(01-20-2020, 09:20 PM)jj82284 Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 07:06 PM)mikesez Wrote: That's a BS over-simplification of the political spectrum.

everyone agrees that the fundamental purpose of government is to organize a national defense.
The classical liberals added that the government should protect life liberty and property for everyone. They were reacting against slavery, serfdom, and the guild system.
After the classical liberals defeated all of those systems, you see the emergence of the progressives, who say that the government should do things that improve people's lives but that the private sector cannot or will not do. The progressives were never about taking rights away from anyone, or policing free speech. They just want more of your money, but it's not as if the classical liberals were going to let you keep it all anyway. That's why a two-axis political spectrum, where one axis is about money and the other access is about authority, becomes a lot more informative.

That's a childish denial of reality.  Progressivism is absolutely about stripping away the rights of groups you dont like to take their stuff.  

As you move to the left of anarchism and establish the state, it's TRUE that there is some form of compulsory taxation.  The question is to what end.  The constitutional republican/limited government proposition is that we erect the state to defend the inalienable rights of citizens through both domestic and foreign policy.  Progressivism postulates that freedom of the populace should be subjugated to the whims of the "disinterested experts" in the state that regulate every aspect of our lives.  The totality of the 20th century demonstrated the inherent flaws in this system.  

As for policing free speech, they dont even try to hide it anymore.  On college campuses across the country they are advocating that the first amendment is dangerous, you have armed thugs roaming the streets backed by the mainstream media, you have converted efforts from social media platforms to censor speech while claiming the legal protection of public platforms.  

Your denial of the realities of progressivism illustrates the consequence of their outright supremacy in education popular culture and news media.  

When Mussolini founded the first fascist government FDR sent his brain trust to study what he determined was the next iteration of progressivism "everything inside the state and nothing without it."  He implemented a lot of the basic platforms and laid the foundation for government expansion at a near exponential level.  

As for the political spectrum, the perpendicular axis model is based on the flawed assumption, which you share, that the left has something to do with libertarianism.  That's not true.  There is a difference between a dogmatic enforcement of counter culture as opposed to elevating individual freedom.  For example, as a libertarian it makes sense to say u can marry who you want.  That's wholly different to empowering the state to force a Baker or photographer to violate their religious belief system.  As a libertarian it makes sense that you believe in allowing anyone from any race creed or color participate in the economy.  It's another to enforce racial quotas from a centrally planned state to force equal outcomes or representation.  

The only meaningful way to group political ideologies is based on the role of the state and individual liberty.  That is a predictor of economic and foreign policy.

You're conflating socialism and progressivism. Socialists are materialists and they view control of capital as the central question.  Progressives care more about the quality of life.  Socialists would accuse progressives of putting a band-aid on a corrupt and doomed system, and the progressives reply, it's not that bad, a bandaid is all it needs.
You're also not on firm ground bringing in a guy like Mussolini to the discussion because Italy didn't really pass through a classically liberal state. Germany did, briefly, but the 1919 treaty of Versailles and the abdication gutted everything that held them together and in order. The central question of the Weimars was how to deal with France and Belgium's demands for vengeance, not what role government should play in daily life.

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