Could I be considered to be, to some extent, a classical liberal?

[Хahar 🤔]

Gully seems to think so:

Fezzy
AH Duke
BRTD
Htmldon
Boris
sensei
Earl AW
NDN
Xahar
The Mikado

Of course That's "liberal" in the more classical sense. Conservative too. BRTD is an anomoly.

So I'm a classical liberal?

Unless he's misunderstanding classical liberalism, it must be liberal at the top because I'm basically a textbook classical liberal.

No a classical liberal is someone who believes in the value of education as the receiving of knowledge rather than of social or economic status or advantages. You are easily one of the most conservative people on the board. Liberalism no matter what variety, has always been associated with a group known as "the intellectuals"

<Ignore this post>

I'm inclined to agree. There is much in classical liberalism that is deeply appealing to me. I do support the great liberal goal of equality of ability, and a few other things. Of course, I am still a socialist, though not a particularly dogmatic one.

[Albus Dumbledore]

you're a commie so no.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

you're a commie so no.

[Eraserhead]

Very BRTD.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Very BRTD.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think you'd have a REALLY hard time with classic liberalism... since it really is largely an economic ideology. As socialist economic theory is quite a way from it.

[minionofmidas]

A pre-classical liberal, is more like it.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Actually I think Lewis is right here:

A pre-classical liberal, is more like it.

Most of the classical liberals (like the German rebels of 1848) were academics, civil servants, various other intellectual professionals etc. Their political and social views were mostly shaped to oppose Reactionary Monarchism and often inspired by romanticism (thus the nationalism). If you take those elements, very peculiar to their time, away then you are a classical liberal of a sort, at least more so than Ron Paul.

[Verily]

Classical liberalism is not generally speaking, a living ideology. It was focused on the rights of the small-scale industrialist and other economic factors during the Industrial Revolution to basically do whatever they wanted. Classical liberals were also strongly pro-free trade because they wanted to greatly increase industrial exports (whereas their conservative counterparts thought wars to open markets were wasteful). Classical liberals did tend to be more humanitarian than conservatives, but only in the abstract sense of donating to and supporting charitable organizations; conservatives were more inclined to believe that the government should provide some relief for the poor.

So, no, you are not remotely a classical liberal, at least in the British sense that I would call the most pure. (Others will disagree and say that German liberal-nationalism is closer to classical liberalism; we will agree to disagree.)

[Bay Ridge, Bklyn! Born and Bred]

No, but you will be once you hit puberty and again when you have a job and start paying federal taxes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

conservatives were more inclined to believe that the government should provide some relief for the poor.

True.

The hated "New Poor Law", for example, was very much the work of classical liberals.

[tik 🪀✨]

Very BRTD.

My thoughts exactly. We need a single word for that that isn't his name with a suffix.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That idiot thinks I'm conservative so what do you expect? Just ignore that dumbass who always spews moronic crap.

[Хahar 🤔]

That idiot thinks I'm conservative so what do you expect? Just ignore that dumbass who always spews moronic crap.

[Smid]

You talk about equality, but you need to consider what equality is...

There is no such thing as equality of ability - some are naturally more gifted than others. Even when you look at your US Olympic team, comprised of highly talented individuals, you have those who are talented swimmers and those who are talented runners. Even though both the swimmer and the runner are equally talented, in a foot race between the two, the runner will still win.

Therefore, as Milton Friedman pointed out, equality of outcomes and equality of opportunity are two very different things. The only way that swimmer could finish the foot race at the same time (and thus achieve the same outcome) as the runner, would be if his starting line was 10 meters from the finish line, whereas the runner was starting 100m out. Therefore, the only way to achieve equality of outcomes is through inequality of opportunity - you literally need to give one person an unfair advantage and discriminate against the more talented one in order to allow both to achieve the same amount.

A classical liberal believes in equality of opportunity - that's why education is so important to them - because it removes unfair advantages and allows people to achieve to the best of their unequal abilities. You focus more on equality of outcome, than equality of opportunity, which is why you are not a classical liberal.

I believe it was your former President Grant who said "you can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong." Attempting to force equal outcomes weakens the strong by preventing them from achieving their potential.

While the left often talk about collectives, what they fail to realise is that the free market is really a collective - it is society as a whole determining the values of goods and services. In a free market, goods and services are priced according to the values of people offering them and the people desiring them. This includes services and some services are based on abilities. Therefore, to attempt to create equality of outcomes not only leads to unfair treatment of people with greater abilities, but it also disregards societal values by ascribing different values based on the government's opinion.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

you're a commie so no.