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It's time for liberals to fight back around the world

15 Comments
By John Lloyd

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they grew up paying high taxes and don't seem to mind paying it, we don't, we never had that background historically

Depends on who you mean. From the end of WW2 up to the seventies, the rich were paying upwards of 70% tax on income.

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Liberals have lost touch with the working class, and been co-opted by the 1% (global elite). And I know a few English people personally who actually say they despise the white working class.

Free trade, globalism and large-scale immigration-- guess who are the loudest advocates of these policies? Global investors and the left. Everyone else views them as threats to their communities and livelihoods.

Those trends are all elements of Reagan-Thatcher supply side policies. This, more than anything, explains why liberals are adrift and out of touch. They've been duped.

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I'm not against helping people that need it, I think we should always help those that can't, I'm talking about people relying too much on big government to help them and bail them out. Look at at Greece and Cyprus. 8 million vs 230 million, not even close, would never happen. I never said that Capitalism is perfect or without its share of problems, I'm just saying it gives you at least th opportunity to create and build something.

Unfortunately, Scandinavian countries report high levels of being happy. Having high levels of freedom, social mobility, a social conscience, care for all members of society, a progressive view of life, gender equality, transparent government, good education for all.....can do that . 

These are also smaller societies, smaller countries, not culturally diverse, the US is comprised of different ethnicities and religions, they grew up paying high taxes and don't seem to mind paying it, we don't, we never had that background historically speaking, we never historically depended on the government for anything, they do. Education, that's the Democrats department, the school unions donate heavily to the Democratic Party, so as to why they can't fix the system is anyone's guess.

Those socialist dystopias.

Good on them, If I wanted to be like those countries and thought they were a utopian society, I would have moved there years ago.

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To be fair, social mobility wasn't what he was talking about. Individual mobility yes. Why do you feel the need to minipulate his words?

He wrote about giving 'citizens the opportunity'. To move up requires the opportunity. It seems to me it would be more difficult to individuals to move up in a society which has a poor record of social mobility.

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Which country are you talking about? It can't be the US. Its level of social mobility has been shocking for decades.

To be fair, social mobility wasn't what he was talking about. Individual mobility yes. Why do you feel the need to minipulate his words?

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I love the Capitalist system. I've never seen a country that has given its citizens the opportunity to go as high as you want depending on your wrk ethics, desire and to strive to be the best.

Which country are you talking about? It can't be the US. Its level of social mobility has been shocking for decades.

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Communism! Just thought I'd write it one more time for effect.

I feel sorry for the folks who can't see this as just emotional propaganda. You could replace a few words/sentences and it would read like a KKK article.

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I love the Capitalist system. I've never seen a country that has given its citizens the opportunity to go as high as you want depending on your wrk ethics, desire and to strive to be the best.

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it's time for liberals to give up on their failed Marxist ideology. the socialism liberals love so much has killed at least 200 million people has made destitute a few billion more people and has resulted in the creation of numerous failed countries and even a few dystopian societies. and this is just the last 100 years

I don't know many liberals who want to see Stalin's USSR or Mao's China. I think you are talking about communists. Even the communists I know don't want to see that.

A silly, childish, ignorant rant.

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it's time for liberals to give up on their failed Marxist ideology. the socialism liberals love so much has killed at least 200 million people has made destitute a few billion more people and has resulted in the creation of numerous failed countries and even a few dystopian societies. and this is just the last 100 years. Add in the feudalism of which socialism evolved from and the misery extends back centuries. the, world is, tired of liberal elites constantly oppressing people to sate the greed of a parasite class.

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Yeah! Liberalism has had its day.

Time to return to the populism and despotism which served us so well in the 1930s and 40s....

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Liberalism is responsible for the mess Europe is in now. Too much PC clap trap, too many human rights that promote the rights of the criminal over those of the victims. Membership of the EU forbids the death penalty even for the heinous of crimes. No, liberalism is a cancer that much be removed.

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The statement - Trump is a standing affront to the ideals and practices of democratic statehood, which have had the adherence, more or less, of liberals, conservatives and social democrats in the post-war West.  - is simply wrong.

Liberals are not seeking anything close to democracy - they are seeking power only - their way or no way.

Freedom is simply not a key concept to them currently - it used to be, 50 years ago, when I was a liberal in college.

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"Liberal" used to show a belief in individual liberty. What was once called liberalism became libertarianism.

The current liberal doctrine is quite different. It is willing to give up individual freedoms for the collective good of all. Rather than individual equality, it favors equality of opportunity, and equality of results.

Problems with this kind of liberalism, which sound good in principle, arise because of the nature of people. In order for everyone to be equal, those who have more must give to those who have less. Boiled down, this means punishing success, and rewarding failure. The benefits of hard work are taken away from those who would work hard, and the consequences of sloth are taken away from those who don't want to work hard.

Most of us don't really want to work very hard. We tend to work as much as we need to afford the lifestyle we want to enjoy. But when we live in a society which will guarantee us an equal living, there is no incentive to work hard. As a result, people work less. When people work less, the economy produces less, making it harder for the state to support the people.

Another problem with such liberalism is that the results tend to be opposite it's promises. When the state can take from those who have, and give it to those who have not, it must exercise a great deal of power. Those who administer this power almost universally abuse it, using it to enrich themselves and their friends, at the expense of everyone else. Everyone may indeed be equal, but this equality exists at a much lower level.

Many will point at Scandinavia as an example of successful liberalism or socialism. But the rest of the world is not Scandinavia. Corruption is much less a part of the culture in Scandinavia than in other parts of the world, and the only way that the people can benefit from a liberal socialist society is if there is no corruption. But the additional power which a socialist state can exercise over it's economy and what it produces would be too much for any but a handful of people to resist. As Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Liberal socialism requires giving the state far more power than is safe.

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A shift is taking place in politics and society worldwide, and no-one can know how far it will go

Oh, I can imagine. But John would prefer his safe liberal space where nice, friendly capitalism can flourish and those smelly, selfie protesters are just spoiling all that.

Centerist politics exist to keep the proles and grubby commoners in their place, guv. To keep people (of all colors and creeds) divided and bickering whilst the Macrons and would be Hilary's cosy up to big business and the status quo. It's just a softer, more acceptable spin on the ugly, naked ambition of Trump, Duda and their fellow travellers.

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