• squiblet@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    What kind of weird opposite shit is this? Liberals? Liberals tend to be criticizing Israel and decrying civilian deaths and criticizing Israel, while conservatives are supporting the (far-right) govt. of Israel.

    • aseriesoftubes@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There are some on the far far left who get their jollies by referring to everyone who isn’t an actual communist as a “liberal.” There’s a whole ecosystem of memes decrying shit that right-wingers are responsible for and blaming it on “liberals.”

      My guess is that they’re making a distinction between communism and classical liberalism.

      Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, constitutional government and privacy rights.

      • squiblet@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Yes, the people who call themselves leftists or communists (on lemmy for instance) often use ‘liberal’ to mean Classic Liberal or Neoliberal, which basically means free-market capitalist. That’s the definition used in Europe. It’s confusing because it is not at all what we mean in the US. Though Democratic Party politicians are definitely mostly capitalist, we use Liberal to refer to being left on social issues in particular, and sometimes also economics.

          • squiblet@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Basic capitalism is not negotiable in mainstream US politics. The only choices are what services the government will provide, exactly how far we let corporations roll over us, foreign policy, whether or not to be a theocracy and social issues.

      • catch22@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        Marx and Engels are very insistent that liberalism is a tool of the bourgeois.

        Although, I think more often than not defining anything short of hardcore central control to achieve some notion of socialism, probably scientific because utopian is naive and fucking libs blah blah, is just used by crypto fascists to give their violent bigoted authoritarian tendencies an aire of legitimacy. Pretty much what the Bolsheviks did to turn the initial revolution into a fascist cesspit.

      • jackalope
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        1 year ago

        The distinction is silly anyway. Classical liberals like John Stuart Mill called for communism.

      • squiblet@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Yes, I’m quite sure. Democrats in office don’t fully represent their constituents and are not all really liberals. I’m speaking based off my experience with what your cartoon references, which is ‘liberals online’.

          • squiblet@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Neoliberalism is a reboot of Classic Liberalism, from what I understand. I mean social/maybe-medium-economic leftists in the sense the term is used in politics in the US currently. That is, people who oppose racism, colonialism, sexism, are pro-LGBT but are perhaps socialist economically but rarely communist.