Talk:Liberalism/Archive 4

message: I was going to attempt a rewrite of the Liberal Fundamentalsim section.  It clearly needs one.  But I cannot make heads or tails of what it is trying to say, so I'm not the one to try to rewrite it.  I do think there is a good point or two hidden in there, somewhere. Rick Norwood 00:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good work on the rewrite of the Liberal fundamentalism section.  Now it makes sense.  Two small suggestions, which you can take or ignore as you like.  Third to last paragraph, drop the "in the first place".  Last paragraph, expand the contraction. Rick Norwood 13:53, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done, except for the contraction bit, which I don't think matters. Lucidish 20:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

text: It looks to me like "liberal fundamentalism" is an 'inkblot' term, without a specific meaning.  A google search indicates it is used to mean any kind of liberalism the writer doesn't like, i.e. any allegedly unreasonable or irrational form.  The whole section should be deleted. Hogeye 18:05, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liberal fundamentalism 

message: I'm halfway through 2.1, and have, I hope, only elimited the worst of the repetition and streamlined the most convoluted sentences.  Now I come to a question of substance.  Was Kant a liberal?  I would say not.  Certainly, the purposes to which his writings were put by Belloch and the other English Roman Catholics were anything but liberal.  So, I'm asking -- should Kant be cut? Rick Norwood 20:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am convinced that Kant should be in, but now I have the problem I am not a native English speaker. In the book "Filosofen van het klassieke liberalisme", one of the chapters is dedeicated to Kant, it is clearly shown that his ideas were liberal, by putting the emphasis on the autonomous free man. This book refers to the book of G. Dietze: Liberalism proper and proper liberalism (1985). Electionworld 22:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Kant

message: I've spent the morning working on 2.1, Origins of liberal thought.  I've replaced long words with shorter words, and tried to untangle long sentences, which sometimes forgot the number of their subject before they got to a verb.  I've removed at least one internal contradiction, and added a quote from Adam Smith.
I think the section could be further improved by replacing paraphrase by apt quotes from the original writers. Rick Norwood 14:15, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Work on 2.1 

message: This page was getting massive; I've archived it up to the end of October - the last section being the removal of the  tag. Apologies if I accidentally moved out anything still under discussion, but it's all still there at archive3 if it needs to be referenced. (And good work on the article, all - it seems to be less horrible than two months back...) Shimgray | talk | 22:26, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, it was getting long. Lucidish 02:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive

message: I've done a light rewrite of the Revolutionary Liberalism section.  Most of what Newberry has added to the article is good.  I've mostly tried to fix a few infelicities of expression. Rick Norwood 21:27, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revolutionary Liberalism 

message: Please note that I am not trying to promote Anders Chydenius.  I never even heard of him until I read about him here.  I'm just trying to put the sections in roughly chronological order. Rick Norwood 14:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  chronological order 

message: (Please excuse me for shouting.) Rick Norwood 13:11, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "...ideology a mixture of the forms listed belows and will combine..."
If you cannot be bothered to write carefully, at least pause between rewrites long enough for others to fix your mistakes.  I am not taking sides on the dispute.  I do not even know who wrote the line quoted above.  But it is one of many that need fixing.  Can we have a truce, while the wounded are cleared from the battlefield? Rick Norwood 13:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

text: The distinction I've learned is that Athens was a democracy, Rome a republic.  Is what you mean by "liberal democracy" representative democracy, that is, a republic? Rick Norwood 15:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: May I refer you to the article on Liberal democracy (I do not know in what state it is now). Typical for a liberal democracy is the balance between individual rights and majorities taking decisions. It is allways a representative democracy, but can also have direct democratic features (like referenda). A Liberal democracy can be a republic, but monarchies like Sweden are also liberal democracies. The former GDR labeled itself as a democracy: the people had the power (they said). Electionworld 17:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the explanation. Rick Norwood 19:50, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SLOW DOWN, PEOPLE!!! 

message: "Some modern liberals have rejected the classical Just War theory emphasizing neutrality and free trade, for interventionism and collective security."
I do not understand the meaning of the dependent clause at the end of this sentence.  Please explain, rewrite, or delete it. 
:Thanks.  Good catch.  I rewrote it as follows: Some modern liberals have rejected the classical Just War theory, which emphasizes neutrality and free trade, in favor of multilateral interventionism and collective security. Hogeye 00:05, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops.  Gustave. spelling error. He does have an article. Hogeye 00:05, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section 1.3 

message: Somebody added liberal conservatism as a form of liberalism. I allways considered it as a form of conservatism and most liberal parties do not consider the liberal conservative parties in any way as sister parties. I doubt that it should be listed as a form of liberalism. Electionworld 14:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know much about liberal conservative parties.  Maybe there should be a separate article on the subject. Rick Norwood 14:59, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I added it. And there is an article on liberal conservatism. As the new paragraph says, it is a hybrid of conservatism and liberalism. I'm inclined to take the view that in many developed countries (especially in the Anglosphere), there are very few real conservatives in the original sense of the word, and nearly all of those now claiming to be "conservatives" are actually liberal conservatives, i.e. they are economic liberals. Whereas the liberal parties are usually made up of social liberals and/or neo-liberals. Nevertheless most of the parties listed as examples are expressly "Liberal" in name, and have liberal conservative ideologies. The Liberal Party of Australia is perhaps the best example of this phenomenon. Grant65 | Talk 15:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

text: As far as I'm concerned, "conservatism" is one of those words that is hopeless and useless. People take it to have content that it doesn't have. So I won't be able to take the word seriously enough to give any suggestions about "liberal conservatism", except maybe to pick a better way of saying what's attempting to be said (whatever it is), and in a way that has broader currency. Lucidish 21:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liberal conservatism 

message: A great deal of good work has been done by many hands to improve this article.  However, two things have happened.  One is that hasty changes have introduced errors.  The other is that the article gets longer and longer.  Once again I urge: take is slow, keep it short. Rick Norwood 15:36, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How the article stands today. 

message: I have attempted a rewrite of 2.3.  I will not make any other changes to this article today.  My major changes were to move paragraphs that belonged under a different subhead to that subhead.  I also removed a lot of repetition and shortened long sentences.  Rick Norwood 16:27, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Work on 2.3 

message: I will leave you two gentlemen to fight it out.  I'll see you here tomorrow. Rick Norwood 22:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to "justice" on the one side and "welfare" on the other. 

message: Hogeye, you are so accustomed to the rhetoric of libertarians that it sounds as natural to you as it sounds artificial to others.  I am not going to try to argue with you -- I've learned from long experience that arguing with a Libertarian is as useless as arguing with a Marxist, and for the same reason -- neither philosophy has ever been put into practice and so the pure theory has never had to conform to harsh reality.  Not all claims of "rights" are POV.  Some claim rights given by God (the right of the Jews to Isreal), some claim rights due to nature (the right to life), and everyone has rights under law (the right to a speedy trial).  But only libertarians claim the "right" not to be taxed.  Nobody likes taxes, but most people accept the necessity of taxation to avoid massive deficits and to fund government services that the majority of citizens have voted in favor of.  It is not "injustice" because it is part of the social contract.  Rick Norwood 13:54, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Rhetoric is irrelevant.  Whether people dislike taxes, or a majority vote for it is irrelevant. The issue here is whether expropriation of people's wealth violates the right to life, liberty, and property, a right endorsed by all liberals.  This is an article about liberalism, you know.  Even social liberals will admit that taxation violates some people's right to the fruits of their labor.  They justify it by claiming that freedom for the collective is maximized by selective rights violations.  Other examples of permissable rights-violations for some social liberals: conscription during war, zoning, tariffs, minimum productivity laws, regulations on businesses, price-fixing,  occupational licensure, etc. Are you also going to argue that conscription (slavery by state) doesn't involve violation of rights?  Face it - the notion of maximizing freedom (using government power to create positive conditions for freedom) involves engaging in some rights violations.  Hogeye 14:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  attempt to move the discussion to the bottom of the page 

message: My main goals in this rewrite of 2.3 are
1) Keep it short and to the point; avoid repetition.
2) Remove popular misconceptions.
3) Organize ideas under the appropriate heading.
As always, I will not make any other changes today, and welcome comments and corrections. Rick Norwood 23:06, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  another attempt at 2.3 

message: Somehow, John Wesley the theologian has been cast as a liberal in our article.  Yet neither the Wikipedia article about Wesley, nor other articles I examined on the internet consider him to be a liberal in the political sense.  (One describes him as liberal in the generosity sense, and many refer to liberal arts.)  Since Wesley wasn't a liberal, shouldn't we delete him (and his picture) from the article? Hogeye 17:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I will research John Wesley and report back.  Certainly, his anti-slavery, anti-child labor stance put him in the liberal camp.  Other notes on the current state of the article, which looks pretty good to me, at least through the section we've been working on:  The word "apiece" is used incorrectly.  The correct usage is in, for example, we were paid ten dollars apiece, meaning ten dollars each.  Also, there must be a better head for the first vs. that we can all agree on.  Just noticed Hogeye's comments above.  I'll respond when I get home from work -- that's where the Ben Franklin book is.  Nice pictures, Electionworld.  Rick Norwood 21:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A google of "John Wesley child labor" gave me this: "John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, recommended child labor as a means of preventing youthful idleness and vice." Hmmm. Hogeye 22:30, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Here is the Ben Franklin quote, from a letter he wrote to his friend in London, Peter Collinson.  I can't find a date for the letter, but it was clearly before the American Revolution.  He wondered if "the laws peculiar to England which compel the rich to maintain the poor have not given the latter a dependence." Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, page 148-9. As for John Wesley, the Britannica says, "As a social reformer Wesley was far in advance of his time," but since I do not find evidence that he urged the reforms he recommended to be funded by the state rather than the church, I'll withdraw his name from consideration. Rick Norwood 01:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe we're not on the same page.  I though you were arguing that Franklin was a social liberal (in order to support your contention that social liberalism started before 1800.)  The quote echos a common complaint of economic liberals - that statist welfare causes pauperization (i.e. is counter-productive and mires people in poverty).  The quote implies that Franklin is an economic liberal, not a social liberal.  He's against "compelling the rich to maintain the poor." Hogeye 18:06, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

text: No, I understand that Franklin is not a social liberal -- at least, not in the sense of expecting the government to help people in trouble.  He was very much an exponent of private enterprise -- an a very enterprising one at that.  My point was that somebody had to be redistributing the wealth in England in order for Franklin to complain about it. Rick Norwood 20:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Wesley a Liberal?