• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    30 days ago

    The liberties that original liberalism introduced are so basic that they’re now taken for granted by all but the extreme Right.

    The founding fathers were classic liberals and still most major them owned slaves and none of them would give them up during their own lifetime. While mostly very progressive for their time, they would be considered very conservative today.

    You’re right about one thing: Neoliberalism IS a perversion of liberalism and it’s NOT natural. That doesn’t change that it’s the kind of liberalism that exists today and that “liberal” and “on the left” are objectively mutually exclusive.

    It is a excuse looking for a rationalization. An offshoot no normal liberal would approve of. They are like that weird stranger who thinks numbers will fix everything.

    That’s how it was in the 80s/late 70s when Neoliberalism was pioneered by the likes of Reagan and Thatcher. Nowadays, both of them would be considered to the Left of most Democrats and yes, all liberals.

    You’re simply using the false definition of “anyone to the Left of Republicans” that billionaire-owned media have been drilling into your head in support of the false dichotomy of the two party system being absolute.

    The biggest right wing party of Australia is called the Liberal Party and guess what? They’re not the ones who are confused about what contemporary liberalism is.

    Granted, the fact that Neoliberalism is inherently authoritarian, which is by definition illiberal on the other axis DOES add to the confusion, but on the left-right economic axis, Liberals are firmly to the right or they aren’t liberals.

    You might be thinking of social democrats rather than liberals tbh 🤷

    • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      I’m not really sure why tankies are so bent on hammering liberal into a right wing tool. It is not

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        I have a few ideas why liberals keep painting everyone who points out the fact that liberalism is a center right to right wing ideology as tankies 🙄

        For the record, I’m an anti-authoritarian pacifist, meaning that only someone with an extremely superficial understanding of political ideology would ever confuse me for a tankie.

        • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          Probably for the same reason you use liberal like ia slur when you don’t know what it stands for. Your posts read like the same astroturfed Russian comments meant to sow division

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            you use liberal like ia slur when you don’t know what it stands for

            Nope, I use it accurately because I DO know. It’s not my fault that an accurate description of the ideology is inherently unflattering.

            Your posts read like the same astroturfed Russian comments meant to sow division

            One of the many reasons why I don’t get along with the worst liberals: the eternal “the Left is Russia” bullshit you use to avoid taking any constructive criticism to heart.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Liberalism thought leads to concepts like social democracy. I get it is popular to shit on liberalism by the edge lords nowadays but it really doesn’t makes sense. My personal opinion is the whole anti liberal thing is just Russian propaganda.

      Other parties using words like liberal and perverting it doesn’t prove anything. Need I remind you the Nazi called themselves Natural Socialist German Worker Party. So I guess we can’t use socialist or worker rights anymore by this same logic.

      You speak of falling for propaganda but the whole concept our country has been drifting right is an illusion. Our country was always right and designed to suppress liberalism from the start. It was always liberalism in name only and anti-liberal in practice.

      Once you realize we have been gamed from the start and the country was designed by the rich for the rich the sooner you can drop the fantasy about our country drifting to the right.

      In fact we have always been right and at moments in history paid lip service to the left. I totally get this frustrates you and it should. Shitting on liberalism doesn’t solve anything as it is not the real problem.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Liberalism thought leads to concepts like social democracy

        I covered the 1700s origins already. That’s not what modern day liberalism is.

        I get it is popular to shit on liberalism

        Not really, no. There’s always at least one salty liberal with delusions of comprehension like yourself throwing a hissy fit.

        Most of the people who understand what liberalism in the 2020s actually is tend to avoid this kind of conversation because of how exhausting your insistence on nonsense is in the long run.

        by the edge lords

        Yeah, one of us is being overly histrionic and salty and it’s not me 🤷

        but it really doesn’t makes sense

        What REALLY doesn’t make sense is your upcoming ice cold take.

        My personal opinion is the whole anti liberal thing is just Russian propaganda.

        Yeah, because nobody can possibly criticize the likes of Biden, Pelosi, Hillary, Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries from the left! It has to be propaganda from checks notes a fascist theocracy that despises the Left much more than liberals 🤦

        Other parties using words like liberal and perverting it doesn’t prove anything

        Which is why that wasn’t what I based anything on. Please stow the strawmen for just the rest of the paragraph.

        Need I remind you the Nazi called themselves Natural Socialist German Worker Party. So I guess we can’t use socialist or worker rights anymore by this same logic.

        Damn, another in the very next sentence. You’re REALLY not good at disguising your bad faith nonsense as a coherent and logical argument.

        You speak of falling for propaganda

        And you’re proving my point better than I ever could.

        the whole concept our country has been drifting right is an illusion

        Are you drunk? High? It’s ok if you are. I just want to know if this is actually you sober and you’ve lost all contact with reality.

        Our country was always right and designed to suppress liberalism from the start. It was always liberalism in name only and anti-liberal in practice.

        Wow, you’re actually partially right for a second! Well done! Let’s hope that your next sentence doesn’t ruin it completely…

        Once you realize we have been gamed from the start

        Some more than others to this day…

        the country was designed by the rich for the rich

        100% correct. Let’s see if whatever conclusion you reach based on that fact makes sense…

        the sooner you can drop the fantasy about our country drifting to the right.

        Nope. Biffed it. Fun fact: the politics of the US was further Right in the 50s and early 60s than in the rest of the 60s and most of the 70s. Then Reagan came along and lay the foundation for what has now culminated in actual fascists taking over.

        It’s not a straight line, but since then and ESPECIALLY since Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich made open hostility to dissent the modus operandi of the GOP in the 90s, the Overton window HAS shifted very far right.

        In fact we have always been right and at moments in history paid lip service to the left

        Yeah no, that’s the leadership of both parties, NOT the country in general. For a supposed representative democracy, few governments in the West are less representative of the will of the majority of the people. A disparity that has only grown in recent years. Because of all the right wing misinformation from mostly the fascist party but also the Dems.

        Shitting on Supporting liberalism doesn’t solve anything as it is not a big part of the real problem.

        Fixed that for you.

        • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          Liberalism is defining a way to think about rights. You want it to be something monolithic so you can blame it for your current distaste of politics. You are simply being disingenuous about it.

          Your definition is apparently all the wrong things people do who claim to be liberal. Speaking of saltiness you must need a glass of water.

          Sorry that you come off as an edge lord, but the truth hurts.

          Now you deny anti-liberal movement came from Russian disinformation campaigns? I was alive and well when I saw this shit coming out of Russia several decades ago.

          Pretending a bunch of Neo liberals are liberals is once again dumb. If you are trying to come across as truthful why do you keep muddying the water?

          It is like you ignore all the criticism that liberals give to modern politics because it is the exact same criticisms you give. It is almost like you are a liberal yourself.

          Lastly, you are outright delusional if you think our country has not always been right. A simple thought experiment. When was SCOTUS ever a liberal court. When was the Senate not designed to quash liberal policies.

          Once you let go of the propaganda that has been fed to you your whole life you can stop blaming concepts like liberalism for our problems.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          Ok, I had my suspicions, but now I know what has you confused: you’re confusing the ideology liberalism with the libertarianism - authoritarianism axis of the political compass.

          I know it’s confusing, especially since fascists who like drugs have appropriated the label “libertarian” in the US, but come on.

          You had the option to not say anything before you knew enough to back up your enormous confidence with actual knowledge of how to correctly define words and ideologies.

          Instead you just blundered full speed ahead with your eyes closed while tossing grenades all around you like when Trump confuses political asylum with arcane mental institutions and concludes that crazy people are invading the country.