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[Politics] The dangers of liberalism



Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,337
Faversham
Imagine having a political doctrine that individual freedom is the lynchpin with which to test any policy?

Let's imagine there is a pandemic, and there is a vaccine that appears to offer an individual a vanishingly small risk of catching the virus or passing it on. Imagine having the ability to issue an individual a vaccine passport that would allow them to travel.

If you are a liberal, this will never work. The passport would mean an individual is having to prove they have been vaccinated. What if they don't want to be vaccinated? The passport scheme would disadvantage those who, for whatever reason, do not wish to reveal to all and sundry whether they have been vaccinated. So a vaccination passport scheme is out of the question.

If you are a liberal, also, if you wish, as an individual, to make a personal choice about whether to wear a mask, or to travel hither and thither, and indeed decide how many people to mix with, this should all be personal choice. A liberal would never agree to telling people they must wear a mask, or that they must not see their friends. Yes, yes, give strong advice, but none of this should be law. We should not and never force people to wear masks and stay at home.

Of course, eventually, if you are a liberal, when you have any number of chief medical officers and the like shouting at you, you may agree to last ditch measures. Hands, face, space! No large classroom teaching at our nation's universities. But your instinct is to wait till the last minute before jumping.

Any of this sound familiar?

Our vaccination programme is amazing. But numbers of cases is going up. HMG will dountless react to this. Recently people who were booked to travel to Portugal suddenly had the green regime changed to yellow (I have not looked up what this means because I have no interest in travelling abroad, but I'm guessing this may mean quarantining when you get home).

Any idea what will be happeining to football next season? Some fans? How many? Which?

The sight of a liberal pursuing a liberal agenda and then having to apply last ditch fixes, time and time again, is a sad sight indeed.

And.....exhale.
 








Sorrel

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
2,736
Back in East Sussex
I'm glad the cricket is the focus for a few days. Then back to the Euros. What next season is like will be later one and I'm prepared to wait...
 






Neville's Breakfast

Well-known member
May 1, 2016
13,423
Oxton, Birkenhead
Imagine having a political doctrine that individual freedom is the lynchpin with which to test any policy?

Let's imagine there is a pandemic, and there is a vaccine that appears to offer an individual a vanishingly small risk of catching the virus or passing it on. Imagine having the ability to issue an individual a vaccine passport that would allow them to travel.

If you are a liberal, this will never work. The passport would mean an individual is having to prove they have been vaccinated. What if they don't want to be vaccinated? The passport scheme would disadvantage those who, for whatever reason, do not wish to reveal to all and sundry whether they have been vaccinated. So a vaccination passport scheme is out of the question.

If you are a liberal, also, if you wish, as an individual, to make a personal choice about whether to wear a mask, or to travel hither and thither, and indeed decide how many people to mix with, this should all be personal choice. A liberal would never agree to telling people they must wear a mask, or that they must not see their friends. Yes, yes, give strong advice, but none of this should be law. We should not and never force people to wear masks and stay at home.

Of course, eventually, if you are a liberal, when you have any number of chief medical officers and the like shouting at you, you may agree to last ditch measures. Hands, face, space! No large classroom teaching at our nation's universities. But your instinct is to wait till the last minute before jumping.

Any of this sound familiar?

Our vaccination programme is amazing. But numbers of cases is going up. HMG will dountless react to this. Recently people who were booked to travel to Portugal suddenly had the green regime changed to yellow (I have not looked up what this means because I have no interest in travelling abroad, but I'm guessing this may mean quarantining when you get home).

Any idea what will be happeining to football next season? Some fans? How many? Which?

The sight of a liberal pursuing a liberal agenda and then having to apply last ditch fixes, time and time again, is a sad sight indeed.

And.....exhale.

Whilst I agree completely, the problem of liberalism is not confined to the current PM. In fact some of his biggest critics are also liberals who assert their individual rights over the those of the community.
 


Cheshire Cat

The most curious thing..
Imagine having a political doctrine that individual freedom is the lynchpin with which to test any policy?

Let's imagine there is a pandemic, and there is a vaccine that appears to offer an individual a vanishingly small risk of catching the virus or passing it on. Imagine having the ability to issue an individual a vaccine passport that would allow them to travel.

If you are a liberal, this will never work. The passport would mean an individual is having to prove they have been vaccinated. What if they don't want to be vaccinated? The passport scheme would disadvantage those who, for whatever reason, do not wish to reveal to all and sundry whether they have been vaccinated. So a vaccination passport scheme is out of the question.

If you are a liberal, also, if you wish, as an individual, to make a personal choice about whether to wear a mask, or to travel hither and thither, and indeed decide how many people to mix with, this should all be personal choice. A liberal would never agree to telling people they must wear a mask, or that they must not see their friends. Yes, yes, give strong advice, but none of this should be law. We should not and never force people to wear masks and stay at home.

Of course, eventually, if you are a liberal, when you have any number of chief medical officers and the like shouting at you, you may agree to last ditch measures. Hands, face, space! No large classroom teaching at our nation's universities. But your instinct is to wait till the last minute before jumping.

Any of this sound familiar?

Our vaccination programme is amazing. But numbers of cases is going up. HMG will dountless react to this. Recently people who were booked to travel to Portugal suddenly had the green regime changed to yellow (I have not looked up what this means because I have no interest in travelling abroad, but I'm guessing this may mean quarantining when you get home).

Any idea what will be happeining to football next season? Some fans? How many? Which?

The sight of a liberal pursuing a liberal agenda and then having to apply last ditch fixes, time and time again, is a sad sight indeed.

And.....exhale.
A country full of idiots, run by morons.
 




Aug 13, 2020
1,482
Darlington
Imagine having a political doctrine that individual freedom is the lynchpin with which to test any policy?

I would suggest that the issue here is less that Johnson bases his decisions on a political doctrine, and more that he has the intellectual capacity of a lobotomised puppy. Not an intelligent puppy like a border collie, one of those daft little rat-dogs that some people seem to like.
 




1066familyman

Radio User
Jan 15, 2008
15,185
I'm not a liberal. I'm a Commie. I believe an individual should be prepared to give up certain individual rights for the collective good.

I have zero sympathy for those 'stuck' in Portugal, or those desperate to return to 'normality' come what may.

Some of the sacrifices that suddenly the whole world is having to endure, are the very 'normal' huge chunks of the world's population have to live with daily anyway. Most people in the world can't afford international travel anyway for example. It was about time the so called 'first world' got a wake up call.

And exhale...
 




perseus

Broad Blue & White stripe
Jul 5, 2003
23,454
Sūþseaxna
"I'm liberal to a degree
I want everybody to be free
But if you think ...."
 


GT49er

Well-known member
Feb 1, 2009
46,471
Gloucester
Imagine having a political doctrine that individual freedom is the lynchpin with which to test any policy?

Let's imagine there is a pandemic, and there is a vaccine that appears to offer an individual a vanishingly small risk of catching the virus or passing it on. Imagine having the ability to issue an individual a vaccine passport that would allow them to travel.

If you are a liberal, this will never work. The passport would mean an individual is having to prove they have been vaccinated. What if they don't want to be vaccinated? The passport scheme would disadvantage those who, for whatever reason, do not wish to reveal to all and sundry whether they have been vaccinated. So a vaccination passport scheme is out of the question.

If you are a liberal, also, if you wish, as an individual, to make a personal choice about whether to wear a mask, or to travel hither and thither, and indeed decide how many people to mix with, this should all be personal choice. A liberal would never agree to telling people they must wear a mask, or that they must not see their friends. Yes, yes, give strong advice, but none of this should be law. We should not and never force people to wear masks and stay at home.

Of course, eventually, if you are a liberal, when you have any number of chief medical officers and the like shouting at you, you may agree to last ditch measures. Hands, face, space! No large classroom teaching at our nation's universities. But your instinct is to wait till the last minute before jumping.

Any of this sound familiar?

Our vaccination programme is amazing. But numbers of cases is going up. HMG will dountless react to this. Recently people who were booked to travel to Portugal suddenly had the green regime changed to yellow (I have not looked up what this means because I have no interest in travelling abroad, but I'm guessing this may mean quarantining when you get home).

Any idea what will be happeining to football next season? Some fans? How many? Which?

The sight of a liberal pursuing a liberal agenda and then having to apply last ditch fixes, time and time again, is a sad sight indeed.

And.....exhale.
Absilutely - and of course with hindsight we should have closed down the borders pronto (with very strict hotel isolation for those returning), but that would be racist. Well, actually, no it wouldn't have been, because there were damned good reasons for doing it at the time. But, closing the borders is undoubtedly something the extreme right want, so to the liberal mind closing the borders would be seen as pandering to racists, and those advocating it would be seen as racist sympathisers even though they were anything but. Funny how intolerant liberal tolerance can be at times.
So we'll keep the borders open - that'll show the racists we mean business. Good gesture that (in hindsight of course).
 






Aug 13, 2020
1,482
Darlington
I'm not a liberal. I'm a Commie. I believe an individual should be prepared to give up certain individual rights for the collective good.

I have zero sympathy for those 'stuck' in Portugal, or those desperate to return to 'normality' come what may.

Some of the sacrifices that suddenly the whole world is having to endure, are the very 'normal' huge chunks of the world's population have to live with daily anyway. Most people in the world can't afford international travel anyway for example. It was about time the so called 'first world' got a wake up call.

And exhale...

I'd describe myself as a liberal, or at least that's my starting point, but otherwise would agree with every word.

The main problem is one of intelligence/insight/problem solving, not philosophy. Very few good or great leaders down the years have had particularly clear philosophies precisely because they adjust their views to the situation. Anybody who thinks "my idea of how the world works and how it should be holds all the answers to all situations" is a bloody idiot, whether they think the government shouldn't do anything or it's the solution to all the world's problems.
 


Blue3

Well-known member
Jan 27, 2014
5,559
Lancing
There’s a lot to untangle here we live in a country that has seen a Conservative led Government for the majority of all our lives with one constant mantra freedom for the individual to made their own decisions in life (small government) in some ways it’s no surprise that nations who operate in this way have high infection rates and deaths when compared to countries that have less free will, that could be as a result of governmental controls (big government) or social constraints imposed by the society itself.

The vaccines do not offer immunity from catching the virus but they do offer a much improved chance of not needing hospital treatment and ultimately death.

Most viruses have been in circulation for millennium and humans have developed to live with them but this is a new virus and a very contagious one that is mutating at an alarming rate, one of these mutations could become immune to the current vaccines be more contagious and more deadly.

For the UK the easing of lockdown one was far to quick and it resulted in a second wave which was again pushed down with a second lockdown aided by our vaccination roll out, the current unlocking has been far more cautious by the government but even so the liberalism of the public and improved weather has seen the population increasingly out and about with little social distancing, infection rates are increasing.

So holidays abroad where vaccinations are likely to be behind the UK and new strains may be developing which means relying on our liberal citizens to self isolate upon there return some will maybe most will but not all will.

There is a time and place for small government liberalism I am not convinced it’s now
 


Eric the meek

Fiveways Wilf
NSC Patreon
Aug 24, 2020
5,173
The dangers of liberalism indeed. The irony of Boris and Brexit. Take back control. Yes, close the borders. Keep the bandits out. Terrific rhetoric for those who want to blame their inadequacies on folk who look a bit different to themselves. But when the time came to actually close the borders for a really good valid reason, about the best possible reason you could think of, he showed his true colours and didn't close them. And he is still using the phrase 'listen to the science', while not listening to it.
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,337
Faversham
I wasn't expecting any serious replies, and yet - loads! Many thanks for taking the time - a jolly good read. :thumbsup:

I have been having a conversation (over the last 40 years) with my former PhD supervisor about the nature of truth, methods to pursue it, methods to verify one's findings, and whether it actually matters. I'm a scientist so I don't care much for political doctrine and, as others have explained, people of supposedly similar political doctrine can be very dissimilar over whether they are liberal or authoritarian.

Politics has been described as the art of the possible, and is therefore more akin to technology than science. So it boils down to whether the politician is aiming to maximise the distribution of the greater good, or simply trying to ensure he keeps his bell-end polished. I understand the notion of maximising individual freedoms (yes, Marxism doesn't work) but there has to be an idea of what success would look like, and a clear notion of boundaries or it simply becaomes 'what shall we do today, for a jape?'

In some respect, Boris is the sort of pragmatist (like Blair) that I could support, except that he has shown repeatedly that he is deplorable. He has shown with Covid that he doesn't have the skill set to lead the people, and yet perhaps he does have he skill set when it comes to rebuilding the economy. Setting aside that I consider him to be a low **** who one would trust neither with one's wallet or wife, perhaps he may emerge from the trail of the dead smelling of roses, with a full steam ahead economy in a bounce-back Britain. I genuinely don't know which, yet, and while I often like an adventure . . . .

Meanwhile, though, what worries me is yet more needless death due to a political decision to open up the country before the time is right. I don't think this will happen (the vaccines, the treatments and possibly the more sensible approach to murder evolving in the repeatedly mutating virus, all mitigate against this), but it may, and I just don't see Boris acting quickly enough if it does, owing to his 'liberal' imperatives.

Anyway. Football's on later. Have a lovely Sunday, if you can possile manage it :thumbsup:
 




Weststander

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Aug 25, 2011
63,390
Withdean area
I'm not a liberal. I'm a Commie. I believe an individual should be prepared to give up certain individual rights for the collective good.

I have zero sympathy for those 'stuck' in Portugal, or those desperate to return to 'normality' come what may.

Some of the sacrifices that suddenly the whole world is having to endure, are the very 'normal' huge chunks of the world's population have to live with daily anyway. Most people in the world can't afford international travel anyway for example. It was about time the so called 'first world' got a wake up call.

And exhale...

I’m definitely not a commie, but in the main agree with your points.

Following last year’s permitted travel corridors we had holidays booked to Austria, then Switzerland. Both cancelled at very short notice, the rug pulled from beneath our feet, due to sudden and unexpected rises in new variants. Debated at the time, many liberal, libertarian, pandemic deniers and right wing folk and commentators were furious .... allegedly overreactions from Johnson, Sturgeon, Merkel et al. But, they were proved correct.

At the time it didn’t cross my mind to go on R5 or LBC crying foul. But loads did and still do, angry with governments and scientists that their holiday plans have been left in ruin. Always someone’s fault, never the unprecedented and by nature erratic pandemic.

A sign of the whinging times, fuelled by stirring TV/radio/newspaper ‘journalists’ of all political persuasions.
 


1066familyman

Radio User
Jan 15, 2008
15,185
I’m definitely not a commie, but in the main agree with your points.

Following last year’s permitted travel corridors we had holidays booked to Austria, then Switzerland. Both cancelled at very short notice, the rug pulled from beneath our feet, due to sudden and unexpected rises in new variants. Debated at the time, many liberal, libertarian, pandemic deniers and right wing folk and commentators were furious .... allegedly overreactions from Johnson, Sturgeon, Merkel et al. But, they were proved correct.

At the time it didn’t cross my mind to go on R5 or LBC crying foul. But loads did and still do, angry with governments and scientists that their holiday plans have been left in ruin. Always someone’s fault, never the unprecedented and by nature erratic pandemic.

A sign of the whinging times, fuelled by stirring TV/radio/newspaper ‘journalists’ of all political persuasions.

It frustrates me to hear on programmes like Today on Radio 4 in the morning, presenters interviewing holiday makers 'stuck' in places like Portugal and wishing them 'good luck' in getting back in time to beat the quarantine deadline. As if anyone scrambling to get back to save their own arses is realistically going to bother with self regulated isolation anyway. I very much doubt it.

Seems to me that anyone so desperate for their holiday abroad or their mental health will suffer, doesn't know they're born, as my old mum would say. And I speak as someone who knows from years of personal experience what mental ill health is all about. No, it's not the same for everyone, but it really isn't being denied holidays abroad, that's for sure.
 



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