Free speech doesn’t apply to robots.

It will one day.

I just think Tories, in the main, are scat-munchers.

I believe in markets. But I also think large behemothic corps. are no better than large governments. I want the system to change. Radically.

I’m a progressive.

There are, after all, right wingers famous for increasing the power of the state as well.

There are, effectively, two axes, left and right (normally an axis about economic policies, where taxes should come from, property rights, etc) and liberty/authority.

Your “lefty” is, on that sort of scale, a left-wing authoritarian, and there’s no doubt these people exist, and I even said they post to LC. But there are many of us on the left that are distinctly not authoritarians, but our economics and social outlook would still be accepted, by most, as being left wing.

There is, and always has been, a liberal left. If you choose to say that in the first paragraph, then deny it in the subsequent ones, that’s up to you.

I believe in reducing the tax burden on the poorest, ensuring the wealthiest don’t have a billion llopholes to exploit and empowering the weakest to take part in society, all traditional liberal positions.

But all radically to the ‘left’ of the current centrist consensus of the duopoly that’s governed us for the last 60 years.

You seem, actually, to agree with most of this, but don’t see that many of those contributing to LC are of a very similar mindset. That there are those that aren’t is inevitable, it’s the nature of a diverse site: I want to persuade them of their errors, you merely want to bitch that they exist.

The overwhelming majority of those you bitch about are a lot more liberal on most issues than the current Govt, so while they’re not liberal enough, you can say that about virtually everything when you’re as committed to liberal/libertarianism as most of us commenting here are.

“Liberal” still means, outside america, classical liberals, which is why socialists spit at economic freedom as “neoliberalism”. Americans, yes, use “liberal” as a synonym for socialism, but there is no reason to think that we outside American must tolerate the theft of the word.

So, you can’t talk, outside the US, about “liberal-left”. It would mean, people who seek to empower the indivudual against the state and seek to disempower the individual and impose state authority. It’s oxmoronic. There is not, and cannot be, a “liberal left”. It’s at best a deliberate smokescreen and at worst a deliberate attempt to steal the word.

So, liberals must cling onto the word, instead of settling for the clumsy “libertarian”. Come to that, perhaps it’s time we took back the term “left” as well, and forced the “left” into admitting what they are; a bunch of power-seeking authoritarians, wise enough neither to leave well alone that which ain’t broke, nor to change anything for the better.

“Authoritarian Conspiracy” would be an honest banner.

“creating a new liberal-left alliance”. For the comprehension challenged, that means the objective is to try and get left wingers and liberals talking about issues, and finding those they agree on. There are some authoritarian lefties, and some rightish liberals, but most of the contributors are both leftish and liberal.

Not all liberals are left wing, not all left wingers are liberal, LC’s core audience is those that are both left wing and liberal, but there’ll always be some overlap.

As you self describe as a Tory (instead of a Conservative, which has a different meaning the two aren’t synonyms), it means you are neither left wing nor liberal, thus the site isn’t for you. Bitching about how much it isn’t for you doesn’t really get you anywhere.

As I am both, with greater emphasis on the liberal bit, I like to use it to reach out to those who ought to be more properly liberal than they are. That I’m too lazy to do enough of it is a different point entirely.

@Charlotte: I’m pretty sure that everyone with posting access to the site is ‘liberal’ in at least one of the three main areas that matter within the term, although some are distinctly illiberal at times in their approach to dogmatic positions—but then, the same can be said to me on some issues.

Ha, that amused me. I think you’ll find that more prominence only comes from greater publicity rather than people who already know about you mocking your site.

“it’s a website by and for lefties”

Yes, we know. So call it ‘Lefty Conspiracy’ and you won’t get people laughing at your non-existent liberal credentials.

oh, and another relevant post:
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/12/04/dealing-with-right-wing-trolls/

DK: You know damn well that you can say anything that you want on my blog.

I don’t really like addressing you Mounsey – a guy who posts pictures of bloggers to comment on their ‘Asian features – but if someone writes on their blogs about the sexual fantasies they have about Polly Toynbee, then that’s a pretty high bar you’ve set for idiocy. Ergo, it’s unlikely you’ll get commenters who are bigger fuckwits than you – which is why there’s little reason for you to delete anything on your blog.

But please feel free to carry on talking about LC – it just makes the site more prominent. If LFAT, Stu, DK, newmania etc never appeared there ever again it would be no skin off my back – it’s a website by and for lefties. Not right-wing sychophants.