🇳🇱
I find it ironic that most people see europe as more liberal than the USA yet most people I know who move there are staunch conservatives who move there because the policies they care about and the people themselves are overall **less** liberal than the USA.
It seems very few people even realize that by many measures europe is more conservative rather than liberal. A prime example of this would be the taxation scheme which in much of europe has a lower ratio between the poor and the rich classes (closer to flat tax).
@freemo Which policies you have in mind? I think that both economic and political policies of Europe are much more liberal than in USA (there are some exceptions and mostly in eastern europe, [hello Poland!]).
Why is taxation scheme example of liberality? I would say its not about how much one taxes rich vs poor, but about how that taxed money is then distributed.
@vnarek
Well its important to understand what liberal and conservative mean. I think they tend to be inaccutate terms since liberal generally is used to refer to neoliberals specifically. In other words liberal is generally used as a synonym for democratic socialism. The primary principles of liberalism and socialism is a large degree of government regulation and oversight as well as using taxation to redistribute wealth from the rich. Conservatism generally has at its central point the opposite, minimal government regulation and intervention and relying on free markets.
Taxation is relevant as the usa has a more progressive tax scheme, that ia, a scheme intending to put a higher tax ratio between poor and rich in an attempt to redistribute wealth.
We find the same pattern in other areas. Europe is generally much more noninterventionist when it comes to foreign affairs, which again is along the lines of small governance associated with the right.
@freemo Wikipedia defines liberal as someone who is for free economy without goverment interventions + individual rights/equality.
From what you said earlier I deduced that you are using liberalism as synonym for social democracy and used your definition in my last answer.
It is not about tax collection, but distribution. Taxes that are collected in europe are distributed via strong welfare systems for health care, education, and social funding. USA does not really have this kind of safety nets.
@vnarek Yes the wikipedia uses the classical definition of liberal. This is not what most people in the USA today mean when they say liberal, they usually mean neo-liberal, which is effectively the opposit of that.
Free economy (free markets) with minimal government intervention would be more in line with modern day conservatisim in america, or classical liberals
They are very confusing terms for that very reason.
The spending is a relevant point, of course, to some degree. Except I wouldnt argue welfare as being the same as redistribution of wealth.. a flat (or flatter) tax system that feeds those who starve isnt really redistributing wealth to any significant degree. That just keeps the poor from starving and does little to nothing to eliminating the rich from the population.
@freemo I would not say that neo-liberalism is oposite of classical liberalism. Could you define what you mean by neo-liberalism for me?
Yeah I wouldn't too, but what kind of redistribution policies does USA have? I would personally prefer much more radical redistribution of wealth, but there is really no push for it in the Czech republic, because there isn't a lot of people on the line of poverty. There were some interesting systems of redistribution tested like UBA in Europe so lets see how that goes. 😄
@vnarek neo-liberalism would be effectively what you see as modern day liberals in most countries but especially the US.
Lets take the definition of liberal you gave (which i described as classically liberal):
* free economy without government intervention
* individual rights as a priority
If we look at most self described liberrals today they embody the opposite of both these qualities where they are central to modern day conservatives (thus the use of the term neo to distinguish them).
For example conservatives tend to be strongly pro-free market, they are against regulations on the free market in many forms, conservatives tend to be against enviromental regulations for example, and minimum wage, and similar examples of the government regulating the flow of money. Meanwhile increasing minimum wage, or forcing companies to hire minorities tend to be strong central points for liberals.
The other point of individual rights also apply. conservatives tend to support individual rights tot he extream for example extream forms of freedom of speech, and even the right to own weaponry, generally opposed by neoliberals to various extends.
@freemo Again I was using neo-liberalism as description of policies from Margaret Thatcher et al. Is this definition still relevant? see Wikipedia.
Okay I'm going to use your definition. So by using your definition of classical liberalism as (free economy without government intervention and individual rights as a priority) I would say that American conservatives do worship free market, but I don't think individual rights are priority for them. Guns are mostly exception and democrats don't want to ban guns completely just make it harder to get. If we look at abortion, banning transgender serving in military, prisons for minor drug offenders those are policies mostly pushed by republicans.
@freemo Banning guns indeed is violation, restrictions are okay If they are reasonable. We restrict car driving by license too.
Even if you define the individual rights of the baby at conception, it is not really relevant. Baby has right to live, but does not have the right to be kept alive on behalf of other human beings. It is the same as a kidney transplant or transfusion. You can't be forced to do that.
What about drug use? I think that is a hard violation of human rights. Even though I've never smoked a pot. 😄
@vnarek we arent talking about what is reasonable or not, thats is a different discussion. We are talking about what group takes personal freedom to a greater extream.
Regardless of how you feel about the law or if it is reasonable or not the fact remains that unreistricted access to guns is more of a personal freedom stance than reducing access to guns.
Again the discussion of abortion follows the same logic. Your argument for why you support abortion is all well and good, but it doesnt really successfully make the case that any one group is more focused on individual rights WRT abortion than the other. It is simply your reasoning for giving the mothers individual rights superior protection over the childs. Thats fine, but doesnt address the underlying issue.
As a side note though, just to address your view on abortion, though irrelevant to the point we are discussing. You can not compare a transplant to abortion in the way you did. In the vast majority of pregnancies the woman engages in sex willingly. So they knowingly put the child in the position that the child is in, unlike a transplant patient. One could argue when you engage in sex you are knowingly risking creating a child that will be biologically dependent on you and thus you have an obligation.
since the mother forced the child into needing them against the childs will by engaging in sex in the first place it would be more akin to causing the injury on someone else. Which normally would send you to jail. However if injured someone and put your own life at risk to save them the court may not send you to jail since you put in an effort to save the person.
Im not arguing for or against abortion, but I am saying that the analogy you gave really doesnt compare to the situation at all.
As to drug use, both liberals and conservatives seem to be mixed on that. Both sides seem to support keeping most drugs illegal and both sides seem to have made concessions to make cannabis legal or closer to legal.
@freemo Yes I agree that was more my personal belief on guns. I should have communicated my thoughts and for sure it is violation of freedom.
Okay this is interesting, I would still say that no one is really violating child individual rights, because his right to live ends where right to one's body starts its not violation for me if one got his rights by violating the rights of another human.
Oh, I didn't take that into account. Still, if a woman did what she could to not have a baby and still had sex, then she is not required to bear that child. Just like when you let your doors open no one has the right to commit a robbery if you don't want them to do that. In the same way you would not drive cars if there was a possibility that someone would get hurt.
These are just my opinions. We diverged from our discussion about USA vs EU liberalism a little sorry. 😄
Yes in the USA, but Europe did mostly legalize those subsubstances (not all). Same holds for sex work too.
@vnarek I agree that my counter argument to abortion would break down int he case where the woman becomes pregnant due to no choice of her own, rape being an obvious case.
But most conservatives I think would agree that even if they feel abortion should be illegal in the case of rape an exception should be made. There are some extream conservatives who of course do feel abortion should be a no go under any circumstances, but I'd say they are likely the minority rather than the rule.
Regardless the point here is both sides are arguing for individual rights they just have very different views on where or how. I think we can at least agree the philosophical problem isnt that straight forward.
I dunno does europe really have more legalized drugs than the USA? In america cannabis is legalized in a bunch of states. In europe the only place I know it is really legal would be the Netherlands and even there it is "technically" still illegal.
@freemo Yea we can argree that philosophical problems aren't that straight forward, thats the reason for meeting half way in the case of abortion. I wouldn't be okay with unconditional abortion, but Republicans are for banning it all the way.
@vnarek well yes and no.. There are many republicans who admitidly want to unconditionally make abortion illegal.. then again on the flip side in america there are many democrats (even politicians) who want to see abortion be legal including late term abortion. Many democrats routinely argue that as long as the baby can not survive outside the womb that abortion should be legal. Which would effectively make it legal at every stage.
So both sides take their view of morality and individual rights to the extream.
I do agree that the proper solution is somewhere in between the two. But the underlying point is both groups here are pushing for a perspective focused on individual rights, just with very different views on what that means.
@freemo I agree with you now on the point that both sides push for individual rights in this example. I don't agree with perspectives used by conservatives, but it does not have any weight in the discussions we are having right now.
@vnarek well thats fair. I'm not trying to argue that the conservative view is correct. I am only saying that they are at least trying to use their own moral framework to fight for the rights of a child they feel is under represented.
I'm glad we can agree on the motivation, it is an important step in understanding the other side in stuff like this.
@vnarek There are plenty of liberals who want to ban guns completely. Mostly only want to highly increase regulations, either way it is contrary to individual rights.
Abortion is also a bad example, liberals want to support the individual right and liberty of the mother, and conservatives want to support the individual rights and liberty of the baby. Both are trying to secure individual rights, they only differ on whose rights matter.
When it comes to transgendered I would agree that conservatives have a rose track record on individual rights than the neoliberals do, but tahts the only exception I can think of.