• ThirdWorldOrder@feddit.nl
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            4 months ago

            So you’re saying I was a liberal my whole life but just didn’t know it until I fortuitously came across this meme thread and all these helpful people pointed it out? Checks out 🤟

        • Thallo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Yes.

          Liberalism is a word that means different things to different people, especially from country to country.

          Having its origins in the assertion of bourgeois right against conservative forces, liberalism of all its different varieties is generally an ideology of the urban bourgeoisie. Very broadly, liberalism asserts individual autonomy against the intrusion of the community into that. The main source of ambiguity in liberalism is the divergence between “economic liberalism” and “civic liberalism”.

          “Economic liberalism”, sometimes called Neo-liberalism or “big-L Liberalism” advocates a laissez faire economic regime, i.e., the right of property-owners to exercise the power of money unhindered by regulations, redistributive taxes and so on. Economic liberalism therefore easily makes common cause with the traditional sources of conservative politics – the landed aristocracy and Christian fundamentalists. Neo-liberalism (“Economic rationalism” in Australia) favours reliance on market forces to resolve social problems, rather than methods of state regulation.

          “Civic liberalism” on the other hand, emphasises the importance of individual autonomy against determination by traditional norms, racial prejudice, entrenched power relations and economic disadvantage. Under the banner of “equality of opportunity”, civic liberalism can come close to forms of communitarianism in emphasising the responsibility of the community to secure the basic conditions of life of members of the community, or, under the banner of “freedom of the individual” on the other hand, to libertarianism, in emphasising the rights of individuals to make “life-style” choices free from interference by the community, provided they do no harm to others.

          In the U.S., “liberal” has the specific connotation of seeking to promote the social good without challenging the right of the ruling class to rule. Thus, the American ‘liberal’ who wants higher wages and a better health service is quite distinct from the labour activist who aims for much the same things but whose conception is that this entails a fight against the ruling elite.

          From Marxists.org

    • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden

      All of these administrations have more policies in common than in difference. We choose between differently wallpapered liberals.

        • TheDoctor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Nah there are plenty of communists and fascists on other Lemmy instances as well. We call people liberals when they do liberal things like voting for a capitalist who implemented neoliberal policies

          • ThirdWorldOrder@feddit.nl
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            4 months ago

            You’re never going to find a perfect candidate. Trump wants to be an isolationist, sort of how the US was prior to WW2 but he’s also an assclown.

            Harris at least can speak in complete sentences so the bar is pretty low around here.

            If there’s a third party that isn’t just some joke then I’m all for it but the system is what it is and currently Harris is the best option for me out of the two.

            That said, you’re not gonna find anyone in any kind of official capacity in the USA who is going to side with anyone cozied up with Irans government.

            • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              4 months ago

              You’re never going to find a perfect candidate.

              wtyp we aren’t looking for a candidate. We aren’t voting because we have a principled stance against this government and both of its parties. Not because we’re demanding some sort of “perfect candidate.”

            • TheDoctor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              4 months ago

              So I said “a capitalist who implemented neoliberal policies” and you thought I was criticizing Harris? I was talking about how Trump is a liberal. Maybe ask why you would mistake one for the other.

            • SeekTheDeletion [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              4 months ago

              you are never going to find a perfect candidate

              We don’t need perfect, just good (ie communist) although right now I’d settle for a non-warmonger anti-imperialist Liberal who didn’t support genocide, but none such options are available because we live in a genocidal war nation.

              lenin-laugh

        • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          It has a definition I’m not sure why that’s such a difficult concept.

          Unless you think Trump is like, a fascist (which I would entertain but you said you voted for him so I sincerely hope you don’t think that) he’s still within the bounds of liberalism. Free markets, liberty as individuals, private property, etc.

            • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              4 months ago

              I think that’s fair, I think there are enough distinctions (its strong nationalism and backward- looking revanchism aren’t innate to liberalism, I think there are real points of conflict where libs would usually depart from fascism, absent a threat from their left) that I would accept someone categorizing it as a form of liberalism or as a separate ideology if they support their view. I think for libs though it’s best to try and be charitable if it’s a distinction they recognize.

              • SeekTheDeletion [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                4 months ago

                The original fascists invented austerity and deregulation and privatization. The Nazis and Italian fascists were the pioneers of these policies, unwinding the regulations and social policies of the social Liberals that came before them.

                They are functionally indistinguishable from the “economic Liberalism” described elsewhere in this thread and “Libertarianism”. It’s all the same thing in different degrees.

                American Liberals are extremely nationalistic, chauvinist, revanchist, warmongering and imperialistic. Your point of difference doesn’t even apply

                • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  4 months ago

                  I think American liberalism is distinct from other countries’ in that way, yes. My experience is that it’s not normal elsewhere. I think the free market strives to transcend national prerogative as well, that’s why Mises and Hayek were so keen to set up organizations like the IMF and WTO to enforce market order on nations without their interests getting in the way. Libs frequently support a “world system” over national interest in other countries.

                  As I said though, I can buy an argument in either direction, since fascism is so slippery as a term and the common usage of these ideas varies pretty widely. Maybe that’s too accommodating on my part. I dunno. I take your point though.

                  • SeekTheDeletion [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                    4 months ago

                    Homie look at all the European “liberals” clamoring over themselves to arm and fund Nazis to kill Russian orcs. They only pretend to be above that shit, when rubber meets the road they all fall in line.

                    If all it takes to make a Liberal into a fascist is a scratch, they were always a fascist with a thin coat of paint.