Very liberal... just like a dictatorship...

Is it just me, or is the left and the far right starting to look like the same team?

For those who don't know, the far right is meant to be authoritarian, believe in strong state control and often characterised as intolerant towards minorities of race/religion etc.

The liberal left is meant to be about minimal intervention from the state and providing freedom to everyone to as much as they want within the limits of what will affect those around them (ie, you're not allowed to shoot someone, because they interferes with their life etc)

Generally everyone hates the far right for obvious reasons, while the liberal left is 'cool' because they are usually for legalising drugs, reduced sentences for criminals and for all round telling people that whatever lifestyle you go for just fine and dandy.

The flaws with both are simple:

Far right: see Nazi Germany
Liberal: it doesn't take long to realise that most people's behaviour has a cost for someone else, ie, you take drugs and you'll end up being treated by the NHS... which is paid for by me or your neighbour or whoever else didn't want to have to pay for it.

Anyway I'm not actually on my point yet, which is, as I said at the start, that actually these days the liberal left is starting to look like the same team as the far right. Maybe they don't play in quite the same way, but their tools and practises are starting to have an uncanny similarity.

I'll take a few examples that are going on around the world right now:

Sweden & Germany:
Sweden is usually portrayed by many people as a liberal paradise. They have high investment in rehabilitation and relatively 'pleasant' prisons. What they now also have, is a total ban on home schooling your own children. Not only this but the government controls the curriculum for any non-state schools. What difference does this make? I hear you ask. Well ignoring for a moment the fact that on average home schooled children tend to get far better grades and be more involved in the community, the problem can be summed up in one sentence: the government has legal control of what every human in the country (excluding immigrants) must be taught at a young age, that is when they are most impressionable.

The scope for indoctrination is staggering. Anyone who says anything that the government considers untoward can the act as a flag to have their parents investigated. The Nazis were known for encouraging children to report their own parents if they said anything in the home against the Nazi regime, amazingly this could easily have a similar effect. Just set the curriculum on whatever you want, get people to discuss it and chances are they'll say what they've been taught by their parents. The fact that it was also adopted in Germany isn't encouraging. Last year some parents pulled their children out of a sex education class, they were fined €2,340. How liberal is that? You don't even have the liberty to educate your own children on 'family matters'.

United States, New York:
Recently in New York they have made it so that churches cannot use state school premises for a place to worship on a Sunday. Never mind the fact that this brings in money for state education (ironically something that liberals in America always complain is underfunded and inadequate), never mind the schools aren't used on Sunday so essentially it is efficient use of resources (something that American liberals also claim to care about) they've decided that churches can't use state premises because... it suggests that the government supports Christianity.

Once again irony knocks considering the pledge of allegiance often recited in schools states "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God" and that the money which they hand over in order to pay for the hire of the premises states "in God we Trust". The fact is, hiring out a hall constitutes an endorsement, according to New York state. Presumably those who hire out a wedding premises endorse the match and the couples choice. Does the state favour pilates over yoga if it rents out a community hall to a pilates class? Does the state endorse Tae Kwon Do over Karate if it rents a hall to a Tae Kwon Do team? Or maybe one could go further and say that is an endorsement of Korea's right to use violent defence (Tae Kwon Do is Korean) over and above China's?

The list could go on forever, it is just retarded to think that venue hire actively endorses an activity just because it allow it to go on. Don't get me wrong, there may be a time when a venue is expected to refuse to allow someone to use its premises but that is when they are actively against, it, not passively indifferent.

So this example isn't illiberal, it is just absurd.


The United Kingdom

For the UK I'm going to pick one that is topical. Gay marriage. Now as I said before a liberal in theory wants people to be able to do what they want without affecting others. At the moment Gay people are able to get a civil partnership that provides every legal right of marriage. If you're heterosexual you can't have a civil partnership if you're homosexual you can't have 'marriage', but essentially they provide exactly the same rights and benefits. Those who have the one are legally treated the same as those who have the other, no exceptions. In theory those who have a civil partnership don't have a religious aspect to their service, but in reality any gay couple are free to find someone who is considered to have religious standing in the community to add a 'religious' aspect to their special day.

So from a liberal point of view people can have what they want and no one can impose their desires upon another. Arguably there is an equilibrium where each party can do as they wish without being able to force their version of events upon another.

But liberals are seeking to ensure that gay people can legally have a marriage, something that I'm sure lots of liberals would think is a great idea. But in the UK there is an act called the Equality Act which means if you do something for one person, you have to do it for another and you cannot refuse on specific grounds. One of these involves sexuality. While this may make sense in a work case scenario, that means all of sudden not only will the change allow gay people to marry, it will also mean that anyone (vicar/minister etc) whose consciences tell them they shouldn't be performing such ceremonies will not be allowed to follow their conscience or even redirect them to someone else, and will be fined large sums of money if they do, and potentially imprisoned if they don't pay up. In short you can't just endorse what you want to endorse, you have endorse what the state tells you to too. How liberal is that?

So to summarise modern liberalism is all about laid back freedom. Allowing people to make their own choices and live their lives in anyway they wish to as long as it doesn't interfere with other peoples' rights to do the same.... that is unless they think they could explain something better/educate their child better than the state, unless they want to hire a venue that the state owns, or follow the convictions of their conscience on the life-styles they choose to endorse. If you want to do any of those things then chances are liberals are not so laid back, not so freedom loving and actually far more the 'drag you before the courts and fine you thousands of £/€/$' types. And if you don't pay up, you're going to jail.

An easy way to get around this of course, is just do whatever the state wants and don't disagree with any of their values or stances or try to express/teach anything different or abstain from behaviour you wish to avoid... a bit like what the far right expects of people. See simple!

Don't going giving out reasonable advice..... it is too dangerous

It really worries me sometimes when, as moronic as governments can be, the public as a whole acts in a manner that is even worse.

Recently a govenrment minister told people that they should probably be keep in mind the potential of a (petrol) tanker drivers' strike and as a result keep a reasonable amount of fuel in their tanks. No need to queue, but if you get the chance, pop some fuel in and maybe keep a bit in a jerry can.

What resulted was a reasonably sizable amount of queuing while flustered drivers drained the fuel station's forecourts dry. Petrol stations actually run out of fuel despite there being no shortage whatsoever.

Now this idiocy wasn't too much of a surprise, but what was, was the result. After this panic, after the British public demonstrated that they had no greater ability to mashall their powers of reason and emotion than a herd of edgy wilderbeast, the blame was laid at the feet of... the government.... for 'causing panic'.

Perhaps I was brought up in an odd area, but if someone says 'you probably want to take reasonable precautions to avoid 'X'' and then people act in a completely different way and over react then the fault lies at the door of the person who was acting unreasonably. Yet that isn't what happened. Apparently now, it is not only the government's job to give advice, but also to account for the fact that some people are totally unable to keep a sense of perspective or use an ounce of logic and will hear something completely different to what you actually said.

How can anyone work in conditions where you ask someone to behave reasonably, they don't and then it is your fault. If you think like that the goverment isn't our government, but rather our parents, and when they try to act like our parents they will always fail, because:
a) they aren't our parents;
b) they can't take the place of our parents because they don't know us/care like parents;
c) we're meant to hold them to account, not the other way around;
d) we're meant to be adults.

Perhaps a new strategy would be, when people totally disregard what someone says and acts irrationally, instead of blaming the person who gave them reletively reasonable advice, we admit to ourselves that some people will always act in a ridiculous way and the people who need to change their behaviour.... is them. Just a thought. Is that too irrational?