“if there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
That’s literally every system.
Comment on Funny, those guys don't usually agree on that much
Neon@lemmy.world 5 months agoThat’s absolutely not what it means
In the very closest definition, liberal means “if there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
liberal more broadly is just as simple: “if it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do it”
I mean, what do you think a “liberal democracy” is? The majority of Europe is made up of liberal democracies while also being social-democratic. France is a liberal democracy despite being heavily unionized and having huge welfare. How does that work?
It works because that’s not what liberal means.
Socially-Liberal, for example, is when you are liberal (freedom-loving / diversity-loving) in social aspects. You support gay marriages, you support freedom of religion, you support cultural diversity. Other Examples include religiously-liberal, culturally-liberal, or even politically liberal (you support the right to different political opinions than yours)
What comes closest to what you think it is is economically-liberal. Which essentially says that “as long as it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do what you want economically”. But even that isn’t what you mean. Is Pollution and accelerating Climate change harming me and therefore not protected under liberalism? yes, says the absolute majority of liberals.
Is lobbying harming me by making my Voice less weighted? Yes, say a lot of us.
So not even economically-liberal is a good term to describe what you mean.
I don’t know, what a good term for it is. But it isn’t Liberal. So please, for the love of god, stop misusing it. Words have meaning. Invent a new one if you have to, they all began that way anyways.
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Neon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It isn’t / wasn’t
There are/were a lot of systems where you need to be granted a privilege in order to do something.
And just as many where the laws aren’t defined so anything can be laid out as illegal
Objection@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
There are/were a lot of systems where you need to be granted a privilege in order to do something.
Meaning there’s a law against doing it without said privilege.
“If there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
Even in liberalism, what you said is still the case. I need to be granted the privilege of a driver’s license to drive a car, I need the privilege of a medical license to practice medicine, etc. You’re talking nonsense.
And just as many where the laws aren’t defined so anything can be laid out as illegal
Such as?
Neon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is systems where everything is illegal by default and laws give you privileges to do something.
Or even worse where the mood of a person is the law.
- Such as the new Russian law about discrediting the army.
Anything can be interpreted into that law
sukhmel@programming.dev 5 months ago
The problem here is that in the US it means a very specific thing, while in Europe it means another specific thing. I think it gets mentioned every other time when this holywar reappears in comments
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_Europe …wikipedia.org/…/Liberalism_in_the_United_States …wikipedia.org/…/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_…
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Which would be fine except the fucking Europeans keep insisting the American definition is WRONG and refuse to use it, making communication very difficult.