1. Look at it from a govt control of your life stand point. Did it matter after the World War 2 to East Germans if they were controlled by Hitler or Stalin? When govt controls you it does not matter if the govt is identified as far left or far right. Venezuela and Cuba still suck even though they are on the left.
this is the 70s the free speech movement...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement
This is the left today...
the anti conservative speech movement...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...lawsuit-will-pay-70-000-to-conservative-group
2. You have been taught this before... todays liberals are nothing like classical liberals.
Classical liberalism is a
political ideology and a
branch of
liberalism which advocates
civil liberties under the
rule of law with an emphasis on
economic freedom. Closely related to
economic liberalism, it developed in the early 19th century, building on ideas from the previous century as a response to
urbanization and to the
Industrial Revolution in
Europe and the
United States.
[1][2][3] Notable individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include
John Locke,
[4] Jean-Baptiste Say,
Thomas Robert Malthus, and
David Ricardo. It drew on the
classical economic ideas espoused by
Adam Smith in Book One of
The Wealth of Nations and on a belief in
natural law,
[5]utilitarianism,
[6] and
progress.
[7] The term "classical liberalism" was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from the newer
social liberalism.
[8]
Evolution of core beliefs[edit]
Core beliefs of classical liberals included new ideas—which departed from both the older
conservative idea of
society as a family and from the later
sociological concept of society as
complex set of
social networks. Classical liberals believe that individuals are "egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic"
[9] and that society is no more than the sum of its individual members.
[10]
Classical liberals agreed with
Thomas Hobbes that government had been created by individuals to protect themselves from each other and that the purpose of government should be to minimize conflict between individuals that would otherwise arise in a
state of nature. These beliefs were complemented by a belief that laborers could be best motivated by financial incentive. This belief led to the passage of the
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which limited the provision of social assistance, based on the idea that
markets are the mechanism that most efficiently leads to wealth. Adopting
Thomas Robert Malthus's population theory, they saw poor urban conditions as inevitable, they believed population growth would outstrip food production and they regarded that consequence desirable because starvation would help limit population growth. They opposed any income or wealth redistribution, which they believed would be dissipated by the lowest orders.
[11]
Drawing on ideas of
Adam Smith, classical liberals believed that it is in the common interest that all individuals be able to secure their own economic self-interest. They were critical of what would come to be the idea of the
welfare state as interfering in a
free market.
[12]Despite Smith’s resolute recognition of the importance and value of labor and of laborers, they selectively criticized labour's
group rights being pursued at the expense of
individual rights[13] while accepting
corporations' rights, which led to
inequality of bargaining power.
[14][15]
Classical liberals argued that individuals should be free to obtain work from the highest-paying employers while the
profit motive would ensure that products that people desired were produced at prices they would pay. In a free market, both labor and capital would receive the greatest possible reward while production would be organized efficiently to meet consumer demand.
[16]
Classical liberals argued for what they called a minimal state, limited to the following functions:
- A government to protect individual rights and to provide services that cannot be provided in a free market.
- A common national defense to provide protection against foreign invaders.[17]
- Laws to provide protection for citizens from wrongs committed against them by other citizens, which included protection of private property, enforcement of contracts and common law.
- Building and maintaining public institutions.
- Public works that included a stable currency, standard weights and measures and building and upkeep of roads, canals, harbors, railways, communications and postal services.[17]
They asserted that rights are of a
negative nature, and therefore stipulate that other individuals (and governments) are to refrain from interfering with the free market, opposing social liberals who assert that individuals have positive rights, such as the right to vote, the right to an education, the right to health care and the right to a living wage. For society to guarantee positive rights, it requires taxation over and above the minimum needed to enforce negative rights.
[18][19]
Core beliefs of classical liberals did not necessarily include
democracy or government by a majority vote by citizens because "there is nothing in the bare idea of majority rule to show that majorities will always respect the rights of property or maintain rule of law".
[20] For example,
James Madison argued for a constitutional republic with protections for individual liberty over a
pure democracy, reasoning that in a pure democracy a "common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole...and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party".
[21]
In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, neo-classical liberalism advocated Social Darwinism.[22]Right-libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism.[22]
