Biden: "There are at least 3 genders"

Dark Soul said:
If your idea of freedom is freedom from responsibility then I suppose that is true.

But my idea of freedom is the least amount of federal government possible. No different, in fact, than liberals like Tom Jefferson, Jim Madison.
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In that case, the perfect country for you to live in would be Switzerland, which is liberal. Like I said, liberal countries have freer markets and less government restrictions than conservative countries.
 
StoneByStone said:
In that case, the perfect country for you to live in would be Switzerland, which is liberal. Like I said, liberal countries have freer markets and less government restrictions than conservative countries.
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I've looked at retiring in Switzerland but it is far too expensive. I would need the entire income from about $2 million in investments just to own a small home, pay the taxes and for a bare minimum of personal expenses. With that same income here I can live far better.

So no. Switzerland does not meet the definition of liberal that my friends Tom and Jim defined for me.

Is your idea of freedom, freedom from responsibility?
 
StoneByStone said:
More civil liberties, less government restriction.
There is no country that has total free speech, but look at the level of free speech in liberal Western countries compared to conservative countries.
And contrary to the myth of "small government," liberal countries actually have freer markets than conservative countries.
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Agreed. Much of this is historical and cultural. Communist nations like the former Soviet Union, China, North Korea were always authoritarian systems. You don't find any communist nations that were formerly free societies (although I would not call those countries politically conservative).

Democracy is also highly correlated with economic development.
 
Dark Soul said:
I've looked at retiring in Switzerland but it is far too expensive. I would need the entire income from about $2 million in investments just to own a small home, pay the taxes and for a bare minimum of personal expenses. With that same income here I can live far better.

So no. Switzerland does not meet the definition of liberal that my friends Tom and Jim defined for me.
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I'm afraid you're in a bind then. All of the conservative countries have far more federal government than liberal countries like America and Switzerland.

Is your idea of freedom, freedom from responsibility?
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I think some things should be our responsibility, other things shouldn't be. I'm glad we have fire fighters because if your house catches fire, I don't think it should be your responsibility to put it out.
 
StoneByStone said:
I'm afraid you're in a bind then. All of the conservative countries have far more federal government than liberal countries like America and Switzerland.
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Again, your definition of conservative is not the same as mine, or any other conservative, lol.
 
Flash said:
Agreed. Much of this is historical and cultural. Communist nations like the former Soviet Union, China, North Korea were always authoritarian systems. You don't find any communist nations that were formerly free societies (although I would not call those countries politically conservative).

Democracy is also highly correlated with economic development.
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Countries like the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea are politically conservative in that they are hierarchy-leaning instead of equality-leaning. The latter is politically liberal.
And this is closely related with social issues. It's no coincidence that countries that are more tolerant of LGBT rights also have more freedom for cis heterosexuals. This is why Communist parties were so easily able to also sell the people hierarchy, despite Communism supposedly being about equality. They were working with socially conservative societies.
 
Dark Soul said:
Again, your definition of conservative is not the same as mine, or any other conservative, lol.
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Well in my defense, the definition changes often.

But if you're going by "small government," as I said before, the countries with the smaller governments are the ones Fox News would call lefty. The so-called Righties always end up with bigger government.
 
StoneByStone said:
Well in my defense, the definition changes often.

But if you're going by "small government," as I said before, the countries with the smaller governments are the ones Fox News would call lefty. The so-called Righties always end up with bigger government.
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It's not that hard to understand, unless of course you don't want to understand.
 
Dark Soul said:
It's not that hard to understand, unless of course you don't want to understand.
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It's tricky when the definition keeps changing.

What traits does someone or something need to have to be considered conservative?

If it's small government, then countries like Switzerland are conservative. If it's traditional values, then countries like Saudi Arabia are conservative.
 
StoneByStone said:
Countries like the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea are politically conservative in that they are hierarchy-leaning instead of equality-leaning. The latter is politically liberal.
And this is closely related with social issues. It's no coincidence that countries that are more tolerant of LGBT rights also have more freedom for cis heterosexuals. This is why Communist parties were so easily able to also sell the people hierarchy, despite Communism supposedly being about equality. They were working with socially conservative societies.
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The communists and fascists are both authoritarian in the authoritarian-democratic spectrum. But they are opposite in the left-right dimension.
 
StoneByStone said:
Technically yes, but the "Communism" of countries like the Soviet Union was right-wing.
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None of the political classifications would put communism in the right-wing category. It was internationalist (vs nationalists), secular, equality, centrally planned economy, government should own means of production, centralized government, classless society.

There are JPP posters who say Nazi Germany was left-wing. But all scholars, books, studies put communism on the left and fascism on the right although they had similarities.
 
Flash said:
None of the political classifications would put communism in the right-wing category. It was internationalist (vs nationalists), secular, equality, centrally planned economy, government should own means of production, centralized government, classless society.
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That was how it was sold, but once the Bolsheviks were in power, they created a Nationalist country where the government controlled everything and there was a strict classist hierarchy. And Communism is supposed to be that the people have common ownership, not that the government owns everything. They were pretty secular, but at times used churches for propaganda.
 
StoneByStone said:
That was how it was sold, but once the Bolsheviks were in power, they created a Nationalist country where the government controlled everything and there was a strict classist hierarchy. And Communism is supposed to be that the people have common ownership, not that the government owns everything. They were pretty secular, but at times used churches for propaganda.
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I was referring to communist ideology and not the reality.
 
StoneByStone said:
It's tricky when the definition keeps changing.

What traits does someone or something need to have to be considered conservative?

If it's small government, then countries like Switzerland are conservative. If it's traditional values, then countries like Saudi Arabia are conservative.
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If I wanted to know what modern liberalism is then I would use the definition as published by its largest group of adherents. I suggest that you do the same for conservatism: conservative.org. It's really not that difficult.
 
Dark Soul said:
If I wanted to know what modern liberalism is then I would use the definition as published by its largest group of adherents. I suggest that you do the same for conservatism: conservative.org. It's really not that difficult.
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If you're a Conservative, then surely you can sum up what Conservatism is for me here.
 
StoneByStone said:
If you're a Conservative, then surely you can sum up what Conservatism is for me here.
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The Constitution of the United States is the best political charter yet created by men for governing themselves. The Constitution is designed to guarantee the free exercise of the inherent rights of the individual through strictly limiting the power of government.

We reaffirm our belief in the Declaration of Independence, and in particular the belief that our inherent rights are endowed by the Creator. We further believe that our liberties can remain secure only if government is so limited that it cannot infringe upon those rights.

We believe that capitalism is the only economic system of our time that is compatible with political liberty. It has not only brought a higher standard of living to a greater number of people than any other economic system in the history of mankind; more important, it has been a decisive instrument in preserving freedom through maintaining private control of economic power and thus limiting the power of government.

We believe that collectivism and capitalism are incompatible, and that when government competes with capitalism, it jeopardizes the natural economic growth of our society and the well-being and freedom of the citizenry.
 
Dark Soul said:
The Constitution of the United States is the best political charter yet created by men for governing themselves. The Constitution is designed to guarantee the free exercise of the inherent rights of the individual through strictly limiting the power of government.

We reaffirm our belief in the Declaration of Independence, and in particular the belief that our inherent rights are endowed by the Creator. We further believe that our liberties can remain secure only if government is so limited that it cannot infringe upon those rights.

We believe that capitalism is the only economic system of our time that is compatible with political liberty. It has not only brought a higher standard of living to a greater number of people than any other economic system in the history of mankind; more important, it has been a decisive instrument in preserving freedom through maintaining private control of economic power and thus limiting the power of government.

We believe that collectivism and capitalism are incompatible, and that when government competes with capitalism, it jeopardizes the natural economic growth of our society and the well-being and freedom of the citizenry.
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So by this definition, the most conservative countries are America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and European countries except for Eastern Europe.

I guess that makes Bernie Sanders a true Conservative.
 
StoneByStone said:
So by this definition, the most conservative countries are America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and European countries except for Eastern Europe.

I guess that makes Bernie Sanders a true Conservative.
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You list is a bit off. I consider the most conservative countries to be USA, Israel, Australia, South Korea, and Austria.
 
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