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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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Some internet leftists are anti-jokes and our greatest insult is to call someone a liberal.
What do you mean by this?
In the US, we use liberal to describe a person who is left of center on the political spectrum, who is not a socialist. And we use conservative or neo-liberal to describe someone right of center.
Is the goal to make fun of people left of center or to make fun of people right of center? I honestly cannot tell from the above conversation. This may simply be regional based confusion on my part.
so, liberalism is decidedly right of centre. it requires buying into capitalism, but it’s not as far gone as the GOP. The US dems are left of the GOP, but right on a more absolute political meter.
Bernie is leftist, but Biden & co are properly right of centre. Your Overton window has shifted so far to the right that a leftist politician will have a harder path than a snowball in hell.
I say this as someone that has a neolib prime minister (Trudeau).
Suffice to say, liberals and conservatives have the same goals, liberals just prefer a sustainable labour class.
Based on this, I think this is a regional issue. In the US, liberal means left of center.
Here is an example of regional differences.
Here is a wiki page called Liberalism in The United States that also provides a nice summary in the first section.
I would say Bernie is democratic socialist. I would call myself a social democrat, so slightly to the right of Bernie, but slightly to the left of a liberal. I would also say liberals are to the left of moderates who are to the left of conservatives/neo-liberals who are to the left of fascists.
The US Overton window is way to far to the right though.
That's fine, just understand that you're using a US-centric framework that differs from what socialists mean when they say "libs". From our perspective, if you're pro-western-capitalism (and thus pro-neoliberalism) you're a lib. Democrats, Republicans, doesn't matter.
I am a social democrat which is a part of the socialist family as far as I'm concerned. As far as I'm aware, the US-centric framework is what everyone, including socialists, use in the US. Just as socialists else where, such as the UK or EU, use their own meaning for the word liberal.
Based on what you are saying, this particular instance of disagreement does not seem to be a regional one. As regional differences on definitions should translate and be something we both navigate around. What you are describing seems to a disagreement based on definition.
Conflating supporting some form of capitalism, in my case regulated capitalism, ie mixed economy, with neo-liberalism is intellectual dishonesty. You calling me a lib for supporting some form of capitalism is no different than me calling you a tanky for simply being anti-capitalist. Just because you seem to be against capitalism does not make you an authoritarian communist.
Democrats are not currently fascists, so that does matter. I'm registered independent though, so I'm not particularly interested in defending Democrats. If Democrats don't become more progressive, as they are predominately neo-liberals right now, they could easily go the way of the Republican party and become fascist.
Look, I won't argue with you on semantics. You're free to disagree with the common definition of liberalism that socialists use. It's really just a convenient term for people that are pro-capitalist. It's not intended to be a nuanced term, and I doubt most reasonable socialists would directly equate Republican fascists with Democratic progressives, even if they see both as problematic.
We're talking about US politics, quit muddying the water to make yourself look more pure
Liberals can claim the word means whatever they want it to to make themselves feel better, but as long as they are pro-capitalism, liberals today are not on the left, since leftism is anti-capitalist by definition.
And not only are they not on the left, they actively enable and bolster the right:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
https://blacklikemao.medium.com/how-liberalism-helps-fascism-d4dbdcb199d9
https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/
https://nyanarchist.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/scratch-a-liberal-a-fascist-bleeds-how-the-so-called-middle-class-has-enabled-oppression-for-centuries/
I would call the liberals you are referring to neo-liberals or conservatives. The few liberals I met in real life and the many liberals I've met online are fiercely anti-fascist.
I think this Vox article gives a more historically accurate take on how defeating the Nazis was a team effort by the Allies. Capitalism was essential to defeat the Axis powers. By the logic in the first article, capitalism is therefore anti-fascist.
https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year-campaign-to-convince-people-the-usa-and-not
The second article has this gem.
I had the pleasure to chat with a socialist online briefly. They wanted to tear down US democracy with a socialist revolution. I am certain that socialist was not actually a liberal in disguise. Or a secret fascist for that matter.
I definitely see how liberal is used as a way to describe how everyone who is not a communist is actually a secret fascist.
The third article actually admits the group it's really talking about is neo-liberals, ie conservatives. The article claims capitalism and free market economies have to go, but doesn't explain what will replace them. The author claims he wants a true democracy, which we have in the US by the way, so some it sounds like he wants some form of social democracy. I also want social democracy in the US. Communist countries have demonstrated that their economies are too brittle to survive long term. Even China allows a certain amount of free market. Quite a lot according to this guy.
https://hbr.org/2021/05/americans-dont-know-how-capitalist-china-is#:~:text=What%20is%20it%20that%20Americans%20don%E2%80%99t%20understand%20about%20China%3F
The fourth article really seems to be highlighting the semantic difference in the use of the word liberal vs neo-liberal. As a related example, I really doubt the millions of people who voted against Trump, many of whom I'm sure self identify as liberal, are secretly fascists.
The issues in the US are a difference of progressives ideas versus conservative ideas. The conservative movement in the US is what is being co-opted by fascists. For example the Republican party is now controlled by fascists.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/15/the-modern-republican-party-fascism-robert-reich
On a related note, the Mises Caucus has already orchestrated a fascist take over of the libertarian party in the US. These libertarians in the US were always conservative libertarians. They already believed might makes right and that their freedoms should supersede other peoples' freedoms. So it doesn't really surprise me that this happened to them.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/libertarian-gop-alt-right/
I can't claim to be an expert, and this is strictly in a USA context, but I'd explain it this way: "Liberal" is used to insult someone for having and promoting bad, insufficiently leftward political principles, instead of good ones. The good ones depend on what principles the person doing the insulting holds. The right side of the political spectrum also uses Liberal as an insult, so it can be confusing.
Elements of the far left consider Liberals hardly better than (and in practice indistinguishable from) political centrists, conservatives, or fascists, due to the perception that Liberals support policies that won't disrupt systems that perpetuate injustice, and will carry water for other liberals even when they commit acts they would denounce their political opponents for doing.
The right uses Liberal as a catch-all term for leftists generally (whom they despise), but it has diminished a bit, being supplanted by "woke" "groomers" "antifa" and "BLM."
Yeah, I've started seeing the far left use liberal to describe anyone to the right of them. And weirdly, people on the far left decry wokeness the same way a conservative would. It has been weird. =/
Fuck off Judean People's Front! We're the People's Front of Judea!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4
Lol, pretending to be a democracy must get confusing for communist dictatorships.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
In the US we use liberal to refer to people left of the American center which is already skewed right. Liberals are center right.
I would say that American politicians are skewed to the right, but the American people themselves are not.
Progressive ideas are popular with Americans.
I would use neo-liberal to describe many American politicians, including a majority of Democrats, as they tend to have views right of center. But I would use liberal to describe many of the people voting Democrat as their views reflect positions that are at least center left.
Center to center right. Liberals tend to see themselves as left of center though and the word has very little meaning overall. I was mostly just making a joke though.