Libel...irism...ocracy

I wonder about Liberalism. I believe I am liberal in my general outlook. But I guess it depends how you define liberal. I have such simple definitions, I think. I like simple, stops me getting confused and then those raging headaches were I wake up several days later in another country with more money than I started out with and a distinct smell of fine rum in the air. But anyway, liberalism...

I equate liberalism with tolerance. There you go, nice and simple. I feel liberal (and almost certainly self righteous with a delightful scent under my nose) because I feel tolerant towards others. Granted it is not always my first thought, sometimes my first thought is definitely not liberal. But once my liberal, logic circuits kick in I definitely feel more liberal after that.

So I am a little more tolerant of people saying things that might seem unacceptable or doing things that might seem unacceptable according to various standards on what is acceptable or not depending upon which century you were dragged up in or, in JRMs case, which time portal you stepped through.

There clearly have to be limits. And we test those as a society and agree what is acceptable, where the boundaries are and then set the law accordingly. Being liberal has a certain tendency towards pushing the boundaries just a little further all the time. A bot like a cricket match where the batman keeps getting fours and sixes so we move the rope past where he/she has been hitting the ball. That's a kind of liberalism for cricket.

But what are we supposed to do when the illiberal people step inside our nice cosy liberalness and start using liberalism against us. I guess rather than beat the living crap out of them, which does not seem so liberal and anyway kind of proves the point they were trying to make anyway. What we should do is engage them in discourse and try to educate them in the errors of their ways and that liberalism is a far better way forward for them so they should embrace it and sing the good liberal songs of olde.

Although that does sound like a cult and that does not sound so liberal. Anyway if we try to make a non liberal more liberal that sounds rather coercive and that doesn't sound very liberal either. Maybe if we just turn our collective backs on them they will go away. But then maybe not.

I guess it is like extreme political doctrines. They move further and further to left or right and then at a given point determine that they are supreme and have a mandate from the people to take absolute power and, having been given absolute power their is no point in holding elections any more as the people have spoken and therefore they now have what they asked for.

Bit like, say, Brexit. The people were asked what they wanted and then having made a decision they were told that they cannot have a rethink about it and so a bit tough if it was not quite what it sounded like it was going to be because democratic decisions like that happen only once and after that there is no democracy. It's a one way thing.

There you go. So that's liberalism. It's turning your back on people who invade the liberal space, putting your fingers in your ears and singing lalalala interspersed with 'I can't hear you' until the illiberalism that's spoiling your day moves on to somebody else. And democracy is about getting to have a say once but once only after which there is no choice and you get what you signed up for, even if that is the curtailment of democratic process.

Crikey, this is all very easy/complex isn't it. I think I'll go have a lie down now.