• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Liberalism is right-wing

        I mean, you gotta define your spectrum. If you want to get French with it, the Monarchists are on the right and the Liberals are on the Left. The communists won’t really exist for another fifty years (as a European economic school).

        Liberalism only exists “on the right-wing” in the modern era thanks to over a century of Socialist nation building. Even then, the very term is muddled by decades of fascist rebranding - first as Anarcho-Capitalists and then as National Socialists and then as Neo-Conservatives and then as Neo-Liberals and now in a return to White Nationalism - with “liberal” being embraced or rejected in turns as our corporate media needed it to be.

        As a case in point, I challenge you to tell me whether liberals are libertarian. In Europe and Asia, they functionally are. In the Americas, they couldn’t be further from it in mainstream politics.

        The political spectrum is full of double-speak. “Liberal” is a textbook case. It can mean anything and nothing.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          13 hours ago

          If we’re being consistent, it’s an ideology centering private property and capitalism, which puts it on the right in the global context.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            it’s an ideology centering private property and capitalism

            That’s the economic angle. But it also promises a host of libertarian social reforms included within the free market system. What’s more, liberalism isn’t just an attempt to yank socialists back from their economic progressivism. They’re often efforts to balkinize the power base of local dictatorships and feudal aristocracies.

            The original liberals were trying to break up the Old World feudal system, establish economic mobility through cross-border trade, and secularize states that had historically been married to a single branch of a particular religion. All of that was incredibly left-wing from the perspective of the theocrats and monarchists.

            Hell, the whole pitch aimed at The Dictatorship of the Proletariat that liberals make is that Socialists/Communists are just Monarchists in disguise. Unipolar parties aren’t really democratic. Centrally planned economies aren’t really communally owned or beneficial. And atheist leaders are just advancing their lack-of-religion as its own kind of faith.

            Are these liberals full of shit?

            spoiler

            Yes

            But the political spectrum is wide, and they’re nowhere near the right-most end of it.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              12 hours ago

              I feel that this is just a consequence of trying to firmly place ideologies on a spectrum beyond whether they affirm capitalism or affirm socialism. I don’t tend to bother trying to compare how right or how left ideologies are, but instead judge the various left and right ideologies on their own propositions, which can’t be easily graphed.

      • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        You guys ever think you’re being coaxed by the rich to create all these dividing groups. I sure do.

          • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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            13 hours ago

            Why don’t you think that? Wouldn’t it make sense that convincing groups to decimate and alienate themselves from the main body would benefit them politically? Or is this just a case of the left going off of vibes hopes and dreams

            • Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml
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              7 minutes ago

              Liberals call Trump a communist on daily basis. Why should we trust these malicious and stupid people who can’t even differentiate socialism from fascism?

            • Comrade1917@lemmy.mlOP
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              13 hours ago

              Liberals don’t help us. They have been in power before and do absolutely nothing.

                • causepix@lemmy.ml
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                  8 hours ago

                  Liberals arent a singular group

                  They are when your definition of a liberal is material rather than aesthetic.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              13 hours ago

              I don’t think the rich are creating communist orgs that accurately explain the problems today just to divide liberals from the left, considering liberalism by nature already supports the system the capitalists profit off of. If anything, your suggestion is going off of vibes, hopes, and dreams.

              • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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                11 hours ago

                I didn’t say they were creating them. I am saying they’re targeting groups with more passion than brains

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  11 hours ago

                  The rich do manipulate liberals into thinking they can get meaningful change through electoralism, but I don’t see what that has to do with leftists.

                  • Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml
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                    21 minutes ago

                    Yep. They want you to replace the rightwing, pro-corporate government with another right-wing, pro-corporate government.

                  • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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                    11 hours ago

                    Wow incredible. It’s like speaking to a trump supporter. Weird how your opinion parallels theirs. It’s almost like it’s coming from the same place

          • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            No you’re redrawing lines. It’s the new “walkaway” movement getting ready for the next election. You’re going to poison the votes.

            • Comrade_Spood@quokk.au
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              12 hours ago

              Dude do you even know what liberal means?

              Liberalism is an ideology founded in a few core principles. Capitalism and the right to own property, the power of the government originating from the masses rather than god, and inalienable rights for its citizens.

              You guys are the ones redefining old words cause you don’t like the idea of not being considered leftist anymore. The overton window has shifted since the 1700s, yall are centrists now.

              • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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                12 hours ago

                Liberal policies aren’t just a singular thing. Because of these groups astro turfing they’re getting the usual gang of idiots to say there is only one group and that is the one that shares a few center right policies.

                • Comrade_Spood@quokk.au
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                  9 hours ago

                  We aren’t saying there aren’t different kinds of liberals, what we are trying to tell you is that liberalism is not a left wing ideology anymore. It is centrist and anti-communist. Yes you have left leaning liberals and right leaning. But that still only makes yall center-left and center-right.

                  Leftists issues with liberals is because liberals, no matter what are pro-capitalist and anti-communist. Communists are anti-property and liberals are pro-property. Yes a leftist has more in common with a left leaning liberal than they do a right leaning liberal, but that does not make their interests aligned. Historically anytime liberals and communists team up, communists get backstabbed. And more often than not, it never even gets to teaming up. Historically, liberals are the ones to team up with authoritarians to crush communists.

                  And I’m an anarchist. I trust Marxist communists just about as much as I do liberals. That is to say not much. And I have more interests aligned with a Marxist than I do a liberal

                  • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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                    8 hours ago

                    Economically liberalism can be right of center but socially they are left. It’s complicated way more than just “they’re right”

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          you’re being coaxed by the rich to create all these dividing groups

          “Bad People tricked you into thinking that way” is such a shit way of engaging anyone politically.

          It simultaneously serves to call the audience stupid and insert some nebulous outside agency as the scapegoat for failing to make your own case.

          Like, if you want to rally people to all agree you fucking suck, there’s really no better way than to go to every individual group and say “I’m right, its obvious, and you’re just too dumb to notice.”

          • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Didn’t answer what I asked. Being stupid is ignoring a question like this because of ego

            And I don’t want to rally people. I’m honestly giving up on the left. I’ve watched them slash tires to protest … Cars. I’ve seen them defend blocking traffic even when we see how counter productive it is when it always produces footage of regular folks and emergency vehicles getting delayed. I’ve watched them Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I have seen zero effective strategies. But now I’m tired and things I wouldn’t call it I’ll say it now because I’m so fucking done watching people not realize this stuff. It’s walkaway 2.0

            I’ve watched the left turn into something that is extremely toxic. There’s no social awareness. If you think what I’m saying is toxic or lacking in social awareness congratulations, that’s the strategy the left uses every single day now. There’s no effort, no consistency day to day other than areas that divide. It’s an ideology about burning bridges and purity tests

        • Comrade1917@lemmy.mlOP
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          13 hours ago

          Are you funded by the billionaire elite to defend liberalism? Obviously we divide capitalist ideology from socialist/communist groups