“Liberal,” at least on Lemmy, has become more or less a meaningless word. Any word that has so many definitions, different depending on who you talk to, it becomes sort of corrupted and useless.
I’ve literally seen several times a conversation generally of the format “You support Israel!” “wtf no I don’t” “Yes you do because you’re a liberal and I know that because (whatever)! You’re lying, you support Israel! All liberals support Israel!” I’m exaggerating slightly but that’s the basic core of it.
Interestingly enough, the proto-MAGA movement was trying for years to turn “liberal” into a slur before the internet turbo-leftists got in on it. It basically fulfills exactly the same function in both cases: Just a checkbox that means “enemy” which can be used to shut down critical engagement, because humans have an instinctual category for “enemy of the tribe” for which engagement is meaningless, and you just need to attack.
IDK what word you could use to refer to news like MSNBC. I actually don’t see a problem with saying “liberal” to mean news like MSNBC / The Atlantic / similar points on the spectrum, but on Lemmy, you’re going to really get people confused. The word in general is just best left avoided I think.
Leftists have always hated liberals. Mao has an entire book about how evil and hypocritical liberalism. It’s not my fault that you were raised to think “liberal”= left
Thank you for providing an excellent example of how people react once that “enemy” box that I was talking about gets triggered. “It’s not my fault you were raised” etc is a perfect example of how people talk when they think they’re talking to an “enemy,” and attacking is more important than anything else.
(Mao also thought that killing all the birds would help the agriculture, I don’t really take him as any kind of authority on how stuff works. MLK Jr. would have been a better example.)
very specific academic definition that most people use
Definitely not lol. Almost nothing in political philosophy works this way, where everyone generally agrees on what the big and heavy loaded words mean, that have been in use worldwide and for centuries in all kinds of situations.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.[1][2] Liberals espouse various and sometimes conflicting 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.[3] Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.[4][5]: 11
So that’s the definition that everyone agrees on – so any liberal would strongly oppose Israel, because they’re violating any number of those principles (basically all of them), right? You’d agree with that? Or no? I have a feeling you’re about to educate me again.
They did, somewhat, back in the early 20th century. There was a massive labor movement, direct engagement into political life by a whole lot of ordinary people, and a big effort to turn the awesome power of the central government into working to address ordinary (white) people’s problems.
It’s part of what made it into a superpower by the 1950s. Before that it was just farms and racism. Then we got lazy, and let the assholes take over as the decades rolled by. But we can recover again, it just takes a ton of work.
When did MSNBC become “liberal”? Has the definition of liberal changed again? I’m tired and I can’t keep up with this shit.
“Liberal,” at least on Lemmy, has become more or less a meaningless word. Any word that has so many definitions, different depending on who you talk to, it becomes sort of corrupted and useless.
I’ve literally seen several times a conversation generally of the format “You support Israel!” “wtf no I don’t” “Yes you do because you’re a liberal and I know that because (whatever)! You’re lying, you support Israel! All liberals support Israel!” I’m exaggerating slightly but that’s the basic core of it.
Interestingly enough, the proto-MAGA movement was trying for years to turn “liberal” into a slur before the internet turbo-leftists got in on it. It basically fulfills exactly the same function in both cases: Just a checkbox that means “enemy” which can be used to shut down critical engagement, because humans have an instinctual category for “enemy of the tribe” for which engagement is meaningless, and you just need to attack.
IDK what word you could use to refer to news like MSNBC. I actually don’t see a problem with saying “liberal” to mean news like MSNBC / The Atlantic / similar points on the spectrum, but on Lemmy, you’re going to really get people confused. The word in general is just best left avoided I think.
Leftists have always hated liberals. Mao has an entire book about how evil and hypocritical liberalism. It’s not my fault that you were raised to think “liberal”= left
Thank you for providing an excellent example of how people react once that “enemy” box that I was talking about gets triggered. “It’s not my fault you were raised” etc is a perfect example of how people talk when they think they’re talking to an “enemy,” and attacking is more important than anything else.
(Mao also thought that killing all the birds would help the agriculture, I don’t really take him as any kind of authority on how stuff works. MLK Jr. would have been a better example.)
“liberal” has a very specific academic definition that most people use. It’s not my fault if you don’t understand that.
Definitely not lol. Almost nothing in political philosophy works this way, where everyone generally agrees on what the big and heavy loaded words mean, that have been in use worldwide and for centuries in all kinds of situations.
So that’s the definition that everyone agrees on – so any liberal would strongly oppose Israel, because they’re violating any number of those principles (basically all of them), right? You’d agree with that? Or no? I have a feeling you’re about to educate me again.
Liberalism in general is a center right ideology. It’s just the furthest left you can be in America without being demonized.
I fail to get why USians cannot make a real left government
because we did once, and so the wealthy and powerful spent ludicrous amounts of money taking over the country to ensure it never, ever happens again.
They did, somewhat, back in the early 20th century. There was a massive labor movement, direct engagement into political life by a whole lot of ordinary people, and a big effort to turn the awesome power of the central government into working to address ordinary (white) people’s problems.
It’s part of what made it into a superpower by the 1950s. Before that it was just farms and racism. Then we got lazy, and let the assholes take over as the decades rolled by. But we can recover again, it just takes a ton of work.
Because we’re an Oligarchy and liberal ideals are the last thing they want to encourage.
Manifest destiny.
It’s called the Overton Window … where you subtly over time shift the political landscape from one extreme to another without anyone noticing
🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
Depends on your definition of “again”. American liberalism has been Neoliberalism since 1992.
You may be thinking of Leftism or Progressivism, neither of which is liberalism.