I’m not a liberal, how is this infighting? I believe in socialism. Socdems are capitalists. There no shared “in” here. They are my ideological antagonists.
Not sure what you’re trying to insinuate, but you could at least spell the terms you’re choosing to invoke properly if you want people to understand your point.
Edit: I get it now. Yes, fascists are the diametrical opposition to socialists. But liberals are also antagonists.
I think infighting is the wrong word. When people say “Democrats are fascists” or “social democrats are very much liberal” it’s not infighting. It’s a targeted attack by right wing actors to suppress any sort of left wing coalition building.
At best the people making these attacks and posting the “both sides are the same” memes are like those violently outspoken homophobes that always get caught raping an underage twink at a truck stop. They are self hating fascists cosplaying as progressives and leftists.
At worst these people are actual Nazi’s actively engaging in a FUD campaign in leftist spaces.
Infighting implies it’s someone from the left making the attack, but in reality the people making these attacks aren’t on the left at all.
No, they mean social democracy is literally a form of liberalism, because they know what they’re talking about and liberals don’t even know what liberalism is, which is just one of the many reasons it’s dying on the vine and failing every test of ideological character.
Edit: just re-read your comment, and I think we’re actually not in disagreement, but Ill leave the reply.
I’m not convinced it’s as much propaganda as people on Lemmy seem to think.
This is a US-centric POV, but growing up and through almost all of my 30s, “liberal” was the term used for people who were for things like LGBTQ rights, increasing access to healthcare, criminal justice reform, stronger unions, improving access to higher education, getting out of pointless foreign wars, etc. And in the 00s, experiencing the term “liberal” becoming a slur from the Fox News regressives, racists and various-phobes.
Granted, this was all within the framework of capitalism and electoral politics generally being good things. But at least in the US, lots of people over 35 who are aligned with a fair number of leftist ideals, but have not really been exposed to anything outside of mainstream politics, would be utterly confused at the idea of “liberal” being a bad thing to anyone but MAGAs.
Joining Lemmy a few years back, it was a bit of a shock to see that being used as a slur, but since then, I’ve come to at least a bit of understanding why that is.
The point being, there’s a fundamental disagreement in what the word “liberal” means, between the common usage, and the usage in leftist spaces. And leftists who understand that but insist on using “liberal” as a slur are shooting themselves in the foot by not adjusting their messaging accordingly.
There’s also a fundamental disagreement in what the word “liberal” means, between the American usage, and the usage in the rest of the world.
American liberalism started to conflate elements of leftism, because they couldn’t openly call themselves communists, socialists, or anarchists without being unAmerican. Now the two terms are ramshackled together, and they unwittingly defend right wing values as they perceive it as an attack on their identity.
To my understanding, liberalism does value things like that (or at least personal rights and freedoms to some extent, which can include stuff like that). The problem as I see it is that it also includes an overly strong emphasis on personal property rights (for example, one would not expect a liberal government to do something like forcibly nationalize a company, especially without simply buying the shares at market price, because that would be seen as impinging on the rights of the company’s owners).
Now, I don’t object to all personal property, like a person owning the home they live in or something, but if some people own overwhelmingly more than others, that in itself limits the effective rights of others. For example, a person with more money to spend on lawyers is less likely to face justice for crimes than someone else, a person with enough money to buy ads political lobbyists or even entire media platforms has their speech go much further than someone of average wealth, and even for property rights itself, there’s only so much wealth generation to go around and if someone owns a large percentage of it that can’t be owned by someone else, those others people’s work will end up going to enrich that one owner.
That’s why I find liberalism problematic: it’s generally well intentioned I think but by failing to ensure a relatively even distribution of wealth, the other values it tries to promote are subverted and slip away, until eventually a few people have enough power to seize authoritarian control.
Socdems are very much so liberal.
This infighting is dumb. Solidarity
I’m not a liberal, how is this infighting? I believe in socialism. Socdems are capitalists. There no shared “in” here. They are my ideological antagonists.
Not facists?
Not sure what you’re trying to insinuate, but you could at least spell the terms you’re choosing to invoke properly if you want people to understand your point.
Edit: I get it now. Yes, fascists are the diametrical opposition to socialists. But liberals are also antagonists.
I think infighting is the wrong word. When people say “Democrats are fascists” or “social democrats are very much liberal” it’s not infighting. It’s a targeted attack by right wing actors to suppress any sort of left wing coalition building.
At best the people making these attacks and posting the “both sides are the same” memes are like those violently outspoken homophobes that always get caught raping an underage twink at a truck stop. They are self hating fascists cosplaying as progressives and leftists.
At worst these people are actual Nazi’s actively engaging in a FUD campaign in leftist spaces.
Infighting implies it’s someone from the left making the attack, but in reality the people making these attacks aren’t on the left at all.
Makes sense
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No, they mean social democracy is literally a form of liberalism, because they know what they’re talking about and liberals don’t even know what liberalism is, which is just one of the many reasons it’s dying on the vine and failing every test of ideological character.
Nice “solidarity” btw.
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We use it as an insult because capitalist is an insult, you bootlicking thief and roundly ignorant sycophant.
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dUrr YOuRe AmeRICaN
Edit: just re-read your comment, and I think we’re actually not in disagreement, but Ill leave the reply.
I’m not convinced it’s as much propaganda as people on Lemmy seem to think.
This is a US-centric POV, but growing up and through almost all of my 30s, “liberal” was the term used for people who were for things like LGBTQ rights, increasing access to healthcare, criminal justice reform, stronger unions, improving access to higher education, getting out of pointless foreign wars, etc. And in the 00s, experiencing the term “liberal” becoming a slur from the Fox News regressives, racists and various-phobes.
Granted, this was all within the framework of capitalism and electoral politics generally being good things. But at least in the US, lots of people over 35 who are aligned with a fair number of leftist ideals, but have not really been exposed to anything outside of mainstream politics, would be utterly confused at the idea of “liberal” being a bad thing to anyone but MAGAs.
Joining Lemmy a few years back, it was a bit of a shock to see that being used as a slur, but since then, I’ve come to at least a bit of understanding why that is.
The point being, there’s a fundamental disagreement in what the word “liberal” means, between the common usage, and the usage in leftist spaces. And leftists who understand that but insist on using “liberal” as a slur are shooting themselves in the foot by not adjusting their messaging accordingly.
There’s also a fundamental disagreement in what the word “liberal” means, between the American usage, and the usage in the rest of the world.
American liberalism started to conflate elements of leftism, because they couldn’t openly call themselves communists, socialists, or anarchists without being unAmerican. Now the two terms are ramshackled together, and they unwittingly defend right wing values as they perceive it as an attack on their identity.
There isn’t a disagreement. There’s people that know what words mean and people that don’t.
To my understanding, liberalism does value things like that (or at least personal rights and freedoms to some extent, which can include stuff like that). The problem as I see it is that it also includes an overly strong emphasis on personal property rights (for example, one would not expect a liberal government to do something like forcibly nationalize a company, especially without simply buying the shares at market price, because that would be seen as impinging on the rights of the company’s owners).
Now, I don’t object to all personal property, like a person owning the home they live in or something, but if some people own overwhelmingly more than others, that in itself limits the effective rights of others. For example, a person with more money to spend on lawyers is less likely to face justice for crimes than someone else, a person with enough money to buy ads political lobbyists or even entire media platforms has their speech go much further than someone of average wealth, and even for property rights itself, there’s only so much wealth generation to go around and if someone owns a large percentage of it that can’t be owned by someone else, those others people’s work will end up going to enrich that one owner.
That’s why I find liberalism problematic: it’s generally well intentioned I think but by failing to ensure a relatively even distribution of wealth, the other values it tries to promote are subverted and slip away, until eventually a few people have enough power to seize authoritarian control.
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