Two Worlds in Germany

**Kralizec** · 03-26-2007, 21:27

Of course, that bit of text is US-centric and Husar is German.

Since the "New Right" reared its head "conservatism" has changed radically

**Husar** · 03-26-2007, 23:18

To me it's:

conservatism: from to conserve or conservare in latin IIRC, meaning old-fashioned, trying to keep old morals and generally trying to keep almost everything "the way it has always been" or "like in the good old times"

liberalism: coming from to liberate, to set someone free, liber means free in latin so liberalism means to be open-minded and open to new things, striving for as much freedom as possible

Now these are my definitions which I just wrote down out of my mind and reflect a second of thought and remembering what I think about them.
I think in some cases they fit in nicely with how they are used here but I tend to use them very seldom myself, because I am both depending on topic and sometimes mood and I try not to put others into drawers as we say here.

Probably because I myself am like this, I think a balance between the two is the way to go and wise decisions have to be made. Being open to new things is good in many regards but IMO there is a point where the whole thing can turn into the negative and that is where liberalism should stop. IT's a hard decision to take and for me as a christian it's often a question of, how liberal would Jesus be? Would he turn the other cheek to radical muslim terrorists or would he support to fight them to dave many innocent lives? Can a soldier be a christian and kill other people? Well, I'm often happy that I'm not the one to decide, I don't have an answer on those questions, but I think throwing radical people out of the country is neither liberal nor conservative, we just show them if they want to live in our little economic paradise, they have to follow the rules or go somewhere where their views are not against the constitution.

My views for tonight and thanks for reading.

**Goofball** · 03-26-2007, 23:38

Originally Posted by Husar

To me it's:

conservatism: from to conserve or conservare in latin IIRC, meaning old-fashioned, trying to keep old morals and generally trying to keep almost everything "the way it has always been" or "like in the good old times"

liberalism: coming from to liberate, to set someone free, liber means free in latin so liberalism means to be open-minded and open to new things, striving for as much freedom as possible

Now these are my definitions which I just wrote down out of my mind and reflect a second of thought and remembering what I think about them.
I think in some cases they fit in nicely with how they are used here but I tend to use them very seldom myself, because I am both depending on topic and sometimes mood and I try not to put others into drawers as we say here.

Probably because I myself am like this, I think a balance between the two is the way to go and wise decisions have to be made. Being open to new things is good in many regards but IMO there is a point where the whole thing can turn into the negative and that is where liberalism should stop. IT's a hard decision to take and for me as a christian it's often a question of, how liberal would Jesus be? Would he turn the other cheek to radical muslim terrorists or would he support to fight them to dave many innocent lives? Can a soldier be a christian and kill other people? Well, I'm often happy that I'm not the one to decide, I don't have an answer on those questions, but I think throwing radical people out of the country is neither liberal nor conservative, we just show them if they want to live in our little economic paradise, they have to follow the rules or go somewhere where their views are not against the constitution.

My views for tonight and thanks for reading.

Given the subject of this discussion and the screen name of one of our more colorful posters here at the .Org, I find that typo to be very telling...

**Crazed Rabbit** · 03-26-2007, 23:47

Goofball;
In brief, modern liberalism is the belief that wars, poverty, all bad human stuff, suffering, etc, comes from various parties believing they had the right way to solve problems. The solution, to them, is therefore to assume there is no right way, to assume anyone who says there is a right way is a supporter of human suffering. They also refuse to discriminate - that is, choose logically between different options - meaning no one is better than anyone else (see, perhaps, the Iranian thread).
An example he uses is an extension of kindergarten thought - do not hit becomes never wage war. They do not allow exceptions, basing their view on the cut and dried kindergarten version with bigger words.

I've not done the speaker justice with my brief synopsis, but that's kind of the idea. I would recommend watching it.

Crazed Rabbit

**Goofball** · 03-27-2007, 00:15

Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

Goofball;
In brief, modern liberalism is the belief that wars, poverty, all bad human stuff, suffering, etc, comes from various parties believing they had the right way to solve problems. The solution, to them, is therefore to assume there is no right way, to assume anyone who says there is a right way is a supporter of human suffering. They also refuse to discriminate - that is, choose logically between different options - meaning no one is better than anyone else (see, perhaps, the Iranian thread).
An example he uses is an extension of kindergarten thought - do not hit becomes never wage war. They do not allow exceptions, basing their view on the cut and dried kindergarten version with bigger words.

I've not done the speaker justice with my brief synopsis, but that's kind of the idea. I would recommend watching it.

Crazed Rabbit

That's where things really fall apart with that definition of liberalism. If that were really true, liberals would implicitly be acknowledging that (for example) the hard core Christian conservative way of doing things was just as good a way of doing things as any other.

See the fallacy there?