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Let's call them Progressives instead of "Liberals"

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Bogomilist

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I think we all should stop using the word "liberal" to describe leftists in America, as it has positive connotations from the classical meaning of the word. Their ilk are willing to use the word "progressive" themselves, so we ought to use that as well. Progressivism when the term was coined means the same as it does today. Many conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh have already adopted the usage of the word progressive over the word liberal. In terms of epistemology, progressive is a more accurate concept than the anti-concept that is the modern usage of the word liberal. Let us break our habit of calling them liberals, and our propaganda will be more effective.

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I realize that among ourselves we might as well use whatever sounds nastiest, but when actually engaging someone neutral who has not really made up their mind yet, it's probably not the best idea to jump right into identifying Obama, for instance, as a socialist or a statist. Such loaded terminology can easily sidetrack a conversation, so sometimes it's best to stick with "neutral" language.

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But why should we call them “progressives”? That is no more accurate than “liberal”. What is progressive about them? It cannot be denied that that ideology contains within it the environmentalist movement, and at the same time, interventionist and socialist policies cause poverty and stunt or reverse technological development, then aren't they “regressive”?

Given our support for the application of reason to the problem of survival and flourishing, and its corresponding economic policy of laissez-faire, then aren't we the ultra-progressive liberals?

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I realize that among ourselves we might as well use whatever sounds nastiest, but when actually engaging someone neutral who has not really made up their mind yet, it's probably not the best idea to jump right into identifying Obama, for instance, as a socialist or a statist. Such loaded terminology can easily sidetrack a conversation, so sometimes it's best to stick with "neutral" language.

You have a point when it comes to those people, but as far as I am concerned about Obama, I will call him a statist, because that is what is he is. If they want to disagree I am already well-prepared to explain why I designate him as such. Anyone that calls Obama a socialist just loses my attention however because he is not a socialist by definition, thats just retardo hyperbole that the Republicans have been using for way too long and on way too many people it does not apply to.

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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Many liberals and moderates already label themselves as progressives. Using this less inflammatory language could make it easier to attract potential converts. Though again in private I refer to them by many colorful and explicit names, I would never do so in my daily business. Besides calling them “Progressives”, rather than commie fucks, won’t get you dismissed nearly as quickly during ones day to day conversations.

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The terms “industrialist,” “modernist,” “progressive,” “liberal,” and “radical” described advocates of laissez-faire and the Enlightenment philosophy in the 18th and 19th centuries, well before the socialists took it at the turn of the century. See for example, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind by the French Physiocrat Marquis de Condorcet, and the French classical liberal journal Le Censeur published by Charles Dunoyer, Charles Comte, and Augustin Thierry.

It was actually the statists, that is the Ancien Régime, the monarchists, the aristocracy and nobility, the church and clergy, the army and military class, the privileged guilds and merchants, and the mercantilists who were called “conservatives” and “reactionaries” for supporting hindrances to economic and scientific progress and for opposing the development of natural rights and liberty, which the liberals recognized as inextricably linked with economic and scientific progress.

The problem is that, in America, there was an aversion to the term “socialism,” so rather than calling themselves “social democrats,” which is what they call themselves pretty much everywhere else, they took the terms “liberal” and “progressive” from the dialectical Marxian idea (though it did not originate with him, but he applied to to socialism) that history moves in evolutionary stages from lower and less perfect stages to higher and more perfect ones. There prevails in the course of human history an inevitable tendency toward progress and improvement. Each later stage of human affairs is, by virtue of its being a later stage, also a higher and better stage. Progress toward socialism is inevitable, and therefore this by itself proves it is a more perfect state of human affairs, and that supporters of this evolution are therefore “progressives.” Anyone who opposes this is therefore “reactionary” seeking to oppose and delay the final victory of all social progress (i.e. socialism), and therefore automatically wrong, no debate being needed. Unless you agree with that, I don't recommend conceding that term to them.

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