I’m pro-choice on damn near everything: abortion rights, marry as many people of whatever sex as you like, or abstain from marriage, keep a stockpile of LSD and marijuana in your freezer, invite people over for kinky sex in your dungeon, etc. Nearly all of those are considered liberal positions.
I am against laws and regulations protecting people from themselves, ranging from helmet laws for motorcycle riders to laws saying you need to be protected from the chemical imbalances in your brain that might keep you from realizing you need to be on your psychiatric medication. I am also against civil jurisprudential trajectory holding parties liable for not adequately protecting people from themselves, things like lawsuits suing people for having a cactus on their lawn that someone else kicks or making a butcher knife that doesn’t have a blade guard to keep you from slicing your own fingers off when you use it, etc, and I’d support laws that restrict those kinds of liabilities. Surprising to me is that the right to refuse psychiatric treatment is not conceived of as a basic civil liberties issue by liberals but it isn’t, and hence nearly all of these are considered conservative positions.
Economically I am against knee-jerk redistributivist “solutions” to the fairness problems inherent in the free market. I don’t know if you’d consider that liberal or conservative (the liberals would object to their economics being described as knee-jerk pseudo-solutions while the conservatives would have issue with the notion that there are fairness problems with the free market). Sometimes I support conservative positions in economic matters, sometimes liberal ones, sometimes neither. I prefer tax incentives and credits to help the economically disadvantaged (down the level where they aren’t paying taxes sufficient to benefit from credits) rather than addictive handouts that are taken away the moment you try to become marginally economically independent, and that’s basically conservative. I think the Citizens United decision was stupid and consider that the question of whether corporations should be treated as if they were people needs to be decided on a context-by-context basis and that there’s no reason whatsoever to extend the right to free speech to a corporation, especially when speech is held to extent to financial donations. That’s mostly liberal. I don’t like to see high taxes on anyone while they are living (conservative) but I would not mind confiscatory-level taxes at death — I do not think people have an inherent right to inherit from their family and inheritance is the primary means by which people have an unequal start. I’d assume that support for such a tax is considered liberal and perhaps extreme.
In practice I recognize that full authority cannot immediately and suddenly be vested in everyone without dire consequences but in principle I would like to see every law from Constitutional amendment down to village ordinance voted upon by the citizens, NOT by the elected politicians, and I’d like to see politicians’ roles stripped to that of position-espousers, debaters, cheerleaders for this or that position or law. The internet would facilitate everyone being included in the decision-making process. Similarly, I not only support the 2nd amendment right to bear arms, I think each person ought to have whatever weapons on whatever scale would make them feel safe from liberty infringement from the government, up to and including their own personal thermonuclear arsenal. I think these would be characterized as conservative ideas but that’s not entirely obvious any more. They don’t seem particularly liberal.
Internationally, I want to see a body akin in general function (if not literally THE) United Nations operating as a bicameral body modeled on the US government, with no favored nations owning permanent authoritative positions and instead a Senate with each nation having a vote and a House of Representatives with each xxx citizens having an elected representative. Whether it operate by US traditions or parliamentary procedure, it should be the governing body of the damn planet. It should be democratic and egalitarian in principle and in practice. I’d definitely call that liberal.
All persons that are under the crown are subjects of said crown.
Getting money for nowt is definitely attractive for a certain type of person, and if they live at home, can sponge off their parents as well.
Better than getting an education and travelling hours to work every day ( as I did ).
BTW, I did exclude those that for whatever reason can’t move- family commitments would be included.
However, many thousands of people all over the world leave their families in search of work overseas, why should the British be different?
I worked with many Fillipina nurses that did not see their children for more than a few weeks a year.
I’m with you on some of your ideas.
However, if someone rides without a helmet etc, they should not expect anyone else to pick up the tab if it all goes wrong.
You’d like living in a “3rd world” country. However, if she ( or you ) couldn’t support herself, your daughter ( if you had one ) might have to become a prostitute.
Liberals probably support compulsory medication for the psychiatrically disturbed because they are terrified that they will be killed in a gun rampage, and don’t believe in having the means to protect themselves from such.