Do any of them know what the word “liberal” actually means?
I’m on the left, but I’m far from a communist, much less an authoritarian one, and I 100% use lib or liberal as an insult. I think to most people younger than 50, Liberal refers to a certain type of Democratic voter. They’ll hang a BLM sign in their window but support NIMBY policies that keep people of color out of their neighborhoods. They’ll talk a good game about labor rights and unions, but still go to Starbucks and throw a shit-fit if their order is wrong. They cared very deeply about Iraq and Guantanamo when Bush was President, but stopped bringing it up once Obama was in office.
The Third Way Democrats of the 90s basically turned American Liberals into Neo-Liberals. I will still support them when I have to, since they hold all the levers of power over the only ostensibly progressive party in America, and not siding with them ar this point basically ensures the rise of fascism, but I have no love for Liberals.
Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
Do you know what the word ‘liberal’ actually means
Neato@ttrpg.network 6 months ago
It has 2 common definitions:
You’re almost never going to hear the right-wing use #1. Authoritarian communists will use #2 as a catch-all for modern capitalism.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
The US is such a right wing country that liberals are the mainstream left. In Europe, liberals are centrists and they aren’t further to the right than American libs.
archomrade@midwest.social 6 months ago
It’s extremely frustrating hearing this repeated so often here.
It’s fine if this is the colloquial definition you’re used to hearing and using, but this is certainly not the way it’s used outside of American politics and pretending like it’s the only use comes off as both ill-informed and condescending.
When used derisively from the left, rest assured it is not referring to either of your adopted generalizations but a very specific ideology.
Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
I’m sorry but this is just flat out wrong in the way that only an American can be wrong
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
Liberalism has never meant “leftism in general.” It has always been an ideology supporting the individual via private property rights. Neoliberalism is the modern form of it.
Liberalism was considered left when feudalism was right, but liberalism has never meant leftism.
FozzyOsbourne@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Open-minded, permissive, tolerant
alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
It means you support capitalism, hence why “liberalization of the economy” means selling off public utilities, land, and resources.
Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
Look rather than dunk on you, I’m going to recommend Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast, because it gives a fair overview of what the liberal revolutions were about, why socialism grew out of that moment, and how there came to be this irreconciliable beef between liberalism and socialism. The whole thing is great, but 1848 is the real crisis point if all you care about is the schism.
Neon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted.
Liberal literally means free. As in “If it doesn’t harm me, you’re allowed to do it”. So yes, openminded, permissive, tolerant.
Don’t know why a lot of the US-Americans had to twist the meaning of it.
joyjoy@lemm.ee 6 months ago
“I apply my butter liberally.”
menemen@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This discussion is funny from a German pov, as our local liberal party (the FDP) is pretty right wing.
orrk@lemmy.world 6 months ago
that’s because liberalism in Europe is mainly “liberty” for rish people to do what they want
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Eh. Its traditionally in that “economically conservative, socially liberal” pocket, wherein you can do whatever you want so long as you’ve got enough passive income.
Fascists tend toward a more rigid social caste system (ideologically) wherein being rich isn’t enough to save you from state violence. That’s a big part of its popular appeal, particularly when liberal institutions decay into kleptocracies.
Traditional Marxism tends toward the social egalitarianism that fascists can’t stomach (race mixing, gender equality, and worker internationalism) while advocating full public ownership that liberal rent-seekers can’t stomach.
So, in the modern political spectrum, liberals tend to be “centrists” who use their economic influence to rent out social egalitarianism. Fascists tend to be “right wing”, advocating for those same private entities to purge themselves of unpopular social groups. And Marxists tend to be “left wing”, advocating for an abolition of rents and a full egalitarian economy.
But if you go back a century (or move over to a country that’s more left or right leaning) the colonial era monarchies and theocracies end up forming the right-wing pole, while fascists join liberals at the social center, and Marxists join a much more lively native anarchist community that’s in its last-gasp efforts to resist colonial occupation.
Sidyctism@feddit.de 6 months ago
Are they? I would say the CDU under Merz is more likely to work with the AfD