I think at this point the average American conflates “liberal” with simply an attitude on how much you hate or don’t hate queer people, regardless of any other political sentiment. One time a chud told me the only real political issue is abortion.
us americans are not, to put it lightly, an intellectual country
I mentioned this anecdote in another thread a couple weeks ago, but I think it fits here too:
It’s not even just chuds ime, it’s the majority of the US population that thinks the “further left” something or someone is, the more “liberal” it is. Even many liberals think this.
A while back I told someone (an acquaintance I met irl) that I considered myself a communist and their response to me was:
“I’m pretty liberal myself, but communism is too liberal even for me.”
There were several other people present and none of them thought this was a strange thing to say.
It may in part have something to do with how only American liberal spaces allow for anyone to say they’re a communist without severe social and professional ramifications.
Can’t say I’ve experienced this. According to American liberals I’ve talked with, communism is just about synonymous with fascism. No way I could mention that I’m a socialist, that’s like an insult towards liberals here. But I also live in Georgia where they ran ads about “radical socialist anti-israel anti-American Fidel Castro supporting communist Raphael Warnock” for the entire election, and that was supposed to scare us, so… maybe there’s the reason. Yes the ads were by the Heritage Foundation
At this point, I honestly don’t know what “liberal” actually means. I don’t even know how to ask/find out. When I was growing up, I always thought it was good.
Now I don’t even know what “good” is, other than not being racist or anti-LGBTQ+.
Draw an equal triangle. One line is ‘public policy’, another ‘private interest’, and the last ‘state authority’.
You can label the two endpoints of ‘state authority’ as ‘left’ and ‘right’.
The third point is ‘liberal’ which lies in opposition to the political spectrum of state authority. Liberals tend to fixate on authoritarianism over whether it serves the public or private interest.
People rarely fall on the points or lines as all concepts are in perfect tension.
When a conservative says liberal, it just means Democrat.
When someone with a vague clue says it?
Liberalism is a political ideology that holds that the primary role of government is to protect the rights of its citizens.
What those rights are, and who the liberals consider to be worthy of protection vary but as a general rule the right to private property, some form of democratic representation, due process with at least a gesture to equality before the law, freedom of religion and expression tend to be core rights.
Historically liberalism is deeply invested in capitalist and humanist thought. You could probably argue that liberalism isn’t strictly required to be capitalist but quite frankly it’s unlikely that will change before humanity is at the point of free energy and absolute post scarcity productivity.
The founding nations of liberalism are, roughly, America, France, and the UK and it’s Commonwealth. If you want a intuitive understanding of what liberalism is in practice and reality, just think of their history in the past two centuries or so and the struggles of governance they have undergone.
Those aren’t the only form of liberalism however. Social Democracy (the so called Scandinavian model) is a form of liberalism, neoconservatism (GW Bush, Romney) is liberalism (in theory), etc. Even “right wing” libertarianism is ultimately a form of liberalism, no matter how much that upsets the ones that don’t know what words mean.
Anyways, political parties that officially call themselves Liberal tend to be fairly conservative by modern standards. It is a uniquely American degeneracy sponsored by Reagan that sought to call progressives liberals.
One might note that you can broadly characterize the defining ideologies of the past century into three broad categories.
Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism.
When a supposed ideological liberal like Reagan and his successors, modern conservatives say no, actually, I hate liberals and I REALLY hate socialists you should believe what they tell you, and consider what that makes them.
Thank you for the extremely detailed explanation! That makes it make a lot more sense to me. I grew up “liberal is da left and conservutiv is da right” and I really didn’t identify with either? Then I saw right-wing fuckheads bashing “the libs,” and now left-wing peeps are also bashing “the libs” and I was so confused like “HOW COULD YOU HAVE COMMON GROUND WITH RIGHT-WING GARBAGE”
I would counter relative to the other answer you got that liberalism is based on a leveling of the political rights of citizens while resisting a leveling of economic rights (despite some calls for it even at the time). Feudal governments absolutely were also based on the defense of the rights of their citizens and indeed even some classical slave societies, but the difference is that those societies had [more pronounced and varied] castes which each had different political rights.
Liberalism was a revolution led by merchants and other propertied people against the aristocracy, i.e. people with the greatest economic rights opposing those with the greatest political rights, leaving the former completely unchecked except sometimes by popular power.
Incidentally, and this explains some of the bickering in this thread, communists of all stripes are people who advocate that both political and economic rights are leveled, which manifests as the economy being controlled by popular mandate rather than private ownership.
Anyway, I’m mainly commenting to say if you have other political questions, you can usually get very thorough answers from c/askchapo
Hmm, interesting! I should probably actually check out the Chapo podcast. I have never heard it and folks here seem to be fond of it. I have heard some of the hosts on Cumtown, and they’re very funny.
A lot of people on hexbear hate chapo (despite that being where c/askchapo is, due to hexbear formerly being chapo.chat) but I think it’s alright. The most recent episode starts out with a very informative segment about sanctions.
I think at this point the average American conflates “liberal” with simply an attitude on how much you hate or don’t hate queer people, regardless of any other political sentiment. One time a chud told me the only real political issue is abortion.
us americans are not, to put it lightly, an intellectual country
I mentioned this anecdote in another thread a couple weeks ago, but I think it fits here too:
It’s not even just chuds ime, it’s the majority of the US population that thinks the “further left” something or someone is, the more “liberal” it is. Even many liberals think this.
A while back I told someone (an acquaintance I met irl) that I considered myself a communist and their response to me was:
There were several other people present and none of them thought this was a strange thing to say.
It may in part have something to do with how only American liberal spaces allow for anyone to say they’re a communist without severe social and professional ramifications.
Can’t say I’ve experienced this. According to American liberals I’ve talked with, communism is just about synonymous with fascism. No way I could mention that I’m a socialist, that’s like an insult towards liberals here. But I also live in Georgia where they ran ads about “radical socialist anti-israel anti-American Fidel Castro supporting communist Raphael Warnock” for the entire election, and that was supposed to scare us, so… maybe there’s the reason. Yes the ads were by the Heritage Foundation
For the most part yeah, that’s pretty spot on. This is just in comparison to conservative spaces in America, mind you.
But say on the campus of a liberal arts college? Its like an alternative anarchist.
What are you talking about?
At this point, I honestly don’t know what “liberal” actually means. I don’t even know how to ask/find out. When I was growing up, I always thought it was good.
Now I don’t even know what “good” is, other than not being racist or anti-LGBTQ+.
Draw an equal triangle. One line is ‘public policy’, another ‘private interest’, and the last ‘state authority’. You can label the two endpoints of ‘state authority’ as ‘left’ and ‘right’. The third point is ‘liberal’ which lies in opposition to the political spectrum of state authority. Liberals tend to fixate on authoritarianism over whether it serves the public or private interest.
People rarely fall on the points or lines as all concepts are in perfect tension.
I’m still too stupid to fully understand but BOOOOOO AUTHORITARIANISM
You’re fine. Ability to pull political abstracts off Lemmy is not a sign of intelligence or lack thereof.
But anyway, unless you go full primitive anarchist most people generally want some level of authority: like laws, codes, contracts, etc.
Whether those things serve public policy vs private interests will generally split ‘left’ or ‘right’ respectively.
When a conservative says liberal, it just means Democrat.
When someone with a vague clue says it?
Liberalism is a political ideology that holds that the primary role of government is to protect the rights of its citizens.
What those rights are, and who the liberals consider to be worthy of protection vary but as a general rule the right to private property, some form of democratic representation, due process with at least a gesture to equality before the law, freedom of religion and expression tend to be core rights.
Historically liberalism is deeply invested in capitalist and humanist thought. You could probably argue that liberalism isn’t strictly required to be capitalist but quite frankly it’s unlikely that will change before humanity is at the point of free energy and absolute post scarcity productivity.
The founding nations of liberalism are, roughly, America, France, and the UK and it’s Commonwealth. If you want a intuitive understanding of what liberalism is in practice and reality, just think of their history in the past two centuries or so and the struggles of governance they have undergone.
Those aren’t the only form of liberalism however. Social Democracy (the so called Scandinavian model) is a form of liberalism, neoconservatism (GW Bush, Romney) is liberalism (in theory), etc. Even “right wing” libertarianism is ultimately a form of liberalism, no matter how much that upsets the ones that don’t know what words mean.
Anyways, political parties that officially call themselves Liberal tend to be fairly conservative by modern standards. It is a uniquely American degeneracy sponsored by Reagan that sought to call progressives liberals.
One might note that you can broadly characterize the defining ideologies of the past century into three broad categories.
Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism.
When a supposed ideological liberal like Reagan and his successors, modern conservatives say no, actually, I hate liberals and I REALLY hate socialists you should believe what they tell you, and consider what that makes them.
Thank you for the extremely detailed explanation! That makes it make a lot more sense to me. I grew up “liberal is da left and conservutiv is da right” and I really didn’t identify with either? Then I saw right-wing fuckheads bashing “the libs,” and now left-wing peeps are also bashing “the libs” and I was so confused like “HOW COULD YOU HAVE COMMON GROUND WITH RIGHT-WING GARBAGE”
I would counter relative to the other answer you got that liberalism is based on a leveling of the political rights of citizens while resisting a leveling of economic rights (despite some calls for it even at the time). Feudal governments absolutely were also based on the defense of the rights of their citizens and indeed even some classical slave societies, but the difference is that those societies had [more pronounced and varied] castes which each had different political rights.
Liberalism was a revolution led by merchants and other propertied people against the aristocracy, i.e. people with the greatest economic rights opposing those with the greatest political rights, leaving the former completely unchecked except sometimes by popular power.
Incidentally, and this explains some of the bickering in this thread, communists of all stripes are people who advocate that both political and economic rights are leveled, which manifests as the economy being controlled by popular mandate rather than private ownership.
Anyway, I’m mainly commenting to say if you have other political questions, you can usually get very thorough answers from c/askchapo
Hmm, interesting! I should probably actually check out the Chapo podcast. I have never heard it and folks here seem to be fond of it. I have heard some of the hosts on Cumtown, and they’re very funny.
A lot of people on hexbear hate chapo (despite that being where c/askchapo is, due to hexbear formerly being chapo.chat) but I think it’s alright. The most recent episode starts out with a very informative segment about sanctions.
Linguistically, that’s usually how it is used in America (but not elsewhere), “liberal” means “left”
flashback to my college days getting asked on surveys what my politics are on a scale of liberal to conservative
they’d always mark me as “independent” since their scale had nowhere to put communists