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.
FDR, Churchill , Hitler, and Mussolini also had a lot in common when you get down to it. Same as humans and chimpanzees. It’s the differences that actually matter.
I mean they each protected capitalism in their own way:
FDR, being old money who’d just seen MacArthur send in the tanks to raze a camp of rebellious soldiers and knew how these things tended to go, invested in guillotine insurance via the New Deal.
Hitler and Mussolini used the other approach, privatizing/selling off state assets and applying colonial methods they’d perfected in Africa back home to buttress capitalism and protect profits.
Hitler sold off nationalized companies to his buddies, and awarded military contracts to Germany’s ultra wealth like Ferdinand Porsche. Literally the first people Hitler killed were his brown shirts, the socialists he utilized to gain power, during the Night of the Long Knives. His entire schtick was that he wanted to kill all the slavs to rid Europe of “Cultural bolshevism” and all leftists thought.
You know literally nothing about history, and actually have your knowledge reversed. You just think “Hitler = bad” and “communism= bad” so “Hitler = communism” I’m sorry to be a dick here, but you are either totally uninformed and are a moron who is just making shit up to feel smart, or you are intentionally spreading wrong information bevauae you want to associate socialism with fascism to push your own nefarious agenda. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that your education system failed you.
Fun fact, the word “privatization” first appeared to describe the policies of the Third Reich. It later became a rallying cry of Rageanonomics, Thacherism, and Pinochet. What now a days we often qualify as Neoliberism.
It’s more that OP seems unable to fathom anyone to the left of them being both rational and uncool with liberalism. That’s why they specifically said “Authouritarian Communists,” the SpOoKiEsT LeFtIsTs.
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.
Almost like AuthComs are authoritarian before they are communist, and thus have more in common with the American Fascist Party than any actual leftists.
Having a fight over who is or isn’t allowed in left spaces instead of having the discussion about leftist policy is what got the left where it is in today’s political discussion.
Defining a movement by who’s not allowed in it leaves you without any ability to get anywhere legitimately.
Based on your interpretation every group could simply be redefined into illegitimate.
We are for democracy
Oh so you think that monarchy is bad and you want to define yourself as excluding loyal subjects of the king! That will never be legitimate.
Leftist think that democracy should extend into the economic realm as well and what we should do with the means of production should be governed by the people and not just whoever happens to own the capital. One way to word that would be anti-capitalist, but another way would be to word it as economic democracy.
So if you require an inclusive definition for something to be legitimate, there you go. Liberals in America do not seek to do away with capitalism, you would be hard pressed to find any that do. If you support capitalism, then by the fact that capitalism’s private ownership is mutually exclusive with democratic control of the economy, you don’t support a democratic control of the economy.
You can’t have a vegan meat eater, not because of any moral assessment on veganism or meat eating, but because those two terms are mutually exclusive.
…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.
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.
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.
It’s really funny how no one really likes liberals but liberals.
Conservatives: “They’re too freedom loving for my tastes! Why can’t they just stay and home and be good corporate stooges like us?”
Auth-Communists: “They claim to like freedom but still willingly use the capitalist forces to oppress who they like. Liberals are okay with personal freedom until it impacts the white moderates. That’s our job!”
Anarchists: “It’s literally weird to call yourself a liberal when all they do is oppose any movement against the status quo. If they can’t convert them to sell away their soul to the state or capitalism, they’re terrorists. They’re more like conservatives than any actual progressives, and even progressives admit 100% capitalism isn’t great.”
Libertarian capitalists: “They claim to be for freedom but constantly require the state to check in on if people are enjoying their freedom like that Nanny’s they never had. I just wanna grill for god’s sake!”
Like it’s just funny to me no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you have a somewhat decent reason to hate liberals (except conservatives are too stupid to tell liberals apart from “commies”).
Yeah but it’s funnier with liberals because they get all persecution complex-y when people left of them give them shit, just like conservatives do when libs give them shit
Conservatives, fascists, and Auth-Communists just disagree on what color the flag should be, and the name of the party in charge handing out the police to dispatch onto the people.
Good things and bad things are exactly the same. A justice system that enforces the will of the capitalists is exactly as bad as a justice system that enforces the will of the people.
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