What Is Social Liberalism?

Robert said:

RL: You have to at the very least support Social Liberalism. Tulio: Do you mean Liberalism? Did you mean Fiscal Liberalism?

I do not mean fiscal liberalism at all. The heck with that. In most of the world, classic liberalism means neoliberalism or laissez faire economics. However, here in the US the left wing of the Democratic Party somehow ended up getting called liberals. Somehow out of all of this, the term Social Liberalism arose as an economic system. Bottom line is that Liberalism means something different in the US than it does in most of the rest of the world. Social Liberalism is a confusing term, but this is what the liberals in the US push. In terms of economics, it means ideally the sort of economics and politics that liberal Democrats push – the New Deal, the Great Society and all of that. Pretty much Keynesian regulated capitalism with a good safety net. They just happen to call that economic system Social Liberalism. There is a similar system in Canada called something else but it is more leftwing. Both of them are headed away from the center towards Social Democracy, but Social Liberalism is nowhere near Social Democracy, it’s just headed in that direction. Social Democracy is a lot more Left than Social Liberalism.

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18 thoughts on “What Is Social Liberalism?”

  1. So some redneck posters on Facebook were saying kids should have to join the army to pay for college. What would be the alt left’s position on this?

    1. The two primary reasons for someone joining the US military is money for college or to pay off student loan debts. It’s been this way since the US got rid of the draft and went to an all volunteer military.
      I do favor everyone being required to perform some sort of national service, not necessarily military and oddly, considering my mostly left Democratic politics, I favor bringing back the draft. Our adventure in Iraq shifted my view about the all volunteer military. It’s just too easy for the military to be misused if 95% of the populace has no skin in the game and no threat of ever having any.

      1. Iv’e always wondered if opposition to Vietnam was about idealism or about cowardice. In other words, they were just afraid to die. That’s why they were so pissed off and into all this anti-war stuff.
        OK, where was the anti-war movement during Iraq? It was very small, and there was no real peace music, nothing like in the 60s, no counter-culture etc…

        1. There was no draft during Iraq and I wouldn’t call not wanting to die in Vietnam cowardice. The Vietnam war was no where near the black and white issue that WW 2 was.

    2. The AltLeft isn’t worth a damn if it doesn’t oppose imperialism. Why must service in an army that acts as the fist of imperialism be necessary for social advancement?

  2. You have to see COMBAT on active duty to get the GI Bill of Rights, if I remember correctly.
    Recruiters will tell you anything to get you in Basic.

  3. JASON You yourself were in the army in Korea, if I am following the excerpts of your life with any comprehension.
    During the war I was in Kuwait, not Iraq. But I can tell you it was a gigantic waste of tax money, lives and resources. Nothing was accomplished, really.
    The place was a sandpit before we entered and is now a sandpit selling its oil to Russia.
    If you serve Active Duty I think there is some college money but only for a certain number of credits.
    I joined the National Guard under the pretense I would receive college money. No. There are many clauses.
    Recruiters will SAY ANYTHING to get people signed up. They know the truth-that during wartime most kids who planned on being army engineers will end up in infantry.
    Not that I am anti-military or a Chicken hawk or Imperialistic (Its a waste of tax money trying to inculcate peasants in foreign lands to systems like democracy).

  4. Draft was removed so that the children of upper-class WASPS or Jew liberals would not be slaughtered and their influential parents ignite massive boycotts/protests against questionable wars.
    Officers and CO’s also complain that “college boys question everything” when they are in combat and make lousy soldiers when stupid orders are issued.
    Voluntary armies consisting of white rural kids from small towns in Idaho, ghetto blacks from Watts, Latinos from barrios and some foreigners seeking citizenship really will not complain. None of their fathers are partners in media law or ad agency firms or professors at colleges or think tanks.
    Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on for 15 years because no massive waves of protests by middle to upper-middle-class people against it occurred. Nobody really cared if “hicks” and “cholos” and “bros” who never saw a college campus anyhow fight an unpopular war.

    1. Yeah, that’s my point in a comment further up. Where was the 60s style protests to Iraq? They didn’t happen. Possibly the only thing which happened was toward the end of the 2000s, mop long hairstyles came back into fashion (and now they’re going out back in favor of square 90s haircuts).

    1. Well, obviously it worked, but now as you say, so called “white trash” (not meaning in offensive way), blacks, Latinos etc.. are now America’s fighting force, and these same groups are put down (especially the whites due to PC) as being vulgar, stupid, repulsive in our media.

      1. Look how Mad Magazine recently made fun of whites in thier magazine with “white trash funeral”. Very funny, but the magazine wouldn’t do the same with NAMS. So who runs the magazine?

  5. Today’s military is a legion of mercenary types who do not care if they are defending Philippines from China or whoever.
    They are not serving because they believe in American values or principles but simply to get a paycheck.
    Many are now foreigners seeking citizenship. Like the days of the Roman Legion.

  6. Most of my adult life I have believed that some form of risky service to society should be a condition of citizenship. It shouldn’t necessarily be military; making a career of fire-fighting, for example, is pretty much a guarantee of dying younger.
    For a service to qualify as grounds for citizenship there should be objective statistical measure of the risks and the task should be protective in effect. A system that knights entertainers for being entertainers is badly flawed.
    This being the run up to a presidential election I read a lot of quotes about American principles and values. Different persons have different values.
    The army that fought the Indian Wars consisted mainly of Germans, Irish and (in segregated units) Blacks. The core of the army that fought in Viet Nam had a very Southern tone, but included many foreigners.

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