A Critical Analysis of Liberalism: Concepts, History, Motivation

[Asian-American]

Hi,

I recently read this academic analysis of Liberalism: http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/review-AR.html It goes into great detail about the origins of Liberalism, who created the original tenets and for what purpose, and follows the decades of Liberal elite management in keeping the movement alive. I'm looking for any feedback.

Supplemental material include:

http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/books-Preface.html
http://www.theoccidentalquarterly.co...rstanding.html
http://www.theoccidentalquarterly.co...erstandII.html
http://www.theoccidentalquarterly.co...rstandIII.html
http://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm

Regards.

[Buffy]

Sounds like a thinly veiled restatement of "Mein Kampf"...

Chilled,
Buffy

[questor]

why would you want to be a liberal unless forced into it by your inability to think three jumps ahead of the problem? example: Bush got us into this war to control Iraq's oil resources. it didn't work very well, did it? this liberal mantra also leads one to infer that liberals do not want the oil supply to be protected, therefore they are willing to pay far higher prices for the stuff, or maybe not use it at all. Questor

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by questor

why would you want to be a liberal unless forced into it by your inability to think three jumps ahead of the problem?

"Liberal" in this context does not mean left-leaning elements of democracies. It means democracies. Nearly eveyone in western society is a liberal.

Bush got us into this war to control Iraq's oil resources...

You have now lost all credibility. The reasons it didn't "work" to control oil resources is that is was never anyone's intent. The world oil market is fungible. Oil producted anywhere affects prices everywhere. If anyone wanted to drive prices down, they would have let Saddam do what he wanted: pump more oil.

Bush, rightly or wrongly, invaded Iraq to establish a democratic beachhead. It is what he always said, and it is what he is doing. You can certainly disagree with the objective and the approach, but Bush is doing exactly what he said.

To create an artificial objective ("control oil") and then suggest it "didn't work" is putting your head in the sand not once but twice.

[questor]

BIO., you may want to re-read my post where i used the comment about Bush's desire to control the oil as an example of fuzzy liberal thinking.

[Fishteacher73]

Isn't thinking ahead, possibly about reducing the US's petroleum dependancy, and not just how much it takes for dubbya to fill up his hummers? (oh, and that nasty polution problem....damn I must be so short sighted to think about my kids...)That IMO is a few steps ahead of the game....

[questor]

i don't think that ''dubbya'' and his crowd are the only users of oil. and if you or anyone else could come up with some workable alternative fuels, i'm sure the whole world would be happy. this is a little different than what i call two-step thinking. two step thinking is observing a problem (step 1), treating the problem (step 2), then being clueless about the consequences of your treatment which gives results frequently worse that you had at the beginning.

[bumab]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Bush, rightly or wrongly, invaded Iraq to establish a democratic beachhead. It is what he always said, and it is what he is doing. You can certainly disagree with the objective and the approach, but Bush is doing exactly what he said.

True- but you can't move from that statement to the idea that it was all in the idealic goal of democracy throughout the world. Far more likely, given his past actions, that the creation of a democractic beachhead was done in the interests of securing a more stable platform for oil extraction.

Second- He was very disengenous about the causes. 50% or so people thought Hussein was behind 9/11 years after the fact, when it was shown very conclusivaly he was not involved. Now, I know he didn't say Hussein was responsible directly, but he certainly hasn't denied it, either. Focus should have been on Afganistan if the objective was al-Quaida. It hasn't been- it's been on Iraq. (my personal beef- I think we should still be in Afganistan more strongly, and Iraq should have been a secondary thing)

anyway, the first statement was more on topic

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by questor

BIO., you may want to re-read my post where i used the comment about Bush's desire to control the oil as an example of fuzzy liberal thinking.

Way whoops. I humbly apologize!!!

I completely misread your post.

[questor]

i agree with Biochemist about Bush's motives. what would the world say if he is successful with opening the middle east to representative government and bringing the heavily muslim countries into modern society where they sought peace instead of murder? would the liberals then applaud him? probably not, because we didn't find WMD. and if the huge oil reserves of Iraq remain available to the world market will the liberals thank Bush? no, because they can't understand the problem.