I have voted Democrat since I could vote. I voted third party this round. Liberals should blame me for the problems of the Empire. Vote Biden and move him left was only compelling once. Give me economic substance. Dismantle the Empire.

Wanting an end to needless slaughter, healthcare and working equipment sounds reasonable. I am glad there are reasonable voices on Lemmy.

I am probably missing a lot of information on Israel, but continued learning is important. I recently learned about the USS Liberty incident in 1967. I am not sure how Israeli’s could mess up that bad. There are still individuals maintaining the incident was deliberate. Who knows? Troubling history abounds.

People have different reasons for being on Lemmy. Examples are looking to feel validated or to pick a fight. I think these folk also existed in ye olde times. Maybe the attention economy is amplifying specific behaviors that would not have been amplified in the olde times.

Being fair, I usually come to Lemmy to argue. I am probably part of the problem.

The vote is worthless outside of swing states. May as well vote your conscience when fptp and Electoral College enshrine disenfranchisement.

Informative. Well written. Seems like the short version of my Intro to American Politics class at Uni. I classified myself as a social democrat back then. I was told I would get more conservative when I was older. Now I classify myself as an anarchist. Not sure what went wrong.

I am grateful local debates are posted online. Instead of listening to music at work I listened to the debates. Living in a one party state is unfortunate. The opposition tends to have similar political convictions to the incumbent.

Agreed. Voting shouldn’t be the only activism we are involved in. My comment was about solidarity against the oligarchs that can decide to make life harder for people they deem icky.

Two weeks is short. Six weeks seems more reasonable since that’s when child care will take infants.

As far as expectations of being a parent to a newborn: you will be tired, emotionally drained and fatigued to memory loss. You can actively be involved in easing and sharing this burden with paternity leave.

Republicans and Democrats were unable to stop legislation from the Judiciary with Roe v. Wade and later Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Super PAC’s donate multiple lifetimes of dollars to Presidential candidates in a quid pro quo system protected by the first amendment under Citizens United v. FEC. Americans outside the oligarchy will never exhibit their influence.

If oligarchs find your existence icky, they have the power to remove your “right” to exist. You lack the power to prevent it. Instead of thanking anyone, I suggest we take the power back. Punch up.

I can agree that the current usage imparts more effort during conversation to establish a consensus of definitions. My hypothesis is that the effort for that establishment scales non-polynomially.

I wonder if there is research on how many people can walk away from a conversation with consensus of definitions. My guess is less than 20.

Is it the wealth inequality that makes it bad for democracy? Normal people are not allowed to influence the political class like the wealthy? Who should democracy work for?

Fire, fire… Beavis impression

Liberal being a dog whistle is equivalent to Anarchy being a dog whistle. If words lack meaning there is nothing to discuss.

Liberal has an overloaded definiton. OP may have used liberal as an American Conservative might. I prefer using the term to describe the philosophy.

The term “right” is associated with Liberalism. Property rights is a Liberal idea and has included the right to own a human as a slave or to vote in an election for representation. The “marketplace of ideas” and “invisible hand of the free-market” are liberal ideas. The ideas have been assimilated by various political factions to suit their vision.

I would argue you have autonomy to tell me my ideas suck. I have Anarchist ideas like consensus, mutual aid and autonomy. I have the autonomy to choose goals I work toward. The product of my labor is mine. Humans are strongest when working together toward common goals. Working together requires respecting the autonomy of all. All power to all people.

Voting Republican or Democrat grows harder as both support a hierarchy where a Palestinian baby does not have the same right to life as an Israeli baby. With first-past-the-post voting, refusing to vote Democrat means being a Trump supporter. If it is troubling that the reality of the voting system does not capture the consent of the governed, maybe Liberalism isn’t for you. The system is working as intended.

Harm reduction voting makes sense in swing states. How is voting third party useless in a non-swing state?

Tell them that the Nazis never really went away […] And we’ll never rest again until every Nazi dies

• The Day The Nazi Died by Chumbawamba

What is socialist about GPL?

Being forced to open source seems like a pyramid scheme. Better examples of socialist and libertarian politics are licenses like MIT or BSD. They embody use without damage.

Stallman seems to have a flawed understanding of hierarchy and power. He exhibits such in the infectious GPL and pedophillic political takes. I purposely avoid GPL or derivatives when considering libraries.

Becoming familiar with other ideas is beneficial. There is nothing wrong with being a Democrat, Social Democrat or Libertarian. Real people hold these political ideas. My transition over years was Democrat since I opposed hawkish Republican imperialism, but I rejected corporate power, so Social Democrat, but I rejected hierarchical power, so Anarchist. Through reading I know Pacifism meshes with any of these ideas. I have never been a Pacifist, but I applaud anyone that takes the time to explore politics even if we do not agree.

Being able to have conversations with people around you is important. Reading theory from other politics helps. Most people around me consider themselves conservative. They say talking points like “I’m for small government”. Having read Libertarian texts like Nozick’s “Anarchy, State and Utopia”, I can discuss the minimal state as a Libertarian idea. I can then transition to “Nozick’s minimal state is not small enough”. In my area this approach opens conversation more than banging a drum about being a Democrat, Leftist, Communist or Anarchist.

Learning to explain math to a computer has been a major blessing.