on principles of equality, rule of law (as in: laws that transcend individual persons, as opposed to the very much personal rule of kings), natural rights (life, liberty, property in the general sense) and the consent of the governed. By extension of that last point, imperialsm isn’t liberal because it enforces the will of some ruling class (the imperialist) on its subjects (the imperial vassal).
Their idea of democracy, just as the Ancient original, didn’t actually include all humans in their understanding of the demos that does the self-governing, but that’s a different historical discussion.
Either way, imperialism most certainly is a conservative policy. If the Dems support (or fail to oppose) imperialism, while pretending to be (socially) liberal, they’re limp-dicked hypocrites with a spine of cooked pasta.
Liberalism was supposed to make the rich the powerful regardless of their birth or former social status. Original liberalists absolutely just wanted to change who wears the boot.
Hell, it is hard fought that workers have any rights over a feodal peasant. Liberals would have referred to keep it that way, want to slide backwards and companies are still as aggressively tyrannical as they can be.
That’s a definitional discussion: What does the term mean, and who gets to decide which meaning is the actual one?
If we take the literal word root, it just means anything relating to freedom, in which case we could debate whether the “freedom to bomb children” counts as liberal, but I’m not even going to extend that charity.
More relevant to the subject at hand, there are various branches of that philosophy, relating to how liberally they treat different areas of policy such as economic and social regulation. Which form do you consider to be the “actual” liberal philosophy?
Let’s get it right, Democrats are on board, but they aren’t liberals. Of the two parties, they are more left than Republicans, but still conservative, not even moderate. The US has no dominant liberal party at all. Democrats would like you to think they’re liberal but only because it’s a convenient talking point when debating Republicans.
You’re so close, but that’s alright, we learn something new every day.
They are liberal, you just don’t know what liberal means. You probably think of liberal as the same as progressive, but these empire serving regime change wars are basic liberalism.
Liberal by itself is an ambiguous term, so it’s generally best to prefix it with another word / prefix to clarify.
e.g. Neoliberal / Classical liberal - aligned to what I think parent post is saying. Implies economic right. Socially liberal - probably what the GP post means, meaning in favour of social liberties. Can be associated with economic left (usually coupled with positive protection of social liberties) or the economic right (e.g. libertarianism - usually believe government shouldn’t trample social liberties, but businesses can). Liberal is also a political party in many countries - e.g. in Australia it is a (declining, but formerly in power) right-wing party.
That said, I believe most wars are started for reasons of cronyism / crony capitalism, to distract from issues or project an image for the leader and/or for reasons of nationalism, and politicians from all sides will give an insincere pretext aligned to the politics people expect them to have.
The original Liberalism was an anti-conservative, anti-monarchy movement founded on principles of equality, rule of law (as in: laws that transcend individual persons, as opposed to the very much personal rule of kings), natural rights (life, liberty, property in the general sense) and the consent of the governed. By extension of that last point, imperialsm isn’t liberal because it enforces the will of some ruling class (the imperialist) on its subjects (the imperial vassal).
Their idea of democracy, just as the Ancient original, didn’t actually include all humans in their understanding of the demos that does the self-governing, but that’s a different historical discussion.
Either way, imperialism most certainly is a conservative policy. If the Dems support (or fail to oppose) imperialism, while pretending to be (socially) liberal, they’re limp-dicked hypocrites with a spine of cooked pasta.
Liberalism was supposed to make the rich the powerful regardless of their birth or former social status. Original liberalists absolutely just wanted to change who wears the boot.
Hell, it is hard fought that workers have any rights over a feodal peasant. Liberals would have referred to keep it that way, want to slide backwards and companies are still as aggressively tyrannical as they can be.
Rejoice, liberal, for liberalism has won.
So you always look at things with the “original” prism, or the actual meaning?
That’s a definitional discussion: What does the term mean, and who gets to decide which meaning is the actual one?
If we take the literal word root, it just means anything relating to freedom, in which case we could debate whether the “freedom to bomb children” counts as liberal, but I’m not even going to extend that charity.
More relevant to the subject at hand, there are various branches of that philosophy, relating to how liberally they treat different areas of policy such as economic and social regulation. Which form do you consider to be the “actual” liberal philosophy?
Both Republicans and Democrats totally love Fascism abroad.
So far, only Republicans love Fascism at home, whilst Democrats are “merely” relaxed about Fascism at home.
And by Democrats I mean those who control the party, rather than most of those who vote for it.
You’re right, they’re not liberals, they’re all just neoliberals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism