Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis, suitable for a free man) is the belief in the importance of individual freedom. This belief is widely accepted today throughout the world, and was recognized as an important value by many philosophers throughout history. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote praising “the idea of a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed”.
John Locke is often credited with the philosophical foundations of modern liberalism. He wrote “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”Critics of liberalism, such as Edmund Burke, feared that it would lead to mob rule, and pointed to the excesses of the French Revolution, to claim that a monarchy and an established religion led to stability and security. John Locke did not believe in liberty for the Negro. On the eve of the American Civil War, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Dred Scott decision, ruled that only White men were included in the rights granted by the Constitution and that other races had no rights whatsoever, either legal or moral, that the White man was obligated to recognize.
The philosophers of liberalism wrote in a political framework in which a monarch, a hereditary aristocracy, and an established religion were the norm. The first European country to officially permit freedom of religion was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, during the reign of Zygmut I and Zybmut II (1506 – 1572). According to Adam Zamoyski in The Polish Way, “They encouraged every form of creative activity throughout the most dynamic period of Europe’s artistic development, and they graciously allowed their subjects to do anything they wanted — except butcher each other in the name of religion.” Holland also showed a degree of religious tolerance that was rare in an age of religious warfare.
For ten years,from 1929 to the start of World War II, the West was in the grip of what has come to be called The Great Depression. In Europe, the turmoil and poverty of depression contributed to the rise of a new power, fascism, which held that dictatorship was the only form of government strong enough to combat communism.
The British economist John Maynard Keynes offered a plan that he claimed could end the Great Depression without fascism or communism. He argued that government, while leaving the market free in most respects, could manage the money supply in a way that would smooth out the highs and lows of the boom and bust cycle that had plagued capitalism since the 19th Century.
In understanding the difference between liberalism and conservatorism:
The Greek audacious hero who was Icarus has become associated with the classic liberal artist. Daedalus, his father, the more conservative artisan and craftsman. It is the classic liberal artist who shakes this world to its very core and demands that we as humanity rise up and be more than who we are and it was Icarus who soared, and soared and soared ever and ever higher up into the sky until the heat of the sun melted the wax that kept the feathers to his wings together and he plummeted down, down, down, to the depths of his own demise. Daedalus survived. If there is a disadvantage to liberalism it would be the proclivity towards hubris, and in this regard a conservative can be a liberals best friend. Liberals and conservatives have no reason to argue once it is understood what is being conserved and why a liberal view is being taken.
How can liberalism be tyrannical?
“Tyranny” is usurped and abused power. The goals of liberalism are comprehensive, and it views them as a simple matter of justice and rationality. It rejects social and religious traditions, and understandings of society and human nature, that set final limits to those goals. Liberalism is therefore progressive, it always wants more, and it recognizes no ultimate limiting principle. Its demands become ever more far-reaching and the means it uses more and more comprehensive and intrusive.
If all that is so, it seems obvious that at some point liberalism will become tyrannical. When it does its preference for step-by-step reform will obscure the radicalism of what it is actually doing.
How does the tyranny of liberalism come about?
* In a liberal society the only values that can be publicly recognized are equality and what people want. All public actions have to be justified by reference to liberal standards. Martin Luther King day observances go on for weeks, but Christmas has to be renamed Winter Holiday. As a result, people who aren’t philosophical liberals can’t act publicly on their view of what is real and important. In whatever affects other people they have to act on convictions that are not their own.
* Since liberty and equality are unlimited in their demands, what counts as public action that infringes them constantly expands. Every infringement is a violation of rights, so it has to be stopped. The workplace, for example, is now considered part of public life, and saying something counts as action, so if you talk about religion in somebody’s workplace that can be harassment. (Note that every place is somebody’s workplace.)
* Equal freedom includes doing away with every kind of social discrimination. That means public attitudes have to be controlled and transformed. One result is penalties for “hate speech” and other new “hate crimes.”
* Another result is that tolerance and celebration of diversity, as those things are more and more expansively understood, become basic goals of education. Students have to be taught to make liberal public values their own. Otherwise hatred and bigotry, the view that there are better things than equal satisfaction of preferences, will spill over into public life. The liberal values that were intended to free us from compulsion thus become compulsory, and as their demands expand they leave very little room for anything else.What are examples of liberal tyranny?
* Political correctness in all its forms. The constant attempt to re-engineer public attitudes.
* Government programs that radically change society imposed without popular consent and often with severely restricted discussion. These include affirmative action, mass immigration, and the abolition of the family as a recognized social institution distinct from partnership.
* More generally, the abolition of the authority of non-market and non-bureaucratic institutions, especially those that go to personal and social identity: family, religion, traditional morality, and cultural tradition generally. Tyranny invariably destroys other social authorities that might limit or compete with it. In this case the destruction proceeds by suppressing appeals to the authorities to be destroyed. If you appeal to religion or to specific cultural tradition you’re a theocrat, bigot, racist or hater, and if you act in accordance with those authorities you’ll inevitably make distinctions that constitute forbidden discrimination.What are some consequences of liberal tyranny?
* Collapse of intellectual, cultural and moral life, all of which depend on the authority and autonomy of culture, which liberalism destroys.
* Loss of personal identity through destruction of enduring and important personal affiliations, and of the distinctness, authority and autonomy of social constituents of identity such as religion, “gender,” and particular culture.
Liberalism requires moral vacuousness and it is a wonderful ideal, that has NOTHING to do with nature and the animal kingdom. Of course, any ideal that cannot be seen in nature is a disaster in practise, because it degenerates over time into an abberation, that has nothing more in common with it’s starting point.
In nature the only important thing is the “survival of the fittest”. The stronger you are and the more you can control (and the better genes you have), the more you advance in hierarchy. In every pack the alpha male (or alpha pair, if the female has an “equal right”) is (are) the first to feed and first to mate.
In most species, the alpha is given preference to be the first to eat and the first to mate. Other animals in the community are usually killed or ousted if they violate this rule. This leads to the alpha males and females being overrepresented in some groups in the genetics of a population, because they may become the only ones who breed successfully.
The status of the alpha is sometimes achieved by means of superior physical prowess. The individual in the alpha position usually changes when another challenges it to a fight (in some species to the death) and wins. Consequently, alphas may have to fight individuals in their own group several times to maintain their position throughout their lifetimes. In species where the fight is to the death, alphas rarely reach old age. In some species, a nomadic individual may approach the alpha, successfully beat him, and thus become the new alpha. When this occurs in lions, the new alpha usually kills the previous alpha’s cubs. In lions, several individuals may share alpha privileges in what is known as a coalition.
The social group usually follows the alpha to the hunt and to new breeding or resting grounds. The alpha is thus sometimes seen as deciding the fate of the group. If two groups of the same species find themselves competing for the same ground, they may let the alphas fight letting the outcome decide which group stays.
Chimpanzees show deference to the alpha of the community by ritualised gestures such as bowing, allowing the alpha to walk first in a procession, or standing aside when the alpha challenges.
In certain highly social species such as the bonobo, a contender can use more indirect methods, such as political alliances, to oust the ruling alpha and take his place.
Gorillas use intimidation to establish and maintain alpha position.
Omega (usually rendered ω-male) is an antonym used to refer to the lowest caste of the hierarchical society. An omega is subordinated to both alpha and beta. The omega is commonly the last allowed to eat.
Nature dictates that we need exactly the opposite.
But who can accept this, when we have grown such weak breeds over time? When we are obsessed by our own comfort and realize our fragility in any situation? When our minds are all the time terrorized by the IDEA of being pushed down into a caste and be labeled (for we all want to be gods)? When any natural attitude becomes a sin or crime? When we have fought this long for a “humane” system when in reality we should be killing eachohter, fighting over a status, conquering and shedding blood, manipulating and dominating the weaker, try to defeat the ones stronger than us, find new ways to go up on the scale and not fall back…
Can we not see and accept that we try to do all these things within any “humane” system? Backstabbing, playing with the rules to earn status, cheat on unsuitable partners, looking for better ones, trying to scavenge anything we can with wits, or tricking others into scavenging by making “special offers”, in order to receive more and more… Food and fighting have become money and sex has become strange, because we can’t find somebody who can f*ck properly…
No system is right, if it makes you feel comfortable… Because chaos, murder and violence are the natural norm…
