I consider myself a free trade, capitalist, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-gun supporter of traditional liberalism.
I am NOT a libertarian. I believe regulations are vital today more than ever. The LP loses me with their looney anti-Fed gold fetish too.
But I don’t share many positions dear to progressives. Gun control is right out as a nutty idea. Affirmative action, quotas, single payer health, political correctness, and equal outcome bother me immensely.
I’m voting for Obama, and I agree…liberal does not equal progressive, just as liberal (or progressive) doesn’t equal Democrat. People use those terms interchangeably, but they really aren’t.
Argh. This is a an impossible question because there’s no widely-held agreement ove what any political label means. As an example, you can ask people on this board what “Conservative” means. You’d be lucky to hit three posts before someone popped into say it meant racism, war, xenophobia, mass murder, rapine, economic rapine, evil rich people, etc.
Well, it doesn’t mean that to me. I have a hard time finding anyone who would fit that profile. At best, you can examine several factors:
(1) The stated platform of a labelled, identified political group. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens in the U.S. Different parties but same principle elsewhere.
(2) The historical voting patterns and ideas held by the above groups. There’s some argument, and a lot of bad history, over who held what ideas in the past. most groups are eager to disown their dirty laundry. I would say that Progressives are probably the least interested in even looking at this history, while the Libertarians are often the smuggest over how clean their history is… which is easy when you don’t have any. And let’s not forget that everybody likes to assume that their ideological ancestors would always agree with them.
(3) The interests and views of a general section of opinion. This would usually be at the highest level dividing society into liberals and conservatives - but note that these terms do not cross country borders, and sometimes don’t even fill a single country.
However, you can also look at he views of a relatively stable or identifable class. For example, the ideologies and voting patterns of upper-class New Englanders is a topic I find fairly interesting. In this area, too, people tend to view their ideological ancestors through their own prism.
There are no liberals or progressives any more, only true Americans and socialists.
My parents, now in their 80’s, were liberals back when liberals were a major voice in the Democratic party. Back when.
I’m a progressive, or as they say, I belong to the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. Nobody listens to us at all. We hold views that used to be called liberal.
I think the word liberal has become a term used solely by reactionary Republicans to insult everyone who doesn’t think like them. So, it’s useless now.
Those people are simply wrong. There are agreed-upon definitions for all commonly-used political labels. “Liberal” and “progressive” are not synonyms (although, admittedly, sometimes misused as such). A general encyclopedia will establish as much. A better choice would be a political dictionary.
Part of the confusion with the recent thread about progressive ideas that failed was not caused by the conflation of progressive and liberal. The original question was so poorly composed that some posters responded in light of the progressive era in US politics, some regarding modern American progressives, and some in terms of countries other than the US-- all valid responses to an interesting but badly-formed question.
I would agree with you. But they certainly don’t, and it’s not even a minority opinion on this board. In this particular case I don’t see why one defintion would inherently be favored over another.
Well, no. All these words have meant different things at different times and places. That’s the problem. The general dictionary is some editor’s mealy-mouthed view, not fact. An encyclopedia is basically the same.
If the majority here defined, say, copper as “the hard fibrous material that forms the main substance of the trunk or branches of a tree or shrub”, would that make it a good idea to ground a circuit with pine?
Failure to accept common definitions of words wastes time, just as failing to set up a debate question properly does. If someone is consistently refuses to use words as they are defined, that’s his problem. Yes, definitions vary depending on time, place and context. Encyclopedias and dictionaries reflect these variations, at least the major ones. As an example, see Wikipedia’s disambiguation page for “progressive”. Progressive - Wikipedia
My point is that I don’t really much evidence that there IS a common definition. There’s a set of connected ideas, but anot a definition. And the edfinition will change a little bit every year.
Yes, but take a look at that very page for Progressivism. That does not lend a lot of credence to the idea that Progressive has a single, clear definition. It’s different in every country and every period. Hence my answer: you look at the ideas associated with a certain trend or grouping, not trying to nail it down.
I think we agree that political terms tend to require more detailed definitions and greater disambiguation than, say, engineering terms. I think we agree further that political terms can be and often are grossly misused.
Yes, we agree again. I’ll point out that even words like “copper” and “wood” have multiple definitions. I’d say that it would help out a lot if the OP of a thread here took the time to point out context of the terms used. The failures of progressivism would have been a less messy if the OP had set out that, say, the Progressive Era was the context.
Although what exactly the labels mean is subject to debate, it’s important to acknowledge that words mean things. Progressive means favoring progress and things that are intended to bring about progress. Liberalism means being liberal, as in open to new ideas and generally letting people do what they want. It’s a pro-liberty ideology, whereas progressivism can be indifferent to individual liberties and still be progressivism. Liberalism can also be anti-progress, for example many people on the left are squeamish or outright opposed to progressive new technologies, like GM foods, or new energy technologies that aren’t green, like fracking.
I still wonder why the anti GMO is put in the column of things Liberals are against and not the conservatives, the polls I have seen shows that most liberals **and **conservatives are against it, I have to mention here that I do go for liberal ideas but I look at the science and I’m not worried to the levels many are on this subject. Unless we all are liberal, seeing more than 90 percent of agreement on branding GMO food in the stores has to include a whole mess of conservatives also in that poll.
I have also seen many reports from woo woo proponents that do report that conservatives, moderates and liberals are against GMO.
My conclusion is that this is bad, but it is general ignorance and NIMBY, not much politics.
Both of those are meaningless and circular definitions. Progress means different things to different people. So does liberty. Hell, I would say both major parties fundamentally value liberty. What that specifically means to them differs.
True but more specifically this question is applying the term to the role of government and they type of government we think we should have.
Certainly two self-described progressives (or liberals or conservatives or what have you) may disagree on a particular course of action but more broadly will agree that is it the government’s place to be involved (or not involved as the case may be) in particular aspects of the world.
I know. If you see the specific post I was replying to, you’ll see that the speaker distinguished the two. This is also why I frame my response in terms of values or connected ideas rather than trying tonail down definitions.
It would be false to say that Progressives hate liberty. However, it’ s not false to note that liberty has not really been their core focus; they don’t value it in the same way, or to the same degree, ad the two major parties.
I submit that liberal/conservative’s approach to “valuing liberty” is more rhetoric than reality.
Both are absolutely fine with restricting liberties and do so with regularity (e.g. opposition to SSM or affirmative action).
Progressives are merely realists about it and suggest that government does have an important role in regulating the society we live in. The devil is in the details of course but they are not pretending that “individual liberty” is foremost as a role for government.
In general progressives tend to be liberal minded so are closer to liberals in mindset to them than they are to conservatives.
It seems to me that ‘progressive’ was a term long out of fashion and use until recently, and the reason for its renaissance is because the right has squeezed out all the bile and invective they could get from ‘liberal.’ They needed a new hate term to provoke fear with.
I don’t see either term used with much precision. I’m not sure debating the difference has more than academic (= elitist, and or socialist) value.
I think ‘progressive’ is a great term as it represents the desire for progress in society. I think it couldn’t be more clear that one large segment of society would like to go backward and one would like to go forward, regardless of which path you actually feel is better.
To me “liberal” is a meaningless term that I associate with senile hippies and race-baiters whose hearts are in the right place but they are stuck in the 60’s and 70’s. To truly be progressive you need the courage to check your ideas against reality and refine or discard them if they’re wrong.