Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Well, Whaddyaknow?

I guess this was inevitable: Turns out there is a symmetrical blog to NLT: NoRightTurn.

Should we get together for a convention? Maybe they need to start the Koorbhsa Center (at Antioch College, no less. Oh wait. . .)

CORRECTION (sort of): Turns out this is a site in New Zealand. Now, in New Zealand, the right-leaning, free market, limited government party is the Liberal Party. Which means that, as was the case in the Soviet Union where "conservative" meant you were a Stalinist, in the New Zealand context, No Right Turn might actually mean don’t turn to socialism. Which would make the site our mirror image, not our ideological symmetrical image.

On closer inspection, the answer turns out to be. . . No.

Can you tell I’m taking the day off from my regular work?

Discussions - 3 Comments

Turns out this is a site in New Zealand. Now, in New Zealand, the right-leaning, free market, limited government party is the Liberal Party

Which is perfectly understandable if you know the difference between a classical and social liberal.

Well a good deal of Classical Liberals are probably also socially liberal(depending on what you mean by that)...some people might call them libertarians.... and a good deal of social conservatives openly claim to be socialists...a la Daniel Bell, and his: Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.

Well a good deal of Classical Liberals are probably also socially liberal(depending on what you mean by that)

Yes. I was using it in the European sense of not just liberalism about people's private lives, but also a commitment to state provision of education, health, and welfare to insure (and yes, that should be an "i" there - these things are really just insurance policies against the vagaries of fortune) everyone's freedom.

Social liberalism is pretty much the default political setting in NZ. While our two main parties take right or left wing positions on it (less state provision or more), you need to go to the extreme right of our political spectrum to find people who argue against it. As for Libertarians, our local ones get fewer votes than the single-issue "Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party" (which advocates for more liberal drug laws).

(As for the other sense of "social liberal", we've found out the hard way that most of our local classical liberals are just good old fashioned moral authoritarians on that front..)

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