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fromthehip Donating Member (56 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:03 PM
Original message
At what point does a liberal
stop being a liberal?

I'm trying to figure that out. Let's say that every liberal dream that you had became real. Would you dream up new plans, or be happy with having gotten what you wanted. Base your answers upon a definition that conservatives want less government, liberals want more, and moderates like it the way it is. Therefore, would someone once considered a liberal who got everything he wanted then be a moderate? And would someone who was once considered a communist then become a liberal? Whew, my brain hurts. I guess the opposite would hold true too, conservatism taken to extreme would be anarchy. Right?
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:06 PM
Response to Original message
1. When there is a world
without want.
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BikeDeck Donating Member (94 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. Want
I want a Ferrari.

Wants are non-essential items.
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Yes
Edited on Wed Oct-15-03 04:15 PM by HFishbine
But I'm sure there are many things you want before a Ferrari. If you had those things, do you think you'd still want your Ferrari?

And who defines essential? At one time there were those who saw blacks "wanting" the right to vote, others saw it as essential.
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BikeDeck Donating Member (94 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. Again
Wants are non-essential things.

And in your world without "wants", who is to provide people with their "wants"? Government through tax dollars, or the individual through their efforts?
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HFishbine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:21 PM
Response to Reply #11
16. See above
Edited on Wed Oct-15-03 04:21 PM by HFishbine
I editied my post while you were responding.

Who provides people with the fulfilment of their wants? There is no single answer. If you are sick, want to be well, and you don't have health insurance, than it is my belief that in the ideal liberal world, the community would provide for your care. Other wants would be satisfied with other solutions.
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proud patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:08 PM
Response to Original message
2. When Conservatives stop being Conservatives
Edited on Wed Oct-15-03 04:30 PM by proud patriot
IMHO :think:
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Redleg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:08 PM
Response to Original message
3. Your starting premise is not correct (in my opinion).
Edited on Wed Oct-15-03 04:09 PM by Redleg
You define liberals as people wanting more government and conservatives as wanting less. I disagree with that premise. Liberals want different roles for government than do conservatives. Liberals want government to help ensure economic opportunity and fairness for all as well as due process and equal treatment under the law. Those are core principles of a democracy. Conservatives have other ideas about these things.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:09 PM
Original message
right.
Well said.
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el_gato Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:08 PM
Response to Original message
4. conservatism taken to extreme is fascism
not anarchy which is anti-authority
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BikeDeck Donating Member (94 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. to the extreme
whats liberalism taken to the extreme?
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proud patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. Losing a sense of humor
Edited on Wed Oct-15-03 04:13 PM by proud patriot
IMHO is liberalism in the extreme .

now seriously ,,, when a liberal becomes
what he/she loathes, it's liberalism is the extreme
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BikeDeck Donating Member (94 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:14 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. I picture
politics as more of a circle than a straight line.

It is not a straight line with the middle and then the left and right extending out. It is more of a circle where both the left and right eventually meet. The meeting point is totalitariansim.
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reachout Donating Member (236 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #9
18. It is a long standing...
and incorrect assumption. The ultimate evolution of the liberal ideology would be anarchism not totalitarianism.
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foo_bar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 06:50 PM
Response to Reply #18
25. there is no "liberal ideology"
there's an infinite number of them, each offering a uniquely hellish dystopia in its purest application.

For instance, the ultimate evolution of animal rights would be mass suicide. For feminists, "The Day of the Women" or "Ammonite". For stoners, "Brave New World". For solipsists, "The Matrix". For Dean meet-upers, "Brave New World" with more sex. You get the idea.
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muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #6
10. The liberal extreme is the Brave New World scenario
Everyone's personal decisions are free, you're happy, and well cared for, but your life has been mapped out for by the government before you're born.
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Cat Atomic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:20 PM
Response to Reply #6
15. I don't think political views fall along one axis.
Edited on Wed Oct-15-03 04:22 PM by Cat Atomic
I think you could take liberal economic policies to their extreme and find communism or socialism. You might take liberal ideas about the distribution of power to their extreme and find anarchism; a sort of moving of power downwards and towards the local level.

Conservative economic policies might go over to libertarianism in the extreme, with people only paying for things they intend to use themselves. Their social ideas might find their extremes in dictatorship.

I don't think it's linear. I think it's muddier and more complex than that.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:16 PM
Response to Original message
12. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
sirshack Donating Member (680 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:17 PM
Response to Original message
13. I don't think it's so much....
...that you get what you want and then you just figure "mission accomplished". There's liberal and conservative policies, and they never stop carrying those labels just because they've been enacted or destroyed or whathaveyou.
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JohnKleeb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:18 PM
Response to Original message
14. When I become a socialist
:D heh.
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slappypan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:25 PM
Response to Original message
17. less government, my Aunt Fannie
In the last few years, America’s self-proclaimed conservatives have advocated invading and occupying various foreign countries at enormous expense and no small loss of American lives, regulating our sex lives, regulating our birth control choices, coerced marriage, using tax money to support religious practices, the Patriot Act, mandatory sentencing for all manner of crimes, preventing us from purchasing cheap prescribed drugs, censoring our entertainment, and just about every intrusive form of government possible. Your entire premise is a sham and a lie. If your brain hurts, ask the maid to score you some painkillers.
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jedicord Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:30 PM
Response to Original message
19. Never
I will be smiling though when:

all children are no longer sick, hungry and abused

people quit losing their jobs so the CEO can get a new yacht

the hole in the ozone starts shrinking and we can drink the water from the streams and breathe fresh clean air

There's more, but to quote the beauty queens:

when we've achieved world peace
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reachout Donating Member (236 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 04:30 PM
Response to Original message
20. Liberals
usually stop being liberals a couple of generations after what they advocated (radical for its time) becomes the norm in a society.
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Liberator_Rev Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 06:42 PM
Response to Reply #20
24. We they EVER Liberals, if they were fighting only for themselves?
See http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/Liberals for what I mean.
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Mr. McD Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 05:55 PM
Response to Original message
21. What does conservatism have to do with anarchy?
Anarchy simply means without rulers. It does not mean anti-authority. It is left Libertarianism.
:wtf:
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Qutzupalotl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 06:09 PM
Response to Original message
22. I thought if you got everything you wanted
you were born into a wealthy Republican family? :shrug:
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Liberator_Rev Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-15-03 06:41 PM
Response to Original message
23. When Liberals win a revolution are they CONSERVATIVES?

The whole notion that Liberals are for change (for change's sake) and that Conservatives are for the "status quo" is basicly flawed, as can be shown in this illustration:
If a bunch of people we'll call "reds" are considered "Liberals" because they want to overthrow the existing government, and the people who are in favor of the "status quo" which we'll call "greens" are considered "Conservatives", what happens if a revolution takes place and the reds become the existing government, and the greens begin plotting to overthrow the new "status quo"?
Are the greens now "Liberals" and the reds now "Conservatives"?

We "Liberals Like Christ" believe it makes a hell of a lot more sense to define Liberal vs. Conservative on the basis of whether people believe in "freedom" only for those who can afford it, (including the freedom to enslave those who can't afford it) in contrast to those who, like us, believe in freedom FOR EVERYBODY. See
http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/Liberals
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