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Own The Libs (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 73 points 1 year ago (19 children)

I mean….. I would say most of this is leftists not liberals, but perhaps that’s splitting hairs a bit

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  • [–] 56 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I've settled on the word "progressive" as being the best general word for this.

    The problem is that, outside of politics, "liberal" is the opposite of "conservative". "Add a liberal amount of mayonnaise," means "err on the side of too much", while "Add a conservative amount of mayonnaise," means "err on the side of too little".

    But in politics, sometimes, "liberal" literally means "conservative". Especially in Europe, it is associated with free market capitalism. But in America, it is not generally associated with it.

    On the other hand, the meaning of "progressive" is basically the same everywhere, political or otherwise, and it has a common-sense opposite meaning from conservative, unlike "left".

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yeah, even in Canada our Liberal party is just centrist. The only times they actually enact anything progressive is when our left wing party (NDP) push them to

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    That is across the west, the non-conservative parties have all been taken over by conservatives. Better than the other guy is generally their only selling point. Which has allowed the conservative parties to become rabidly extreme and still win elections. These European countries still think they are immune even while fascism is on their doorstep gaining voteshare every election as they refuse to offer any reform.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Progressive is for the here and now.

    Socialism, or just leftism in general, is the end goal.

    I tell my friends and family that I'm a progressive. Online, I call myself a socialist.

    At least in the US, you're doing your advocacy right.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Ok here’s what annoys me. People who CALL themselves liberals think they’re on the same side leftists in North America, but the politicians do not have these delusions. If you’re a liberal or a democrat in actual politics, you are for free market capitalism.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Did you ever consider that people don't always fully align with any of these terms but feel compelled to use them anyway because it would take too long to explain their entire worldview repeatedly?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    WHAT IS THIS NUANCE???

    Only on Lemmy do I see such petty debate over liberal vs leftist vs progressive.

    In the US, where we really only have two parties, are democrats really just centrists? Yes. But on a spectrum where you only have one dimension, the above terms all generally mean the same thing.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    Progressives and radicals are always ahead of the Liberals, so the Liberals shouldn't get credit for simply eventually giving way to the ideas of other ideologies.

    There's a plethora of progressive ideas that Liberals still refuse to give into. Universal Education, Healthcare, Four day week, Modern Monetary Theory, Free Public Transport, the end of the prison system, community based policing, addiction as a health problem.

    Plenty of Liberals still rallying against progressive and radical ideas... Some of which will be deemed Liberal ideas once they become accepted.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    These terms aren't so cut and dried in actual usage. In 2008 nearly every young person I knew would've self identified as a liberal and they supported the vast majority of everything you just claimed them to be objectively against.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Maybe young people of that era were just served well enough by "the left" in general that the smaller divisions didn't matter as much.

    Today Liberal yoo often means selling you Economic Liberalism under the cover of Social Liberalism. So now we need to know the differences, and have terms like Progressive, Social Democrat, Anarchist, Socialist... The Liberals today are too often cutouts for Capitalism and the free market.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    You're using different terminology. Typically in the US liberal usually means socially liberal/progressive. Not economic liberalism. They're technically right. But the slang redefinition of the term due to decades of fascist propaganda definitely muddies discussions. As intended.

    Doesn't help with the general lack of education on the topic. You have to stay constantly vigilant to not talk passed eachother because of it.

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