Liberals Are Not The Enemy…But Liberalism Is

Roosh was kind enough to ask me to respond to Tuthmosis’ post, “Liberals” Are Not The Enemy in an effort to be “fair and balanced.”

First of all, Tuth is to be commended for attempting to bring nuance to the discussion.  He is correct to say that there are segments of the left that don’t support the emasculating feminist creed so common among the leftish/progressive wing of the political spectrum (though, ironically, feminism is great for game; more on that later).  Tuth is the poster child for this fact.

So Tuth, and others in the manosphere who are left-leaning are not the enemy.  But liberalism IS the enemy.

Liberalism Is Insidious

Why is liberalism the enemy? And by liberalism I mean the Social Democratic Welfare Entitlement State as exemplified in Western Europe and, increasingly, the United States.

Simply this: it is an insidious philosophy.  And not JUST because it is largely aligned with the feminist movement – though that’s clearly a black mark against it.  No, liberalism is insidious because it depends upon extracting from you individual freedom in exchange for what the State thinks is a “better” outcome.

It also depends more and more on “revenue extraction” – taking more and more of private wealth to reallocate it to the “less fortunate.”  And because there is no end to the “good” that can be done, there is no end to the “need” to extract more and more money.  The end result?  State level bankruptcy.  See Greece, Spain, Italy—and perhaps inevitably, the United States.

Liberalism claims to be about “social good” and “social justice.” Nice sounding phrases,  and they had some real meaning decades ago when prejudice and discrimination were rampant.  But they are so vague and hollow now that they are unhelpful at best, and useless at worst.

Helping You? Or Hurting You?

Modern Social Democratic Liberalism depends on the State and government to provide services to you like healthcare and regulations that ostensibly are designed to make life “fairer” and “more just.” Because providing services and regulations for YOUR benefit is the overarching principle of Social Democratic liberalism. As a consequence, this principle provides cover for all sorts of impositions of your life because such impositions are “good for you.”  Some may INDEED be good for you, but guess what? Many of them are awful.

To do “good” for you the State requires central planning —which is at the heart of Social Democratic Liberalism. Organize and manage health care, for example, or manage outcomes in any kind of economic activity.  But central planning at worst inevitably fails, or at best, causes huge disruptions.

Why? Because central planners are ALWAYS working with incomplete information. Individuals acting freely are much more efficient in terms of both personal and economic relationships. We’re already seeing these disruptions with Obamacare. The law’s requirements don’t go into effect for a business until it reaches 50 employees. Guess what incentive that provides? Don’t grow.  The law also requires health insurance for full time employees.  Guess what incentive that provides? Make employees part time. And we’re seeing that now.

What Should Government Do?

Bottom line? Government should be minimalist and limited. This principle was at the heart of what prompted the U.S. founders to construct a republican government.

Government should (1) provide a basic safety net (because, yes, some WILL fall through the cracks by no fault of their own); (2) provide an environment of security against violence, both internationally and domestically; (3) support a judiciary that resolves disputes according to law arrived at in a republican fashion; and (4) protect private property while making sure use of such property doesn’t harm others.

And that is it! That is government’s role. No more. No less.

Government should not be doing stuff like Title 9. Government should not be doing Head Start. Government should not be providing health insurance, let alone health care. Government should not be in the energy venture capital business. Government should not be doling out favors to select business sectors. Government should be as small as possible.

How Does This Apply To Game?

So, how does this apply to game? Simple. Modern Social Democratic Liberalism is invariably feminized and mangina oriented.  Alas, Tuth and the lefties in the manosphere are outliers in the context of mainstream Social Democratic Liberalism—they are the exception that proves the rule.

Social Democratic Liberalism, in its quest for the smoothest egalitarianism, eschews the reality of biological sex differences.  It exalts the hamster. Independent male actors—i.e., guys who run game—are an anathema to it.  All this in addition to the rot the philosophy induces because of its anti-individual liberty inclinations and its inclination to assume that there is tons of money available to “do good.”

Of course, feminism is, ironically, great for game. The logic is simple. Feminists want to be like men, so they are willing to fuck like men at the drop of a hat. Of course, the reason they do it is because they are “exploring their sexuality” (a hamster phrase if ever there was one). Men do it because we are men.

Social Democratic Liberalism is insidious and reprehensible. It is the enemy.

Read More: “Liberals” Are Not The Enemy

95 thoughts on “Liberals Are Not The Enemy…But Liberalism Is”

  1. THinking humans behave in economic maximizing ways and corporations will act accordingly is hamster. I want clean water, clean meat, safe roads, seatbelts, child free labor, fire exits, a safe working environment, led free stuff…etc. I could go on…libertarian thinking is hamster as well my friends.

    1. I can have all of that without the government because I’m not a weak incompetent.

      1. yes i will research which bottled watee is clean, which factory is not filled with bacteria, and roaches, will check the cracks on the road, and make sure my computer does not start a fire when i leave it on the bed, or that my car will not blow up in a fender bender, and that i will not go to a club that will serve me moonshine, or does not have a fire exit…yes…i am weak because, i just want to maximize my happiness, get laid, and not worry…

        1. You used to be able to sue for fraud and abuse. Now, corporations are regulated so they just buy off the regulators or pay a nominal fine, and the common man is screwed. You should change you avatar to “NaiveBro.”

        2. Yes you are weak for wanting an inefficient corrupt bureaucratic nightmare of a government that stifles innovation, creativity, and prosperity, just so you can feel safe with your overpriced water. BTW enjoy your BPA.

  2. conservatism is the enemy of humanity period. and NO ONE white knights harder than a traditionalist. the men’s right movement will fail because of being so closely linked to these right wing extremists

    1. I’ve read some stupid comments, but this is by far the dumbest.
      Liberals push their white knighting bullshit deficit-inducing agenda at the federal level, and conservatives push it at the state level. At least under the conservative error, a man can choose to live in a shit hole liberal mecca like California or some east coast state or pack it up and move to a state that has its fiscal act together.
      Yes, conservative traditionalists white knight, but they do it at a local and personal level. Liberals do it at a federal level and force it on everyone else.
      Liberals are the enemy. Conservatives are the enemy. But liberals are the most dangerous enemy because of their willingness to literally force their agenda on the entire American population and extract support from it through payroll taxes.
      Are you offended because some conservative wants little Johnny to pray in school? Well, me too, but I’m more concerned about liberals wanting little Johnny to pay for little Susie’s abortion and then step aside so she can take his seat in med school whether she’s qualified or not.
      And to everyone bitching about big corporations while turning right around and talking about needing/wanting the clean air, seat belts, fire exits, and other things that these big corporations produce AND drawing a paycheck from these corporations that fund all the liberal bullshit you love through their corporate taxes or payroll taxes from the checks they sign… your hamster is showing. Jesus Effing Christ.
      If you have a penis, nobody cares about your success or happiness unless that happiness or success benefits a woman or a child or an overlord in some way. You can only be an army of one, and you can only change what’s in your scope of influence. So if you’re not an elected official or you don’t have ovaries, it might be wise to forget this liberal/conservative debate and work on improving your station.

      1. Just about any one with eyes can see that conservatives are much more likely to helpful to others. Statistically conservatives are more personally charitable. Liberals love “all mankind” (with YOUR tax money) but conservatives love people on an individual level, one-on-one.
        To Mr. Thatch – an exception – your parents want you and your penis to succeed and make them grand kids. So don’t waste too much of your resources and your seed racking up notch count while wearing condoms.

      2. yes, i only care about my own happiness..and my anyone who i give a fuck about…and yes, not having to worry about drinking shit water, or that others are vaccinated, that my airplane wont crash, my car wont explode, that my cigarettes wont kill me in my sleep when the mattress lights on fire, it all helps. Yes, i want to maximize my happiness and dont give a fuck about yours….and yes, all that shit will keep me happy, and research how all that shit you take for granted happened. How much was liberals in the 60’s and 70’s made it happened. Yes i hate feminism as much as the next PUA, but this schism is created by you guys…not us, wake up and figth the real enemy.

    2. “Traditionalists” can afford to “white knight” because they have feminine women. And they do it on the personal level, with their own women. Feminists want everyone to be forced to do it, and masculinize the women at the same time

    3. No one White Knight’s harder than a traditionalist? Sorry, Hugo the Mangina disagrees.
      Also, traditionalist and conservative aren’t the same thing. It’s varying degrees.
      Government enforced White Knighting is far worse than social conservatives pushing for it. They can just annoy you. The government can imprison you.

      1. ^this. and tradcons do sometimes support big government as well. i think tradcons originally started the child support thing as an alternative to WIC.

    4. I am so far right wing that i practically come out the other side. You are badly conflating ‘conservative’ and ‘social conservative’ and artificially reassigning where in the wing they reside. It is when you start mixing liberal and conservative thought in an attempt to come up with ‘what’s best’ that you start creating the horror state.
      ‘social conservatives’ believe in traditional roles, but they like to mix it up with crap like ‘girl power’ and ‘slut state’ and fiscal liberalism. they may be considered the core of mainstream, but they are the ultimate extremists.
      True Conservatives or ‘old school’ conservatives are aware that the status quo is disgusting and untenable, and wish a return to a more stable, equitable, rewarding system. If you think that those ‘right wing extremists’ are the problem, you are looking at the ‘middle right’, not the far right.

  3. Good argument Tenderman, but unfortunately it ignores the elephant in the room.
    The fact is that large corporations are increasingly a form of “super competitor” against which average citizens (and even astute, intelligent citizens) have no realistic protection.
    When the framers of the Constitution did their brilliant work, corporations of that type didn’t exist. The citizenry and the government were the two adversaries. In that past world, Libertarian arguments made perfect sense.
    With modern technology we now have multi national corporations who are utterly predatory by design. They are a 3rd adversary.
    Libertarians consistently refuse to acknowledge this new state of affairs, and their policy proposals continue to ignore the problems caused by these supra-organizations. Of course this is because most Libertarian organizations have become fronts for big corporate money. Trust me when I say this: those big corporate donors are laughing at libertarians all the way. You are their bitches.
    i’m going to vote for that? Fuck no.
    Why do you think Romney lost? Because there are 20 million other former conservatives who are thinking exactly the same thing as me. We held our nose and voted for Obama. Better a nanny state than rampant corporate devastation.

    1. I’d have to debate that we haven’t had a true free-market for a LONG time. In that environment, there would be lots of entrepreneurs producing jobs. If you created plenty of value and honest service, then you’d deserve to be wealthy and the market would want you to be.
      Though, you could be a crook, but those companies would eventually be weeded out by newer and better service. Conservative people as a whole are evidently way more compassionate, and rich ones often choose to donate a percentage of their hard earned money and time to those in need, as opposed to stealing (the gubbymint) and redistributing wealth wastefully.
      I agree that some regulations are good, but the free-market is better suited to making those decisions.

    2. Actually Libertarians are the only ones who oppose the massive corporate welfare state. The democrats suck big corporate cock every day.
      See: Bailouts of GE, sponsoring Solyndra, discount lending windows to TBTF banks, (the examples go on forever).

      1. Perhaps the average person who identifies as a Libertarian does, but those who fund “Libertarian” organizations and think tanks such as Reason and the Cato Institute are every bit as much government tit-suckers as the rest of those leeches in D.C.

        1. Reason and Cato Institute are bit players in the Libertarian movement. They are only influential in the Beltway with cock-sucking society types. LewRockwell and Mises Institute reach a far wider audience with a more consistent, principled message.

      2. If you’re going to raise the spectre of a relatively fringe ideology, then you’ve got to add socialists and communists and anarchists. They also oppose the massive corporate welfare state.

        1. Anarchists certainly do. They are basically ideologically consistent Libertarians.
          Socialists and Communists both want a controlled populace. Which is much easier to achieve when non governmental organizations, like Corporations and Churches, just like individuals, are made dependent on the government for their well being. Aka Corporate Welfare.
          Libertarians and Anarchist are certainly allies. In fact, most Libertarians eventually realize the futility of pretending the government is useful for anything at all, including their traditional pet peeves of “national defense” (through taxation and disarmament of the populace, duh!), and “property protection” (as if the biggest threat to private property wasn’t an all powerful, unchallenged state to begin with…)
          The rest of the rabble, are nothing but well indoctrinated drones of marginally differing flavors.

        2. “We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves.”

    3. Always with “the Corporations” . Which one? Whole Foods? Target? Trader Joes? Apple?? All I know I’m able to get blueberries in January likely provided by an evil corporation that flew them in from Chile. Would rather be ruled by Corporations than Civil Servants. Case in point is Venzuela. Chavez and his central planners destroyed that place. Bring back the oligarchs and big business to run the place I say….

        1. The only ones in Venezuela complaining about Chavez are the anglo elites, not the working class/poor, laborers, natives and blacks from the country side. Chavez started local level community participation groups and redirected resources to develop rural areas. Make no mistake, Latin America was America’s bitch/slut before Chavez. Chavez permanently changed that paradigm, regardless of what the NYtimes would like you to believe with their kool-aid. Enjoy your blueberries. and thanks for that awesome clip Eric_D_Read!

      1. This.
        Ranting about “The Corporations” (cue evil laugh) is empty rhetoric devoid of critical thought.
        Which corporations, exactly? Besides putting fresh blueberries on your table in January and gas in your tank year round, what evil are they doing, exactly?
        Corporations are pretty damn transparent. Read their quarterly and annual statements and listen to the analyst calls. Governments and bureaucrats, not so much.
        The biggest difference between “The Corporations” and government is that corporations don’t have a monopoly on power and guns. Government does. Corporations can’t take your money by fiat under the threat of jail. Governments can.
        Government’s nature is to grow and control more and more. It may begin with good intentions, but inevitably becomes corrupted. The more power government has, the less freedom individuals have. It’s quite simple.
        Obama scares the hell out of me.

    4. opposition to predatory corporations has to come from the people to have any value, just as in the past the only true change to broken systems of government came from the people uprising, and not from another country ‘liberating’ them.
      Leftists use the spectre of ‘predatory corporations’ to justify the creation of a predatory state. No matter who wins in a leftist future, we all get stepped on.

    5. East India company, Boston tea party…
      The framers knew all about gigantic corrupt corporations.

      1. They knew all about mercantilism. East India Company was a monopoly in the original sense of the term – the state granted them the exclusive rights to do business in India and outlawed any competitors.

    6. Mr Lemon,
      You do not fully understand Libertarians then if you think they are ok with a Fascist state where Corporations have that level of power.
      Libertarians are in the front row for campaign finance reform (one of the largest pro-coprorate problems in existence). They are also in the front row for criminal charges assigned to individuals at corporations instead of “fines”.
      Both of those Libertarian initiatives go a LONG LONG way towards eliminating the Corporate powers you speak about.
      And certainly both left and right wing ideologies go nowhere near this problem, as they would be drying up their own funding.

  4. “Scare quotes” and assertions do not an argument make. Other than the Obamacare example (which is tenuous, considering it still hasn’t taken effect) you cite hardly any real world examples to back your claims.
    This is what I don’t get about Libertarians: you’re constantly warning of imminent collapse under the weight of ruinous liberal social welfare programs, yet you can’t point to any 1) first-world 2) industrialized 3) capitalist 4) democracy on the planet that ISN’T, by your loose definition, a Social Democratic Welfare Entitlement State. Where on Earth does the powerful, wealthy, educated, free Libertarian society that you envision exist? It looks to me like all the most advanced and prosperous states (Germany, Scandinavia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Israel, Australia, etc. etc. etc.) have “centrally planned” health care, education, infrastructure, etc. You would argue that liberalism will bring down those societies eventually, but to me it looks like strong social welfare programs helped build them into the success stories they are. Of course, having almost 100% racial/ethnic cohesion doesn’t hurt either, but that’s another topic best covered at Chateau Heartiste (or Stormfront, which is basically the same thing these days).

    1. Nazi Germany looked at lot more stable than those “success stories” you mention, several of which even admit themselves that they are literally dying off.

      1. Actually, much of Nazi Germany’s success with military autarky was due to the fact that they were constantly absorbing other industrialized nations and their resources/gold reserves into the fold. Once the Soviets stalled the Nazi war machine on the Eastern front and the British beat back Rommel in North Africa, it was all down hill from there. Also, the Nazis inflated their production with actual mass slave labor, something I don’t think modern states could pull off.
        Read The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze for more info.

    2. Shut up troll. Multiculturalism will ultimately be worse than feminism in destroying the country.

    3. Liberalism doesn’t “collapse” society. It crumbles them. So your entire post is based on a scare word. But it doesn’t negate the fact that once you start down the path of stealing other people’s property, you eventually come to the point where there is nothing left to steal.

    4. Tom, you’re begging the question. Liberty, property rights, and capitalism combined are the only philosophies that can create a society that is so wealthy it takes for granted how it created the wealth and erects a massive social democratic welfare system.
      In the 90s, Sweden had to abandon many of its social welfare goals and slash spending and taxes because its economy was stagnating.
      See: Per Bylund – http://mises.org/daily/4936

  5. This article makes some good points against leftism but how is it relevant to the title? If anything, you’re promoting libertarianism, something which is both right-winged socially and economically.
    Leftists, or liberals as you call them, are the enemy in a way. Sure, most of them are ignorant, “useful idiots” but they’re still furthering the decay of society in the end. You’re saying we should fight the system instead of the people? Alleviating all responsibility from the people furthering leftism is stupid. You don’t blame feminists either then, right?
    Leftists might not be the main problem. But they’re the only reason that this insidious ideology has any power. They’re to the leftism what supplicating betas are to feminism.

  6. A guy named Jonathan Haidt has researched morality and claims that there are 6 dimensions to human morality that have evolved in our species as a matter of survival. Liberals are big on only two – empathy and equality – while libertarians are only into one – personal freedom. The only completely moral – in the sense of balancing all moral aspects – are people who are conservative.
    So liberals are people who have been so protected in our safe and prosperous society that they can ignore the moral underpinnings that require the behaviors that can produce and sustain our safe and prosperous society. Libertarians are just rebellious kids.
    So yes, liberals are the enemy since they have chosen to take the morally easy path. But like they say, a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Liberals can be given tough love but unless they face reality, they will continue to take the easy way out which too often means supporting those who would exploit their moral shortcomings in the pursuit of power. Obama and Chavez and many others just know how to push those two buttons.

    1. Nonsense. “Libertarians” are only concerned with personal freedom in the context of what role the gov’t should have. Libertarian is not a designation of someones code of ethics. It’s not the gov’ts role to provide us with morality or empathy or “equality”.
      You say conservatives are the only completely moral people? And I actually thought this site was a haven from complete retards.

      1. People who self-identify as libertarians and take Haidt’s moral survey questionnaire statistically have one pole of morality – personal freedom. Conservatives share that value too.
        I never said that ” gov’ts role to provide us with morality or empathy or ‘equality’.” Morality pre-dates and is the foundation of government – morality is not law but law can not function without a common morality..
        Isn’t Objective-ism pretty amoral in the conventional sense?
        In reality, both liberals and libertarians over-simplify the moral choices and tradeoffs necessary for society to survive just like calling someone you disagree with a “complete retard” oversimplifies your argument.
        I don’t get it – an off the wall insult never gives me a thrill like it does some people. I do admit to enjoying when people who disagree with me are reduced to such vacuous rebuttals though.
        Tell me more!

        1. If I want to read comments like this, I’ll subscribe to jezebel.
          Unwittingly, you have marginally boosted Whitehall’s credibility at the expense of your own.
          Being that this is supposed to be a website for masculine behavior, I can see that some people here obviously need a refresher on how not to lose their cool.
          In losing your cool as you have, you have validated the concept of the angry, irritable, unmasculine man in a very satisfactory way. Losing your cool is almost never the right response for a man.
          I leave that to the chicks.

    2. Yes, Conservatives want to legislate morality so they are just as bad as Social Democrats. Libertarians would rather have a free society. There is nothing stopping anyone in a free society from shaming people who step out of line in terms of morality, without necessarily throwing them in the stocks or in the guillotine.
      For example, I wouldn’t want to erect laws against feminism per se. Just repeal pro-feminist laws and create a culture that is moral enough to shame them out of existence.
      It is a pipe dream, though, so I will wait for the collapse and be a principled voice in the wilderness rather than play the political game. Better to move to a new country than engage in the U.S./Western Europe political process.

      1. Yes, both sides want to use the power of government to impose their version of morality on others. And that is not all bad! And yes, SOME conservatives want to over-use government coercion to impose their moral values on others.
        Both sides agree “Thou shall not kill” but their are some obvious and some not so obvious ways to interpret that basic moral position in marginal cases.
        The point about moral positions that is important is that they are seldom always black-and-white in real world. Abortion is a great example. Infanticide of a life, viable newborn is condemned in the US but contraception is accepted. What about the 9 months in-between? A teenager in California has to get a permission slip from a parent before going to a tanning booth but can get a free abortion without even parental notification.
        I’m not offering a personal position on abortion, just saying that living life requires moral tradeoffs in many difficult cases. Beware of absolutists!
        A political philosophy that posits minimal government keeps many moral questions out of the hands of legislators and bureaucrats while allowing what many people see as immoral behaviors that a more active government could restrain.
        Life is tradeoffs – get used to it.

  7. bravo. great article. i identify most strongly as libertarian and could not agree with you more.
    let’s play devil’s advocate for a second though, because i believe arguments always must always be challenged and proven..
    1) has there been any country that can be said to be successful minimal regulated country? how long did it take, and how did it come about?
    the only examples i think remotely resembling free market paradises are HK and singapore. except they rely on being a super small populations (for a country) and lots of foreign capital and labour (in a globalised economy its very difficult for blue collar labour in the west to compete with highly competitive low paid indian and chinese workers.).
    2)has there been examples of successful top down statist countries? again the examples given are finland, sweden (small population) and norway (small pop, HUGE oil wealth). how long did it take and how’d it come about?
    3)can either of these sample economy’s work on a very large population country (such as the US) without huge, perhaps disastrous growing pains? (poor people protesting in the case of free market, business leaders going galt in the case of statist top down country)?
    i feel the only way it could possibly work if the states united became a commonwealth of independent countries.
    Small is easy (to govern). big is hard

  8. Massive corporations would not survive long without state enforced advantages, subsidies and monopolies; they cannot handle competition for long. See Sears, Kodak, Yahoo, etc.
    Feminism and cultural marxism would not survive long without state support. They need protection from reality and continuous injections of resources to survive.
    If you were impressed with Rand Paul’s fillibuster, you might have noticed that statists on the Left and the Right are the true enemies of freedom. Enemies of freedom are enemies of men.
    Statists, Left and Right, are the problem.

  9. This whole “liberal vs. conservative” debate is a distraction, because there seems to be little functional difference for men between the two philosophies as currently practiced in the US. Both have thrown us under the bus. Yes, liberalism is a wolf in sheep’s clothing because it presents itself as benign but really is insidious in its attack on masculine virtues. But conservatism is not the answer either; it has proven inadequate to the challenges of the day, unless your idea of a solution is to take refuge in evangelical religious obscurantism.
    Both philosophies are bankrupt. And the debate is a pointless one anyway: it blinds us to the fact that in the US, the moneyed sectors of privilege and power are the ones calling the shots. Democracy is dead. The average person has little or no chance of influencing the political process in any meaningful way. Elections here are a sham, designed by the public relations industry to hide the fact that both parties are controlled by the same master. Big money and big business in the US have no interest in seeing change, because they profit from the social decay and decline. Their interests matter; ours do not. We have been sold out and the game is over. All that’s left is the crying.
    Limited government? Forget it. It’s a pipe dream. Everyone talks about it, but it’s a bad joke. We’ve lost that battle. Technology has enabled government to become more powerful and intrusive than ever, and it’s going to stay that way. The US is now an empire, albeit a slowly rotting one, and there is no going back to the days of the republic.
    The only sensible thing to do if you are a man is to focus on yourself and become that “army of one” (to use Thatch’s phrase). Seek the gods within you. That is the salvation.

  10. Brilliant, concise summary of Liberalism. I’ll add : The Welfare State aka liberalism destroys you personally. It crushes your independence and will. e.g african-americans are nearly being ethnically cleansed by the Great Society programs that meant to “do good”. Blacks were making tremendous progress despite slavery and institutional racism. We all know the devastating facts of black incarceration , unemployment etc. The Grand Cyclops of the KKK could not do more to hurt a group than the current welfare behemoth. It is an equal opportunity destroyer of all individuals or groups e.g whites in WV/Appalachia ….
    Liberalism /Welfare makes you a non risk taking drone. You become part of the Hive.The Collective (like the Borg nerd alert Star Trek reference). See Ayn Rand’s books and characters…

  11. Um, Tenderman100, not to burst your bubble, but Europe got skullfucked not because of welfare spending but because their banks were even dumber than our American ones. The figures I saw for Europe back in 06-07 were that banks were taking out 30 dollars in loans for every dollar they actually had on deposit. American banks were at around 20:1 in terms of debt to leverage ratio. Not much better.
    In addition, according to the OECD numbers, the EU welfare state from 1980 to 2007, grew about 3% from 1980 to 2007. A noticeable increase, but hardly an explosion of the welfare state. Also European GDP growth largely outpaced the growth of the welfare state.
    TL;DR the banks skullfucked western society and then managed to convince everyone that poor people caused the financial crash. Think about all the trillions in bank bailouts. Think about how austerity is meant to pay off national debts… which are generally owned… by the banks…

  12. Tenderman, are you 30 or older? Lots of demo/leftist U.S. Senate seats up for grabs next year. You should run for one. I will contribute. The best libertarian/free market republican post on the web for many years. Keep it up.

  13. Income inequality is at an all time high, and real wages are at an all time low. The free market is fucking over the average guy, and economic happiness is worse than ever before.
    Before yall complain about how the welfare state and progressive taxes fuck people over, ask yourselves: do you support a policy to make people pay a flat $8000 annual fee in leiu of regular taxes as a proportion of your income? If not, then you support the welfare state to some extent. The question is why your idealized society is better than the liberal society.

    1. “Income inequality is at an all time high, and real wages are at an
      all time low. The free market is fucking over the average guy, and
      economic happiness is worse than ever before. Before yall complain about how the welfare state and progressive taxes fuck people over, ask yourselves”
      – Amen brother. I am not a billionaire and will never be one. So why should I look after their interest? I could never relate to these Mitt Romney worshiping clowns.

  14. “No, liberalism is insidious because it depends upon extracting from you individual freedom in exchange for what the State thinks is a “better” outcome.”
    “It also depends more and more on “revenue extraction” – taking more and more of private wealth to reallocate it to the “less fortunate.”
    ” But central planning at worst inevitably fails, or at best, causes huge disruptions.”
    -Begging the Question x3
    “Why? Because central planners are ALWAYS working with incomplete information. Individuals acting freely are much more efficient in terms of both personal and economic relationships. We’re already seeing these disruptions with Obamacare.”
    Cite your sources.
    This piece is effectively drivel. Do better. It only engages peoples who have a similar view of reality. At no point, is there compelling empirical evidence that liberalism is bad.

    1. I’m a fag and disagree with it, thus it’s drivel! I don’t have an argument so I’m going to demand you cite your sources for logical claims! DURR HURR.

      1. As someone who drinks pretty pink alcoholic drinks to hide the taste and tucks his dick between his legs when in public, do you understand how a null hypothesis works?
        This site is free to go in any way it wants, but as a rational, empirical minded male, I expect a degree of inductive reasoning in any polity. Statements which ought to be proven, can not be stated as self-evident truths (that’s what Jezebel is for).

  15. The dem party, once a defender of the working man, has devolved into the party of butt-hurted-ness.
    Also, liberalism is statistically much more attractive to women. So right there, I have huge problems with it.
    I’m not sure there is any way for a man to identify as a progressive and not come off looking like he is white-knighting for feminism, in one form or another.
    True, many conservatives line up to be ass-raped by cultural marxism, but too many liberals have decided to learn to like it.

    1. But then again, can we allow our countries to slid into banana republiques conditions with the sole purpose of avoiding feminism ? In fact then our women has brought us back to the stoneage ! Have to be a better way, but sure, the hamster IS huge..

      1. Feminism is what is taking us to the stone age. It is only capitalism that allows a society to flourish. But that is anathema to the liberal creed.

  16. Why do people who think corporations have too much influence over the government work so tirelessly to tighten the connections between corporations and government?
    Back in the bad old laissez-faire capitalist days of the 19th century, there were no companies “too big to fail.” If Consolidated Casting and Foundry Corp. went out of business, well, President Cleveland might shake his head over it but he wouldn’t blow millions of taxpayer dollars to keep a failed company going.
    If you really want to reduce the power of money in politics, reduce the amount of political power in money. When companies compete against other companies to deliver goods and services, we all prosper. When companies compete against other companies to game the regulatory environment and seek the favor of politicians for subsidies, we all suffer. Piling more and more regulations on companies just rewards the companies that play the political game.

  17. Great post, tenderman100.
    You summed up perfectly was is wrong with modern liberalism. Problem is that I think things will get worse before they get better. People, especially young people, are enamored with leftism. They imagine themselves as freedom fighters trying to take down the system. It is only much later in life that the realize that what they were fighting for was not freedom but enslavement.
    Ether way, good post.

    1. Yes..all these apartchiks…sticking up for the rights of billionares who fuck them over…yes..pathetic

  18. Do you know another meaning for the term “conservative”? Limiting progress.
    Such a biased bullshit article based around “muh priviledge being taken away” isn’t worthy of this site.

  19. I note you didn’t cite the Nordic states, the most ‘socialist’ countries in Europe and also the most fiscally sound.
    Free market economics has bankrupted the world, plus the USA only enjoys the benefits of ‘free trade’ by bullying other coubtries into accepting unfair terms

    1. Sweden is often touted as a great example of how to make a socialist welfare state work, but keep these facts in mind.
      Sweden had no net new job creation by the private sector from 1950 to 2005.
      http://www.ekonomifakta.se/sv/Artiklar/2010/Maj/Ingen-tillvaxt-av-privata-jobb-sedan-1950/
      Moreover, Sweden’s fiscal soundness today grew out of huge crisis in the early 1990s, when the decades of accumulated welfare state driven debt cause interest rate to spike to 500%! Since then every government has worked to keep the budge under control.
      Moreover, while the cost of living is high in Sweden, and the society has many characteristics of a welfare state, the government also engages in little interference in the private sector. It’s socialist-liberalist in one sense, and very capitalistic in another. It’s a hybrid.

  20. Liberalism boils all down to one thing.
    Putting moral concerns above real concerns.
    It explains all the hand wringing about social justice, compassion, civil rights, etc.
    Not that those are unimportant, but a nation’s interests should always come first. Unity. Economy. Geopolitics. But you talk about these things to a liberal, especially an American one, and it’s like shining sun on a vampire. All they want to do is talk about social issues. To them, the important issues are bad. They’re greedy, or aggressive, or hierarchical, or nationalistic, etc.
    But they’re reality. We don’t live in a utopia. That’s when the liberal position usually falls apart. No matter how well you reason, how hysterical they are, the masses always side with whoever sounds more “morally nice”, not who is more logical.

  21. just saying, but all those Euro countires you mentioned that are going “bankrupt” were the ones that had imposed austerity measures.
    and idk..i’m all for personal responsibility and freedom. but its kinda hard to be free when ur born into a poor-ass family with no healthcare coverage and some shitty job with disease-infested working conditions.
    it just seems that the closest we’ve been to the system you’ve described above…was the Gilded Age. And while there was a major increase in national wealth, the overwhelming majority of it went to the top bracket.
    and the closest we’ve been to “social democratic liberalism” was the 1940s-1960s…when wages were high, poverty was decreasing, and the middle class expanding dramatically.
    tho…this was also when feminism was on the rise. but still. a guy working in a factory could have his own place, a family, a car, and still have some left over for some goodies.

    1. Austerity measures AFTER they had completely screwed up their balance of payments with terrible productivity, sclerotic work rules, too early retirement ages. In this case, the chicken came before the egg.

  22. I’ll be back, and the governator might say, and respond to many of the comments. There was so much I couldn’t write given the length restrictions in the ROK blog. But two things for now.
    First, the comment about corporations and how they, as constituted today, didn’t exist when the Founders formulated the US government. Of course, profit making joint stock companies did exist — the East India Company being the most notable example — but the world of the 18th century was indeed a world of landowners/farmers, small businesses and workers. Joint stock companies were mostly capital raising institutions for the benefit of greasing trade. The means of production, meanwhile, were scattered and inefficient. But the corporation in the 19th and 20th century changed all that — and I would argue, on balance for the better — the much much better. Was there exploitation — and does there continue to be — in the operation of the corporations? You bet. Are they, as one commenter said, “supra national?.” You bet — thought that has its plusses too, not just minuses.
    Bottom line, just look around you. Look at your life in the modern Western world. Extraordinarily cheap goods and services. An amazing standard of living, even for the poorest of the poor in say, the UK or the USA. If you were to take an 16th century peasant, and drop him in the middle of an average grocery store, he would think it was a miracle. Coffee on DEMAND is a miracle.
    How did this happen? Business. Corporations providing goods and services without central planning.
    In the 1960s, the story goes, a Soviet official was visiting London, and asked the Home Secretary — “Who is in charge of providing bread in London?” So, next time you have a conversation with someone about economic organization, ask them that question, “So in your view, who should be in charge of ____________?” Fill in the blank. Health Care. Energy Development. Their answer will reveal a lot about their mind set.
    Second, someone mentioned banks. Banks — and I include investment banks — in my view are a unique case. The global banking system goes the heart of both the upside and downside of “supra nationality.” The cross border movement of capital is, for the most part, a very good thing. It is allowing, for example, countries such as China and India to extract themselves from widespread horrific poverty. (Being poor in China or India is a fate you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.)
    But the issue with banks isn’t the supra-nationality itself — it’s the LEVERAGE than banks can assume, along with a skewed incentive system for bank managers, knitted together by an unbreakable connectedness. If my capital structure depends upon YOUR ability to pay me back, and this other guy’s capital structure depends upon a THIRD guy…and so on, and so on….if one guy breaks the chain, the whole system comes cascading down like an avalanche. Of course, this hazard is lubricated by the bank managers taking enormous risks that may payoff in short run earnings and fat yearly bonuses, but may in the end, bring the whole house down.
    This is one area where we do need global regulation, as much as it pains me to say it. But alas, it will never happen. I think nation states need to take it upon themselves to insulate their banks from this hazard. Banks in the end should be utilities, boring, low leveraged capital allocating entities. I am afraid if they aren’t, we will see a repeat of this last crisis.

  23. Without liberalism, you get countries where you at any point of time can lose it all and become homeless over night. I live in Denmark and we have a good system that will help you when you fall. I really cannot see the downside of this, unless you’re rich and want to pay less in tax. So what is best ? to live in a country, like the US, where you perhaps can get more filthy rich than any where on earth, but could just as well find yourself living in a box overnight..where the hospitals wont give you proper treatment and you dont have access to proper education, unless ur parents are rich..or in a country where you will have unlimited access education and healthcare, and the risk of becoming homeless is minimal.
    You can say that feminism is a byproduct of this but is it really ? look at USA, perhaps the most capitalistic country in the world, the INVENTOR of capitalism..is also now the mekka of feminism…in Denmark you can become everything you want ! and it doesnt matter how much your parents earn,
    As much as I hate the entitled feminist stupid cunts in this country, I’m pretty sure it doesnt have a lot to do with the liberal government.

    1. The homeless over night thing was addressed in the post, in the four purposes of government. It was the first point. “Provide a safety net.”

    2. Socialism only works in your country because you Danes have certain genetically-determined inclinations (altruism) that others lack. Still, socialism will cease to work if and when you decide to share with the (non-altruistic) outsiders. So far, your former “rightist” (or rather, conservative) government put some serious barriers on immigration, one can only hope they will hold.

    3. that’s why with a reduction of welfare goes deregulation.
      but could just as well find yourself living in a box overnight..”
      – huge parts of the US are warm and you will want to sleep on the beach. in fact, people with money often voluntarily sleep outside because they’re hippies. US capitalism also creates lot of waste, in most cities you can dumpster dive like 100x more clean, unspoiled food than you could ever eat.
      where the hospitals wont give you proper treatment
      – get a coupon to walmart walk-in clinics where they push free medication samples on you
      and you dont have access to proper education, unless ur parents are rich..
      – coursera, codecademy, khan academy, and all those sites were invented in the US

  24. The real enemy as I see it is something George Washington warned against to his last breath, and that’s political parties.
    Are you in favor of the rights of gays to marry but against the nanny state? Are you pro-environment but also pro-guns? Are you a Regan Conservative in an area when people invoke Regan’s name even when he would not have approved of something? Are you a Blue Dog democrat in an area of wimpy democrats begging not to be bullied? Are you conservative in a blue state, liberal in a red state? Well, my friend, are completely, utterly, screwed.
    Political parties take away your freedom to make issue-based choices. If people were able to vote on issues, and not on parties, a lot of this nonsense wouldn’t happen. But what winds up happening most is that people pick their issue… abortion, gays, military, environment, economy, education… whatever…. the one thing they want to go their way more than anything else, and vote whatever party most closely aligns to their position.
    All the nuance gets sacrificed. If pepole could vote based on issues, what it means to be a conservative, or a liberal, would be very, very different things.

  25. Great text… buuut a big semantics problem. I know Liberal means Social Democrat in the US, but here in Europe, Liberalism is the political ideology of maximizing individual freedom (like Libertarianism in the US), it’s NOT about equality, or common good, or even redistribution of wealth. This may mislead non-american readers. And btw, great critique to the democratic socialism 😉

  26. Any political system or politician that promises some sort of equality, is by and large a lying power monger. The more equality they promise the more they are likely to install secret police, death camps and plunge a nation into economic and social ruin.
    Liberalism is not Liberalism…. Liberalism is Socialism in disguise and Socialism might just as well be Communism the way Govts. around the world are carrying on.
    It’s time to recognize what has been going on these last 20+ years since the Soviet Union fell.
    The freedom loving (libertarians), the conservatives, the capitalists all dropped their guard and a bunch of communist left overs have take the helm of most Govts.
    Masquerading as the “cool” politicians promising peace, freedom and equality, they have installed the most aggressive regimes. The EU is set up as a mirror of the Soviet Politburo. Homeland Security sounds like something from Nazi Germany, and is better funded and has more military hardware than the Gestapo ever did.
    Other Govts. around the world are singing to their lousy tune and soon, moral, social and economic bankruptcy along with total social decay is going to set in, as power hungry imbeciles promise the earth and deliver endless pages of useless inhinting laws, food shortages, riots, unrest and total misery.
    Govt. is the disease that it pretends to cure.

  27. This is liberalism – socialism – communism in a nut shell :
    Promise to give the poorer people better lives, through Govt. schemes, which make them reliant on the state so they have little motivation to work.
    Tax the shit out of the industrious business owners, until they have little incentive to work.
    Skim money off the top for the insiders.
    Wonder why, moral, social and economic decay has set in.
    Promise to fix all the problems with new Govt. Schemes.
    Give more handouts to poor people and make more new regulations on business owners and more taxes on people with more financial means. Now no one has any incentive to do anything.
    When that fails to produce new revenues as the economy is already so compromised by the socialist agenda, then start state confiscations,… let’s call it “nationalization” it sounds much nicer. You’ll need a heft militarized police force for this, so invent some state enemies, which in reality are just your own pissed off citizens that are suffering endless abuses of freedom, even crimes against humanity.
    Now not even bread is available. and if you think this is a theory look at the history of the USSR and China. Thousands and millions are deprived and miserable, all in the name of equality.
    Equality can only be guaranteed if we return to a life of savages and cave dwellers.

  28. There is no “one-size fits all” ideology that is best for ALL people. That’s because, contrary to what liberals tell us, genetic differences between people are quite important.
    For example, what would serve the long-term interests of a low-IQ person the best: that he is allowed total freedom to drink away all of his money (as he would be under a libertarian regime), or having someone smarter (preferably also more moral person) make the good decision for him? Low-IQ people are like reasonably high-IQ children. Let’s say, your child like the sparks of a fallen electricity wire and wants to put his hand on it. Do you allow him to do it, knowing that he may well get killed, or do you act to prevent it? Libertarians believe in personal freedom, so hypothetically they would choose the 1st course of action. In practice, however, I can guarantee you that they will act in decidedly unlibertarian ways.
    On a larger scale, we have seen what happens when the benevolent moral and reasonably smart guiding hand is no longer present to bring out the best in people: Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe. The breadbasket of Africa, a 1st world country, turns into its biggest slum.
    The reverse of the coin is having a dumb, stupid state telling smart people what to do. ZImbabwe tells its White farmers to bugger off or die. South Africa tells its Boers that songs like “kill the Boer, kill the farmer” are great ways to celebrate the South African struggle for democracy.
    The folly of libertarianism is the same as the folly of liberalism: it’s based upon the idea that genetic differences between individual human beings, and even between whole populations/races, are superficial and not important. American conservatism is also simply liberalism-lite. How many conservatives came to the defense of a prominent scientist that discovered DNA when he claimed that all aid to Africa is useless because Blacks don’t have the same intelligence as Whites? That is not a moral, but a scientific question. It is either true or false, and being offended by it will not make it false. Conservatives are supposed to value truth above emotions, yet clearly they don’t.

  29. Liberalism isn’t even the enemy. It’s a certain breed of it.
    Would you say that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an enemy? There’s a distinct, very important line between liberalism in the nation-state, and liberalism in social affairs. There’s also the issue of what works for what societies. A progressive society in France hasn’t made their women like American women. Furthermore, yes, a significant redistribution of wealth is essential in this day and age unless you want blood in the streets. Nobody reading this blog will suffer if we make the top 0.1% pay more. In fact even they won’t suffer.
    Greed, corruption, reckless banking, corporate power, cultural Marxism, these are our enemies. Believing it’s left vs right is absurdity.

  30. I’m from Vegas and go to one of the most leftist schools in
    the city (CSN, look it up). This Liberal “utopia” is a rampant virus
    that infects every weak-minded child that walks thought the doors. They are taught that government is the answer and that individuals cause the problem (which comes to no surprise because, it is the government who put them in the “re-education center”). I am amazed at the demeanor and the physical looks of such people that fall into this thought process (mostly overweight, so called outcasts, self-labeled intellects, and so on). They clamor together (professors and all) and spew self-righteous garbage at each other (mind you they are heavily focused on the arts and hypocritical in nature). When it is done they seek out individuals that are weak and scope them up (with lies or whatever makes you feel like you belong), or individual that differ in opinion and declare jihad on their character. There is neither class nor concerns of self appearance from the lower parts of this indignant section of people. Thisis what I see and deal with on a daily bases and you can point out the failures of their ideology,
    but many will simply fold back into the “blob” for self-reinsurance and confidence building, so that they can came
    back at you with some personal attack, that they hope will distract from the
    issue at hand. All that I must say is as a man you must point out the hypocrisy and failures of such a ideology (against death penalty, but for abortions?) and hopefully awake some of the individuals living in hive.
    hopefully awake some of the individuals living in hive.

  31. Seriously, stop this rightist authoritarian nonsense. Rightism is not about free choice, voluntary markets, nor small government. It’s about freezing the economy in one place to benefit current moguls at the expense of potential competitors and innovators. And caging millions at gunpoint for owning a flower that threatens many state frozen industries.

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