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I will try to highlight some things since I got a long-winded thing on this.
Social Justice is Bullshit
Tell them that it's more important to help people who need it most than people who have supposedly been unjustly treated. Tell them eagerness for justice in all but the most present and demanding of circumstances is a bad mindset.
Take reparations for slavery as a hot political topic today. Consider an example where person A is an black American millionaire who descended from slavery, but thanks to the merits (or possibly sheer luck or some combo of both) of themselves and/or their closest ancestors, they are now millionaires despite having been underdogs in society. Then compare person B who, let's say, is a white person but born disabled and put up for adoption by their teenage white biological mother who was raped and wanted nothing to do with them, grew up in foster care, and they don't have a penny to their name.
Who is more "deserving" of our collective compensation between A and B? What is "justice" here? Who can say?
And that seems to require a lot less knowledge ("social justice", especially when it wants to make perpetrators out of entire collective groups of people, seems to demand near-omnipotent levels of knowledge) and risks no vindictive modes of thinking if we simply ask how to make society "better" for the people who need it most than "just".
The Pitfalls of Social Justice
Justice in any form tends to be divisive between perpetrator and victim. It's an understandable necessity that we seek it when someone is immediately wronged to prevent the wrongdoer from wronging more people. Yet "social justice" often veers towards cases where there is no clean perpetrator: they've long-passed in the case of reparations for the crimes of some people's ancestors, or they're so ill-defined into such a broad group of people that it cannot possibly be the case that all members of that group are at fault.
Divisiveness Always Hurts Those Most in Need
Just as it is the case that children are those who hurt most when their parents are divided, what tends to happen in my observations when we focus on justice with no clear and living perpetrator of said injustice is that we get extreme divisiveness on a societal scale, and that extreme divisiveness has a tendency to make each special interest group more selfish because a highly divided society is a society where the divided groups no longer care about serving each other because they're so divided that they can no longer see how serving each other's interests is in their own self-interest.
Then the people in the groups inclined to suffer the most do tend to suffer the most if only due to the divisiveness. If we want a more selfless society, we have to make it less divisive, and I really think the term, "social justice", has a tendency to perpetually divide society in counter-productive ways despite its noble intentions.
I'm talking about "liberal" in the American vernacular today. Not "liberal" as it originally meant.
"Liberal" as it originally meant by today's standards would be alt-right Neo-Nazi fascist racist homophobic Hitler. That would include JFK if he was alive and ran for office today.
But it means very radical left-wing people now as I see it, and those people are suicidal. I either figure they're least wise people on the planet or the most suicidal. I go with most suicidal because all my conversations with them have convinced me that they aren't so dumb. They're just so hurt. They're so caught up in their own pain and vengeful thinking. They don't love the poor. They hate the rich. They don't love anyone. They're the incels of politics. They hate practically everyone except those who agree with them.
This gibberish, which contains kernels of truth, is indicative of why America is collapsing. People won't aid the less-fortunate, preferring to leave that chore to charity or chuches, which are ill-equipped to handle such an undertaking. This is why American life is largely a shallow, meaningless rat race with seeming no finish line.
@handsomelad70 It is admittedly a thought dump but maybe we could still treat each other better with this gibberish than being all hung up on justice. We're all gibberish people. My gibberish finds it easier to help people in need than to try to figure out what's just.
@handsomelad70 By the way, 90% of what you said to me so far has been gibberish. So WTF. Big tats and ass, being so handsome? I'm still trying to figure out if you're just trolling all my shit or actually have something worthwhile to say. So you might have a point that my shit is gibberish; you've hit a soft spot of mine for meandering and thinking out loud, but what TF does that make your shit in my fucking posts? Fucking every single time, big tits here, I'm so handsome there. It's fucking boring and unoriginal AF. So I'm a bit hurt that you'll call my shit gibberish. Maybe I have a lot of self-reflection I need to do; more than I ever thought.
Not really, because your opinion seems to lack a sense of TRUE American history, which infomrs its current condition.
@handsomelad70 It might be a very fair assessment but I would like to see the more comprehensive one if you'll afford me your time.
I'll speak for real liberals because I refuse to surrender the term to socialists.
A REAL liberal would be upset by things that remove LIBERTY. Things like censoring speech, things like forced vaccinations, gun rights taken away, being forced to fight in a way because of a mandatory draft, being prevented from accessing information freely, etc.
And of course the fact people keep calling communists and socialists liberals, they are very far from liberals. Anyone who cheered on the lockdowns for example is as far from a liberal as you can get.
i agree but the liberals now use that name to hide they are against liberty.
@strateguy632 Yes, so don't let them. Call them out for not being a liberal.
@sawno. Maybe it's because I turned 16 in 1970. My experiences growing up during that decade formed my values. You should have been around in the 70s and 80s! There is no comparison to how society devolved in later decades as the powers that be gradually perfected the means to crack down on freedom and control people's minds.
I often refer to my values as "60s-70's liberalism". Peace, love, tolerance, open-mindedness, inquisitiveness, fairness, justice, love of liberty, distrust of authority, anti-war, ...
Somehow, I never became "conventional". I don't blindly take orders, automatically believe official narratives, care about consensus, or follow the herd. Sheep call me a "conspiracy theorist" for reading books and consuming information that goes against accepted knowledge. I research with a critical mind and formulate opinions instead of beliefs. My opinions can be modified or changed as more information becomes available.
I guess that makes me a "radical" and a rebel. Except I'm neither right nor left wing.
I never imagined getting "old". But what's interesting about it is, with age you accumulate experience and knowledge. And you are still all the ages you have ever been - 6, 16, 26, 35, 40, 50, 65. I'm all of those. What interesting is, none are worse that another, just different. I've had a great time all my life and continue to do so.
But I mostly relate to my late teens and 20s because that's when my personality developed. In that sense, I never "grew up" or became a cog in the machine.
@Lliam In my case the algorithm screwed up. Before Trump was elected, they thought it was perfectly safe to promote the most popular content. So I stumbled upon a YouTuber who was debating "console peasants" and it became a guilty pleasure of mine watching him debunk the arguments that consoles were superior. Gamergate happened around the same time, so some of these channels began doing political commentary and I stumbled upon a YouTuber who was perfectly able to articulate his views and he somehow always came to the conclusions I could agree with and I could tell he was able to do that more consistently than I could. So I learned to articulate the beliefs by watching his content.
And another day on 9/11 I was curious about what all these conspiracy theorists were claiming so I looked up a documentary which covered all kinds of topics and gave me a bit of an insight. So now suddenly I became familair with the various politicial channels, how they researched sources and the fundamental concept of what the people in power are doing.
Lastly very importantly, I had an awful experience in school so I knew the school system was broken since I am a victim of the school system. So from day 1 I was open-minded to the schools not working as intended. Combine that with my willingness to research on my own and consume a variety of content across the spectrum I managed to snap out of what I was thought when I was 23.
That said, in my case the overt LGBT propeganda and leftist communist talking points were not in the classrooms yet. Kids now have it way harder, but luckily trough the online communities where they meet older people they are encountering people who can deradicalize them.
Those are all true, but TDS is a phenomena I've never seen before. My brother's dog can't speak English (yet) but she can read five words. In dog years, she's old enough to be the president.
And to add to your list, libs aren't capable of distinguishing the difference between an immigrant and an illegal immigrant. How long will it be before people who do home invasions in the middle of the night, are referred to as "undocumented house guests?"
Number one would have to be diversity of opinion. They always like to go on about how diversity in and of itself is a good thing, but not that for some weird reason.
Opinion
28Opinion

The myopic viewpoint of what patriotism is bothers me. Attending a protest, civil disobedience, tweeting your reps obscene criticisms, flag burning, organizing for policy changes, donating to the ACLU, not standing or taking a knee during national anthem are ALL forms of patriotism. Thomas Jefferson put it best I think, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism".
Straight white people.
Liberty.
Self defense.
Defending our border.
Criticizing their policies.
Punishing criminals who are members of "oppressed communities".
Protecting children from sexual perverts and physical mutilation.
Heteronormativity
Proper English
Scholastic standards
Accountability
Success
The Truth
Statues
Trucks
Christmas
Police officers
Jewish people that aren't dead or atheist
Fences
Black Republicans
I understand 1, 3–5, and 8, but why would secure elections, personal responsibility, or science upset a liberal?
I haven't seen liberals deny science, ignore someone's personal crimes, or try to overthrow an election that didn't go their way...
Aren't conservatives the ones always denying climate change and are anti-vaxxers. So everyone hates science?
Yeah, they should've said 'biology', not science. Conservatives are the ones disagreeing with the odd scientific fact
to @spartan55 there are scientists on both side of "climate change" debate at npr, so neither side deny science except news companies that lie the science was settled and hide one side.
and Facebook censored one side calling it disinformation as an excuse to hide that side.
but think about xy chromosomes who ignores that part of science?
@strateguy632 I feel like you're not really getting what the new gender movement is. I'm a centralist so I kinda appeal to both political parties but here's a little explanation:
Liberals understand what chromosomes are. No one is denying the basic, biological difference between men and women. What they preach is about gender. Sex is what's literally in your pants, gender is how you act. Having strong emotions, wanting to be feminine, soft skin, sweet smells, make-up, dresses, etc all are things anyone can have, despite their sex. It's the liberal belief that a person can present the gender of a woman, involving all of the above traits, while still having the chromosomes of a man. And yk, the 🍆
Essentially that's a theory, just like the theory of creationism, that covid vaccines are dangerous, and that climate change is a myth. Both political sides make up their own ideas that fit their beliefs. Let's not act like one makes more sense than the other lol, at the end of the day it's all a diversion from science.
But yeah, that's why there are two trans terms. Transgender: A man who thinks he's a woman and Transexual: A woman who has a fake 🐱
Picture ID's to vote. Make cheating almost impossible. Any new business over the environment. The Bible. Adults not being allowed to have sex with kids. Using Her , Him.
The best way to upset a liberal is to say Israel has a right to exist. They detest that!
Being a 'liberal', I can safely state that what upsets us the most is the utter stupidity and/or the wilful ignorance of. And after reading the question and the majority of these posts, I rest my case.
if you agree with 2nd amendment are you really a liberal?
@strateguy632 what do you mean "agree with"? What do you mean by the term "liberal"?
Telling them the unconvenient truth just like most humans don't want to hear especially regarding their personal sins they don't want to repent of.
Liberals are politically on the center or these days even more to the right. You are thinking of progressives.
Yeah! I have been a liberal all my life and moderate conservatives are pretty much classical liberals because the American left has lost its mind and gone to woke, Marxist nonsense.
Liberals in my mind are a lot like libertarians but they have tighter control over corporations and some more liberal social values.. which back in the 90s were actually sane!
"libertarians but they have tighter control over corporations and some more liberal social values" Yup, I think that corporations get to big and then you get fascism (Like we are seeing with all the ESG stuff, fusing between federal states and the corporations / banks, etc). So rather than being a libertarian "Private corporations can do whatever they want" I do think you need a democratic government to wreck havoc at corporations who have gotten to powerful to the point where they are interfering with freedom and a properly functioning market.
So splitting up the top tier corporations and ensuring that corporations like BlackRock can't own literally everything and fund everything with federal reserve models I do think is required. So in that sense I am probably left leaning.
But then at the same time I think it should be the exception for when its really necessary to keep liberty going, not the norm. Everything should be as free market as it can be and interference should only be done when that free market is threatened by a monopoly.
To me as a liberal I think the right balance of power is that the citizens collectively are at the very top of the power pyramid trough democracy, then a functioning government as limited as possible, then the individuals, then the corporations.
And despite that being one of the more left wing things I ever wrote in society i'd probably be called "Far Right" for supporting the MAGA movement, for wanting gun rights, for being a nationalist who thinks federal states are an inherent evil and wanting the UN to be abolished haha.
@sawno "To me as a liberal I think the right balance of power is that the citizens collectively are at the very top of the power pyramid trough democracy, then a functioning government as limited as possible, then the individuals, then the corporations."
I think we should have a more direct democracy also because clearly electing representatives to do the thinking for us is not working. The American public needs to actively get involved in politics and there should even be laws put in place so people don't have to work as much so they have time to catch up on politics in my opinion. It should be ingrained into the culture through generations that it is up to each citizen to be educated about politics and if you are not you are going to get a big government dick up your ass.
And yeah, people like us being called far right just for wanting guns or prioritizing our own nation over other nations is ridiculous.
A right winger would not be for the type of things I am for, such as abortion (within reason, a. k. a before the brain stem develops).
I actually came up with a democratic system to solve the issue of the government / corporations getting to much power. Its direct democracy with multiple stages per proposal.
Stage 0: The public raises enough signatures to start a motion for change to indicate there is interest.
Stage 1: In a few locations that take effort to go to because they are further away people come together to share their solutions for the thing people want changed. They bundle them if need be, scrap them if they are convinced its not a good idea and everything gets categorized. They then vote on these proposals, so you get a result.
Stage 2: Now the distance gets a bit closer to home to let more experts participate. Anyone voting in this round is required to publically comment on every proposal to what they think the pro's and con's are. Anyone can participate but due to the distance only people who are passionate about the subject will do so as a way of getting their opinions heard. So think people who did a lot of research, scientists, corporations, etc.
Stage 3: Everything got categorized by the voting operators, so now you have the summarized pro's and con's of every outcome as argued by the people who participated in stage 2. That means that ordinary voters can make a reasonable guess on what solution they think suits them best. In this stage voting is very close to home on the usual polling places making the barrier of entry low. We also have categories per solution now to prevent solution flooding, so varying approaches in the same category also counts towards the category. There now also is a minimum amount of votes that need to happen for the vote to be valid now that the barrier of entry is very low. If the threshold is not met nothing changes. In this category there always is a mandatory addition to the voting option, "Nothing should change" to give people a way to block the porposals entirely if none of the proposals are good.
Stage 4: If a single option got more than 50% of the votes, it's now adopted. If not, stage 4 will be a final vote between the two most popular options. If a single category got over 50% the two options will be picked from that category. If that is not the case, the most popular option of the two most popular categories will get picked. Voters who did not vote for either of these options now have the ability to vote for either, and voters who changed their minds will have the ability to correct their vote using the voting code they got from the previous round if they no longer agree with their original vote.
Then by the end of stage 4 you will now have an option that has over 50% of the votes and that one got adopted into law. During the entire process, there are 2 systems keeping track, one keeps track of which citizens voted and in Stage 1 and 2 your vote is public and not anonymous. Stage 3 onward a second anonymous system is introduced with voter codes. If you register to vote you get your own unique anonymous voter code, the amount of codes needs to match the amount of registered voters to prevent fraud. If you voted in an earlier stage they will automatically convert your vote to the later stages so you don't have to keep voting for the same thing.
It's basically emulating parliamentary democracy but on such a large scale of voters that corruption is no longer possible. It can run side by side with the regular forms of democracy that already exist and should always override the regular politicians votes. The only thing you would not be allowed to vote on are discriminatory policies to ensure you don't get oppression of minorities, and you should not be allowed to vote on constitutionally protected rights. Both of those votes would be advisory to the politicians as a safeguard against majority oppression.
@Nightroads
You worked in government, your thoughts on this solution?
@nightdrot meant you not roads lol.
Unfortunately, I don' have the time today to go into this in any detail. In fact, I just discovered this by accident as I just checked the site in passing.
That said, this idea seems to be based on the same premise that Madison based the Constitution we now have on. I. e., "Supplying by rival and opposite interests the defect of better motives." That works only so far and this rather elaborate structure would not likely make much difference.
The problem in government at any time is rooted in human nature. It is, suffice to say, well nigh difficult to overcome that through institutional structures. Rather, statecraft should seek not - as this system seems to - reduce vice through institutional reform, but to buttress a society that seeks virtue and justice.
Suffice to say, perfection is not to be expected from that as human beings are not perfectible nor can they be perfected. Plus to add we have right now the government that we do because the public - the populist mood of the times being so pervasive - will not accept responsibility for the things they demand.
1 in 6 who work, work for government. 1 in 7 is a Social Security recipient. 1/3 of all families, this year, will receive some form of government transfer payment and less than half of all Americans pay ANY Federal income tax. Yet they complain about too much government and too high taxes and yet even mention cutting SS and the public goes wild.
Bottom line, the problems that we have are symptoms and not causes and therefore not likely to be improved by mere institutional reforms. The culture needs a politics that summons the public to the a recognition of the costs of their choices and desires. As Burke said, "The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please. We ought see what it will please them to do before we risk congratulations."
Sorry for the abbreviated reply, but I hope it helps - at least a little.
@nightdrot fair enough but we can't really blame the people for how fucked the government is when the government is almost entirely corrupt.
Nope. Disagree. I do indeed blame "the people." We have the big government we do because the public - its' protestations to the contrary notwithstanding - wants a government that size. See again the stats I site above.
Human nature being what it is, the most you can do is put in what institutional safeguards you can and proceed from there. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" and all that.
@nightdrot To clarify my approach a bit. Structurally we have a functional system at least in the netherlands. But the problem is that the people making the decisions are still a small amount of people so they can be bribed and corrupted and over here never end up doing what people actually vote for.
So my system brings it closer to the populus, and also increases the decision voting sample size to include hundreds of thousands of people. Bribing every single one of them is going to be impossible so it cancels out the economic interests and acts as a counter to corruption.
@nightdrot if that was so, care to explain why all these things on this list have happened? How was the public responsible for that?
Really the only form of government that I can think of that would reliably be immune to this sort of problem is a benevolent dictatorship operated by an immortal who never has to leave office. They would have to be sincerely benevolent and shut themselves off from corrupting influences entirely.
@sawno Yes, I understand. My point is that your reforms, whatever their merits, are not apt to change much. You are trying to compensate for failures of culture and character with mere structural reforms.
That can work to some degree, but it is not apt to be nearly as effective as you hope. A system closer to the populace will, as night follows day reflect the flaws in the populace. What you need is a system that places some distance between the populace and its' governance. This thereby making room for sober deliberation and the dispassionate exercise of justice.
It is best to recall that in a democracy, properly understood, the people do not decide. Rather, they decide which elites will decide.
If the people attempt to take on the tasks of the elite, they will be found inadequate to the task - lacking the expertise and education to dispassionately analyze and address the complex issues of government. If, on the other hand, they merely group all elites into an evil category, they will likely get a government that lives down to its' lowered expectations.
@nightdrot The experiment has been tried here in the Netherlands when we were still a democratic nation. "It is best to recall that in a democracy, properly understood, the people do not decide. Rather, they decide which elites will decide." this I disagree with, when it is like that I do not consider it a democracy which is why I don't consider most countries democracies.
Here people know what they want, but they can't vote on what they want. They can merely elect people they hope will vote for what they want. That puts a barrier between the will of the people and the actual policy making and you see it time and time again that decisions being made are in favor of international bodies and corporations, not the interests of the people.
Meanwhile whenever we had an advisory referendum here in the Netherlands the people were voting with well informed decisions. I see that on a very consistent basis that people will vote for the right choice given complete information, we are all good at making decisions for our lives and you can trust the majority of society to make good decisions (Even if its 51% of the vote).
So reform is needed through the introduction of a system like I propose, its the only way to bypass the endless lobby groups and financial interests.
Well, and I apologize, I am not sure I take my political philosophy from The Simpsons. Beyond that, this is a really interesting discussion but I am so sorry as I have to go. (Holiday weekend with the family and all.)
If I might, I suggest to you both the book "Statecraft as Soulcraft" by George F. Will. At the very least I suggest that it will emphasize to both of you that government is more nuanced and complicated than you both appear to fully grasp.
As for your acknowledgement, I consider that a very elitist point of view I disagree with but do acknowledge it has some merit. It's why I came up with the phased system to begin with, to ensure the discourse is set by those with sufficient knowledge and motivation and to discourage uninformed citizens from voting in the early stages. Then once the information is properly digestible, the masses have their say and tend to choose well.
Ill also name a couple of examples in practice:
1. EU referendum, the citizens voted against having out rights signed away to the EU constitution. They ignored the referendum and did it anyway. Same for the coin. We are now financially worse off and have less rights as citizens and a weakened democracy. Voting against was clearly the better choice.
2. They voted against allowing Ukraine to be associated with the EU. This could have possibly prevented the current war with Russia. This result was ignored and they did it anyway, now we have a war.
3. They voted against mass wiretapping, it got ignored and happened anyway. Now citizens rights are being infringed.
In every 3 of these the popular was proven to be immune to fear mongering and did decisions that were good long term strategies.
@sawno Sorry for the quick reply - as I say, I have family and it is a holiday weekend. As far as "elitist," yup! Guilty as charged! Elite represents a standard of excellence. Once it becomes a trendy epithet, the whole idea of excellence and standards becomes problematic. The masses will fail to see their own flaws and the elites will disavow any sense of societal obligation in the name of "the will of the people." About what we have.
@nightdrot Until the populous eventually figures out a way to overthrow them, then it's game over. They did a great job ensuring its as water tight as possible and with all the social governance structures they are continuing to build its becoming increasingly impossible. But simultaneously there is millions of us so it only takes one person to find a winning strategy.
@nightdrot it's a meme template with very real problems on there that was not shown on The Simpsons show so I don't know why you were acting like I am taking advice from The Simpsons when I am simply using them as a visual representation. Seems a bit disingenuous to me.
@nightdrot But we have no control whatsoever what our Government does. We can vote for Joe Blow but can't do shit about what they do with our tax money or anything else. The President can sign a bunch of Executive Orders and we can't do jack shit. Case in point, sending $billions we don't have to Ukraine and $Billions for illegal immigrants and we have no say whatsoever.
@daniela1982 Actually, you have a ton of control. The real problem is that the public wants contradictory things. As I noted above, they talk a ferocious game against government, but then they scream bloody murder when it cuts are proposed. (See also my stats above.)
Anyhow, very sorry for the brief replies. I have family over for the holiday and I just got on the computer for a minute and peeked in here. Hence, that I am replying at all.
ANY thing/process/method/support/training/education that teach people to be self-sufficient, and able to make up their own minds.
All of the above and privacy, middle class and proper ways to enter the country legally
People who vote for party over country regardless of their political party.
corporate welfare
tax breaks for the rich
pollution
YEAH, BUDDY, OtterMan68 !!!(In 1972, our social democratic New Democratic Party's major platform was "corporate welfare bums"; already wealthy businesses and individuals getting government tax breaks). Pollution now has imperiled the planet's existence so that without a true commitment to reducing COs, Earth as we know it might be uninhabitable by 2075 or so, just a half-century (well,51 years) in the future.
It's pretty hard to upset a liberal. Oh wait, you meant the Woke Activists?
Guns and the second amendment
Guns... pick up trucks LOL
Logic a lot of times😂
people breathing, smiling and having fun.
When minorities don’t act like victims
Strong families
Donald Trump
Border Wall
Being told to do something
Killing them with kindness
I don't care what upsets liberals.
National pride
Guns, god, country music, and trump!
Banning drugs and not normalising child molesting
The banning of politics.
Lying
The truth
You can also add your opinion below!