Who's more authoritarian, liberals, or conservatives?

Factfinder said:

@MayCaesar

You make a good point as well. My response focused on the liberal aspect as I'm sure they'd like to steer their party away from wokeism and back to traditional liberal values. And the woke agenda was what I thought @ZeusAres42 centered his post on.

The conservative side are pretty united against the woke movement but have their issues with staunch hard right maga followers who've taken their party to the extreme in other ways. Mainly a cult like belief Trump does no wrong.

Sure both sides could right their ships but the potential progress that could have been made instead will be delayed. 

MichaelElpers said:

@MayCaesar

I consider each stance individually, I just understand more often I agree with traditional conservative stances. 
 I wouldnt put myself in specific political categories other than to generically show where I typically would stand. I have more liberaterian stances then most conservatives.

I think Elon is awesome. Seems to someone that truly wants to advance humanity best interests and is succeeding. Go to mars

MayCaesar said:

Factfinder said:

@MayCaesar

I think that these issues are a logical conclusion to their fundamental values. Both parties are fundamentally collectivist, and now they are starting to show their true colors. Ayn Rand warned that it would come to this: it is impossible to base one's political platform on collectivistic values and not have it eventually get out of control.

That all may very well be true to some extent. But I might interpret them in a slightly different way. For instance the 'true colors' you bring up are not representative of the collective but rather of individuals who use the party of their choice because it aligned closer to their more extreme views. We live in an imperfect world so there are not going to be any perfect solutions for self governing as a society and culture. We must have a collective perspective when it comes to dealing with issues of crime and justice, because of our imperfection as a species we need mutual policing. We must collectively come to some agreements on how we as a society and as individuals can act towards one another and remain a civilized people. Sure the checks and balances get distorted at times but it's worth the effort to reign them in if and when possible. Furthermore both parties have room for individual rights and needs in their own ways on their perspective platforms. The problem is we can't make it a constitutional issue in every case. We just seem to be at a point in time where we're lacking the knowledge and wisdom of true leadership.    

The world needs a new political movement, one that promotes individual fulfillment and happiness, rather than the old "All for One, and One for All" adage. The old ones are unlikely to be reformed given how much historical, economical and political baggage they have. It is strange that we are expecting General Artificial Intelligence soon, yet are clinging to the same forms of political organization as 2,500 years ago.

I wouldn't be so quick to discard our political system even when you consider the political baggage. I look at it much the same way as the acquiescence of knowledge over time. Eventually no matter how absurd new information appears when first discovered, as it's tried and tested that once absurd notion becomes fact and accepted, even common knowledge. Or it's tossed as the garbage it was but over all, generally speaking building on knowledge only happens if we do not give up on what we know and start all over again. In a similar way, over the centuries we've made progress in reforming governments in more humane and altruistic directions. Some forms have been tossed, others have been refined and built upon. I do not think the U.S. and some other governments around the world need a political complete restructuring. What is needed most in my opinion is an injection of leadership qualities. Perhaps we as a people can start electing not simply according to party affiliation; but for the people who make sound arguments and proposals and who are not defensive in the face of criticism but those who learn from it? Without that I don't see much good in starting all over. 

I do not think that this is how it works. Society as a whole does not develop any kind of collective perspective, and if you look at the history of every country in human history, it always originated with a small number of people claiming the right to decide how everyone else should live, and then forcing their views on everyone else. There is no such thing as "consent of the governed", or "the good of the collective", terms that are far too commonly used in philosophical discussions. Only two people can develop a consensus and sign a voluntary contract, and a group of multiple people would have everyone sign a voluntary contract with every other member of the group. But one cannot sign a contract with 340 million people.
To some extent authoritarianism in the political organization of a country is inevitable. But it is going to be made much worse if the philosophical underpinnings of the country explicitly endorse it.

I do not think that the political system in the US needs to be demolished and rebuilt from the grounds up. I was talking specifically about a new political movement, that of people who recognize the value of the individual autonomy and do not believe that the government has the right to interfere in people's private affairs beyond what is needed to prevent violent and property crimes. The Democratic and the Republican party both approach the governing from the perspective of, "What would benefit our voters the most?" There are things that benefit someone at the expense of someone else's freedom, and those things are fair game from these parties' perspective.

MayCaesar said:

@Factfinder

I meant the idea of the "collective perspective". The consensus that democratic governmental bodies develop is fundamentally different from the consensus that, say, the board of directors of a hedge fund develops, for the latter is explicitly agreed upon by every employee, partner or investor of the company via the contract they signed when interacting with the company, while the former is forced on the population. The fact that the population gets to vote for a few of the decision-makers does not retract from the fact that, at the bottom, it is not asked for consent. In simple terms, the government is a tyrant. If you disagree, ask yourself what happens if you choose to reject the Bill of Rights and offer its alternative - what are the consequences of such choice? Are they the same as the consequences of, say, rejecting the EULA of a software publisher?

The difference between voluntary and coercive interaction is that in the former case the party the interaction is offered to has the option to walk away with no legal/physical consequences, while in the latter it does not. Voluntary interaction is this: "I offer you an apple and want a pear back. If you agree, great. If you disagree, great." Coercive interaction is this: "Here is an apple, and I will take that pear, thanks. If you resist, then I will beat you down." Governments as they exist nowadays fundamentally function along the lines of the latter.

Sure, this is not Russia or China. But it is interesting that not being Russia or China is seem as overcoming some kind of a high bar. Michael Malice puts it very well: the vast majority of human interactions are voluntary, and the vast majority of coercive interactions involve the government. This suggests that a) humans are very much capable of deciding for themselves how to interact with others and do not need the government to tell them how to do so, and that b) the government gets involved in far more than it should be allowed to. Because these points are not recognized by any major political movement, the system expectedly gradually descends into more and more authoritarianism. Nowadays in the US people get fined for selling hot dogs on their own yards, and the tax code is so complicated, corporations pay more to lawyers hired to do the tax paperwork than the taxes themselves.

My point is simply that nobody should be surprised that things are as lousy as they are politics-wise. That Trump and Biden are the presidential candidates. That the job market is in paralysis. This is the natural outcome of a system built on outdated principles and never revised - and by "system" I do not mean as much this particular form of governance, as how people at large think.

As I mentioned in some other discussion, ultimately freedom does not lie in any particular political system, but in one's mind. I have always felt extremely free anywhere, even in totalitarian dystopias like in Belarus or Uzbekistan. The sense of my full agency and control over my life is too overpowering to be swayed by some obese tyrants. And if I have any philosophical role in this world, it is to encourage other people to acknowledge their own agency and control over their lives. If enough people do that, the movement I mentioned will appear naturally. Tyrants can only control people who believe that they are weak and powerless; a society of individuals who realize that their personal power would lead to very different people getting into the government. Maybe one day I will hear the American president say, "Do not ask what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for yourself". Here is hoping.