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Understanding the Liberal Mindset

Kinless2 said:
My understanding is that SC is from New Zealand. The right in New Zealand often describe themselves as Liberal. I assume he adopts an American accent for this forum.
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He has very helpfully not only bothered to fill in the location field in his profile, but has done so with his actual location rather than something supposedly humourous. You just need to look underneath his avatar on any of his posts.
 
AmyStrange said:
Some folks, like luddites, are probably against some forms of progress if it means a loss of jobs.
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They are not wrong. But opposing changes that improves the well being of the majority is almost always either oppression or simply futile. I remember reading about how the longshoremen's union fought the use of uniform containerized cargo. Now, I'm a union guy. And believe that organized labor unions are important and generally serve the common good. But that fight was futile and didn't serve the common good. They were fighting for buggy whips.
 
acbytesla said:
They are not wrong. But opposing changes that improves the well being of the majority is almost always either oppression or simply futile. I remember reading about how the longshoremen's union fought the use of uniform containerized cargo. Now, I'm a union guy. And believe that organized labor unions are important and generally serve the common good. But that fight was futile and didn't serve the common good. They were fighting for buggy whips.
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I agree, but with new technology, it also means new jobs. It's just sad that sometimes these new jobs also require a whole new knowledge base that some people can't always afford to acquire easily.

This discussion is obviously beyond the scope of this thread, but it does prove that a definition of a liberal/progressive mindset is not always a one size that fits all (or something like that).
 
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AmyStrange said:
I agree, but with new technology, it also means new job. It's just sad that sometimes these new jobs also require a whole new knowledge base that some people can't afford to acquire easily.

This discussion is obviously beyond the scope of this thread, but it does prove that a liberal/progressive mindset is not always a one size that fits all definition (or something like that).
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Absolutely true. Both terms are simply too general. SC and theprestige are using them because it serves their broad strawman demonization and avoids having to argue anything specific.
 
acbytesla said:
Absolutely true. Both terms are simply too general. SC and theprestige are using them because it serves their broad strawman demonization and avoids having to argue anything specific.
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Yup, but it's such a sad waste of intelligence.
 
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Thing about the luddites, they weren't wrong. They lost their jobs and their kids were a lot worse for it. Their grandkids and great grandkids were a lot better off than they would have been had the luddites gotten their way though.

Any rate, I prefer the international definition of liberal. After the progressive movement in the US lost steam, the progressives decided to rebrand as liberals. A real shame really, just causes confusion. That being said, at least in the US there really aren't any liberals left or conservatives. Progressives which are often socialists and the new right which are often fascists. Bad Ideas abound. We've basically slouched into modern monetary policy among other bad ideas.
 
The current political hellscape in the US has redefined so many words and changed order of things to where words mean little.

I am willing to wait until this all settles down before I try to use some of those words again.
 
we’ll see there’s this really stupid concept of free speech floating around out there that distorted things into getting people to defend the concepts of lying and propaganda on social media as a vital part of discourse.

now all the lazy and low info people have been algorithmically funneled down this pipeline of lies constantly reinforcing your ◊◊◊◊◊◊ world view with no way out.

it’s a big part of why i asked the question about trump’s crypto stuff that no one wanted to talk about. if the guy you think is right about it all and the best choice is a lying con man grifter who steals from you, you may be in that pipeline algorithmically feeding you a bunch of lies. and then maybe examine what you found appealing about it in the first place.
 
The term progressive in this sense doesn't really have much to do with the capitalist rat race, except when in opposition to it, so Luddites are really neither here nor there. In fact, many conservatists are very "progressive" when it comes to keeping those wheels churning.
 
Pixel42 said:
He has very helpfully not only bothered to fill in the location field in his profile, but has done so with his actual location rather than something supposedly humourous. You just need to look underneath his avatar on any of his posts.
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Keep in mind, many posters are primarily (if not exclusively) viewing the forum on mobiles, which makes your guidance somewhat cryptic, as there is nothing displaying under his avatar.
 
Mojo said:
Try rotating the phone to landscape.
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Rotation is for the weak. Portrait or die.

Eta: less flippant: some devices (like mine) are very sensitive to orientation and jump quickly to landscape if the device is even slightly skewed from pure plumb. It's so annoying that I prefer to lock it out and stay in portrait
 
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acbytesla said:
They are not wrong. But opposing changes that improves the well being of the majority is almost always either oppression or simply futile. I remember reading about how the longshoremen's union fought the use of uniform containerized cargo. Now, I'm a union guy. And believe that organized labor unions are important and generally serve the common good. But that fight was futile and didn't serve the common good. They were fighting for buggy whips.
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The hard part is identifying the change that is good. Which is why I'm not a progressive, not all change is good and not all change is bad.
 
ahhell said:
The hard part is identifying the change that is good. Which is why I'm not a progressive, not all change is good and not all change is bad.
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Yes. Exactly. Can't do anything about how vague and subjective the term is. But it does make it easy for me to say I'm a progressive.
 
ahhell said:
That being said, at least in the US there really aren't any liberals left or conservatives. Progressives which are often socialists and the new right which are often fascists.
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Survey data strongly suggest otherwise. According to a 2024 YouGov survey, Only 21% of Americans consider themselves "very liberal" (9%) or very conservative (12%). Those findings are consistent with all other surveys I've seen within the last several years.

Screenshot 2026-01-02 at 12.53.35.png
 
Ah...

I've just looked up the wiki article which explains 'Liberalism' and it clearly states that it spans both sides of the centre, i.e. centre-left and centre-right, termed as social-liberalism and conservative-liberalism.

This would explain why, to me, some 'liberal' stuff appears to be right-wing, and others, 'looney right-wing'.
 
Kinless2 said:
My understanding is that SC is from New Zealand. The right in New Zealand often describe themselves as Liberal. I assume he adopts an American accent for this forum.
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Nah. Liberals are the left here too... its just that the left is far more left in the US than in NZ... moderate Democrats would be considered centre right here, people like AOC would be considered centrists.
 
smartcooky said:
Nah. Liberals are the left here too... its just that the left is far more left in the US than in NZ... moderate Democrats would be considered centre right here, people like AOC would be considered centrists.
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Since it seems the liberal mindset can be considered different all over the world (from left to right), which one were you referring to in your OP?

BTW, did you really adopt an American accent for this forum? Just kidding of course.
 
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acbytesla said:
I tend to view the term progressive more positively since the term has actual meaning. Of course I'm progressive. Why isn’t everyone? This term means you favor change that improves society. Change and progress to a conservative are dirty words. They might threaten their position of dominance.
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Yes. I think one of the criticisms that is levelled against it is that it is about change for change's sake, without thought for consequences. That's not real progressivism in my opinion (no true progressive...).

I've often said that Liberal is not the opposite of Conservative. Liberal is the opposite of Authoritarian. Progressive is the opposite of Conservative. Which is why the suggestion of "Liberal Authoritarians" is so absurd.
 
novaphile said:
Ah...

I've just looked up the wiki article which explains 'Liberalism' and it clearly states that it spans both sides of the centre, i.e. centre-left and centre-right, termed as social-liberalism and conservative-liberalism.

This would explain why, to me, some 'liberal' stuff appears to be right-wing, and others, 'looney right-wing'.
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There is nothing liberal that is right-wing, "looney" or otherwise. Your understanding of what is right-wing must be distorted.
 
jt512 said:
There is nothing liberal that is right-wing, "looney" or otherwise. Your understanding of what is right-wing must be distorted.
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I dunno about that. It used to be the liberal position that no one should be discriminated against because of their race or sex. That view is now apparently right-wing and fascist.
 
Trausti said:
I dunno about that. It used to be the liberal position that no one should be discriminated against because of their race or sex. That view is now apparently right-wing and fascist.
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Even though I'm a registered republican, I also consider myself a liberal/progressive, and I don't agree with you, because I'm still of the same mind that no one should be discriminated against because of their race or sex.

Obviously, you didn't talk to every liberal/progressive, and thus, your opinion is based on insufficient data, but that's just my opinion too.

Your mileage may vary of course.
 
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Trausti said:
I dunno about that. It used to be the liberal position that no one should be discriminated against because of their race or sex. That view is now apparently right-wing and fascist.
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There is a difference between recognizing that people of certain races and that females have been discriminated against for centuries and continue to be. And that it is only reasonable to help them overcome that history.

But it is wonderful to hear about how white males are oppressed in American society.
 
acbytesla said:
There is a difference between recognizing that people of certain races and that females have been discriminated against for centuries and continue to be. And that it is only reasonable to help them overcome that history.

But it is wonderful to hear about how white males are oppressed in American society.
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And there it is. The progressives' acceptable bigotry. So, yeah, the idea that no one should face discrimination because of their skin hue is now indeed fascist.
 
AmyStrange said:
So, you think if anyone but a white male is hired, then it's discrimination. Got it.
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Just amazing how ferociously progressives hate white guys.

Seers-White-Men.jpg
 
AmyStrange said:
Well since I'm a white male, why would I do that?

FYI, I love myself.
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I wonder how many DEI hires were questioned to see if they weren't qualified.

I'll bet that the opinion that DEI hires were based on a discrimination against white guys (like me) and not qualifications is based on insufficient data too
 
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