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Every liberal does it too, from center right radlibs to far-right "conservatives": the most extreme right fringe liberals hate the mainstream liberals for not being bigoted enough, the mainstream libs hate the radlibs for not being cruel enough, and the radlibs hate the left for not being chauvinist enough.

Denouncing chauvinism in particular is like a liberal moral event horizon, a cardinal sin against their self-interested belief in the righteousness of the imperial hegemon that keeps the treats flowing at gunpoint.

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[-] adultswim_antifa@hexbear.net 92 points 1 year ago

Liberals put a very high value on awareness of problems yet distrust people that want to do something about them.

[-] operacion_ogro@hexbear.net 66 points 1 year ago

As the official pod puts it, liberals live in a world full of victims but no victimizers

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[-] ImmortanStalin@lemmygrad.ml 43 points 1 year ago

I just had flashbacks of Kony 2012

[-] UnicodeHamSic@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I still think of that from time to time

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[-] Finger@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago

no more half measures walter

[-] doctor_sociology@hexbear.net 24 points 1 year ago

liberals: the symptoms are bad, but the causes are so good

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[-] YearOfTheCommieDesktop@hexbear.net 62 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

yeah... I was a liberal once, and it was definitely informed in large part by wanting to be "good" and correct. I became kind of a debatelord for a minute there. But, what I didn't do, was shit my pants and demand the mods ban them when it became clear I was on the wrong side of something, I lived and learned and moved on (generally leftward). You gotta be able to take the L sometimes.

[-] DickFuckarelli@hexbear.net 60 points 1 year ago

Liberals are incapable of understanding politics.

Period.

They're used to only dealing with some form of Fox (or Fox Business) Conservative. Like, thats the only other form of politics they can fathom outside of some vague adherence to "smart government." And when it comes to "getting stuff done" they think it's just a numbers game: just get enough good Libs elected and things will be gooder, or some shit.

Like, forget war - which for some reason Libs can't wrap their heads around that war is fucking bad. What's the Lib response to climate change or failing healthcare or inexplicable income gaps? Vote harder? California is a Super Majority D state. Obama had Congress sewn up for 2 years. Conservativism is effectively dead where the majority of people live. So what's the endgame? When does shit get better?

And that's where Libs are left with an identity crisis because to admit any one little (but really fucking big) thing is beyond repair is admitting there are systemic problems that cannot be solved with the only tool in the shed: voting. And that's basically the Lib version of staring into the abyss.

Everything a Lib knows is a fucking lie.

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[-] silent_water@hexbear.net 58 points 1 year ago

this ain't it fam. it's the same smug armchair psychology we dunk on redditors for doing.

[-] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 34 points 1 year ago

Hexbears can have a little smug armchair psychology. As a treat.

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[-] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago

I don't know. Look at how much Democrats define themselves by being not Republicans. Hell, biden-nibble essentially ran on "nothing will fundamentally change [compared to the Obama years]." He was the generic "not Republican" candidate!

On the interpersonal level, it's pretty common to excuse one's own shortcomings with "at least I'm not like that fucking guy," especially if that fucking guy is the only other point of comparison. Imagine you aren't a very good worker but always skate by because the only other employee is even worse. What are your thoughts going to be on a new worker who comes in and does the job even decently?

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[-] Sasuke@hexbear.net 57 points 1 year ago

for any lib lurkers, i recommend reading liberalism: a counter-history by domenico losurdo

In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery.

Narrating an intellectual history running from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and Sieyès, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on today’s politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.

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[-] Farman@hexbear.net 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The problem with libs is that they beleve ideas make history. Once you put yourself in that mindset the chauvinism becomes more reasonable.

The west is the richest so they have the best ideas. Since the liberal idea set is self evidently the best the other countries are backward and their idea sets should be replaced.

In reality the reason the west has been richer for the last 3-4 hundred out of 10-14k years of agriculture has les to do with ideas or western culture and more to do with geografic and demografic realities, that are too comlicated for this post. So the libs are wrong.

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[-] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The most important thing is that liberals believe that just making good statements and public signals (like "I am voting for Democrats and Democrats are good because I say so and when I vote for them I am a good person by definition") makes you good and is the most important action someone can do. Sure, I supported the Iraq war and exploit my employees and steal wages from them, but I have this great lawn sign that makes me a good person.

[-] jabrd@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago

Drunk out at a brewery the other night me and a friend were ragging on this lib about how shit Obama was and when he couldn’t find a way out he just started stating loudly and repeatedly that Obama was hated by americans “because he’s a SMART BLACK MAN.” Like dude sure but we’re talking about fiscal policy here wtf are you doing? Liberal ideology is a radical experiment in self-perpetuating sloganeering

[-] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago

Same energy as libs saying "If you don't like Hillary/Warren/Sinema, it's because you're a misogynist"

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[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 36 points 1 year ago

You have no social awareness and dude is a gender neutral term actually

speech-r smuglord

Average liberal I've seen around here. It's like going back in time 10 years on reddit.

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[-] a_blanqui_slate@hexbear.net 36 points 1 year ago

Look, if they thought our politics were better, they'd agree with us. So it's something else.

[-] KobaCumTribute@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's the thing though, there's an undercurrent of "actually it's responsible adulting to do bad things, sweaty" to it. They have thought terminating defense mechanisms that respond to exposure to uncompromising ethical positions on things they have proudly compromised on with rage. Fascists worshipped the suffering and death that their actions brought to everyone including their own ranks. Far right liberals believe that brutal subjugation and abuse is "responsible leadership," believing it to be bad but necessary. Mainstream liberals tie their brains in knots to ignore the suffering capitalism and the brutal violence it requires causes, finding justifications for inaction. Radlibs reflexively move towards the mainstream and concede and capitulate to it, and have been trained to be enraged by anyone who does not.

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[-] Finger@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago

no more half measures walter

[-] Pandantic@midwest.social 26 points 1 year ago

I thought it was because, despite wanting things like universal healthcare and welfare supports, they don't want to let go of capitalism. I'm not from here, and not all the way to where you are, but that's my outside view.

[-] Tachanka@hexbear.net 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

despite wanting things like universal healthcare and welfare supports, they don't want to let go of capitalism

That's called social democracy. It is fed by imperialism and shits out a labor aristocracy. The capitalist class uses social democracy in the imperial core to appease the workers and postpone revolution. But it requires exporting suffering to the "developing" (colonized) world.

You see this in the so called "nordic" countries. People will admire the nordic countries without questioning how imperialism keeps them afloat.

[-] Pandantic@midwest.social 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks for the response. That second map is really helpful to put into perspective how much my country (the US) is screwing me, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around the bottom section.

A few questions if that's okay:

The capitalist class uses social democracy in the imperial core to appease the workers and postpone revolution.

What is the imperial core?

But it requires exporting suffering to the “developing” (colonized) world.

Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it's cheaper?

Sorry if these questions sound dumb. I'm a liberal with dreams of socialism in my head, but Hexbear makes me feel like maybe I don't understand what those dreams actually mean, so I'm trying to get a better understanding.

[-] Moss@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago

You've gotten some good answers so I just want to say thanks for asking these questions and genuinely trying to learn. There's been a lot of stubborn people who won't listen to anything they don't like on here recently but there's also been plenty of open-minded people like you, and it makes me glad to see that

[-] autismdragon@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What is the imperial core?

The countries that are the center of (neo)imperial exploitation of the global south, ie the US and its other economically developed allies. So mostly the US, Canada, UK, EU, Australia, New Zeland, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. YMMV a bit on who counts, some EU nations are very poor and exploited by the more powerful ones. So Its probably better to say "Western Europe" than "EU". Its a complicated issue, especially since the two Asian countries I listed are both exploited and exploiting at the same time. But they're both developed and capitalist enough, as well as closely aligned with the west enough, to probably count. (I'm not super well read on this issue and may not be the best person to answer this ,but this is the sense I've gotten from talking to other socialists).

Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it's cheaper?

Yes those are good examples! Not the only things, like another example are the general actions that the IMF takes with developing countries, or the way the banana industry tries to run South America, but you pulled two examples that are very good out of your hat even at the level you're at so that's pretty impressive.

ETA: Also thank you for asking these questions with genuine intellectual curiosity.

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[-] GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago

I just love the image of some liberal consciously thinking "I hate anyone with better politics than me," like the idea that they'd label their own politics as worse than leftism

[-] Zodiark@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago

I think the contempt just manifests as cognitive dissonance.

In the manner MLK wrote in his Birmingham letter, paraphrasing: I agree with your aims but not in the manner you seek change through.

Their politics are informed from a position of privilege, strength, idealism, and at best, sympathy. Not solidarity. So sympathy-but-not-solidarity compromises the efficacy and urgency of political demands and action. An expectation that a large protest is the equivalent of forcing the state to capitulate or concede to popular demand; protests are expected and in action treated as a regulated parade/rally that neither threatens property nor order. It is supposed to be "virtue signalling".

Anything that transcends cosmetic protest is treated as civil insurrection.

[-] Nightcastle@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago

All this talk of federation but no replicators. Fuck this shit

[-] Tachanka@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

The liberal instinct is to appear "not too crazy" and to appease conservatives with compromise because otherwise the conservatives will get violent. Thus, when we show up we are "making them look bad" and "ruining their moderate image" through guilt by association. It doesn't help that they never appease us with compromise but only ever reserve compromise for those to their right. This is because they always imagine themselves to be "left of center" and thus compromising with anyone further to their left is "going too far" or "becoming a tankie." or whatever. The cherry on top is that they don't understand that both the liberal and conservative political classes are part of a joint capitalist class dictatorship. They will unironically say "you need both wings to fly" while not realizing the body of the plane itself only carries the capitalists and drops bombs on the workers.

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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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