…cause we don’t like things the way they are, and the only goal of the libs appears to be prevent any sort of progress. Maybe we are allowed relief from existing problems, but fuck you if you wanna fix em!
Fuck the GOP. They’re doing everything you criticise the Dems for, except worse. That’s what “progress” means. Not that everything is instantly perfect. That it’s less bad.
That is absolutely NOT what progress means, you fucking dipshit.
prog·ress noun /ˈpräɡrəs/
<span style="color:#323232;">forward or onward movement toward a destination.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">"the darkness did not stop my progress"
</span>
Moving slightly slower on enshittofication than the other guys does not meet that definition.
Improvement, actual improvement, is what is required by progress.
I’m not asking for everything to instantly be better. I’m demanding that things stop slowly getting worse.
Yeah. Bernie Sanders himself is not a Democrat, but most of his supporters are Democrats who are socialist, not liberal.
Then you’ve got your Joe Manchin types, who basically agree with Republicans but don’t like the racism etc. Blue Dogs.
Then you’ve got the split between “progressives” and “centrists”. Biden being more of a centrist, AOC being more of a progressive. “Liberal” means different things to different people, but most Democrats would say progressives are liberals while centrists aren’t.
The only time I ever see evidence of Anarcho types they are being literally as annoying as possible.
Edit for clarity, it’s never “I started this charity/group/political campaign with signups/events/or public engagement.” Only ever “fuck everything, I can’t wait for society to fall apart such that the magic future can begin”
Bro you gotta be constructive not destructive if you want to sway opinions
Bro you gotta be constructive not destructive if you want to sway opinions
At least I admitted my hypocrisy and did something about it. You’re just doubling down on a lazy stereotype to avoid engaging with constructive criticism.
To paraphrase your own claim, it wasn’t “I started this charity/group/political campaign with signups/events/or public engagement.” Only “fuck anarcho types always annoying me”
Anarchists are pretty active in their communities, with mutual aid and direct action being cornerstones of the ideology and whatnot. If you spent any time in activist spaces you’d know that
I think what you’re describing is less of an anarchism problem and more of a “people in general” problem. I’m an anarchist and I’d like to think I conduct myself pretty well for the most part, even in political discussions. I won’t say I haven’t been an ass online or in person before but that’s not due to my ideology. I’m just an ass sometimes. Same as everyone else. I will concede that we can be a bit insular at times and that’s certainly a weak spot for many anarchists
I’ll level with you on that. Everyone is an ass sometimes for sure. I’ve been pretty facetious so far so I’ll try to be more legit in this comment, as you have been legit too.
I’m of course discussing an anecdotal perspective. I totally get down with a lot of what leftists discuss, when they do so constructively.
To clarify: much leftist discourse is about what’s wrong, and destruction of society (to build something better). Eventually it all smells of doomerism. I was anecdotally calling for leftists to talk about constructive things they are attempting, that “the rest of us” could see, and align with.
I acknowledge the world is in a rough spot right now. I acknowledge liberals are not always right. I acknowledge many liberal policies need to go. But from the perspective of the observer… The skeptic… The dude just paying bills and living, liberals are trying to build things, and affect change. Leftists seem to just want to destroy.
My hope would be that through constructive cooperation liberal “realistic” policy is brought closer to leftist idealistic goals.
*Realistic in that the policy actually gets voted on and made into law
I returned because I noticed your edit. I was being a bit snide, mostly because the meme is assuming everyone who calls someone a lib is authoritarian-aligned. If you’d like to know about the positive work I do as an organizer, I’d be happy to share. However, to me those actions are just the right thing to do and not worth bringing up randomly.
That’s fair. Below I clarified as well, this is a meta.thread. of course no one is discussing their work here. Also my opinion is anecdotal. Of course there are leftists who work very hard to move the window, and help others.
Lol okay bud. Then tell me how you justify 44 Democrat senators, 36 Republican senators and Joe Biden working together to block the rail strike? I can’t wait to observe your abilities as a mental contortionist.
to be fair, the word “liberal” has lost its meaning in the US, because there no differentiation between economic liberalism and social liberalism. the guy in the meme would be a classic socialist in europe. we do have liberals here too, but they are the economic liberalism-type and more in line with the US-Republicans in economic questions, like tax cuts for the rich and businesses.
It’s as meaningless as any words that hang on the notion that there’s a “spectrum”.
You either you accept what works and fosters human well being and liberty, adjusting your politics accordingly to reality as we learn more about the world, or you’re conservative, a fundementally irrational denial of reality.
This is why seemingly different groups like Marxists and neo-nazis end up at the same place ultimately; they’re unwilling to give up on failed ideas. It doesn’t matter what label one applies, if you’re still trying failed ideas after they’ve produced untold amounts of harm then you’re just on one road to fascism or another.
Lol thats great, i came under a “biden bad”-post just a few hours ago to the same conclusion. the best friend of a left-authoritarian isn’t anyone on the left wing, its an right-authoritarian.
i’m a socialist with anarchism as an ideal in some aspects, and for quite a while i couldn’t understand why anyone on the left side of the spectrum would actively lobby against biden in the upcoming election until i realized that.
Biden literally supports genocide, so it is reasonable for people to not want to support him even if it comes at a cost to themselves. If you’re unable to understand that, even if you disagree, I very much doubt you are aligned with the kind of goals you purport.
You clearly don’t understand that America as an institution has supported genocide your entire life and longer, it’s just more in your face right now than it’s ever been, Biden may support genocide but so did Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Ike, Truman, FDR, Hoover, and on back. This isn’t new shit and yes we desperately need better, but the genocide of the people you are arguing for will continue either way, but it will be faster with Trump. If you feel this strongly about stoping the US support of genocide regardless of who is president, I suggest you look into direct action, if you don’t have the backbone for that shut the fuck up.
Your vote isn’t a declaration of loyalty, love, support, or condoning. It never has been in this country, what it is is a small expression of which of the two directions presented to you is preferable. In this iteration we are presented with the maintenance of the status quo, which is fucking so stupid and I in every other circumstance would fight tooth and nail against it, but the other option is authoritarian christofascism which will culminate in at the very minimum of a constitutional crisis when blue states refuse to enforce the Gilead bullshit while thousands are murdered in red states. You want to stop genocide in Gaza? Me too, it’s gonna be hard to do that when there’s a cleansing happening in the US.
It’s a fucked up system, I hate it too, but again the only other option than these two ancient assholes is direct action and that has a lot of other consequences even if they are worth it in the long run
So I’m going to just tell you this; what you’re doing above is not convincing anyone.
Given that factual reality, you then have to ask yourself, as someone who probably likes to believe that you’re pragmatic and worldly; if your strategy for convincing millions of voters to support Democrats inspite of their increasingly fascist, right-wing tendencies is not working, what are your other practical options for actually helping Biden win.
And remember, this might involve changing your politics, or getting off the fence and actually doing something etc.
In any case, it’s a rhetorical question, since I’ll be blocking you. Think about it though, think about 2016 and how badly your political strategy failed this country then. Consider changing.
Leftists literally threatening the country with a fascist takeover if Dems don’t bow to their impossible demands.
We’re not trying to win your vote. We’re trying to stop you from infecting more undecideds. You people are rotten and need to be cut out of the process before you kill us all.
What? Biden is the one playing chicken with our democracy, all he has to do is not give the middle finger to people who want him to stop funding a genocide. It’s not like anyone is even expecting him to fight for healthcare or climate change or anything, literally just the very bare minimum of not sending money and arms to kill children and people would stomach voting for him. But no, you won’t even compromise on that.
You honestly sound like you don’t actually believe in the democratic process at all “Vote how I want you to or you don’t deserve a vote.”
No wonder you guys and the Republicans go together like hand and glove.
There’s a huge differentiation between social and economic liberalism! Liberals in the US means almost exclusively social liberalism. Liberal in the us is progressivism.
Economic liberalism is a Republican position, not a Democrat one.
@Cowbee I promise this is the last one, I’ve made my point
Multiple definitions of words can exist. When 300 million people agree on a definition, that’s a valid definition.
Also, the RIDICULOUS ARROGANCE of Europeans never fails to astound me. 9 billion people? You really do think you represent the whole world lol. News flash, the colonial era is over, you lost your empires. Just stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.
I’m not a European, lol. The entire world and the entirety of academia understands Liberalism the way most people on Lwmmy use it, ie to refer to a pro-Capitalist ideology.
It was literally founded on settler-colonialism. Just because this resulted in such a profound and extensive destruction of countless peoples that are nearly wiped out today doesn’t make it less colonial.
Yeah, and of the actual colonies America had, they were a tiny size/number compared to European ones. All of India, most of China, all of South America lol
I never said European countries were not colonizers, all I stated was that the US is a genocidal settler-colonial state and you can only do whataboutisms.
Nah, you’re directly concerned with attacking leftists and redefining words. Any anti-leftist can be considered a reactionary, but that word might not make sense to you.
I understand we define them differently, but do you fundamentally disagree with the spectrum of “Leftist (revolutionary) – Progressive – Conservative – Reactionary” ?
Rejecting Socialism and the progression towards Worker Ownership is Reactionary behavior. You identify as a progressive, but you oppose all Socialism, and support Liberal Capitalism with robust social safety nets (unless you’ve pivoted).
How would you distinguish between Manchin Democrats, McCain Republicans, and MAGAs? I would call the former two “conservative” and the latter “reactionary”, but if you consider all of them to be reactionary, what labels would you use to differentiate them?
They are indeed all reactionary, though I would use Liberal and Fascist. All 3 are conservative liberals, and all 3 reject leftist movement, but MAGA in particular is a fascist movement.
Is there anyone who is neither a leftist nor a reactionary? Or do you think everyone has to be either for worker ownership (leftist) or against it (reactionary)?
Got it. I still reject your central premise of hard labels regardless of real-world context, but everything you’re saying makes sense and is internally consistent within that premise.
Look rather than dunk on you, I’m going to recommend Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast, because it gives a fair overview of what the liberal revolutions were about, why socialism grew out of that moment, and how there came to be this irreconciliable beef between liberalism and socialism. The whole thing is great, but 1848 is the real crisis point if all you care about is the schism.
Someone who doesn’t have conspiracy-brain. The people that say capitalism is working as intended seem to live by the inverse razor of “never attribute to collective stupidity of the implementors what can be attributed to deliberate malice by illuminati-like mechanisms.”
But capitalism doesn’t explain itself in terms of “the owning class” screwing everything up out of self-interest. Capitalism will talk about positively channeling people’s self-interest. The intent is to construct a system that benefits people the most.
It’s objectively not working as intended unless you think there’s like… a hidden conspiracy behind capitalism where the elites carefully inculcated an economic theory over generations in order to normalize a system that would end up solidifying their status for hundreds of years to come.
It’s not working as intended, and it won’t work as intended, therefore we shouldn’t try to fix it.
Liberals are, to quote Phil Ochs: “ten degrees to the left of center in the good times, ten degrees to the right of center when it affects them personally”
First time I’ve heard of that podcast and it sounds interesting. Is there a season that touches on it more than others or is it just an overarching theme throughout the different seasons and revolutions covered?
I highly recommend this podcast. He does a great job of differentiating what the different authors say and what are his own opinions. And he adds corrections to the episode when listeners point out his mistakes. The French, Haitian, 1848, and Russian revolutions really changed how I see the world. Be warned, they can hit dozens of episodes each.
The American and English civil war are OK, not Duncan’s fault, it’s just the non Anglo revolutions were better material IMO.
I’m going to echo everyone else recommending this podcast, it’s absolutely incredible non-fiction story telling and it will really deepen your understanding of how we all got to this point in history.
To answer your question, I actually think season 8 (all about the French Commune in 1871 and how external pressures can end up causing liberals and socialists to go to war with each other) is the best one for explaining it, but it will be really confusing if you don’t listen to season 7 first (which is all about 1848, when France revolted against a liberal monarchy and most of western Europe went “hey, we should do that too, but differently”), which will be really confusing if you don’t listen to season 6 first (all about France 1830, when the liberal monarchy who would be overthrown in 1848 overthrew the absolutist monarchy that came before them) and all its supplemental episodes (all about different western European leaders who would see rebellions in 1848).
Season 3 (all about the French revolution everyone knows about in the 1790s) will help understand a few things going on in 6 and 7, and is also worth listening to just to understand why and how liberalism got going, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary to get seasons 6-8, and 3 is ridiculously long season because the French revolution is just an insane series of back and forth plot twists that doesn’t let up.
That all said, if you’re prepared for something ridiculously long, the final season (all about the Russian revolutions, 1905 and 1917) is an incredibly informative and interesting listen too, and kind of completes the series (this is extremely reductive, but season 1-3 are sort of the “liberalism was a big improvement over what came before it” seasons, 6-8 are sort of the “but liberalism had its problems, which socialism tried to answer” seasons, and 10 is the “but socialism has its problems too” season).
Lastly, it doesn’t really touch on the liberalism vs socialism thing, but season 4 (a history of the Haitian revolution that highlights how incredibly destructive racism and colonialism are) is probably the one season I would make everyone in the world listen to if I could.
Yeah agreed, Haiti really opens your eyes to how race and class intersect imo — and the potted history at the end to bring us up to the present is absolutely heartbreaking.
OK, but that’s not what the word liberal actuallymeans to most people in my experience. Or perhaps another way of saying it is that a lot of people I see getting angry on Lemmy read the word “liberal” and assume economically liberal, whereas every person I’ve ever encountered IRL would use it to mean socially liberal.
In the US political media ‘Liberal’ is deliberately used to reference the policies of the Democratic Party, which is demonstrably Neoliberal. This confusion is working as intended.
Thanks Rush Limbaugh and all the hellspawn you’ve enabled.
And is exploited by tankies/fascists. By making “liberal” an insult from both the right and the left, using different definitions, they solidify in the mind if low information voters that Democrats are bad. Republicans, by being left out of this insulting, sound better by comparison.
It doesn’t even need to be an insult. It was and is an inherently anti-left strategy to correlate ‘Liberal’ to the Democratic Party and it is exactly what American political media does. (Hence my reference to Rush Limbaugh.) The goal is to inject confusion into the terminology to the point where your average low information voter/liberal can’t differentiate between the left and the right: or a tankie and a fascist.
With respect, if you describe yourself as liberal, vote for an economically liberal party, and refuse even to accept economic policy as part of the question, I think the “authoritarian leftists” have your number tbh
That’s because the socially liberal definition is almost exclusively American, and lemmy has a large number of EXTREMELY Eurocentric users. Almost like a weird mirror world of the typical “everything is assumed to be American until proved otherwise” in most social media.
According to lemmy, there’s the American definition, and then there’s the correct definition. And they’re not being tongue in cheek about it, they’re serious.
I understand we don’t like capitalism on Lemmy, but I’m curious how liberalism fares versus the other capitalism-supporting ideologies that are more commonly found in the world.
I’ve thought about this for most of the day. Social Democracy (think Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc) is probably the best out of all capitalist ideologies, but is still subject to the regressive nature of private capital. Other than that, most of them are complete dogshit. Capitalist monarchies, “anarcho-capitalism” (read neo-feudalism), US libertarianism, capitalist oligarchy, fascism*, etc are awful for regular people and horribly lacking in their analysis of capital and it’s relationship between the capitalists and workers. We’re currently living under neoliberal democracy, so imagine things getting much worse for us. That’s what most of those ideologies are like.
it should be noted that fascism is mostly just a death cult that loves hierarchies like capitalism.
Fascism isn’t merely a randomly appearing death cult, but the violent death throes of crumbling Capitalism. Where Capitalism is failing, fascism rises. That’s why Leftists must thoroughly stomp out fascism while also pushing for Socialism.
In the very closest definition, liberal means “if there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
liberal more broadly is just as simple: “if it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do it”
I mean, what do you think a “liberal democracy” is? The majority of Europe is made up of liberal democracies while also being social-democratic. France is a liberal democracy despite being heavily unionized and having huge welfare. How does that work?
It works because that’s not what liberal means.
Socially-Liberal, for example, is when you are liberal (freedom-loving / diversity-loving) in social aspects. You support gay marriages, you support freedom of religion, you support cultural diversity. Other Examples include religiously-liberal, culturally-liberal, or even politically liberal (you support the right to different political opinions than yours)
What comes closest to what you think it is is economically-liberal. Which essentially says that “as long as it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do what you want economically”. But even that isn’t what you mean. Is Pollution and accelerating Climate change harming me and therefore not protected under liberalism? yes, says the absolute majority of liberals.
Is lobbying harming me by making my Voice less weighted? Yes, say a lot of us.
So not even economically-liberal is a good term to describe what you mean.
I don’t know, what a good term for it is. But it isn’t Liberal. So please, for the love of god, stop misusing it. Words have meaning. Invent a new one if you have to, they all began that way anyways.
The problem here is that in the US it means a very specific thing, while in Europe it means another specific thing. I think it gets mentioned every other time when this holywar reappears in comments
Which would be fine except the fucking Europeans keep insisting the American definition is WRONG and refuse to use it, making communication very difficult.
There are/were a lot of systems where you need to be granted a privilege in order to do something.
Meaning there’s a law against doing it without said privilege.
“If there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
Even in liberalism, what you said is still the case. I need to be granted the privilege of a driver’s license to drive a car, I need the privilege of a medical license to practice medicine, etc. You’re talking nonsense.
And just as many where the laws aren’t defined so anything can be laid out as illegal
yes, they do. Both* US political parties are neoliberal parties. Regulation of markets is still a free market. Unions do not inherently oppose free markets either.
must go back at least 10 years for this to be true for Republicans
In china, there is the largest discrepancy between rich and poor. In china, a huge part of the population still lives in poverty while rich billionaires vacate on yachts and the government eyes imperial expansion Billionaires and Party-Officials are practically untouchable, the government is actively putting minorities in concentration camps. When the people try to protest, tanks roll over them. So much for your “democracy”
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门
btw, freedom to marry anyone (china recognizes homosexuality as a mental disorder), freedom to exercise your religion (china is putting muslims in concentration camps), freedom to protest (see tianamen square massacre)
“free” means nothing though, it’s just a substitute for other values. It’s not just free as in “if it doesn’t harm me, you’re allowed to do it”. As another commenter pointed out, one person, they would espouse the freedom to have and own and use guns for self-defense, right? I could just as easily make the argument that guns, collectively, when this right is enabled, impinge on my freedom not to live in a gun-free, potentially less violent, or at least less lethal, society. The freedom provided by publically subsidized or collective single payer healthcare, vs the freedom to "not have to pay for everyone else’s healthcare. If I just rely on freedom as a value, it indicates nothing. It’s a sock puppet ideology. There’s always another value there which is being substituted for it. Liberalism can’t just equal freedom, or else it’s just totally meaningless. While it does have a broad specific meaning as it refers to a specific school of thought, it’s not totally meaningless as it otherwise would be.
Liberalism is a political and economic philosophy which espouses the merits of the free market as a collective decision making structure, which can allocate resources according to price signals. I.e. take resources in the economy and allocate them to where they best need to go, which is sort of what any idea of the economy has to do. It also generally espouses an idea of a naturally occurring meritocracy and rational actors, which the free market relies upon to be of real merit. At the extreme end you get shit like idiot anarcho-capitalism and the austrian school of economics, which is very resistant to government interventionism and kind of holds a religious adherence to free markets and their freedom from governance or regulation by governments. Guys like adam smith. Maybe in the middle you have more standard forms of liberalism, that still support free markets, but also support a pretty decent government and sort of see the two as being opposed to one another. Probably that would slot in a little more into neoliberalism, on the side of markets, and then classical liberalism leaning more towards government intervention. And then on the far end you get shit like nordic government and social democracy more broadly, which would try to engage in capitalism while still building out large support structures, as generally opposed to democratic socialism which seeks to basically eliminate conventional capitalism altogether. You also maybe get “market socialism” somewhere in there, inasmuch as a kind of inherently contradictory ideology like that can exist.
None of what I said really has any commentary on general social issues. You won’t find it in there, in any of those mostly economic philosophies, you won’t find positions on gay rights or trans rights, generally, civil rights more broadly, or drug use, or crime and punishment. There’s not any position on civil rights more broadly which is specifically intrinsic to any of those philosophies. Nothing on “open-mindedness”. The same could be said of communism, or really any economic philosophy outside of like, normal fascism, which everyone kind of has a hard time defining. Libs, mostly, but I won’t elaborate on that one until you press me on it.
In any case, that’s what liberalism as an economic philosophy all tends to mean, tends to refer to, that’s the larger, broader category. As you might intuit, it’s mostly just kind of, “capitalism”, in it’s many different forms. None of this is meaning-twisting, this is all just shit that’s existing in the academic literature for a long while. I’m not a language prescriptivist, so I’m not going to say that it’s wrongly used, when it’s not strictly conforming to academic definitions, and I will freely admit that most of the reference I see to it in colloquial conversation is kind of just like, to mean “woke”, you know, to refer more to socially progressive outlooks more broadly. But I think it’s important to question kind of why that is, why it’s seen as this thing that’s only kind of half-invisible to the population, why it’s completely divorced, colloquially, from any economic definition, and instead just refers to like, ahh, that guy, that guy’s a lib, that guy thinks black people should have rights, what a lib cuck, kind of a thing.
Tracking the warping of language is a pretty important thing to do, because it tells you all about the intentionality with which it’s used, the broader political strategy, the core philosophies of the people using it, it tells you where they’ve come from and what they’re referring to. More specifically, these kinds of changes of meaning that take place within certain words, they serve to cordon off, or, serve as an evidence of the cordoning off, of certain populations from others. The word is transformed in such a way as to make communication between groups impossible, and is also transformed in such a way as to totally eliminate that to which it previously was in reference to.
I don’t think using liberal to mean “socially progressive” is necessarily the wrong way to do things, but I do think that the academic definition, the academic reference, the idea there, it still has a lot of value. If one serves to obfuscate the other’s shorthand, I would find that to be kind of a tragedy.
Here a chicken definitely came before an egg. Read up on laissez-faire. There are also entire groups of anti-capitalist liberals and liberal ideologies as moat agree that capitalism breaks the fundamental rule of encroaching on people’s freedoms, which is obviously the main point.
Adam Smith was famously big on this, but also Henry George, the father of Georgism which is a famous liberal economic ideology that is staunchly opposed to capitalism for its many dangers to liberalism. It’s even from the US.
You can’t just take what you learned from the US media and US social media and force that onto everyone else. You’re spreading misinformation about ideologies in the hopes people won’t notice.
You cannot be open minded, tolerant and support human rights and freedoms while opposing capitalism. If you oppose capitalism - you’re pretty much an authoritarian shill.
Definitionally, it cannot. Capitalism is individual ownership, Socialism is collective ownership. By definition, workers in Capitalism have no real say.
Capitalism is individual ownership, That’s the key! It gives you all the rights and freedoms to create your own business and lead it the way YOU see fit. By definition, Capitalism doesn’t have workers or other classes, everyone is equal. Socialism is an authoritarian ideology, which puts the needs of a social construct (a virtual entity, if you prefer) over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. One must be very delusional to support authoritarian socialist ideas in any way, shape or form.
Individual rights to become a Capital Owner and exploit the majority of society is by definition class society. In Socialism, there are no classes, because ownership is shared. There are no Capitalists exploiting workers.
You don’t know enough about Socialism or Capitalism to discuss either.
No, you don’t know enough if you think that equal freedoms and rights lead to “exploitation” and “classes” while inherently authoritarian ideology means there are no classes. Like, lol, what kind of lunacy is that?
The US is such a right wing country that liberals are the mainstream left. In Europe, liberals are centrists and they aren’t further to the right than American libs.
The meme says “American Republicans” so I thought we were considering this from an American pov. Definitions are going to change going to other countries and doubly so when talking about politics.
It isn’t just about it meaning something else when ‘going to another country’. ‘Liberal’ has an actual definition with a history.
I’m honestly kind of confused about american liberals digging their heals in on this definition when it has historically been taken to mean something they don’t seem to agree with anymore.
I’m honestly kind of confused about american liberals digging their heals in on this definition when it has historically been taken to mean something they don’t seem to agree with anymore.
Because regardless of history or whatever, the definition were giving you is how the 300 million Americans who actually use the term define liberal. Doesn’t matter what you or I think, if we want to have effective communication we need to use words as they are used. I really don’t feel like dying on that particular hill.
I made my stand with “literally”, I’m not wasting effort on holding fast to a Eurocentric definition of liberal.
Doesn’t matter what you or I think, if we want to have effective communication we need to use words as they are used.
I don’t actually disagree with you, I just find it frustrating trying to use a more precise meaning to make a point and being met with resistance. I think a part of the problem is that leftists are trying to point at a distinction that exists within the overbroad american-liberal label that separates leftism proper and center-right democratic institutions, and i feel as if some centrists don’t enjoy the discomfort of being singled out from the more progressive side of the caucus. I could be wrong, and I don’t really care if I am, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the tensions and to try not to erase the diversity of ideology that exists within the ‘liberal party’.
I think Leftists are trying to play up those tensions more than they truly exist, and some of the smarter ones are specifically exploiting the difference in terminology to do so. “Liberals”, in the US, are actually quite left wing (outside of the “anyone right of Lenin is literally Hitler” lemmy bubble). But by associating US liberals with European economic liberals, it muddies the water and allows for a ton of motte-and-bailey style arguments.
“Liberals”, in the US, are actually quite left wing (outside of the “anyone right of Lenin is literally Hitler” lemmy bubble).
Even with whatever scale you’re using to make that statement, there is still a distinct ideological divide between socialists/anarchists/communists and modern democrats. A centrist may fundamentally agree with the central tenets of liberalism (the right to property being the biggest point of disagreement), even if they ostensibly agree with many (if not most) progressive issues. Most people wouldn’t notice those differences because they result in the same types of value statements, but leftists see them in high contrast because liberals will cater their policy decisions around preserving liberal institutions (e.g. the right of private property, small businesses, market-based financial instruments, ect).
But by associating US liberals with European economic liberals, it muddies the water and allows for a ton of motte-and-bailey style arguments.
I don’t think it muddies the water at all, I think it precisely identifies the point of disagreement. I’m also not even sure what ‘motte-and-bailey’ arguments you could be talking about, let alone having seen one in practice.
outside of the “anyone right of Lenin is literally Hitler” lemmy bubble
Bailey: Democrats are right-wing
Motte: Democrats are liberals, and liberals are right wing
Establishing that “liberal” = right wing allows for a motte they can retreat to whenever someone clues in that they’re trying to say Democrats are the opposite of what they actually are
Far be it from me to point out you’re doing exactly the kind of disingenuous re-framing you’re accusing others of by excluding those to the left of you as fringe. Yes, American liberals are ‘left-leaning’ compared to conservatives (on exactly the same arbitrary binary scale that is being critiqued by the comparison), but they still share core elements of classical liberalism, particularly by the emphasis on protecting liberal institutions like private property and market-based mechanisms. This isn’t about muddying the waters—it’s about acknowledging the nuance in political ideologies. There’s real divide between those who support these liberal institutions and those who aim to dismantle them. It doesn’t matter if you think that perspective is fringe - the distinction being made is still there. We’re pointing to a genuine ideological distinction, not just retreating to safer rhetorical grounds.
People making the liberal comparison aren’t trying to place you on a political binary, they’re trying to point to a distinction that you’re actively trying to erase or dismiss.
They’re pointing to a distinction that no one cares about (except the fringe - yes, fringe - Leftists who want to abolish private property) and using that as a platform to imply or outright say false things about American liberals.
Very similar to the above example.
Motte: I, a Leftist, am criticizing the liberal support of private property, that’s all
Bailey: liberals also support fascism/colonialism/laissez-faire capitalism/insert Republican ideology here therefore Democrats support fascism/colonialism/laissez-faire capitalism/insert Republican ideology here
Jesus, I can’t keep having this argument with you. I will accept “Leftists who want to abolish private property [are fringe]” as an acceptance of the assertion that American Liberals share all or most of the central ideological tenants of Classical Liberalism.
liberals also support fascism/colonialism/laissez-faire capitalism/insert Republican ideology here therefore Democrats support fascism/colonialism/laissez-faire capitalism/insert Republican ideology here
LMAO, nobody is saying american liberals support any of those things on the basis of their liberal ideology. I’m not even sure you understand what a motte-and-bailey is, those two arguments don’t follow.
‘Liberal’ has an actual definition with a history.
The word “awful” has an actual definition with a history too. That history starts with it meaning “full of awe” www.etymonline.com/word/awful
Word usage and definitions change over time. If you know people use a word differently then you need to at least explain the definition you are using or you’re just going to confuse or alienate people who understand the word differently.
I’ll happily state my case for whatever usage I’m adopting, and ask for clarification when I suspect someone is operating on a different one, but I don’t see any case to be made for the vague american label when discussing anything beyond american electoral politics - for the same reason i’m happy to jab at the usage in the same context, because it’s the assumption of neutrality it asserts that I take issue with and am calling attention to.
But the definition doesn’t really change. Take universal healthcare. A liberal idea that’s considered common sense in Europe and left wing in the US. Obamacare would be something you expect from a center right European and a left American. Both are called liberal.
And if the meme was from an exclusively American pov, it wouldn’t specify “American Republicans”
It’s extremely frustrating hearing this repeated so often here.
It’s fine if this is the colloquial definition you’re used to hearing and using, but this is certainly not the way it’s used outside of American politics and pretending like it’s the only use comes off as both ill-informed and condescending.
When used derisively from the left, rest assured it is not referring to either of your adopted generalizations but a very specific ideology.
ok, so among English speaking countries, how is it more often used? we’ve got multiple people in this thread aggressively telling him he’s wrong, but no other definitions.
Like I said, it’s fine assuming your own definition if that’s the one most familiar to you, but that doesn’t mean you have to stubbornly double down on semantics when confronted with a competing definition. When used derisively from the left it is almost certainly being used in the original sense of the word as per John Locke
I wasn’t aware Americans made up their own meaning. Now I understand why upvoted comments mentioning “liberal values” receive a flurry of downvotes while I’m asleep, Americans have lost the meaning of another word, probably due to their media.
Though, just checking, the American dictionaries seem entirely correct still. Are you all confused?
I think you’re right. It’s not like anything’s changed, so people are obviously buying someone’s bullshit from somewhere and it’s working exactly as the seller intends.
Going to have start signalling when talking about the two different concepts, like…
Today I’d like to discuss liberalism.
vs
Today I’d like to discuss 🛻🇺🇸LIBeralism™🎸🦅
Since they’re almost entirely opposing concepts sharing the same word.
**favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.**Synonyms: progressive
Antonyms: reactionary
(often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.
The definition I see most often used here on Lemmy is: Liberal - literally anybody who doesn’t have Xi Jinping’s and/or Vladimir Putin’s cock(s) alllllllll the way down their throat
Liberalism has never meant “leftism in general.” It has always been an ideology supporting the individual via private property rights. Neoliberalism is the modern form of it.
Liberalism was considered left when feudalism was right, but liberalism has never meant leftism.
This discussion is funny from a German pov, as our main local liberal party (the FDP) is pretty right wing and has been so since the 1940s. “Liberalism” always had a quite neative connotation to me therefore. They are also the party most open to working together with the far right (the AFD).
Isn’t it the same in the US though? They still don’t have universal healthcare or basic worker protection like protecting women from being fired over giving birth.
see, the difference is, in the US they already won, tho in the American context liberal s still more progressive than the neo-cons/fascists on the other side
Eh. Its traditionally in that “economically conservative, socially liberal” pocket, wherein you can do whatever you want so long as you’ve got enough passive income.
Fascists tend toward a more rigid social caste system (ideologically) wherein being rich isn’t enough to save you from state violence. That’s a big part of its popular appeal, particularly when liberal institutions decay into kleptocracies.
Traditional Marxism tends toward the social egalitarianism that fascists can’t stomach (race mixing, gender equality, and worker internationalism) while advocating full public ownership that liberal rent-seekers can’t stomach.
So, in the modern political spectrum, liberals tend to be “centrists” who use their economic influence to rent out social egalitarianism. Fascists tend to be “right wing”, advocating for those same private entities to purge themselves of unpopular social groups. And Marxists tend to be “left wing”, advocating for an abolition of rents and a full egalitarian economy.
But if you go back a century (or move over to a country that’s more left or right leaning) the colonial era monarchies and theocracies end up forming the right-wing pole, while fascists join liberals at the social center, and Marxists join a much more lively native anarchist community that’s in its last-gasp efforts to resist colonial occupation.
If you are saying gender equality is Marxist then I am guessing you haven’t read much Marx friend. Marx was very about women being relegated to traditional gender roles and was more about whole “seperate spheres of excellence” thing. You are thinking more of the likes of Saint Simone and Robert Owen’s Owenites.
Feminist scholarship has tried to adapt Marx by stripping out the veiws about women and applying his rhetoric more unilaterally but that’s not his text and quite frankly there are other contemporary philosophers and movement leaders which did it better.
There is this habit to slap the name Marxist on a the most idealized reads of the work and call it his because he’s the name people know and the few well known political labels on the far left or because people who have claimed the label of his movement after his death decided to non-canonically add to his work- but I personally wish that people could normalize other schools of leftist philosophy and not treat Marx particularly as the magnet that all of us will inevitably be drawn to or attribute stuff to him that he doesn’t particularly deserve. Marxism as a sort of brand name philosophy is misleading and disappointing to those who read his work and find that their ideals aren’t actually well represented there.
If you are saying gender equality is Marxist then I am guessing you haven’t read much Marx friend. Marx was very about women being relegated to traditional gender roles
Marxism does not end with Marx any more than Newtonian Physics ends with Newton.
That said, I’ve seen plenty of liberal writers approach the original works with cynical and dishonest takes. So it helps to cite your reference if you want to be taken seriously.
that’s not his text and quite frankly there are other contemporary philosophers and movement leaders which did it better.
Sure. Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Chavez, etc, etc.
but I personally wish that people could normalize other schools of leftist philosophy and not treat Marx particularly as the magnet that all of us will inevitably be drawn to
It’s hard to escape Marx’s gravitational pull without abandoning 19th century modes of industrial economics.
So long as colonial powers continue to apply old liberal economic theories of endless expansion and consolidated ownership in the face of diminishing returns, Marx’s insights into failing rate of profit fueling economic contradictions will remain relevant.
I believe what you are referring to is Communism. Let us divorce at least the name of a singular man from a body of work that by your own admission is made up of a number of different writers on the subject just as the elaborations on Newtonian Physics is considered also a part but not whole of Classical Mechanics.
The reductions of bodies of political thought to singular authors is often used to exclude others. Very often on this platform I am told that I am not a Socialist because I am not a Marxist simply because he simply coined a term to a body of thought that predated him and extended far beyond him so why should I extend to Marx the authorial intent by the political realm of thought baring his name? If you said you were a Maoist or a Leninist or a Chavezist would I not conclude that you are in agreement with their very specific realms of their personal philosophy?
Let us divorce at least the name of a singular man from a body of work
If we had a collection of competing working applications of communism, that would be easier. But trying to divorce it from Marx is a bit like trying to divorce capitalism from Adam Smith or the more modern Anarcho-Capitalist attitude from Rothbard and Rand. Like talking about Protestantism without mentioning Martin Luther.
Show me a fully realized anarchist state and we might be able to talk about Peter Kropotkin or Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. But anarchists from Republican Spain to the Bodo League of Korea to American Native Tribes were wiped out by fascist militarism.
You could draw sharper lines between Leninism, Maoism, and Chauvism, but you’d still start from their common Marxist heritage.
The reductions of bodies of political thought to singular authors is often used to exclude others.
They’re influential for a reason.
I am told that I am not a Socialist because I am not a Marxist
I mean, you can call yourself whatever you want. But I see the term “Socialist” pitched around to describe everything from corporate liberalism to primativist anarchism. If you want to talk about AES states, you’re talking about countries that rooted themselves in Marxist philosophy.
If you said you were a Maoist or a Leninist or a Chavezist would I not conclude that you are in agreement with their very specific realms of their personal philosophy?
If I said I was a Maoist, I just didn’t agree with anything in Mao’s Little Red Book, I would not blame you for calling me a bullshitter.
I used to think it just was synonymous with the left, but I’ve recently been seeing a lot of comments on Lemmy saying liberals aren’t leftist so now I am not sure if it means anything or if those Lemmings are just dumb.
I’ve grown up with the term “bleeding heart liberals” being applied to groups like Green Peace and hippies that promote love and unity by people who are just complete pieces of shit, and in that context I was always like “I guess I’m a liberal 🤷🏻♂️”
My thoughts exactly! Every real-life human I’ve ever spoken to uses it to mean open-minded and everydefinition I look up agrees, yet for some reason half the people posting here think it exclusively means economically-neo-liberal capitalist.
Perhaps they are seeing “free enterprise” and associating that with being something only pertaining to capitalism, even though you can have free enterprise without capitalism.
The context is typically pretty important for how it is being used. The user of the term often provides more than enough context I find.
If ‘liberal’ is being used in a derogatory sense, which isn’t going to be captured by an academic definition, it’s often aimed at neoliberalism in a pretty broad sense.
Which is probably what this meme is referring to: the shared rejection of neoliberalism. The motivations are different but that’s immaterial to these things. I mean: it is specifically referencing an American political party here: so I wouldn’t be looking for a political science definition on ‘liberal’.
Those statements are both true, but: Neoliberalism dominates both political parties in the United States and has for generations. The Democratic Party is also neoliberal, (often in spite of their voters.)
The Republican Party’s neoliberalism has fostered fascist and christian nationalist factions to the point they may take over.
The Democratic Party’s stance has been to try and absorb disaffected Republican neoliberal voters from the above.
Which leaves ‘non-neoliberal American liberals’ with the choice of supporting… well it is and has been a successful right wing strategy to say the least.
The Democratic Party’s stance has been to try and absorb disaffected Republican neoliberal voters from the above.
That’s a leftist idea that Leftists just made up and are running with due to their own echo chambers. Dems do like capturing centrists, especially now the GOP has gone off the rails, but the coalition is absolutely led by progressives who push progressive policies as much as they can. The theory is to capture disaffected centrists and win them over with clearly superior Democrat policies and positions. Doesn’t always work, but that’s the play. When the Democratic party allows oil leases or higher border funding, it doesn’t do so skipping with joy. It does so reluctantly as part of a compromise to win other gains.
This is the part where you get out the tin foil hats and claim that despite all evidence to the contrary, Democrats actually secretly want every bad thing ever to happen. Because they’re just that evil.
It doesn’t seem like you’re grasping that I wasn’t or haven’t really been refuting you.
The Democratic Party’s appeal to centrism by passing right wing policies is against their progressive base. The strategy doesn’t always work and it hasn’t been working.
Yeah these are old school definitions, like how a “liberal education” means you get a broad education in differing perspectives (ironically, this term is now associated with a Eurocentric take on topics). In the same sense, “liberal policies” would mean freedom of religion, sexuality, etc.
All good things that progressives agree with, but it also entails more pernicious property rights, and the protection of the state/establishment against those who threaten those rights.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be this way, but this is what I believe it’s come to mean in practice. It also has very little to do with how one votes, especially in a democracy like the U.S. where you’ve just got your “monkey loves you” and “monkey needs a hug” choices.
1 favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2 noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3 of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.
4 favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5 favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression:
6 of or relating to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7 free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant
8 open-minded or tolerant, especially free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
Only 5,7 and 8 are “open minded” Being favorable to progress does not mean being open minded and what constitutes as progressive is in itself up to debate. Individual rights and liberties can be understood as neo-liberal capitalism of “well the law allows you, your economic situation doesn’t concern us, and now back to slaving 60 hours a week.” Or it could mean “We need to enable people to enjoy their liberties so we need to ensure their basic human dignity with healthcare, education and social welfare to empower them.”
favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
what is number 2 then?
noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
I think if you go point by point and ignore the rest then you can argue semantics, but I don’t see how you can take all 8 together and argue what “progressive” means
Being favorable to reform does not mean being open minded. Open minded means to respect different people and their life choices. People hostile to traditional family or religious values are also “progressive” but often not open minded as they criticize people who choose a traditional way of life.
The same goes for economic aspects. Neoliberalism is highly authoritarian. Specifically it is embraced by neofeudalists who want to reestablish their old feudal privileges but not through formal aristocracy, but by the merit of “free contracts” and them holding on to wealth. These are technically “progressive” yet they want to reintroduce power structures from a time past.
Some authoritarians strongly believe that they’re far left. But an authoritarian regime cannot be left. If you’re not liberal, you’re an authoritarian, not left, and it doesn’t matter what type of authoritarian bull shit you’re subscribing to.
Liberals are somewhere between center left and center right. In the US, the alternative to republicanism is the “liberal party” and because they often encompass people further left than the party line, they are seen as left wing. Generally, I associate people who are always in favor of slow electoral measures, a strong state, strong individualistic rights that are positively defined (the right to do rather than not having the right to do) and the view that capitalism is the only method that had worked so far and is therefore best with liberalism. But thats far from an academic definition.
When you add in the fact that people usually end up seeing another person’s politics in relative to their own, things get unintelligible for someone trying to pinpoint an ideology.
An anarchist like myself will probably point towards someone like Biden or Obama and say they are a liberal or neoliberal, which is probably accurate enough (if I do say so myself), but I’ll also call conservatives like Romney, Bush, and Raegan, liberals or neoliberal even though those are people most self titled liberals would hate. A staunch authoritarian communist might call AOC or Sanders a liberal because they aren’t revolutionary communists, even though I’d personally consider them somewhat socialist progressives. Heck, I’ve ben called a liberal by hardcore communists even though my views are more similar to their definition of communism than theirs, and I’ve been called a liberal by some alt right people even though their views are closer to liberalism than mine.
Fox news, on the other hand, would call a pink haired person on a college campus a liberal for the pink hair alone. They might label a gay trump supporter who has a pride flag a liberal because of their homophobia combined with the association pride has with liberals to them. They might call someone who is genuinely far left a liberal because they either can’t comprehend their beliefs or because they don’t catch some of the indicators that they are looking at a communist, anarchist, etc.
Yeah. The US is a shit show. At least the Overton window now includes antizionism, small victories!
I do think a lot of liberals are further right than they realize. But I don’t think it’s accurate to call them far right unless you solely are considering their economic ideology (which is reductionist), or are lumping in people who would probably be more accurately described with a better label. Or your perspective is skewed from being far enough left.
‘Liberal’ is one of those words that has so many definitions that it can have contradictory meanings. It can mean ‘open to / tolerant of’. It can denote a style of education that tries to be broad rather than deep. It can describe various political positions - the ‘Liberal Party’ is left-wing in Chile, centrist in the UK and Canada, and right-wing in Russia, Japan and Australia. This is also what OP is memeing about. At this point, to avoid confusion, I would just avoid using the word except in the purely academic / technical sense.
I used to think it just was synonymous with the left, but I’ve recently been seeing a lot of comments on Lemmy saying liberals aren’t leftist so now I am not sure if it means anything or if those Lemmings are just dumb.
I see this term used so often from the lofty reaches of some national news rag or echoing out of a Senate star chamber. The CEO is stamping it into an EULA, as an irrevocable term of service. The corporate union-buster is putting it up in 120 point font in a company wide mandatory power point presentation. The evangelical minister is denouncing it from the pulpit as part of a catechism call-and-response. The nosey neighbor is whispering it into the phone, hoping a SWAT team will remove someone from the block. The police holding you face down in a bucket of water are screaming it in your ears.
Beware the authoritarian communist. Beware the tankies. Beware the Chinese / Russian / Venezuelan social terrorists, fifth columnists, and outside agitators. Beware the college kid in the Che Guevera t-shirt. Beware the Anti-American. Whatever you think we might be doing to you now, they’ll be ten times worse.
Meaningless distinction. Whether it’s military or whatever. Whichever state supported group is shooting and beating and arresting protestors in China, they’re tankies.
You’re just salty because our superior ideology beat yours into dust (this applies if you’re an actual communist or just a right wing agitator pretending to be one).
Fascism isn’t just authoritarianism. It is a certain set of conditions that can essentially be boiled down to as “colonial violence against the imperial core” but it is incredibly more complicated than that.
Words have meaning, and you should look up those meanings before you start just throwing them around.
The political spectrum is not linear, but circular and fascism and communism sit on the join but with different lie.
Coming from a country that experienced both several times in the past century, I hope the real people tankies would just shut up and move to Russia to learn a life lesson.
nope, the Marx Leninist idea of a vanguard party doesn’t even purport to be communism, rather the idea that you must go through a phase of state capitalism to grow the nation’s capital after a revolution (revolutions tend to destroy capital) before you can enact communism, it’s just that during the age of ML Fascism was the popular new political ideology, and Lenin did heavily base the idea of the vanguard party on a lot of the same basic understanding as the fascists did.
and of course the fascists did what they do and killed the lefties
Words DO have meaning, and you just butchered so many of them it’s not even funny.
fundamentally, fascism is the belief that social hierarchies are not only natural but preferable to any other social system that attempts to disrupt said natural order, all other aspects of fascism stem from this one line of understanding
Social hierarchies are always going to be present, even anarchists believe that. Fascism just assumes that they are natural and inherent, while leftists beleive that those hierarchies should be voluntary or chosen by the people.
Just becauae you haven’t done any political reading doesn’t mean i don’t know what words read.
the entire idea of the progressive moment is to abolish these hierarchies, then again the American “leftist” understanding is so fucked at this point that I can see you believing this, as most “communists” in the states are tankies, that would also explain the horrible misunderstanding of fascism along imperial lines, because you literally don’t have any other larger critical lens in the states, as most of you aren’t upset about the existence of hierarchies, but just have the feeling that you are not in your deserved spot of said hierarchy
Would him putting on the Darth Vader armor be an analogue to many “toxic” leftists using doxxing sites dominated by the far-right to try and ruin the lives of people that aren’t 100% into Stalin?
No, they call themselves Libertaire. Libertaire was adopted by french anarchists at the end of the 19th century when anarchist publications were banned from France. Sadly, as Americans do, the word was misused and transformed by Milton Friedman, on the behalf of oil companies, and later that failed actor named Ayn Rand, to described unabashed, unregulated, capitalism and corporatism.
No anarchist worth it’s salt would ever use the word libertarian instead of Libertaire.
Yeah I don’t think you know anything about anarchism as political theory if you think it has anything to do with corporatism and capitalism. I’d suggest you pickup some theory and brush up on working class history.
In the US, the choices for voting are Republican and Democrat.
Which of these parties is “liberal?”
The argument being made when non conservatives dislike liberals is when the liberals in question align with the Ds, because the Ds have every interest in pushing vaguely progressive policies during elections and never actually follow through in office.
Remember student loans? Still out there Remember universal healthcare? Still gotta pay for insurance Remember tax reform? Still paying higher rates than people who can’t conceivably spend all of their money.
The primary goal of the Dems when in power is to maintain power. Fuck those guys. Not quite as hard as Republicans, but it stands.
The democrats are the liberal party. They support abortion, religious freedom, police reform, civil rights (sometimes), drug decriminalization, etc.
That being said, they are trying to encapsulate and entire half of the political spectrum. There’s going to be gaps, disagreements between individual party members, and places where one policy or value has to override another.
Nah, your first statement is close, but you miss by a bit:
“The democrats are the liberal party. They [pretend to] support abortion (when trying to get elected), religious freedom (when trying to get elected), police reform (when trying to get elected), civil rights (when trying to get elected), drug decriminalization (when trying to get elected), etc.”
When not trying to get elected they don’t actually DO anything.
Drug decriminalization was a big deal in the 70’s and we are maybe just now kinda getting around to it.
I didn’t even call out the shit behavior on civil rights, you did that.
They seem a-ok with police fucking with college kids right now.
They’ve had 50 years since roe v wade to guarantee the right to abortion, and they didn’t.
What DID they do?
Helped give money to people who are already rich through tax breaks. Helped give money to people who are already rich through deregulation they allowed through. Helped give money to people who are already rich through defense contracts. Helped give money to people who are already rich by overthrowing foreign governments with control over resources out oil barrons want.
When choice 1 is kill me slowly (maybe suggest slowing down oil emissions but not actually enforce it), and choice 2 is kill me quickly (lets sell Alaska to Exxon), what is the correct choice?
I would honestly prefer choice 3 which is stop fucking trying to kill me.
Should I commend the D team for not being quite as bad as R? Jesus man, I just want to have options that aren’t two different versions of wrong.
Seriously, how do you not understand that this is an ENGINEERED false dichotomy?
Additionally, everyone is coming at me going “the liberal party is progressiveby definition” and yet no one gives any examples of ACTUAL progress o. The D platform that ever a tualky gets acted upon. So far I’m the only person here who’s even. Rought up the ACA, and I do grant that it is mild progress, for the US, not for anywhere else in the developed world.
Should I commend the D team for not being quite as bad as R?
Yes.
Jesus man, I just want to have options that aren’t two different versions of wrong.
Sucks, welcome to being an adult.
and yet no one gives any examples of ACTUAL progress
It’s pointless because every time we do you just throw out a red herring. Or start screaming that doing something to fix the problem is somehow worse than making the problem worse. Or you just go quiet.
Let’s try. Biden has forgiven $153 billion in student loans that would not be forgiven under the GOP. That is progress.
Debt forgiveness is a decent step… Again unless educating your populace is as high a priority as it should be, in which case higher education would be freely available to any who wanted it. That’s not a moving goalpost, that’s simply how it always should have been.
Under that, there simply is no student debt. Also, worth noting that debt forgiveness doesn’t actually fix the problem, it just gets people to shut up and go away, so yes I am still screaming for good and free public education for the public good.
Religious freedom (by wagging a finger when Republicans don’t and then doing fuck all about it)
Police reform (by throwing cash at cops for “better training” while refusing to actually change the inherently abusive system)
Civil rights (sometimes) (when it won’t effect the bottom line of their owner donors like AIPAC and the fossil fuel industries
Drug decriminalization (in theory, but never in practice)
they are trying to encapsulate and entire half of the political spectrum
No. They are trying to be IN CHARGE OF over half of the political spectrum. The only ideologies other than their own (which is center right to right wing) that they ever try to appeal to is the couple dozen “undecided that are almost but not quite Republicans” left in the country.
There’s going to be gaps, disagreements between individual party members, and places where one policy or value has to override another.
Nope, there’s going to be nothing but neglect and abuse towards anyone to the left of the leadership, which is now to the right of Reagan.
In spite of the name, the Democratic Party is not democratic or even a party. It’s a private for-profit corporation controlled by a small group of people who are in turn controlled to varying degrees by rich people, other corporations, and industry lobbying groups.
I am not, and I’ve observed that every American seems to have their own definition of what “liberal” means, which is not really very helpful when trying to use the word in a discussion
I’m reasonably sure making discussion difficult is the goal. When the right refers to libs, they mean “anything left of me” without ever acknowledging that a significant number of people being referred to are neither progressive lib or left. The American D party is a center right organization, so how do I, as a leftist express “fuck the platform of the ‘liberal party’ is pushing, they’re clearly bought and paid for too, and are serving the bourgeoisie and don’t give a fuck about me, but I still have to put the guy in charge back in charge cause the alternative is dictatorship.”
Democrats tried to fix all those things but were blocked by Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court. And that is Democrats fault somehow? Give us more numbers, we’ll get you more results.
I vote D because I have no other valid choice. When Obama was in the president seat, he had both houses of congress and only managed to get the aca. Don’t get me wrong, telling insurance they have to cover preexisting conditions is a good thing, but only by the standard that we are required to use insurance anyways. We need single payer.
Don’t misquote me. I don’t think D and R are the same thing. I know that I suffer less under D leadership than R, however, things only actually ever seem to move further right. For example, why are we throwing college kids in jail for stating the obvious: that supporting the massacre of civilians is heinous? I think that D and R are playing the same game, Power, and the little people who aren’t rich are the ones paying their dues.
For example, why are we throwing college kids in jail for stating the obvious
That’s not moving right. The US has always done this. You’re just too young and/or uninformed to know about the countless time this has happened throughout history.
I like how the fact that “this has happened before” is somehow a valid excuse for it to happen now. Dismiss me if you like but you still aren’t offering any actual rebuttal.
Since the 80s, and Reagan bot major parties have facilitated the transfer of wealth away from the middle class and to the rich specifically.
I don’t need to call that out because it’s been there for everyone to see for 40 fucking years. What the actual fuck are you on about.
I ‘am’ an anarcho-communist and I don’t like libtards. Libtards to me are ‘progressive capitalists’ that have no systemic insight what so ever and think all it takes to bring upon heaven on earth is to try and be nice.
I mean, you should try and be nice obviously but you are not going to soy latte your way outta this my dudes.
I like the idealism in communism and I have been thinking about how to implement communism without very authoritarian structures, and the anarchist way seems to be the only way, but I don’t see how it would be able to sustain our current lifestyle and amount of people. Exploitation of dependencies without authoritarian structures seems unavoidable to me and avoiding dependencies would probably require that people provide themselves with the resources ; which requires more labor and resources. As of right now, I don’t see a flawless system. (that includes capitalism)
So personally I think, saying that the other people have a bad systemic insight in the context of any general ideology is ungranted.
At what point does a structure become authoritarian? There are numerous Anarchist and Marxist propositions for how to structure a Socialist and eventually Communist society, so if there’s a definitive cutoff point for you you can find something to research.
What leftist theory have you read? Not as a “read more theory!” Snark, but more so I can give recs based on your answer to the authoritarian question posed in the last paragraph.
Honestly I am not well-read on leftist theory as in formal education. I look into things that I have encountered and think for myself. I would appreciate new ideas and things to look into.
I appreciate the call out on my vagueness in regards of authoritarian structures. Thanks for that.
It isn’t as much a concrete point like “having a police”, but rather the human nature. I see a lot of protective behavior in people. The idea of communism is a sacrificing one in the sense that you give some of yours to get more for everyone. As a system will teach people within the system that the system is good. It is expected that people will be generally protective of the system. So sacrificing some freedoms for the protection of the system seems like a very normal evolution of those ideals. And you don’t need to worry as the system is good which is why you are protecting it. So over time, just like under any hierarchical system, the power will move towards the “core” of the system. Under capitalism the wealthy and under communism the state. Under communism, protecting the system will have a strong hand and will move the power to the “core”. The “core” is the state. the system and the state are extremely similar. So the state will behave as if an Attack on them is an Attack on the system. Justifying additional force and moving power into the core. Under somewhat authoritarian capitalism, we can observe that behavior quite clearly. But the state and the core isn’t as similar and an “attack” on the “core” isn’t an Attack on the state. Creating the shit that we can observe today under capitalism. Where the state are corrupted by the core while pretending to not be and fighting against the elements of the core that haven’t paid them. In communism, the power goes to the state and the state happily accepts it, turning it more and more authoritarian over time.
So from my pov, authoritarian Systems are an issue but are also seemingly required to protect the system and it’s people. Capitalism sucks as it kinda assume hierarchy and “sneaks” exploitation in. But a authoritarian state acts a little bit as a counter force to the “core”. (While a full on authoritarian state will of course take control over the “core”) While any liberal state, enables the “core” to move more power to itself quicker. Communism is much better in regards of assuming hierarchy as it doesn’t. But an even slightly authoritarian state with communism places the “core” and the state together as a unite without a real counter force and will eventually be very authoritarian. An liberal communistic System would avoid hierarchy and by that protect itself from placing the “core” in the hands of the state, but it would live itself vulnerable by “small” actors trying to build an hierarchy as people generally like to do, and enables “small” local exploitation.
I just don’t see a way for any of them to not fail. Currently I believe that the violence of the public is the only way to reset the failing systems. That violence is just usually a little late and not just, fair or merciful. Leading to a lot of unjust pain and suffering.
It is true that I haven’t really engaged with Marxism and/or anarchism beyond the basics. I can look into it, thanks.
Out of curiosity, do you think I have a point? What would be your critic? I don’t want to take your time, so only respond if you feel like it. I understand if you don’t have the time.
I think you have a point, yes, though I disagree with it personally. That isn’t to take away from your thought process or personal experiences or evaluations. The why of that disagreement takes a good long while to explain adequately, but I’ll do my best.
For starters, though I identify myself chiefly as an anti-sectarian Leftist, I do ultimately find myself agreeing more with Marxism than Anarchism. Just my own personal conclusions after learning and reading theory. I try not to only give Marxist recommendations because a comrade is a comrade, and the reason I am anti-sectarian is because I believe we need to build a mass workers’ movement of any sort before we can get to debating the finer details, though I still agree more with Marxist organizational methods in the short term.
It isn’t as much a concrete point like “having a police”, but rather the human nature. I see a lot of protective behavior in people. The idea of communism is a sacrificing one in the sense that you give some of yours to get more for everyone. As a system will teach people within the system that the system is good. It is expected that people will be generally protective of the system. So sacrificing some freedoms for the protection of the system seems like a very normal evolution of those ideals. And you don’t need to worry as the system is good which is why you are protecting it.
This is extremely close to Marx’s Historical Materialism! That’s why I recommended Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, actually. The core concept is that environments shape people, who then reshape their environments, which then reshape the people who again reshape their environments. Very cool to see you get close to it!
So over time, just like under any hierarchical system, the power will move towards the “core” of the system. Under capitalism the wealthy and under communism the state. Under communism, protecting the system will have a strong hand and will move the power to the “core”. The “core” is the state. the system and the state are extremely similar. So the state will behave as if an Attack on them is an Attack on the system. Justifying additional force and moving power into the core.
Yes and no. My primary criticism of this section is that it doesn’t specifically analyze how this consolidation happens. It can happen, but may still be designed against. More later.
Under somewhat authoritarian capitalism, we can observe that behavior quite clearly. But the state and the core isn’t as similar and an “attack” on the “core” isn’t an Attack on the state. Creating the shit that we can observe today under capitalism. Where the state are corrupted by the core while pretending to not be and fighting against the elements of the core that haven’t paid them.
No real disagreements here. I would say it’s pretty accurate and similar to what other leftists have stated, if in different language.
In communism, the power goes to the state and the state happily accepts it, turning it more and more authoritarian over time.
This is what I tend to take issue with. Under Capitalism, the State is a vehicle by which the bourgeoisie suppresses the Proletariat. This State is weilded by the Bourgeoisie, as the Bourgeoisie have all of the power, thus the will of the few oppresses the many.
However, what happens if the majority democratically operate this State? It has power, yes, but properly designed and democratically operated, it does not necessarily stand to reason that it would result in oppression of the majority like Capitalism. That’s why I asked for specifics, actually!
So from my pov, authoritarian Systems are an issue but are also seemingly required to protect the system and it’s people.
Marxists entirely agree with this, but believe that once Capitalism is thoroughly erradicated, there is nothing to protect against, and thus no need for standing armies or other such dangerous elements. Until then, however, some form of State is necessary to protect the revolution, though it must be controlled by the Workers.
Capitalism sucks as it kinda assume hierarchy and “sneaks” exploitation in.
No real “disagreement,” other than I don’t actually believe Capitalism sneaks anything, it just convinces Workers the alternatives are worse.
But a authoritarian state acts a little bit as a counter force to the “core”. (While a full on authoritarian state will of course take control over the “core”) While any liberal state, enables the “core” to move more power to itself quicker. Communism is much better in regards of assuming hierarchy as it doesn’t. But an even slightly authoritarian state with communism places the “core” and the state together as a unite without a real counter force and will eventually be very authoritarian. An liberal communistic System would avoid hierarchy and by that protect itself from placing the “core” in the hands of the state, but it would live itself vulnerable by “small” actors trying to build an hierarchy as people generally like to do, and enables “small” local exploitation.
I am not sure a follow. What is an “authoritarian Communist state” and what is a “liberal Communist state?” How are they mechanically different, other than labels?
I just don’t see a way for any of them to not fail. Currently I believe that the violence of the public is the only way to reset the failing systems. That violence is just usually a little late and not just, fair or merciful. Leading to a lot of unjust pain and suffering.
Marxists and Anarchists both agree that Revolution is necessary.
I don’t see how to escape this shit.
A mass worker movement, comrade!
Please call me out on my shit take. Thanks.
Not stupid at all, in my opinion. There’s a lot of thought there, but I believe this thought could be much sharper and more pointed if you engaged with theory. Even if you disagree with much of it, by connecting your thoughts to the collective works of centuries of leftists and their findings, you can come to find agreement with other leftists and organize.
Ok, even though I know this will make no difference to ‘you people’ (sorry just cannot help myself xD).
In this case I choose to use this specific word because it’s so obviously a dogwhistle for right wing extremists that in the context of this meme I think it’s funny, since my actual stance is neither authoritarian or rightwing.
I don’t seriously mean to perpetuate negative stereotypes with regards to people with mental handicaps.
Just as a curiosity, are you by any chance from the US? I just cannot imagine anyone from Europe making such a big deal about a joke like this, let alone use the term ableist.
I guess my brain has just rotted as a result of a few decades of being on the internet. Inside i’m still an edgy teen apparently. No actual offense meant :)
I get it, i know how it is. I’m an Israeli anarchist, you can tell by a previous post and my user name.
I’m making a bit of a fuss over it because i find this trend within myself, having grown up in a nationalist family and a religious school, i tend to say those words as instinct as well and am trying to unlearn this behavior.
I grew up as an edgy teen as well so i guess i can relate, but now I’m intp young adulthood and trying to be better to not repel potential friends.
That sounds like a worthy and potentially wholesome effort indeed. I would just like to say that I think sincerity is more important than seriousness. Best of luck to you my friend.
Much respect for being an anarchist in Israel btw, especially in these interesting times.
Is a right wing fascist term. I don’t think you’re an anarcho-communist. I think you’re a right wing pretending to be leftist to try to suppress the Democratic vote. You guys have tells.
“Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism, free markets, representative democracy, legal rights and state monopoly on violence. It includes a large portion of the present day political spectrum, from the centre-left social democrats to the far-right conservatives and American libertarians.”
Liberals pulling out a Marian Webster definition and acting like they’re the holy good guys while making no effort to understand what liberalism even is…
Is such a liberal move I’m not even surprised anymore.
Enjoy your right wing echo chamber, real funny how that always happens when liberals and fascists get in a room together.
ah yes, lemmy, the “biden is just as right wing as trump, harm reduction isn’t real, and if you don’t vote third party in 2024 you’re a genocide enabler” website, famously a right wing echo chamber
this website has defo been infiltrated by right-wing groups
I mean it was kind of inevitable on lemmy.world, right? An ostensibly centrist instance that kind of tries to brand itself as the “mainstream” socially acceptable lemmy instance. It was basically liberal from the start, you know? Appealing to users flooding in from the reddit exodus. The more explicitly leftist influenced things are going to act more, you know, liberal with the banning out of self-preservation, and so are inevitably going to kind of like, paradoxically, cordon themselves off into little, I mean, basically echo chambers, so they’re not going to appeal to a kind of broader audience as much.
It’s all kind of inevitable from the structure of the site, I think.
In American political terminology, “liberal” means a different thing than in Europe. It implies being left-wing on social issues. Republicans by definition cannot be liberals (in the American sense of the term).
It would be like saying “it’s funny when Americans say they’re going to ‘wear their boot’, how are you going to wear part of your car?”
They are using a different definition of the word, and pretending they aren’t is being wilfully ignorant at best. Pretending the other definition doesn’t exist just serves to alienate people who might actually agree with you.
But I like my libs… Often enough produced with a pretty communistic and anti-authoritarian mindset… (And too often, lack of support for the workers… Ups) But I like them.
“We’d like for our software to ThingDo. Our team has estimated 4 weeks for this work. What’s your estimate?”
“Wait, you want to write it from scratch? Why not just plug in ThingDoer library?”
“…ah, right. Damn libs.”
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