Liberals progress society, conservatives dont.

[rufuspaul]

nope. not even close.

Case in point.

[Trollsmasher]

Dresta is by far my favorite OTC poster

[Godzuki]

Case in point.

lol knew it. you don't know much which is why you're always purposely obscure

and i should add bitter as fukk lol

[rufuspaul]

No political group can truly claim that they have clean hands.

That's true. But to bluntly state that society can only progress through the liberal agenda is stubborn and short-sided, exactly what the idiot OP claims about conservatives.

[rufuspaul]

Rufus who is your favorite wrestler of all time?

You my man. [COLOR="White"]and Ric Flair[/COLOR]

[BasedTom]

damn very smart man

rufus is correct whatever he is saying

wooooo

macho man did you **** steph?

[KevinNYC]

This is somewhat off topic but consider the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened in liberal, post-enlightenment Europe. More than half the participants at the Wannsee Conference (where much of the "Final Solution" was planned) were either PHDs or medical practitioners educated in the modern, liberal academic institutions of the day.

How's that for progressing society?

Are you saying liberal ideas led to the Holocaust?

or that

Even doctors are capable of evil?

[Akrazotile]

Are you saying liberal ideas led to the Holocaust?

or that

Even doctors are capable of evil?

I think the point is fairly obvious, if liberalism has been continuously progressing western society positively since the 1400s, how is it that genocide was being pursued in the mid 1900s on the planet's most liberal continent?


The OP's point in general is retardedly broad and simple, and purposely so because this was obviously a bait/troll thread. "Liberal progresses society, conservatives don't." As Dresta alluded to earlier, to even begin to tackle that supposition takes an enormous laying-out of definitions and methods of measurement.

Rufuspaul's example is one of innumerable ways or examples with which to throw a wrench in the OP's assertion. If you're looking for that example to prove anything further, you're wasting your time, because, it would seem you're missing the point to begin with.

[rufuspaul]

Are you saying liberal ideas led to the Holocaust?

or that

Even doctors are capable of evil?

Neither is inherently good or evil. I'm saying that liberalism doesn't always lead to a progressive society. Some very radical and progressive agendas have also been conservative in nature. Some good, some bad.

And yes all doctors are evil.

[KevinNYC]

I think the point is fairly obvious, if liberalism has been continuously progressing western society positively since the 1400s, how is it that genocide was being pursued in the mid 1900s on the planet's most liberal continent?

Um, because it's not magic? Or it's not perfect?

Or maybe it works slowly? Or it's incomplete?

Or maybe not every European believed in liberal ideas? And that there were other competing ideas including reactions against liberalism? Or that the people in power weren't liberals.

I'm not even arguing the OP's point. But to argue that the Holocaust disproves the OP's point only seems to make sense if every European was liberal in 1933.

The point about genocide being surprising on the most liberal continent in the 1940's is only surprising if you ignore what Europeans were doing on other continents pretty recently and all the stuff that happened after WWI.

Also, was liberalism around in the 1400's? Rufus mentions the enlightenment which was a few centuries later and makes more sense as a liberal time.

[KevinNYC]

Neither is inherently good or evil. I'm saying that liberalism doesn't always lead to a progressive society. Some very radical and progressive agendas have also been conservative in nature. Some good, some bad.

And yes all doctors are evil.

I was going to write dentists, but that was self-evident.

Anyhow, I don't see German in the 1930's as a particularly liberal place or one that wholeheartedly embraced The Enlightment. It definitely embraced science and was a very technically advanced society.

Christopher Browning says that Germany found part of The Enlightenment too French.

You begin the book by reviewing the historical events that set up the conditions for the Holocaust in Germany. One of these was, as you put it, "a distorted and incomplete embrace of the Enlightenment." Can you elaborate on this?

In Germany, after the Napoleonic conquest, the values of the Enlightenment were spread in an uneven way. What I call the humanistic and individualistic side of the Enlightenment was generally associated with the French, and in order to break away from Napoleon, the Germans embraced the scientific and rational side of the Enlightenment. You have this kind of schizophrenia where Germany absorbed those aspects of the Enlightenment that gave them the power to drive the French out but shunned those parts that they considered contrary to German values.

So a certain strand of German culture rejected such aspects of the Enlightenment as individual rights and a more liberal, democratic political tradition, while embracing the notion of rational, bureaucratic management of society. That's what I mean by a kind of unequal or asymmetrical embrace of the Enlightenment, at least within one part of German culture.

[Akrazotile]

Um, because it's not magic? Or it's not perfect?

Or maybe it works slowly? Or it's incomplete?

Or maybe not every European believed in liberal ideas? And that there were other competing ideas including reactions against liberalism? Or that the people in power weren't liberals.

I'm not even arguing the OP's point. But to argue that the Holocaust disproves the OP's point only seems to make sense if every European was liberal in 1933.

Also the point about genocide being surprising on the most liberal continent in the 1940's is only surprising if you ignore what Europeans were doing on other continents pretty recently and all the stuff that happened after WWI.

Also, was liberalism around in the 1400's? Rufus mentions the enlightenment which was a few centuries later and makes more sense as a liberal time.

The Enlightenment was the flower that bloomed from the stem of the Rennaissance. Today we have gone farther still, and instead of burgeoning scientists and philosophers pioneering new ideas whose publications could get them imprisoned, exiled, or killed, those teachings are now every day cirriculum for school children.

That is the point. Society HAS continued to become more liberal in the modern american political sense over the last few hundred years. And yet the Holocaust happened less than a century ago, as have numerous other atrocities. Hell, what about the war Obama has us in now? He gets plenty of support from liberals. Gay marriage is enacted in many states, we have universal suffrage, social welfare system, the whole bit. Does that mean our middle eastern wars and growing wealth disparity are progressing things? You tell me.

[KevinNYC]

Hell, what about the war Obama has us in now?

Elaborate.

[Akrazotile]

Elaborate.

[KevinNYC]

Not really an elaboration is it?

Anyway, I was just trying to bait into explaining how the Taliban or Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula should be embraced by all followers of the Enlightenment.