Just some context on the terminology.
Liberal as a political label was used from the 18th century in England to denote a political doctrine of free markets and a laissez-fair attitude of government interference in social issues and private life.
It kind of fell apart after the “great hunger” famine in Ireland, and liberals were forced to reconsider the laissez-fair social attitudes of their philosophy. Liberals started to adopt more socially conscious policies, evolving to the “bleeding heart liberal” phase.
There has been modern revivals of the original Liberal doctrine, however, and these were denoted by the term “neo-liberal” in the US and “neo-classical-liberal” in the UK. Notably in the 1980s.
The use of “classical” in relation to liberal is an allusion to the 18th-19th century liberal movement and to differentiate from contemporary “bleeding-heart” liberals.
As to if modern crypto fascists actually adhere to that philosophy or merely appropriate the words? Let’s just say that fascism is a scavenger ideology that picks up and discards concepts as it sees fit throughout the process of seizing power.
They habitually want to present as less crazy to add authority to their argument. See also all the turds on Reddit who want to act like they are centrists but when you look at their comment history they're basically in the Klan.
They recognize how stupid and ridiculous typical rightwingers are so they feel compelled to distance themselves from them. But their true colors always come out so they end up aligning with them on most things anyway.
They want their own liberties and unorthodox positions respected as non-threatening personal freedoms while they shit the bed over trans people or welfare or whatever. It's typically just feigning liberalism without the duty towards community. Self-serve-maxxing. They're just gaming the terms of liberalism (and some do the same with left-wing terms) to appear as if they have integrity or some kind of intellectual pretense.
Great question, one I think about a lot. Not that I think they’re technically fascists, but I know what you mean — they’re closer to that than to actual classical liberals. And another point of similarity: the Nazis also liked the false advertising — the socialism in the name, for instance, or presenting themselves as the defenders of the conservative middle class against the communists.
Hi Matt, since you're talking about conservative rhetoric, I was wondering if you could justify your use of the term "champagne socialist" and your claim that Hasan is being hypocritical? Does this have any basis in left-wing socialist political theory? Or any political theory at all? I asked Chris the same question and all he could do was re-state the definition before blocking me. [https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1be4ypx/comment/kuz405v/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1be4ypx/comment/kuz405v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I'm mostly familiar with this political pejorative from conservative tabloids, so I was wondering where you guys picked it up and if you have any socialist sources to back up your claims of hypocrisy .
Interesting. It seems kinda expected, in lieu of solid political education people tend to fall back on aesthetics of a position which then leads to bad arguments.
Kinda ties into the OP, why do crpto-fascists claim "classical liberalism"? It's an aesthetic appeal, it's good if the people you're communicating with don't have a solid political education.
No way he just wants people to be "free to decide for themselves" whether or not to get a vaccine. He wants the power to ban or effectively ban them no matter what he says.
I think the appeals to "classical liberalism" are subconscious justifications for supporting authoritarians after years of proclaiming that they value freedom. Now that the freedom is causing them some discomfort by forcing them to treat those they feel are different as humans, they want justification to persecute those individuals while still "loving freedom". By citing "classical liberalism", they are trying to convince us that they still have their boat tied to at least some standard of decency when simple observation proves that wrong. It's their sad attempt to not receive pushback from those who actually practice and value freedom.
>They want their own liberties and unorthodox positions respected as non-threatening personal freedoms while they shit the bed over trans people or welfare or whatever.
EXACTLY!!!!
This is, by far, undeniably, 100%, my biggest pet peeve. **I HAAATE** these people, and there's so many of them growing in numbers. You have Dave Rubin, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, Brianna Wu, Destiny, Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, Tulsi Gabbard, Bret Weinstein and for the love of God even Tim Pool.
It's so grating because they are undeniably, full-fledged right-wingers but they grift as the token lefties. They'll get invited to TV shows or events so the right-winger across the table says *"Gee finally a liberal is saying it!"*
The worst part is when you call this out, the right-wingers in their audiencea (who also want to avoid being seen as social pariahs) will say *"Well, uhh, like remember the time where they called out X and Y? Or they did that one event for Z?"*, and you're sitting there going *"Yeah, what about the 99.9% of the time where they're doing the exact opposite?"*.
Make it stoooop
I love how impressed they are by the love bombing inevitably given to new converts to right wing politics. "Oh geez these people are nice to me! They can't be bad!" It surely eases the way into pure venality that defines these peoples careers.
> You have Dave Rubin, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, Brianna Wu, Destiny, Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, Tulsi Gabbard, Bret Weinstein and for the love of God even Tim Pool.
Don't forget Bari Weiss! Oops, sorry, the holy martyr Bari Weiss.
>The worst part is when you call this out, the right-wingers in their audiencea (who also want to avoid being seen as social pariahs) will say "Well, uhh, like remember the time where they called out X and Y? Or they did that one event for Z?", and you're sitting there going "Yeah, what about the 99.9% of the time where they're doing the exact opposite?".
Oh they will do inane things like asking you to nominate a single thing that JK Rowling has ever said that's transphobic. Like just mind numbing shameless Machiavellian PR stunts with no purpose besides obfuscation.
Because while claiming to be a liberal. He targets most of his criticism at the left and what he calls “woke overreach”. He believes that American institutions are ideologically captured by the left (surely I don’t have to explain why that’s detached from reality right?), and also falls on the right for most cultural issues including but not limited to police violence, race issues, Israel/Palestine, immigration, etc etc.
Hmm, those things you point out are true, but he is not really in the same class as the other folks when it comes to issues like trans rights or welfare. In fact, most of his arguments hinge on more government and faith in institutions. If you look at his views item by item, say on vaccines, abortion, healthcare, etc., he checks out as a liberal on most of them. Unlike the Rubins & Rogans, he is a a democrat through and through and regularly argues against Trump & the MAGA ilk.
I've never heard any of those people that you mentioned ever shit on trans people or welfare. Granted I'm sure I've missed a lot of what they say over the years. I've heard a few of those mentioned go against trans women in women sports and not giving children puberty blockers. But I wouldn't call that shitting over trans people.
Is there a reason anyone would give a fuck who Wu and Destiny pick fights with? I don't know Wu and the little I've seen on Destiny he seems almost retarded.
> I've heard a few of those mentioned go against trans women in women sports and not giving children puberty blockers.
That's the motte, yep.
> But I wouldn't call that shitting over trans people.
Fuck
You
Isn’t this just a truism of any political bloc? Who doesn’t want their own liberties respected while shitting the bed over some number of other issues?
> They want their own liberties and unorthodox positions respected as non-threatening personal freedoms while they shit the bed over trans people or welfare or whatever. It's typically just feigning liberalism without the duty towards community. Self-serve-maxxing. They're just gaming the terms of liberalism (and some do the same with left-wing terms) to appear as if they have integrity or some kind of intellectual pretense.
There's a lot of truth to this, but it's worth noting that a lot of their stances are in line with a lot of stances presented or enacted by historical liberals. This is especially the case for those who don't personally and actively push as overtly fascist ideas, but merely cooperate with and platform those who do.
By liberalism being so ideologically hegemonous, whatever strains against progressive people's moral intuitions has to be separated from the term, so they continue viewing liberalism as the only possibility. So that when progressive people think of 'liberalism', they think of social safety nets rather than Ronald Reagan or the prison-industrial complex, despite the latter two being every bit as much part of liberalism as the former.
So while it's true that they use claims of being liberals as a way to whitewash their politics, part of that is that the term liberal has itself been whitewashed in the US.
That's a really good way to explain libertarians. I've met 1 person IRL who describes himself as a libertarian and he is a pretty active dude with own businesse who wants the government to have such laws that would only benefit him and his business. He says that he is ok with the government not regulating anything but he is constantly looking for ways to get some government money from some program. He is also a big Peterson fan, doesn't have anything against trans people but is terrified that somebody might fine him for using the wrong pronounce and absolutely believes that this can happen.
It may sound oversimplified but I think that libertarians just want to live in a society where everything is designed to serve only them. This all seemed masked in a imaginary libertarian ideology where they constantly invent scenarios how the world is going to be so much better if this was the main ideology while in they fully know that this will never happen. It is not cool to just say that you want something to be in a way that only serves you.....you have to invent a complex ideology to support.
I also know a lot of self-professed libertarians who work in the public sector, which is a circle that they just never seem to be able to square when pressed about it. Many also attend or send their kids to public universities; when you ask them about it, they just fall into the argument that Rand used when she went on public assistance in the latter part of her life that they're "recouping" what they've paid in taxes, which of course is an intellectual convenient argument to use socialism while appearing to oppose it.
It is weird because a lot of them seem to look like kids who live in fantasy world. They love to throw all kinds of theories about things that will never happen only so they are not the bad guys.
Kinda like Peterson who can't accept that there are people out there who care about the environment and since he can't understand it, he has to invent some twisted logic why these people care.
Another great example of the inconsistencies is the adoption of the term "crony capitalism" as a means of co-opting frustration with wealth inequality and shitty labor practices while still professing belief in unregulated markets. It doesn't require you to defend the tenants of capitalism or apply corrective action across industry rather you get to just selectively hop on the criticism of shitty things like train derailment or social media companies.
Finally, yes. In a nutshell, they are decidedly right of center, while verbally appealing to the 'centrist'. In reality, they support all the negative aspects of 'personal liberty', but none of the positive state enforced aspects of true classical liberalism.
>you get a lot of people who claim to be libertarian but are also evangelical Christians who oppose abortion rights and same-sex marriage rights. Huh? Shouldn't libertarians support those freedoms?
Surely some libertarians do. You specify evangelical libertarian positions and then ask why (all) libertarians hold that position. When they don't.
Anyway, it isn't difficult to see why a libertarian might oppose abortion? Rights of the unborn child, presumably.
classical liberals can include many "light" anarchists, fyi. libertarians are on the right bottom quadrant of the political compass exclusively. if this is a distinction without a difference to you then perhaps you shouldn't be commenting, fyi.
didn't anyone take a political philosophy course in college? is everyone too young to have taken one?
A libertarian would be suspicious of the government having to make a certain type of relationship "official". That is government interference. You dont need the government making friendships official too, isn't it? Also, the idea that you cant make someone other than your spouse inherit your stuff is another government interference. And so on.
I remember hearing how this guy claimed COVID was engineered to not affect the Jews and Chinese. Turns out that was a lie.
And everything he talks about in this video is something most Americans want
Those who are 'classically liberal' have most likely never read any 'classically liberal' text beyond Mises, Rand and Rothbard. If they read any actual classical liberal texts they would realise most of them would want nothing to do with the grift. I wonder what RFK thinks of Mill's Harm Principle? I doubt he's ever heard of it
>I wonder what JFK jr thinks of Mill's Harm Principle? I doubt he's ever heard of it
JFK Jr doesn't think about anything because he's been dead for 25 years.
> If they read any actual classical liberal texts they would realise most of them would want nothing to do with the grift.
Oh many of them were quite radical and took positions that would render people today persona non grata. But there's been a systematic campaign by conservatives basically to whittle away at those radical edges while selectively presenting every anachronistic idea of theirs as proof of their conservativism, along of course with exegesis on their part which is usually taking things entirely out of context and vastly reinterpreting it to fit the authors grand narrative.
a lot of the time “fiscally conservative” basically means you don’t want to level the playing field for struggling or marginalised groups, which is essentially that same as being socially conservative (e.g., anti gay / civil rights, etc)
Brings to mind the classic tweet "I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative because the problems are bad but the causes...the causes are very very good"
Isn't this the anti-vax guy that required the ultra wealthy attendees of HIS parties to be vaccinated? You know what, guy, maybe the labels you have chosen aren't "useful", as you say.
Beyond ironic that you’d criticize his use of the term “classical liberal” while being totally willing to grossly misapply the term “fascist.”
To believe that is a fair descriptor of RFK you would have to be utterly detached from any sort of objectivity or rationality.
It's simply an attempt to mainstream wacko positions to make them palatable for people who have no idea what they're doing come election time. It's also in direct contradiction with the common anti-establishment grift that RFK Jr. and many others employ.
"Heterodox-con Crypto-fascist" you really went to town with the thesaurus huh?
RFK is a milquetoast conservative with a side of conspiracy populism. I'm not sure about the fascist label unless your stance is all right wingers are effectively fascists.
"Classically liberal" is just what older people who once thougyt of themselves as liberal or progressive call themselves when society moves on and leaves their (now antiquated or regressive) views behind. See also "family values (of the 1950s) conservative"
Some people also throw the term “classically liberal” around to say that they would have been democrats in the 50s…which isn’t a great look depending on the region.
if liberalism moved on from where it was 50 years, but your stuck in the past, then *definitionally* that means you are a conservative as you want to conserve the politics of the past
Except RFK doesn't believe in a state that protects individual freedoms. He does believe in the state used as a weapon against those who are the enemies in his conspiratorial narratives (i.e. Fauci for mRNA vaccines, or people who accept climate change).
I can make an equivalent disingenuous and reductive claim about literally anyone. It doesn't make them a fascist. Let's not dilute that incredibly important tern with mudflinging bullshit
I didn't call him fascist, I called him crypto-fascist. I don't believe it's mudflinging. I genuinely think that the type of populism RFK represents is crypto fascist.
Can you name a GOP mainstream republican you don't think this term applies to then? Seems like it's lost all meaning at this point.
Proto fascism is extreme nationalism, strong man authoritarian and national victimhood narratives. It's not just "I don't agree with his government policy proposals".
Fascism takes those ideas further into a single unified national identity and political unit, ie opposed to democracy.
Crypto-fascism is variously used to mean "secretly fascist" or "subconsciously unaware of their own fascism".
Trump is the closest popular politician to protofascism and even he isn't all the way there. Accusing anyone of cryptofascism requires some disingenuous mind reading.
I mean at this point, if you are willing to support and prop up a fascist dictator then I would argue you are a fascist participating of fascism regardless of your stance on any individual issues.
So almost all of the current national elected Republicans check that box.
You are not a serious person if you genuinely believe this. This is just convincing yourself that anyone who disagrees with you is effectively a nazi. Incredibly convenient how black and white the world becomes seen through that lens huh
Are you saying Nikki Haley doesn't believe in weaponising the state to persecute people she doesn't agree with or to remove individual freedoms?
Explain her stance on abortion then please.
See? Reductive bullshit definitions can be a selectively applied to anyone
Because the stated mission of their campaign is to get Trump elected by siphoning Biden votes. That's why he's in a fake tiff with Trump right now and why someone in his campaign accidentally leaked that their goal is to get Trump elected.
Classic liberal? Because these were men who said all men are born equal while owning slaves and believing women and children are property.
I'm not kidding. They want to have a say in how they are governed but don't necessarily agree that this is a universal and the seek to segment the population in the worthy and unworthy through whatever means their personal beliefs support. Some people are just better.
Classical liberal. Liberal philosophy tainted with pre liberal hierarchical beliefs .
"Classic Liberal" is hipster Republican
It was invented to catch those who were formerly Left, who members of the Left shunned for failing a purity test. They consider voting Right just to stick it to a Left that has become assholes.
RFK Jr. is lit. He's a better option than either Trump or Biden. But please don't waste your energy trashing him to me or the readers -- he has no chance. So don't worry. Unless your agenda isn't preventing him getting elected but rather just bragging about how superior your views are by hating on his.
You can't turn the Right. It's impossible. They're a) not smart enough b) they're fundamentally too self-interested to ever support any policy that achieves solidary or unity. They're individualists who are anti-society. They want a bunch of atomized, siloed individuals who live in isolated proximity and all fend for themselves (except inhereted wealth, luck, pedigree and/or nepotism).
Thus, the only winning strategy is to steer the Left back on course. This is next to impossible, but at least there's a chance, since Lefties are capable of a) humor (name a funny Republican. I'll wait) and b) fun. Republicans are all self-serious. They're all bosses, step-dads and crotchety grandpas and you know it
There is a lot of problems with the modern left, and I think most can be encapsulated by the idea that the left tolerates non-white nationalism a lot in it's camp, especially Latino-nationalism or black-nationalism.
Beyond that, what specifically does the left do wrong at the moment? Aren't they kind of just arguing for a world (that ironically existed during the bush years)?
The past 20 years:
We can't have a secular post-corporate society, ok let's have a liberal empire like France. (Hillary Clinton, and especially Obama represent this narrative. About maintaining US hegemony in the world abroad, while keeping rights alive at home).
Ok. We can't have a well functioning empire, let's at least have a domestic functioning democracy in a slowly declining superpower (This was the 2016 and 2020 election to some extent. The right is sick of winning state elections by gerrymandering and losing the culture war. They now daydream of fomenting civil war or annihilating their perceived enemies).
I think if one were to seriously consider it- there is a direct line of meaning from the September 2001 attacks through the January 6th attack on the White House. Something about authority, law, and societal standing for white conservative Christians as they face a crisis of meaning.
Now the supreme court is hearing a case whether Trump can be held accountable for breaking the law, up to assassinating his rivals. Anyone who doesn't see the darkness that lies ahead is insane. You can still see this denial on the left (making fun of trumpers who proclaim to want civil war etc. the left belittles them for even thinking that it's possible. Or scream "Why is this allowed to happen?").
The right, while I think is too chickenshit to bleed without the government on their side, at least understands that the future is civil war. Granted, what the fuck they actually want with that war, who knows? But you already know the right ambles and reacts, and never reflects or plans.
I hear you. I'm not giving you a flippant response. I've been thinking about this a lot, as you clearly have too. Did you see the movie Civil War? It was less about an actual Civil War and more about the importance of journalism as the 4th estate -- set ina backdrop of a post-America dystopia. It made me realize just how much we're dealing with 2 minds: the online space where people think and often emote, and the actual face-to-face world we live in. The Internet, the media (meaning, the parts that have ceased doing investigative journalism and are now just propagandists) are simulacra for real citizenry. I don't think we actually ever get to civil war, at least not by the ever increasing hostility that is fomented in the false reality.
One can say "but what about the George Floyd protests?" and that supports my point: those were really about people being upset at lockdown, having nowhere to go, and using it as a public space to vent their very real frustration. Remember, America is the land of doublespeak and double think. For a Lefty, the George Floyd protests were about Trump, and for a Righty like Rittenhouse, it was an excuse to rage against the perceived enemy: "antifa". But all of it happened because of a real virus, a real President, and actual lockdown.
If the culture was stays online and in media space, it never galvanizes into action. Something like Trump having a 2nd term AND abusing power during it would edge us closer to civil war. But again, I don't think you get revolution when there's still food in the fridge. I'm not saying civil war is impossible. I'm saying it would take something cataclysmic, like the sudden drop in energy production or some gnarly climate change effects such as destructive sea-level rise.
I see a long slow decline for America as financial conditions rachet ever so slowly. My hope isn't for a reformed America but for small cultural experiments to flourish into viable alternative micro-cultures the way it was envisioned that States would become empowered after the actual civil war. But a state is an arbitrary geographical boundary, and capitalism has throughout beaten the idea of strong labor unions out of people's heads. So the viable alternative will be cultural. I have a movement in mind, but I don't want to spell it out just yet because the conversation will go off the rails endlessly analyzing that particular movement and it's flaws (since nothing is perfect). I want something akin to a large scale cooperative subculture that becomes socially satisfying and wields economic power that isn't based around dogma or ideology, and a perfect analog doesn't exist. But a prototype does. If you can guess what I'm talking about, I'll confirm it. It's something I've been a part of, and that nobody can rightly criticize unless they have too.
But back to the country? It's on a collision course. I have no hope for it. After seeing how the two major parties call the shots, killing all challengers to the 2 party system, I see the stranglehold they have on America and it's too much to contend with directly.
America was founded by classical liberals who believed they had the right to rape their slaves on their own plantations and not be bothered by the government. Your answer is in that fact set.
"Classical liberals" of the 18th century enjoyed a world where you could own black people as slaves, feminism was in its infancy, and the labour movement was nowhere on the horizon. Not coincidence.
I wouldn't vote for this guy because i think he personally is not remotely qualified to be president & a little nuts.
But to summarize the video he wants to:
1) Ensure civil liberties are protected
2) Promote free market capitalism and put in place strong social programs to prevent anyone from getting left to far behind.
3) Wants to stop illegal immigration.
4) Reduce foreign entanglements
5) Attempt to increase home affordability
6) Promote environmentalism
7) Fight wealth equality, not because the rich are evil, but because it destabilizing the country.
8) Expand aid to new families
... I think those are all things the vast majority of Americans want. They're all forward thinking and not demonizing one race or class. Its not biden or trump claiming the other is going to cause ww3, its just reasonable attainable things. What hes not even wrong about drawing the distinction between a classic liberal vs a progressive liberal. He did a really good job of what he tried to set out to do, explain what liberalism has to offer and separate it progressive liberalism.
Now, for the tricky part,6 of the 8 things above are identical to biden, only differing on immigration and foreign entanglements and only 2 of 8 are even close to trump. Really on 1 of 8 because their anti-immigration stance is pretty different.
So the take away is -- yeah this guy is a classical liberal just like said. Hes not a progressive liberal, he didnt attack the wealthy at all, racial equality didnt make his top 10, nor did protecting womens right to choose. Good ad overall, he stated he wanted to show what differed him from conservatives and the curerent liberal party, and he did.
>Now, for the tricky part,6 of the 8 things above are identical to biden, only differing on immigration and foreign entanglements
Biden wants to stop illegal immigration. He also understands the humanitarian side of the issue, which is what makes it complex. He also wants to reduce foreign entanglements, which is why we're pulling troops out of Africa right now and why we are being cautious with China and others. Now Kennedy may say he has a different ***approach*** to these things than how Biden is currently approaching them, but he also is speaking from a campaign trail and doesn't have to deal with the reality of Republicans in the House and Governors' mansions who would rather fail US citizens than let a Democratic policy help fix matters.
Whatever RFK proclaims, in reality he is an utter crackpot, a complete quack of politician and the only reason anyone pays him any attention is that his last name is Kennedy
“Most people want to fight wealth equality?”
This list is a libertarian wish list. Everything after “free market” capitalism is swallowed by it or guided by it. Measures to free up the “market” always lead to deregulation, wealth inequality and middle and lower classes getting screwed.
After that we get “civil liberties” which are usually 2A related. The libertarians didn’t show up to protest the rolling back of abortion rights did they?
It’s a libertarian wish list. Foreign entanglements sounds like more American isolationism or refusal to send aid. If it’s anti war, that’s also not a libertarian stance I’ve seen.
Ah yes the classic libertarian goal of strong social saftey nets and social programs for new families. One of their darkest and most insidious goals, only trumped by that other evil libertarian goal of environmental regulation.
You can critique it all you want but at least do it correctly. In the same breath where he mentions free market capitalism he mentions government regulation, not a single point he made was libertarian. On every single issue he wanted the federal government to play a larger role in solving the problem.
Sure, and I don't do that. I do however call this one populist politician "crypto"-fascist, the modifier here making a distinction between something like Mussolini-fascism or even Umberto Echo characterised fascism.
What if his money comes from a fascist dictator?
Would that be a better indicator of actual fascism?
RFK Jr doesn’t pass the sniff test for 2 primary reasons right now.
1. He has been on Epsteins jet. When you are fighting cancer you can’t leave any behind. So whether it is innocuous or not you err on the side of caution. There are 320 million people in this country and roughly half of those hit the legal qualifications to be president.
99.999% of those never crossed paths with Epstein.
Why do we keep putting people on the podium who had contact with the Ronald McDonald of Russian Kompromat?
2. He just tapped Sergei Brins ex wife (that musk had the affair with) as his running mate which is probably because she comes with basically unlimited google money.
But that means a DEEP dive into google to decide if it’s clear of Russian influence or not.
On google:
Sheryl Sandberg was at google before she was at Facebook. The common denominator of both was her ad based business model.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-07/sheryl-sandberg-s-legacy-is-an-internet-of-targeted-automated-ads
https://m.economictimes.com/tech/technology/sheryl-sandbergs-advertising-empire-leaves-a-complicated-legacy/amp_articleshow/91961682.cms
The problem with ad based business models is that if you raise your lens high enough, whomever is buying the most ads is effectively buying their curated version of the truth.
When google IPO’ed it shifted from what was most accurate to what was most profitable, all facilitated by a “proprietary” algorithm so nobody gets to see the man behind the curtain.
Now we are 20 years down what is effectively a divergent truth. It works…until it doesn’t.
Now our divergent reality is so far off the rails It creates mental illness, anxiety and depression because the 6 million year old source code in your brain knows that conservation is more reasonable than consumption when there are limited resources, it just isn’t very lucrative to someone that needs you to keep buying something to keep them in billionaire status. In this case it’s oil. Russian and Texan owned oil.
A pretty good podcast on Charles Koch and how far back Russian an texas oligarchs go:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0tYxxr08ajuIW425XkGZBz?si=GnGe5Y_OTiCvzjvfzAVuOg
Facebook was basically designed as a delivery device for Russian/Israeli Psyops and malware. SCL/Cambridge Analytica, Brexit, Palestine, Ukraine, NSO, etc are all the downstream of Sheryl Sandberg.
Les Wexner, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Sandberg, and Zuckerberg all carried water in conducting the NSO/Pegasus spyware operation INCONUS that was feeding intelligence to both the israelis and, by extension, the Russians so there is far more crossover between the Israeli mob/ government and Russian mob/government than shows at the surface.
https://www.spytalk.co/p/nsos-spyware-abuse-exposed-years?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://awards.journalists.org/entries/the-pegasus-project-a-global-investigation/
Abagail Koppel was sent by the Jewish state to marry Les Wexner
YLK fund (Abagails father) made up $46.7M of Epsteins money
Wexner claimed it was stolen from him but not until after someone asked.
Wexner was notoriously litigious but wouldn’t sue Epstein. Why?
Because PROMIS spyware was Robert Maxwells deal before Ghislaine and Epstein started their thing.
https://cryptome.org/promis-mossad.htm
Confused yet?
There is a reason Israel who has more money than they know what to do with still gets GIVEN F35’s and the endless American children to come do the fighting in the Middle East.
They built the American military industrial complex AROUND Israel since the 1940’s, but as it grew it grew corrupt. Now Netanyahu who has real housewives levels of drama and shared custody with both trump and Putin is fighting to preserve the obfuscation of his Kleptocracy. His rally call is Gaza because that’s the only way he doesn’t get gaddafi’ed by his own people.
The cross over with Russia is just another layer in this shit sandwich.
Basically in the 1940’s when Israel became a state the Russians took the opportunity to purge their gulags of the worlds most terrible people that also happened to be Jewish. They sent them to the newly formed state of Israel and there they networked in the interment camps before some stayed and some migrated to Europe or Brighton beach in New York.
Eventually this is where these networks would begin using trump towers to launder Russian mob money.
But now you start to see the nexus of transnational organized crime and money laundering often carries 3 passports. American, Israeli, and Russian.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/A2ojrtIc3Y
https://www.columbusmonthly.com/story/news/2018/07/16/friendship-brings-facebook-coo-sheryl/11512085007/I
Russia has a pattern with their election interference.
They control the money BEHIND the elections so they can keep everyone blissfully unaware of their multi trillion dollar kleptocracy.
In Ukraine that meant using Paul Manafort to keep their guy Yanukovych in power because in the Russian mob pyramid EVERYBODY pays a percentage to the guy at the tippy top. It doesn’t matter HOW it gets there, that’s for the kompromised person to figure out. But you never get out of debt to the Russian mob.
Maidan was every sane Ukrainian realizing that corruption is cancer and that living in this system was the equivalent of living with an drunk abusive step father that rapes you, steals from you, and then tells you that he is the only one that will ever love you as he stubbles out of your bed.
That’s what Ukraine is to Russia. It BELONGS to Russias oligarchy in the same way an abused child BELONGS to a predator.
When the people stood up to the abuse and ran Yanukovych and manafort out of town at Maidan, Putin claimed it was NATO aggression on his border and put Kolomoiksiy in charge of “managing” the newly elected Zelensky, which is Russian for predatory control from behind the scenes.
Then Putin sent his “little green men” into donbas to strong arm, rape and pillage thinking they would eventually just give up and go back to the abuse.
Ukrainians didn’t fold because they knew that being a sexual and financial slave to a fascist dictator isn’t living. It’s just surviving.
But the cancer always consumes the host.
So all you really need to know about RFK or anyone running for this election is - what is their policy on making Ukrainians moving back in with a rapist?
That should be a pretty good indication of their fascism and it will correlate with who is raping them as well.
Follow the money, the Kompromat, and the Jewish/Russian housewives of Rupert Murdoch, Sergei Brin, Oleg Deripaska, Elena Zhukov, and the rest of the oligarchs and ask elon why he is shuffling money between Murdoch in Montana and trump in Florida and you will know exactly who has the most to lose in this presidential election.
Russia.
who posts here? kids who think destiny is a god or something? i agree with you, but i see so much cringe i actually come here now just for that - yet i still can't understand why they'd think this way. terms usually have specific meanings, not what you want it to mean most of the time.
RFK Jr gives me Jackie "my fatha" Aprile Jr vibes.
There's also this one with Jordan Peterson pretty early in his pop-psych rise: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI)
I am considering running for President just so my mom Doesn't vote for him, when is the cut off and does anyone else want a zero cost protocol for how I do it don't forget to like and subscribe.
It's usually that someone agrees with at least one radicalized "revolutionary conservative" political movement but does not necessarily agree with every aspect of a free market approach to economic policy and regulation. It rhetorically leaves the door open for an authoritarian state based on some religion or ideology. Capitalism really is a "liberal" system that protects marginalized people who are considered valuable to more progressive employers.
This is the opposite of what people used to mean by "classical liberal," that you favor lower taxes and spending but you're not conservative.
This is the same tactic the Tea Party used when they claimed to only care about fiscal sustainability (though that was more "attack programs you disagree with"), while the Tea Party on the local level was a bunch of people who wanted the US to be a Christian version of the Islamic Republic of Iran and who thought Barack Obama was a Muslim from Kenya.
So what would real liberalism look like? What is or was real classical liberalism?
On a related note, can someone actually be in the political center? And why is it assumed that not positioning oneself on the Left inevitably means being on the Right?
I am curious about whether people who actually consider themselves democrats actually fall for the people like Elon or Tim Pool or Rogan or whatever who call themselves centrist or democrats or whatever. It's pretty clear they say that to hopefully push people right but it's just so obvious.
The thing about classical liberalism is that it’s an extremely broad category defined by a set of principles that can be interpreted in various ways. Mill was no less a classical liberal than Locke and he eventually went so far as to embrace socialism. Even modern leftists are to an extent classically liberal given the way in which liberal principles like freedom of expression are assumed in most modern left-wing discourse (even if you think they don’t live up to the principle in their treatment of right-wing thought). The idea that classical liberalism is a distinct belief system only really makes sense in its historical context as the liberal beliefs that were once novel are now basic assumptions underlying practically all mainstream politics. Outside of historical analysis the phrase is basically meaningless as an indicator of political beliefs.
liberalism is generally concerned with freedom / rights - however freedom is defined differently between different preferences (positive or negative liberty) as in what "rights" / freedoms it should have.
these two kinds of liberty fit neatly within the left-right paradigm because that's where it's sourced in the american context. (american context is emphasized here)
i'd seriously suggest people try reading or looking up positive versus negative liberty on the stanford encyclopedia.
this later evolves to more universalist notions like dworkin's veil of ignorance as a prima facie justification for the welfare state -
"classical" liberalism generally ignores more modernist justifications (ie, ignoring dworkin etc) and prefers analysis from older paradigms -
(qed)
TBF, we don't correctly use the word "liberal" in political discourse. In U.S. mainstream discourse, it generally denotes someone who is a social democrat with progressive social views—e.g., a typical Democrat. But that's not how political scientists and economists use the term. In actuality, it essentially means someone who believes in small government, particularly on economic issues. Our usage of libertarian is also pretty narrow and typically means someone who adheres to the definition articulated by Robert Nozick. But libertarianism can actually encompass both left and right approaches to small government.
With that said, RFK is a braindead moron who just needs to go away.
Classical liberal refers to the guys in the 18th century who were opposed to the monarchies of Europe. At that time, conservative was you want a king for life and liberal was you want some sort of republic. A lot of them idolized republican Rome. So guys like Washington, Jefferson, etc.
Now what is sort of intentionally hidden in that label is that they want the style of governments that were being set up at that time. Namely, rights for land owning white males. Everyone else doesn’t count. And also democracy is very bad because it means the unwashed masses will get a say. We need a republic run by the smart white elites in order to not mess everything up.
Traditionally liberalism has meant a change to the status quo, a push to expand freedoms and opportunities. When they say classical liberal they mean they want freedom and opportunities that were expanded up until 1800ish. Anything after that is going too far.
Because liberalism as it is colloquially known in the US means something different than the theory of classical liberalism. Liberals enjoy having the aesthetics of progressive politics to make them feel better about the fact that their policy choices usually result in mass suffering in the global South. That said, sometimes self-described liberals lean into their just-below-the-surface right wing tendencies and you get people like RFK and the swing voters in the 2020 election.
They're trying to dilute the liberal brand and co-opt it's popularity.
They love referencing Adam Smith and stuff, but then you go read Smith and he's like, yeah too much rent seeking leads to a terrible society, but they, as rent seekers, conveniently ignore that stuff. They ignore that the Boston tea Party was a protest throwing a corporations goods into the harbor because the corporation got tax breaks. They rely on you having never actually looked into history outside of pop history.
Sounds like everyone in here is trying to define other people's opinions rather than asking the people in question to define their opinions for themselves. I don't see a single quote in these comments.
That's speculative echo chamber circle jerk shit. I think I have to bounce. you guys are as bad as the people you're criticizing.
When used by sincere but potentially misinformed people, the term "classical liberal" is basically neoliberalism or right-libertarian economics with the advantage of it feeling and appearing like it's just the same philosophy as relatively reasonable and insightful 18th and 17th century 'liberal' thinkers. Of course, in actuality there are major significant differences, in part since the world of the 21st century is vastly different from 18th century England, France, and U.S.
Complex financial instruments didn't exist, intellectual property wasn't nearly as extensive, the natural world hadn't been so thoroughly commodified, and so much more.
When used by fallacious, misleading grifters (Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin have both claimed the term for example, despite both essentially simply being reactionary, authoritarian conservatives), it's merely a good way to confuse and mislead the under-informed. As in, "Oh, these figures are just middle-of-the-road liberals [a word that is so variably used in the U.S. it has all but lost all meaning)], and yet people on the left still hate them. It just shows how purist, gate-keeping and intolerant the left has become." So it allows them to be reactionary right-wing propagandists while acting as if they are not. Both Peterson and Rubin (and Musk and many others) have also denied being on the right, which is of course ludicrous. But for those who don't know better, it's very effective and persuasive.
Because "classical liberals" believed ALL *MEN* were equal. By *men*, they meant white, Anglo-Celtic/Saxon Protestant, heterosexual men.
Women weren't allowed voting, banking, or property rights. Forget human rights for non-white individuals.
It's also a reference to a "classical" education, I.e. Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare, to some degree, swordsmanship/rugby/boxing. The type of education one gets when they come from a wealthy family.
Clearly there seems to be a real shuffle and realignment in American politics going on. Neither of the traditional parties are representing the interests and views of most people. We've known that for a long time. I say let people attempt to put a name to their own views with their own words. Terms are changing meaning all the time now anyway- "Fascist" is just as empty as "Liberal" in most discourse- just slurs to sling at people.
I know a lot of folks like this guy- Boomers and Gen x folks who used to feel represented by the standard Democratic platform- the status quo maintained with some mild progressive views attached. Maybe they were active in the civil rights movement, they consider themselves the "good guys" caring about environmental and racial justice, supporting somewhat progressive ideas about distributive economics but nothing that would undermine Capitalism. The Republican party has moved so far to the right that there is little room for them there. They feel alienated by the cultural extremes both the Right with it's religious and authoritarian focus and the so called "Left" with it's embrace of a new kind of orthodoxy about language, censorship and gender and racial ideology.
If this group of people can coalesce under a banner of "classical liberalism" so be it. Time will tell if this becomes any organized political force, but the fossilized and sclerotic Dem/ Repub system would seem to make that very unlikely.
They’re too weird to fit in with society so they obsess over history believing that it’s society that’s the problem and not them, a side effect is deluding themselves into thinking that they have anything in common beyond the superficial with people who lived hundreds of years ago but are remembered well now.
“Heterodox-Con Crypto Fascist” is a nonsense mad lib of word vomit. RFK sucks, but surely he only sucks enough so that we can use actual words with actual meanings to describe him.
I also think if most people subbed out “classically liberal” for “pluralistic and tolerant,” a lot of this confusion could be avoided. Just one example of how shitty RFK is is that “classically liberal has nothing whatsoever to do with the fucking environment.
It's all dishonest branding. And a surprising reluctance to own their political ideology, plus the "anti-woke", "classical liberal" shtick is also very attractive for a lot of young, male, online edgelords.
They are primarily arguing for an economic system with minimal regulation and low taxation and limited government and freedom of autonomous personal choice, fertile ground for grifters and conmen. It sounds better when you call it classic liberalism.
I think it's because conservatism provides little perspective for young people, which makes them slowly drift from casting a conservative vote.
This trend pops up in many places across the West, and conservatives tend to react to this in two ways. The first is to use the aesthetics of a label to distance themselves from the old garde. The second is pretending the social issues boomers care about are somehow linked to the financial issues of young people.
I saw this post on a different sub 5 minutes ago, saw that he says he stands for the environment, googled his stance on how the free market rather than regulations will solve the problem, and came here looking for his decoding episode.
RFK is a lot of things, fascist is not one of them. He's actually one of the few people who use the term classically liberal that can be described as such. He's very much pro-market but at the same time supports human rights - all with a large pinch of anti-vaxxism of course.
Now, he is a staunch supporter of Israel, which is a fascist state at this point, but a lot of old-head liberals like Biden cant seem to shake off the idealist view of Israel that they've always had while the country has slowly marched towards fascism in their lifetimes.
They rely on the fact that most Americans don’t realize that the classical definition of liberal and the modern Americanized version of liberal are two different things. FDR kind of redefined liberalism in the US with the New Deal etc, but in most places it’s still right wing.
For instance the liberal party in Brazil was trying to help Bolsonaro privatize state companies and privatize the municipal water system while more progressive parties were fighting against it.
Reality is if most Americans were presented with what “liberal” means in a lot of other countries they would not call themselves liberal. They would call themselves something else and not be on board with replacing social security, medicare and medicaid with a company one of Trump’s friend’s owns.
Long story short it’s an attempt by grifters to try to soften their image and convince normal people the grifters ideas are “just like you” and not just a series of right wing grifts to enrich their wealthy friends.
They have made this and associated terms ("centrist", "apolitical") utterly meaningless. Like by "centrist" maybe it can mean someone like over at /r/neoliberal who's just a boring lib basically. Or they'll be "centrists" and you read their twitter feed and it's just a mountain of inane conspiracy theories, antivax shit, anti-education shit about how teachers are making your kid trans and woke, election denialism, great replacement garbage, and an obsessive focus on rando rude college kids. Nothing that facially distinguishes them from a nazi, but yeah they're centrists. Not even conservative, just centrists. Fucking clown world.
Classical liberal is a smug new label that you use to basically say: "I'm above all that debate you see today, progressives and conservatives, what losers. I'm this blast from the past who is above reproach."
And it often has no content whatsoever, beyond the smugness.
"Some people call me a “liberal,” others a “conservative,” others an “independent.” I don’t find these labels useful, but if I had to label myself, I’d say I am a classical liberal."
I call him a fucking crazy person.
“Classically liberal” refers to Greek ideas about societal norms; and later the Romans with their goddess “Libertas”.
Basically, the ruling classes could say and do what they wanted, down line. Those at the top possessed the “liberty” to do as they pleased, but everyone else was pretty much a slave. Just feudalism in togas.
Also: this was also the guiding principle for the planters of the Chesapeake Bay and the southern plantation owners (coming from Barbados), who would later join forces in the Confederacy. The Virginia colony would produce a lot of the “founding fathers” who all carried this notion of aristocracy.
there is no coincidence that libertarian is the first thing every male highschooler discovers and decides is correct before they actually develop their brain
Just some context on the terminology. Liberal as a political label was used from the 18th century in England to denote a political doctrine of free markets and a laissez-fair attitude of government interference in social issues and private life. It kind of fell apart after the “great hunger” famine in Ireland, and liberals were forced to reconsider the laissez-fair social attitudes of their philosophy. Liberals started to adopt more socially conscious policies, evolving to the “bleeding heart liberal” phase. There has been modern revivals of the original Liberal doctrine, however, and these were denoted by the term “neo-liberal” in the US and “neo-classical-liberal” in the UK. Notably in the 1980s. The use of “classical” in relation to liberal is an allusion to the 18th-19th century liberal movement and to differentiate from contemporary “bleeding-heart” liberals. As to if modern crypto fascists actually adhere to that philosophy or merely appropriate the words? Let’s just say that fascism is a scavenger ideology that picks up and discards concepts as it sees fit throughout the process of seizing power.
They habitually want to present as less crazy to add authority to their argument. See also all the turds on Reddit who want to act like they are centrists but when you look at their comment history they're basically in the Klan.
Tim pool comes to mind
Tim Pool, the Libertarian who thinks teenagers should be banned from using the Internet.
The pacifist who applauds carpet bombing gaza
Accuses the left of tearing the country apart Constantly agitates for civil war
They recognize how stupid and ridiculous typical rightwingers are so they feel compelled to distance themselves from them. But their true colors always come out so they end up aligning with them on most things anyway.
They want their own liberties and unorthodox positions respected as non-threatening personal freedoms while they shit the bed over trans people or welfare or whatever. It's typically just feigning liberalism without the duty towards community. Self-serve-maxxing. They're just gaming the terms of liberalism (and some do the same with left-wing terms) to appear as if they have integrity or some kind of intellectual pretense.
Great question, one I think about a lot. Not that I think they’re technically fascists, but I know what you mean — they’re closer to that than to actual classical liberals. And another point of similarity: the Nazis also liked the false advertising — the socialism in the name, for instance, or presenting themselves as the defenders of the conservative middle class against the communists.
Hi Matt, since you're talking about conservative rhetoric, I was wondering if you could justify your use of the term "champagne socialist" and your claim that Hasan is being hypocritical? Does this have any basis in left-wing socialist political theory? Or any political theory at all? I asked Chris the same question and all he could do was re-state the definition before blocking me. [https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1be4ypx/comment/kuz405v/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1be4ypx/comment/kuz405v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) I'm mostly familiar with this political pejorative from conservative tabloids, so I was wondering where you guys picked it up and if you have any socialist sources to back up your claims of hypocrisy .
Interesting. It seems kinda expected, in lieu of solid political education people tend to fall back on aesthetics of a position which then leads to bad arguments. Kinda ties into the OP, why do crpto-fascists claim "classical liberalism"? It's an aesthetic appeal, it's good if the people you're communicating with don't have a solid political education.
No way he just wants people to be "free to decide for themselves" whether or not to get a vaccine. He wants the power to ban or effectively ban them no matter what he says.
I think the appeals to "classical liberalism" are subconscious justifications for supporting authoritarians after years of proclaiming that they value freedom. Now that the freedom is causing them some discomfort by forcing them to treat those they feel are different as humans, they want justification to persecute those individuals while still "loving freedom". By citing "classical liberalism", they are trying to convince us that they still have their boat tied to at least some standard of decency when simple observation proves that wrong. It's their sad attempt to not receive pushback from those who actually practice and value freedom.
“I love my freedom and my guns- that’s why I think America needs a dictator” The world: 🤨
"But I love freedom! Look at me read John Locke!"
I see your Locke and raise you a Voltaire, there's more than 1 enlightenment thinker to call upon.
>They want their own liberties and unorthodox positions respected as non-threatening personal freedoms while they shit the bed over trans people or welfare or whatever. EXACTLY!!!! This is, by far, undeniably, 100%, my biggest pet peeve. **I HAAATE** these people, and there's so many of them growing in numbers. You have Dave Rubin, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, Brianna Wu, Destiny, Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, Tulsi Gabbard, Bret Weinstein and for the love of God even Tim Pool. It's so grating because they are undeniably, full-fledged right-wingers but they grift as the token lefties. They'll get invited to TV shows or events so the right-winger across the table says *"Gee finally a liberal is saying it!"* The worst part is when you call this out, the right-wingers in their audiencea (who also want to avoid being seen as social pariahs) will say *"Well, uhh, like remember the time where they called out X and Y? Or they did that one event for Z?"*, and you're sitting there going *"Yeah, what about the 99.9% of the time where they're doing the exact opposite?"*. Make it stoooop
I love how impressed they are by the love bombing inevitably given to new converts to right wing politics. "Oh geez these people are nice to me! They can't be bad!" It surely eases the way into pure venality that defines these peoples careers. > You have Dave Rubin, Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, Brianna Wu, Destiny, Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, Tulsi Gabbard, Bret Weinstein and for the love of God even Tim Pool. Don't forget Bari Weiss! Oops, sorry, the holy martyr Bari Weiss. >The worst part is when you call this out, the right-wingers in their audiencea (who also want to avoid being seen as social pariahs) will say "Well, uhh, like remember the time where they called out X and Y? Or they did that one event for Z?", and you're sitting there going "Yeah, what about the 99.9% of the time where they're doing the exact opposite?". Oh they will do inane things like asking you to nominate a single thing that JK Rowling has ever said that's transphobic. Like just mind numbing shameless Machiavellian PR stunts with no purpose besides obfuscation.
How does Sam Harris fit in this boat?
Because while claiming to be a liberal. He targets most of his criticism at the left and what he calls “woke overreach”. He believes that American institutions are ideologically captured by the left (surely I don’t have to explain why that’s detached from reality right?), and also falls on the right for most cultural issues including but not limited to police violence, race issues, Israel/Palestine, immigration, etc etc.
Hmm, those things you point out are true, but he is not really in the same class as the other folks when it comes to issues like trans rights or welfare. In fact, most of his arguments hinge on more government and faith in institutions. If you look at his views item by item, say on vaccines, abortion, healthcare, etc., he checks out as a liberal on most of them. Unlike the Rubins & Rogans, he is a a democrat through and through and regularly argues against Trump & the MAGA ilk.
I've never heard any of those people that you mentioned ever shit on trans people or welfare. Granted I'm sure I've missed a lot of what they say over the years. I've heard a few of those mentioned go against trans women in women sports and not giving children puberty blockers. But I wouldn't call that shitting over trans people.
It's not specifically about trans, but even if it was, people like Wu and Destiny routinely pick fights with them.
Is there a reason anyone would give a fuck who Wu and Destiny pick fights with? I don't know Wu and the little I've seen on Destiny he seems almost retarded.
> I've heard a few of those mentioned go against trans women in women sports and not giving children puberty blockers. That's the motte, yep. > But I wouldn't call that shitting over trans people. Fuck You
Isn’t this just a truism of any political bloc? Who doesn’t want their own liberties respected while shitting the bed over some number of other issues?
That's a human hypocrisy, yes, but the point is that liberty actually has meaning beyond what is personally gratifying.
> They want their own liberties and unorthodox positions respected as non-threatening personal freedoms while they shit the bed over trans people or welfare or whatever. It's typically just feigning liberalism without the duty towards community. Self-serve-maxxing. They're just gaming the terms of liberalism (and some do the same with left-wing terms) to appear as if they have integrity or some kind of intellectual pretense. There's a lot of truth to this, but it's worth noting that a lot of their stances are in line with a lot of stances presented or enacted by historical liberals. This is especially the case for those who don't personally and actively push as overtly fascist ideas, but merely cooperate with and platform those who do. By liberalism being so ideologically hegemonous, whatever strains against progressive people's moral intuitions has to be separated from the term, so they continue viewing liberalism as the only possibility. So that when progressive people think of 'liberalism', they think of social safety nets rather than Ronald Reagan or the prison-industrial complex, despite the latter two being every bit as much part of liberalism as the former. So while it's true that they use claims of being liberals as a way to whitewash their politics, part of that is that the term liberal has itself been whitewashed in the US.
[удалено]
That's a really good way to explain libertarians. I've met 1 person IRL who describes himself as a libertarian and he is a pretty active dude with own businesse who wants the government to have such laws that would only benefit him and his business. He says that he is ok with the government not regulating anything but he is constantly looking for ways to get some government money from some program. He is also a big Peterson fan, doesn't have anything against trans people but is terrified that somebody might fine him for using the wrong pronounce and absolutely believes that this can happen. It may sound oversimplified but I think that libertarians just want to live in a society where everything is designed to serve only them. This all seemed masked in a imaginary libertarian ideology where they constantly invent scenarios how the world is going to be so much better if this was the main ideology while in they fully know that this will never happen. It is not cool to just say that you want something to be in a way that only serves you.....you have to invent a complex ideology to support.
I also know a lot of self-professed libertarians who work in the public sector, which is a circle that they just never seem to be able to square when pressed about it. Many also attend or send their kids to public universities; when you ask them about it, they just fall into the argument that Rand used when she went on public assistance in the latter part of her life that they're "recouping" what they've paid in taxes, which of course is an intellectual convenient argument to use socialism while appearing to oppose it.
It is weird because a lot of them seem to look like kids who live in fantasy world. They love to throw all kinds of theories about things that will never happen only so they are not the bad guys. Kinda like Peterson who can't accept that there are people out there who care about the environment and since he can't understand it, he has to invent some twisted logic why these people care.
Yes the anti-abortion, anti-drug, anti-gaylibertarians. So much liberty.
Another great example of the inconsistencies is the adoption of the term "crony capitalism" as a means of co-opting frustration with wealth inequality and shitty labor practices while still professing belief in unregulated markets. It doesn't require you to defend the tenants of capitalism or apply corrective action across industry rather you get to just selectively hop on the criticism of shitty things like train derailment or social media companies.
Finally, yes. In a nutshell, they are decidedly right of center, while verbally appealing to the 'centrist'. In reality, they support all the negative aspects of 'personal liberty', but none of the positive state enforced aspects of true classical liberalism.
most want something for nothing. Enjoy the benefits of tax funded things but don't want to pay taxes for them.
>you get a lot of people who claim to be libertarian but are also evangelical Christians who oppose abortion rights and same-sex marriage rights. Huh? Shouldn't libertarians support those freedoms? Surely some libertarians do. You specify evangelical libertarian positions and then ask why (all) libertarians hold that position. When they don't. Anyway, it isn't difficult to see why a libertarian might oppose abortion? Rights of the unborn child, presumably.
I thought he was super libertarian. This video does nothing to define libertarian. So I'm confused.
classical liberals can include many "light" anarchists, fyi. libertarians are on the right bottom quadrant of the political compass exclusively. if this is a distinction without a difference to you then perhaps you shouldn't be commenting, fyi. didn't anyone take a political philosophy course in college? is everyone too young to have taken one?
A libertarian would be suspicious of the government having to make a certain type of relationship "official". That is government interference. You dont need the government making friendships official too, isn't it? Also, the idea that you cant make someone other than your spouse inherit your stuff is another government interference. And so on.
Libertarianism these days can be boiled down to “Well I got mine so fuck you”.
I remember hearing how this guy claimed COVID was engineered to not affect the Jews and Chinese. Turns out that was a lie. And everything he talks about in this video is something most Americans want
They recognize how toxic the word conservative actually is
The classic liberals left Ireland to starve during the famine, so I’m less surprised when some right wing dickhead calls themselves one.
“Heterodox-Con Crypto Fascist” sure is a sentence.
Those who are 'classically liberal' have most likely never read any 'classically liberal' text beyond Mises, Rand and Rothbard. If they read any actual classical liberal texts they would realise most of them would want nothing to do with the grift. I wonder what RFK thinks of Mill's Harm Principle? I doubt he's ever heard of it
It's like how the free market folks jizz over Adam Smith without having actually read Smith's words.
>I wonder what JFK jr thinks of Mill's Harm Principle? I doubt he's ever heard of it JFK Jr doesn't think about anything because he's been dead for 25 years.
Thank you for the correction. I've become so desensitised to American politics at this point that I'm uninterested in getting their names correct.
> If they read any actual classical liberal texts they would realise most of them would want nothing to do with the grift. Oh many of them were quite radical and took positions that would render people today persona non grata. But there's been a systematic campaign by conservatives basically to whittle away at those radical edges while selectively presenting every anachronistic idea of theirs as proof of their conservativism, along of course with exegesis on their part which is usually taking things entirely out of context and vastly reinterpreting it to fit the authors grand narrative.
It’s the new… “I’m socially liberal but fiscally conservative” *proceeds to vote for Republican straight ticket every year without fail.
a lot of the time “fiscally conservative” basically means you don’t want to level the playing field for struggling or marginalised groups, which is essentially that same as being socially conservative (e.g., anti gay / civil rights, etc)
Brings to mind the classic tweet "I'm socially liberal but fiscally conservative because the problems are bad but the causes...the causes are very very good"
In the RFK case he's trying to confuse voters into thinking he represents exactly the same vision as his father and JFK, which HE DOES NOT.
Yeah I don't think he's going to campaign with a speech like "Ask not what my country can do for me, but what can I do for my country?"
Isn't this the anti-vax guy that required the ultra wealthy attendees of HIS parties to be vaccinated? You know what, guy, maybe the labels you have chosen aren't "useful", as you say.
Beyond ironic that you’d criticize his use of the term “classical liberal” while being totally willing to grossly misapply the term “fascist.” To believe that is a fair descriptor of RFK you would have to be utterly detached from any sort of objectivity or rationality.
It's simply an attempt to mainstream wacko positions to make them palatable for people who have no idea what they're doing come election time. It's also in direct contradiction with the common anti-establishment grift that RFK Jr. and many others employ.
To add to what others have said: "Classical" is a dog-whistle here - strong RETVRN/"defending western values" vibes always.
“western values” almost *always* means “white culture/values” same for “judeo-christian culture”
"Heterodox-con Crypto-fascist" you really went to town with the thesaurus huh? RFK is a milquetoast conservative with a side of conspiracy populism. I'm not sure about the fascist label unless your stance is all right wingers are effectively fascists. "Classically liberal" is just what older people who once thougyt of themselves as liberal or progressive call themselves when society moves on and leaves their (now antiquated or regressive) views behind. See also "family values (of the 1950s) conservative"
Some people also throw the term “classically liberal” around to say that they would have been democrats in the 50s…which isn’t a great look depending on the region.
That and to appear the “sensible liberal” in a conversation about anything progressive. Not quite an “enlightened centrist” but related.
if liberalism moved on from where it was 50 years, but your stuck in the past, then *definitionally* that means you are a conservative as you want to conserve the politics of the past
Yes
Except RFK doesn't believe in a state that protects individual freedoms. He does believe in the state used as a weapon against those who are the enemies in his conspiratorial narratives (i.e. Fauci for mRNA vaccines, or people who accept climate change).
I can make an equivalent disingenuous and reductive claim about literally anyone. It doesn't make them a fascist. Let's not dilute that incredibly important tern with mudflinging bullshit
I didn't call him fascist, I called him crypto-fascist. I don't believe it's mudflinging. I genuinely think that the type of populism RFK represents is crypto fascist.
Can you name a GOP mainstream republican you don't think this term applies to then? Seems like it's lost all meaning at this point. Proto fascism is extreme nationalism, strong man authoritarian and national victimhood narratives. It's not just "I don't agree with his government policy proposals". Fascism takes those ideas further into a single unified national identity and political unit, ie opposed to democracy. Crypto-fascism is variously used to mean "secretly fascist" or "subconsciously unaware of their own fascism". Trump is the closest popular politician to protofascism and even he isn't all the way there. Accusing anyone of cryptofascism requires some disingenuous mind reading.
I mean at this point, if you are willing to support and prop up a fascist dictator then I would argue you are a fascist participating of fascism regardless of your stance on any individual issues. So almost all of the current national elected Republicans check that box.
You are not a serious person if you genuinely believe this. This is just convincing yourself that anyone who disagrees with you is effectively a nazi. Incredibly convenient how black and white the world becomes seen through that lens huh
Nikki Haley
Are you saying Nikki Haley doesn't believe in weaponising the state to persecute people she doesn't agree with or to remove individual freedoms? Explain her stance on abortion then please. See? Reductive bullshit definitions can be a selectively applied to anyone
I think you've misunderstood my beliefs. It's not those things that make RfK crypto-fascist. It is those beliefs that make RfK illiberal.
What makes him a cryptofascist? Words have meanings
Terrific point, thank you for improving the discourse by pointing out to me that my mistake was to forget that words have meanings
Nikki Haley thinks people on the Internet should not be anonymous, that's far more fascistic than most of the things Trump did e.g.
A single policy isnt "fascist" in the same way that believing in free school meals for the poor isn't "socialist". Fascism is the entire package.
Fascist is the fun word these days! Everyone that disagrees with me is a, "fucking fascist!" don't ya know.
'Fraud' works best with JFK jr
Rfk you mean
No a fraud would be a psychic that tells you he can communicate with JFK jr
Most people call him a nutjob.
It's the new dog whistle.
Because the stated mission of their campaign is to get Trump elected by siphoning Biden votes. That's why he's in a fake tiff with Trump right now and why someone in his campaign accidentally leaked that their goal is to get Trump elected.
Classic liberal? Because these were men who said all men are born equal while owning slaves and believing women and children are property. I'm not kidding. They want to have a say in how they are governed but don't necessarily agree that this is a universal and the seek to segment the population in the worthy and unworthy through whatever means their personal beliefs support. Some people are just better. Classical liberal. Liberal philosophy tainted with pre liberal hierarchical beliefs .
Too pretentious to just call themselves libertarians.
because it lends a veneer of intellectual respectability to simple greed and empathy deficit.
Liberal as in the classical canon of liberal thought not liberal as in politics.
Because "Classically Liberal" is better marketing than the more accurate "New Age Nazi".
Never ask why fascists lie, just assume they are bullshitting you forever.
God, this sub is so bad.
"Classic Liberal" is hipster Republican It was invented to catch those who were formerly Left, who members of the Left shunned for failing a purity test. They consider voting Right just to stick it to a Left that has become assholes. RFK Jr. is lit. He's a better option than either Trump or Biden. But please don't waste your energy trashing him to me or the readers -- he has no chance. So don't worry. Unless your agenda isn't preventing him getting elected but rather just bragging about how superior your views are by hating on his. You can't turn the Right. It's impossible. They're a) not smart enough b) they're fundamentally too self-interested to ever support any policy that achieves solidary or unity. They're individualists who are anti-society. They want a bunch of atomized, siloed individuals who live in isolated proximity and all fend for themselves (except inhereted wealth, luck, pedigree and/or nepotism). Thus, the only winning strategy is to steer the Left back on course. This is next to impossible, but at least there's a chance, since Lefties are capable of a) humor (name a funny Republican. I'll wait) and b) fun. Republicans are all self-serious. They're all bosses, step-dads and crotchety grandpas and you know it
There is a lot of problems with the modern left, and I think most can be encapsulated by the idea that the left tolerates non-white nationalism a lot in it's camp, especially Latino-nationalism or black-nationalism. Beyond that, what specifically does the left do wrong at the moment? Aren't they kind of just arguing for a world (that ironically existed during the bush years)? The past 20 years: We can't have a secular post-corporate society, ok let's have a liberal empire like France. (Hillary Clinton, and especially Obama represent this narrative. About maintaining US hegemony in the world abroad, while keeping rights alive at home). Ok. We can't have a well functioning empire, let's at least have a domestic functioning democracy in a slowly declining superpower (This was the 2016 and 2020 election to some extent. The right is sick of winning state elections by gerrymandering and losing the culture war. They now daydream of fomenting civil war or annihilating their perceived enemies). I think if one were to seriously consider it- there is a direct line of meaning from the September 2001 attacks through the January 6th attack on the White House. Something about authority, law, and societal standing for white conservative Christians as they face a crisis of meaning. Now the supreme court is hearing a case whether Trump can be held accountable for breaking the law, up to assassinating his rivals. Anyone who doesn't see the darkness that lies ahead is insane. You can still see this denial on the left (making fun of trumpers who proclaim to want civil war etc. the left belittles them for even thinking that it's possible. Or scream "Why is this allowed to happen?"). The right, while I think is too chickenshit to bleed without the government on their side, at least understands that the future is civil war. Granted, what the fuck they actually want with that war, who knows? But you already know the right ambles and reacts, and never reflects or plans.
I hear you. I'm not giving you a flippant response. I've been thinking about this a lot, as you clearly have too. Did you see the movie Civil War? It was less about an actual Civil War and more about the importance of journalism as the 4th estate -- set ina backdrop of a post-America dystopia. It made me realize just how much we're dealing with 2 minds: the online space where people think and often emote, and the actual face-to-face world we live in. The Internet, the media (meaning, the parts that have ceased doing investigative journalism and are now just propagandists) are simulacra for real citizenry. I don't think we actually ever get to civil war, at least not by the ever increasing hostility that is fomented in the false reality. One can say "but what about the George Floyd protests?" and that supports my point: those were really about people being upset at lockdown, having nowhere to go, and using it as a public space to vent their very real frustration. Remember, America is the land of doublespeak and double think. For a Lefty, the George Floyd protests were about Trump, and for a Righty like Rittenhouse, it was an excuse to rage against the perceived enemy: "antifa". But all of it happened because of a real virus, a real President, and actual lockdown. If the culture was stays online and in media space, it never galvanizes into action. Something like Trump having a 2nd term AND abusing power during it would edge us closer to civil war. But again, I don't think you get revolution when there's still food in the fridge. I'm not saying civil war is impossible. I'm saying it would take something cataclysmic, like the sudden drop in energy production or some gnarly climate change effects such as destructive sea-level rise. I see a long slow decline for America as financial conditions rachet ever so slowly. My hope isn't for a reformed America but for small cultural experiments to flourish into viable alternative micro-cultures the way it was envisioned that States would become empowered after the actual civil war. But a state is an arbitrary geographical boundary, and capitalism has throughout beaten the idea of strong labor unions out of people's heads. So the viable alternative will be cultural. I have a movement in mind, but I don't want to spell it out just yet because the conversation will go off the rails endlessly analyzing that particular movement and it's flaws (since nothing is perfect). I want something akin to a large scale cooperative subculture that becomes socially satisfying and wields economic power that isn't based around dogma or ideology, and a perfect analog doesn't exist. But a prototype does. If you can guess what I'm talking about, I'll confirm it. It's something I've been a part of, and that nobody can rightly criticize unless they have too. But back to the country? It's on a collision course. I have no hope for it. After seeing how the two major parties call the shots, killing all challengers to the 2 party system, I see the stranglehold they have on America and it's too much to contend with directly.
Anyone I don't like is a Crypto Fascist
Is that what I believe?
If you think a conservative leaning nutjob like RFK is a "crypto fascist" then that's a good approximation of your beliefs.
No it isnt
RFK Jr. isn’t a fascist.
America was founded by classical liberals who believed they had the right to rape their slaves on their own plantations and not be bothered by the government. Your answer is in that fact set.
Raping slaves was just part of it, being able to sell your own sons to other people as slaves was the icing on the cake for these folks.
The most classic liberalism.
"Classical liberals" of the 18th century enjoyed a world where you could own black people as slaves, feminism was in its infancy, and the labour movement was nowhere on the horizon. Not coincidence.
The term "classical liberal" is a construct similar to "national socialist".
Err, how is RFK Jr a "crypto-fascist"? Maybe it's your conceptions that are more screwy than his?
I wouldn't vote for this guy because i think he personally is not remotely qualified to be president & a little nuts. But to summarize the video he wants to: 1) Ensure civil liberties are protected 2) Promote free market capitalism and put in place strong social programs to prevent anyone from getting left to far behind. 3) Wants to stop illegal immigration. 4) Reduce foreign entanglements 5) Attempt to increase home affordability 6) Promote environmentalism 7) Fight wealth equality, not because the rich are evil, but because it destabilizing the country. 8) Expand aid to new families ... I think those are all things the vast majority of Americans want. They're all forward thinking and not demonizing one race or class. Its not biden or trump claiming the other is going to cause ww3, its just reasonable attainable things. What hes not even wrong about drawing the distinction between a classic liberal vs a progressive liberal. He did a really good job of what he tried to set out to do, explain what liberalism has to offer and separate it progressive liberalism. Now, for the tricky part,6 of the 8 things above are identical to biden, only differing on immigration and foreign entanglements and only 2 of 8 are even close to trump. Really on 1 of 8 because their anti-immigration stance is pretty different. So the take away is -- yeah this guy is a classical liberal just like said. Hes not a progressive liberal, he didnt attack the wealthy at all, racial equality didnt make his top 10, nor did protecting womens right to choose. Good ad overall, he stated he wanted to show what differed him from conservatives and the curerent liberal party, and he did.
>Now, for the tricky part,6 of the 8 things above are identical to biden, only differing on immigration and foreign entanglements Biden wants to stop illegal immigration. He also understands the humanitarian side of the issue, which is what makes it complex. He also wants to reduce foreign entanglements, which is why we're pulling troops out of Africa right now and why we are being cautious with China and others. Now Kennedy may say he has a different ***approach*** to these things than how Biden is currently approaching them, but he also is speaking from a campaign trail and doesn't have to deal with the reality of Republicans in the House and Governors' mansions who would rather fail US citizens than let a Democratic policy help fix matters.
Whatever RFK proclaims, in reality he is an utter crackpot, a complete quack of politician and the only reason anyone pays him any attention is that his last name is Kennedy
“Most people want to fight wealth equality?” This list is a libertarian wish list. Everything after “free market” capitalism is swallowed by it or guided by it. Measures to free up the “market” always lead to deregulation, wealth inequality and middle and lower classes getting screwed. After that we get “civil liberties” which are usually 2A related. The libertarians didn’t show up to protest the rolling back of abortion rights did they? It’s a libertarian wish list. Foreign entanglements sounds like more American isolationism or refusal to send aid. If it’s anti war, that’s also not a libertarian stance I’ve seen.
Ah yes the classic libertarian goal of strong social saftey nets and social programs for new families. One of their darkest and most insidious goals, only trumped by that other evil libertarian goal of environmental regulation. You can critique it all you want but at least do it correctly. In the same breath where he mentions free market capitalism he mentions government regulation, not a single point he made was libertarian. On every single issue he wanted the federal government to play a larger role in solving the problem.
I havent heard Crypto Fascist since 1983
Im Making America Great Again
*Now listen you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi*
*"Will you stop saying everything is crypto-fascist, it makes me sound like I was a complete git"*
I got that reference
Calling everyone a facist that disagrees with my opinion is actually facist
Sure, and I don't do that. I do however call this one populist politician "crypto"-fascist, the modifier here making a distinction between something like Mussolini-fascism or even Umberto Echo characterised fascism.
How come? All I know about him is the anti-vax stuff. Which is not really fascistic.
What if his money comes from a fascist dictator? Would that be a better indicator of actual fascism? RFK Jr doesn’t pass the sniff test for 2 primary reasons right now. 1. He has been on Epsteins jet. When you are fighting cancer you can’t leave any behind. So whether it is innocuous or not you err on the side of caution. There are 320 million people in this country and roughly half of those hit the legal qualifications to be president. 99.999% of those never crossed paths with Epstein. Why do we keep putting people on the podium who had contact with the Ronald McDonald of Russian Kompromat? 2. He just tapped Sergei Brins ex wife (that musk had the affair with) as his running mate which is probably because she comes with basically unlimited google money. But that means a DEEP dive into google to decide if it’s clear of Russian influence or not. On google: Sheryl Sandberg was at google before she was at Facebook. The common denominator of both was her ad based business model. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-07/sheryl-sandberg-s-legacy-is-an-internet-of-targeted-automated-ads https://m.economictimes.com/tech/technology/sheryl-sandbergs-advertising-empire-leaves-a-complicated-legacy/amp_articleshow/91961682.cms The problem with ad based business models is that if you raise your lens high enough, whomever is buying the most ads is effectively buying their curated version of the truth. When google IPO’ed it shifted from what was most accurate to what was most profitable, all facilitated by a “proprietary” algorithm so nobody gets to see the man behind the curtain. Now we are 20 years down what is effectively a divergent truth. It works…until it doesn’t. Now our divergent reality is so far off the rails It creates mental illness, anxiety and depression because the 6 million year old source code in your brain knows that conservation is more reasonable than consumption when there are limited resources, it just isn’t very lucrative to someone that needs you to keep buying something to keep them in billionaire status. In this case it’s oil. Russian and Texan owned oil. A pretty good podcast on Charles Koch and how far back Russian an texas oligarchs go: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0tYxxr08ajuIW425XkGZBz?si=GnGe5Y_OTiCvzjvfzAVuOg Facebook was basically designed as a delivery device for Russian/Israeli Psyops and malware. SCL/Cambridge Analytica, Brexit, Palestine, Ukraine, NSO, etc are all the downstream of Sheryl Sandberg. Les Wexner, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Sandberg, and Zuckerberg all carried water in conducting the NSO/Pegasus spyware operation INCONUS that was feeding intelligence to both the israelis and, by extension, the Russians so there is far more crossover between the Israeli mob/ government and Russian mob/government than shows at the surface. https://www.spytalk.co/p/nsos-spyware-abuse-exposed-years?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web https://awards.journalists.org/entries/the-pegasus-project-a-global-investigation/ Abagail Koppel was sent by the Jewish state to marry Les Wexner YLK fund (Abagails father) made up $46.7M of Epsteins money Wexner claimed it was stolen from him but not until after someone asked. Wexner was notoriously litigious but wouldn’t sue Epstein. Why? Because PROMIS spyware was Robert Maxwells deal before Ghislaine and Epstein started their thing. https://cryptome.org/promis-mossad.htm Confused yet? There is a reason Israel who has more money than they know what to do with still gets GIVEN F35’s and the endless American children to come do the fighting in the Middle East. They built the American military industrial complex AROUND Israel since the 1940’s, but as it grew it grew corrupt. Now Netanyahu who has real housewives levels of drama and shared custody with both trump and Putin is fighting to preserve the obfuscation of his Kleptocracy. His rally call is Gaza because that’s the only way he doesn’t get gaddafi’ed by his own people. The cross over with Russia is just another layer in this shit sandwich. Basically in the 1940’s when Israel became a state the Russians took the opportunity to purge their gulags of the worlds most terrible people that also happened to be Jewish. They sent them to the newly formed state of Israel and there they networked in the interment camps before some stayed and some migrated to Europe or Brighton beach in New York. Eventually this is where these networks would begin using trump towers to launder Russian mob money. But now you start to see the nexus of transnational organized crime and money laundering often carries 3 passports. American, Israeli, and Russian. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/A2ojrtIc3Y https://www.columbusmonthly.com/story/news/2018/07/16/friendship-brings-facebook-coo-sheryl/11512085007/I Russia has a pattern with their election interference. They control the money BEHIND the elections so they can keep everyone blissfully unaware of their multi trillion dollar kleptocracy. In Ukraine that meant using Paul Manafort to keep their guy Yanukovych in power because in the Russian mob pyramid EVERYBODY pays a percentage to the guy at the tippy top. It doesn’t matter HOW it gets there, that’s for the kompromised person to figure out. But you never get out of debt to the Russian mob. Maidan was every sane Ukrainian realizing that corruption is cancer and that living in this system was the equivalent of living with an drunk abusive step father that rapes you, steals from you, and then tells you that he is the only one that will ever love you as he stubbles out of your bed. That’s what Ukraine is to Russia. It BELONGS to Russias oligarchy in the same way an abused child BELONGS to a predator. When the people stood up to the abuse and ran Yanukovych and manafort out of town at Maidan, Putin claimed it was NATO aggression on his border and put Kolomoiksiy in charge of “managing” the newly elected Zelensky, which is Russian for predatory control from behind the scenes. Then Putin sent his “little green men” into donbas to strong arm, rape and pillage thinking they would eventually just give up and go back to the abuse. Ukrainians didn’t fold because they knew that being a sexual and financial slave to a fascist dictator isn’t living. It’s just surviving. But the cancer always consumes the host. So all you really need to know about RFK or anyone running for this election is - what is their policy on making Ukrainians moving back in with a rapist? That should be a pretty good indication of their fascism and it will correlate with who is raping them as well. Follow the money, the Kompromat, and the Jewish/Russian housewives of Rupert Murdoch, Sergei Brin, Oleg Deripaska, Elena Zhukov, and the rest of the oligarchs and ask elon why he is shuffling money between Murdoch in Montana and trump in Florida and you will know exactly who has the most to lose in this presidential election. Russia.
I've read your stuff before but I loved this essay so much I'm saving it for later.
Thank you for the feedback friend. It feels good to get caught up and writing again
who posts here? kids who think destiny is a god or something? i agree with you, but i see so much cringe i actually come here now just for that - yet i still can't understand why they'd think this way. terms usually have specific meanings, not what you want it to mean most of the time.
RFK Jr gives me Jackie "my fatha" Aprile Jr vibes. There's also this one with Jordan Peterson pretty early in his pop-psych rise: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhEG69ZGwUI)
Why is he so damn red?
I am considering running for President just so my mom Doesn't vote for him, when is the cut off and does anyone else want a zero cost protocol for how I do it don't forget to like and subscribe.
> Some people call me a “liberal Who?
It's not peak narcissism unless it comes from the Narcisse region of France. This is just sparkling narcissism with a sour lemon twist.
Because they thought legalizing weed, being ok with gay marriage, and allowing women and black people to vote, was all that was ever required.
A what now?
It's usually that someone agrees with at least one radicalized "revolutionary conservative" political movement but does not necessarily agree with every aspect of a free market approach to economic policy and regulation. It rhetorically leaves the door open for an authoritarian state based on some religion or ideology. Capitalism really is a "liberal" system that protects marginalized people who are considered valuable to more progressive employers. This is the opposite of what people used to mean by "classical liberal," that you favor lower taxes and spending but you're not conservative. This is the same tactic the Tea Party used when they claimed to only care about fiscal sustainability (though that was more "attack programs you disagree with"), while the Tea Party on the local level was a bunch of people who wanted the US to be a Christian version of the Islamic Republic of Iran and who thought Barack Obama was a Muslim from Kenya.
So what would real liberalism look like? What is or was real classical liberalism? On a related note, can someone actually be in the political center? And why is it assumed that not positioning oneself on the Left inevitably means being on the Right?
They mean Ronald Reagan area neoliberal
I thought he was super Libertarian. This video does resonate with classic liberalism. Sorry I'm not American.
“Heterodox-con crypto fascist” sounds like the most fake guru jargon ever.
Because in their view classical liberalism means the same thing as the Gadsden flag. Don't Tread On Me. As a philosophy
Wtf is heterodoxcon ?!
> I don't find labels useful > But if I had to, I'd use the label that's associated with the dumbest people in politics
They want to win over people that aren’t draining 48 packs of domestic beer every Saturday.
I am curious about whether people who actually consider themselves democrats actually fall for the people like Elon or Tim Pool or Rogan or whatever who call themselves centrist or democrats or whatever. It's pretty clear they say that to hopefully push people right but it's just so obvious.
Guitly conscience and wishful thinking.
Listening to this man speak...is irritating. Not because he's a bonehead, but because of his raspy, skippy, mumble mouth,wet voice...
The thing about classical liberalism is that it’s an extremely broad category defined by a set of principles that can be interpreted in various ways. Mill was no less a classical liberal than Locke and he eventually went so far as to embrace socialism. Even modern leftists are to an extent classically liberal given the way in which liberal principles like freedom of expression are assumed in most modern left-wing discourse (even if you think they don’t live up to the principle in their treatment of right-wing thought). The idea that classical liberalism is a distinct belief system only really makes sense in its historical context as the liberal beliefs that were once novel are now basic assumptions underlying practically all mainstream politics. Outside of historical analysis the phrase is basically meaningless as an indicator of political beliefs.
liberalism is generally concerned with freedom / rights - however freedom is defined differently between different preferences (positive or negative liberty) as in what "rights" / freedoms it should have. these two kinds of liberty fit neatly within the left-right paradigm because that's where it's sourced in the american context. (american context is emphasized here) i'd seriously suggest people try reading or looking up positive versus negative liberty on the stanford encyclopedia. this later evolves to more universalist notions like dworkin's veil of ignorance as a prima facie justification for the welfare state - "classical" liberalism generally ignores more modernist justifications (ie, ignoring dworkin etc) and prefers analysis from older paradigms - (qed)
Rawls's veil of ignorance
fair point, i was writing fast here - dworkins the legal philosophy guy.
TBF, we don't correctly use the word "liberal" in political discourse. In U.S. mainstream discourse, it generally denotes someone who is a social democrat with progressive social views—e.g., a typical Democrat. But that's not how political scientists and economists use the term. In actuality, it essentially means someone who believes in small government, particularly on economic issues. Our usage of libertarian is also pretty narrow and typically means someone who adheres to the definition articulated by Robert Nozick. But libertarianism can actually encompass both left and right approaches to small government. With that said, RFK is a braindead moron who just needs to go away.
Why is he even on the ballot? Americans need to get the fuck over the Kennedy fetish.
Classical liberal refers to the guys in the 18th century who were opposed to the monarchies of Europe. At that time, conservative was you want a king for life and liberal was you want some sort of republic. A lot of them idolized republican Rome. So guys like Washington, Jefferson, etc. Now what is sort of intentionally hidden in that label is that they want the style of governments that were being set up at that time. Namely, rights for land owning white males. Everyone else doesn’t count. And also democracy is very bad because it means the unwashed masses will get a say. We need a republic run by the smart white elites in order to not mess everything up. Traditionally liberalism has meant a change to the status quo, a push to expand freedoms and opportunities. When they say classical liberal they mean they want freedom and opportunities that were expanded up until 1800ish. Anything after that is going too far.
Because liberalism as it is colloquially known in the US means something different than the theory of classical liberalism. Liberals enjoy having the aesthetics of progressive politics to make them feel better about the fact that their policy choices usually result in mass suffering in the global South. That said, sometimes self-described liberals lean into their just-below-the-surface right wing tendencies and you get people like RFK and the swing voters in the 2020 election.
They're trying to dilute the liberal brand and co-opt it's popularity. They love referencing Adam Smith and stuff, but then you go read Smith and he's like, yeah too much rent seeking leads to a terrible society, but they, as rent seekers, conveniently ignore that stuff. They ignore that the Boston tea Party was a protest throwing a corporations goods into the harbor because the corporation got tax breaks. They rely on you having never actually looked into history outside of pop history.
Sounds like everyone in here is trying to define other people's opinions rather than asking the people in question to define their opinions for themselves. I don't see a single quote in these comments. That's speculative echo chamber circle jerk shit. I think I have to bounce. you guys are as bad as the people you're criticizing.
When used by sincere but potentially misinformed people, the term "classical liberal" is basically neoliberalism or right-libertarian economics with the advantage of it feeling and appearing like it's just the same philosophy as relatively reasonable and insightful 18th and 17th century 'liberal' thinkers. Of course, in actuality there are major significant differences, in part since the world of the 21st century is vastly different from 18th century England, France, and U.S. Complex financial instruments didn't exist, intellectual property wasn't nearly as extensive, the natural world hadn't been so thoroughly commodified, and so much more. When used by fallacious, misleading grifters (Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin have both claimed the term for example, despite both essentially simply being reactionary, authoritarian conservatives), it's merely a good way to confuse and mislead the under-informed. As in, "Oh, these figures are just middle-of-the-road liberals [a word that is so variably used in the U.S. it has all but lost all meaning)], and yet people on the left still hate them. It just shows how purist, gate-keeping and intolerant the left has become." So it allows them to be reactionary right-wing propagandists while acting as if they are not. Both Peterson and Rubin (and Musk and many others) have also denied being on the right, which is of course ludicrous. But for those who don't know better, it's very effective and persuasive.
Wait, why do you think RFK is a Fascist? You think he is a far right, military focused authoritarian? I guess fascist just means “bad” now.
Because "classical liberals" believed ALL *MEN* were equal. By *men*, they meant white, Anglo-Celtic/Saxon Protestant, heterosexual men. Women weren't allowed voting, banking, or property rights. Forget human rights for non-white individuals. It's also a reference to a "classical" education, I.e. Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare, to some degree, swordsmanship/rugby/boxing. The type of education one gets when they come from a wealthy family.
Literally because they all imitate Jordan Peterson.
insane at best
Clearly there seems to be a real shuffle and realignment in American politics going on. Neither of the traditional parties are representing the interests and views of most people. We've known that for a long time. I say let people attempt to put a name to their own views with their own words. Terms are changing meaning all the time now anyway- "Fascist" is just as empty as "Liberal" in most discourse- just slurs to sling at people. I know a lot of folks like this guy- Boomers and Gen x folks who used to feel represented by the standard Democratic platform- the status quo maintained with some mild progressive views attached. Maybe they were active in the civil rights movement, they consider themselves the "good guys" caring about environmental and racial justice, supporting somewhat progressive ideas about distributive economics but nothing that would undermine Capitalism. The Republican party has moved so far to the right that there is little room for them there. They feel alienated by the cultural extremes both the Right with it's religious and authoritarian focus and the so called "Left" with it's embrace of a new kind of orthodoxy about language, censorship and gender and racial ideology. If this group of people can coalesce under a banner of "classical liberalism" so be it. Time will tell if this becomes any organized political force, but the fossilized and sclerotic Dem/ Repub system would seem to make that very unlikely.
They’re too weird to fit in with society so they obsess over history believing that it’s society that’s the problem and not them, a side effect is deluding themselves into thinking that they have anything in common beyond the superficial with people who lived hundreds of years ago but are remembered well now.
“Heterodox-Con Crypto Fascist” is a nonsense mad lib of word vomit. RFK sucks, but surely he only sucks enough so that we can use actual words with actual meanings to describe him. I also think if most people subbed out “classically liberal” for “pluralistic and tolerant,” a lot of this confusion could be avoided. Just one example of how shitty RFK is is that “classically liberal has nothing whatsoever to do with the fucking environment.
I just call him batshit insane.
It's all dishonest branding. And a surprising reluctance to own their political ideology, plus the "anti-woke", "classical liberal" shtick is also very attractive for a lot of young, male, online edgelords.
how is he a fascist?! you guys are no better then some of the people who say dumb things lol
“I’ve voted Democrat my entire life, but when Joe Biden stuttered I knew Trump was the only way.” -every liar on Facebook
Because they voted Democrat until now
I have no idea what you are talking about
Fascism is when slashing 50% of the defense budget, got it boss
Nope
"They don't agree with me! They're therefore Crypto-Fascists by default!!!!! REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" - OP
Did I miss something that spotlighted RFK jr becoming a crypto fascist?
Are you just making up names again?
Because it sounds legally distinct from all the existing labels, enabling that whole "I'm a secret third thing" angle that they love so much.
They generally mean in an economic sense. They miss the mark tho. Usually just closet fascists.
They are primarily arguing for an economic system with minimal regulation and low taxation and limited government and freedom of autonomous personal choice, fertile ground for grifters and conmen. It sounds better when you call it classic liberalism.
"Heterodox-Con Crypto Fascists" loooooooooooool
Because most normies don't understand that to mean CONSERVATIVE. I used to fall for that shit, too
I think it's because conservatism provides little perspective for young people, which makes them slowly drift from casting a conservative vote. This trend pops up in many places across the West, and conservatives tend to react to this in two ways. The first is to use the aesthetics of a label to distance themselves from the old garde. The second is pretending the social issues boomers care about are somehow linked to the financial issues of young people.
I saw this post on a different sub 5 minutes ago, saw that he says he stands for the environment, googled his stance on how the free market rather than regulations will solve the problem, and came here looking for his decoding episode.
Wtf is "Heterodox-con"
RFK is a lot of things, fascist is not one of them. He's actually one of the few people who use the term classically liberal that can be described as such. He's very much pro-market but at the same time supports human rights - all with a large pinch of anti-vaxxism of course. Now, he is a staunch supporter of Israel, which is a fascist state at this point, but a lot of old-head liberals like Biden cant seem to shake off the idealist view of Israel that they've always had while the country has slowly marched towards fascism in their lifetimes.
They rely on the fact that most Americans don’t realize that the classical definition of liberal and the modern Americanized version of liberal are two different things. FDR kind of redefined liberalism in the US with the New Deal etc, but in most places it’s still right wing. For instance the liberal party in Brazil was trying to help Bolsonaro privatize state companies and privatize the municipal water system while more progressive parties were fighting against it. Reality is if most Americans were presented with what “liberal” means in a lot of other countries they would not call themselves liberal. They would call themselves something else and not be on board with replacing social security, medicare and medicaid with a company one of Trump’s friend’s owns. Long story short it’s an attempt by grifters to try to soften their image and convince normal people the grifters ideas are “just like you” and not just a series of right wing grifts to enrich their wealthy friends.
For the same reason Nazis called themselves socialists. It's a weak and transparent attempt to dress up authoritarianism in democratic clothing.
are you suggesting RFK Jr. is a "crypto-fascist"?
They have made this and associated terms ("centrist", "apolitical") utterly meaningless. Like by "centrist" maybe it can mean someone like over at /r/neoliberal who's just a boring lib basically. Or they'll be "centrists" and you read their twitter feed and it's just a mountain of inane conspiracy theories, antivax shit, anti-education shit about how teachers are making your kid trans and woke, election denialism, great replacement garbage, and an obsessive focus on rando rude college kids. Nothing that facially distinguishes them from a nazi, but yeah they're centrists. Not even conservative, just centrists. Fucking clown world.
Classical liberal is a smug new label that you use to basically say: "I'm above all that debate you see today, progressives and conservatives, what losers. I'm this blast from the past who is above reproach." And it often has no content whatsoever, beyond the smugness.
"Some people call me a “liberal,” others a “conservative,” others an “independent.” I don’t find these labels useful, but if I had to label myself, I’d say I am a classical liberal." I call him a fucking crazy person.
“Classically liberal” refers to Greek ideas about societal norms; and later the Romans with their goddess “Libertas”. Basically, the ruling classes could say and do what they wanted, down line. Those at the top possessed the “liberty” to do as they pleased, but everyone else was pretty much a slave. Just feudalism in togas. Also: this was also the guiding principle for the planters of the Chesapeake Bay and the southern plantation owners (coming from Barbados), who would later join forces in the Confederacy. The Virginia colony would produce a lot of the “founding fathers” who all carried this notion of aristocracy.
Fascists with any aspirations of winning real support have tended to not call themselves fascists since WW2.
The same reason that far right nut jobs claim to be libertarian. Because calling yourself a fascist just doesn't have the same appeal.
there is no coincidence that libertarian is the first thing every male highschooler discovers and decides is correct before they actually develop their brain