You misspelled “progressives.” Liberals are capitalist conservative corpos and actively enable all of these problems.
Fucking THANK YOU! Liberalism and progressivism are not related. “Liberal” is a pejorative made popular by neoliberal cockroach Ronald Reagan.
People who believe in capitalism (ie liberals) can still want all these things. Look at the Nordic countries as examples. Ultimately leftism is the way to go but despite what the tankies on here scream about every liberal is not a fascist.
As I understand geopolitical definitions, “progressives” are the leftmost slice of the larger “liberal” envelope.
It’s like you’re saying, “No, bugs don’t fly. Just look at this centipede!”
That and/or No True Scotsman.
Naw, in the US Liberalists stand in the way of Progressives. They are not on the same team because one is radical in nature and the other is conservative.
While the strict definitions will muddy these two terms most people who understand what is going on resist this trap.
Never heard of the term “Liberalist” before. Is that some hip new way to refer to liberals?
By every definition of “progressive” and “liberal” I know, they overlap.
A liberalist is someone who advocates liberalism.
Yes, as I said traditional definitions will muddy these waters. That is why I said in the US.
Liberalists regularly work against progressives in US politics. If they are the same then why are they opposed?
A liberalist is someone who advocates liberalism.
… bruh.
So to you, a person who advocates fascism is a fascistist?
Liberalists regularly work against progressives in US politics. If they are the same then why are they opposed?
Because they are on opposite ends of the same area of the political spectrum, obviously. Same reason groypers don’t get along with MAGA.
It is the definition of the word. Not sure where you are going. You would prefer me to use liberal instead of liberalist…? The problem is a liberal doesn’t necessarily advocate for liberalism. A liberalist does. A progressive advocates for progressive policies.
Progressives want to reform liberal systems that are broken. You can keep pretending they are the same all you want, but they are diametrically opposed in the US.
It’s just inane splitting of hairs - a pointless distinction.
What do you call a fascist that spreads fascism? A fascist.
What do you call a fascist that doesn’t spread fascism? A fascist.
LMAO.
Hey, how about this hot take: Pedophiles should not be a fucking head of state.
Oh, so now conservatives can’t be leaders at all?! Totally unfair!
Woah, woah… That’s a bit too radical. Reel it in a few notches and we can have a grown-up discussion /s
That’s a good’n right there.
The shift in the meaning of Liberalism in representative government started in the 1970s as a response to Stagflation and Reaganism.
When talking about Liberalism in the context of modern western representative governments it now generally refers to the belief that liberal free market economics is the best way to a prosperous society (a rising tide lifts all boats, if people don’t want something they won’t buy it, the market has a role in government).
This is called the Third Way or Third Way Economics. This was when the belief that a good society is created by providing a good quality of life ended, and the new viewpoint that a good society is created through creating and protecting the best condition for business started (meaning deregulation, privatisation, a two tier legal system, privatization of profits, socialization of costs).
In terms of modern representative government, that’s what liberalism now means. Liberals believe the protection of business conditions leads to a prosperous society and quality of life.
This put the government in the role of serving whatever businesses and industries said they needed, and we’ve been there ever since.
Well said. I was reading through all the points in the post thinking liberals don’t believe any of this stuff, save for maybe a couple of the points.
Since the label is an issue for some, let’s call them healthy policies, and then whichever platform supports the most healthy policies, vote for them, and if they get enough majority to pass the healthy policies we all do better! This is how to advance, not swing back and forth flippantly, and ruin progress each time they go maga, and then complain about shooting self in foot, ffs.
The label is an issue for anyone whose studied political history past the 1970s when when Stagflation and Reganomics occurred and The Third Way became the dominant “liberal” position/meaning in representative government. Aka economic liberalization.
That prosperity comes from protecting and serving the best business conditions, and that that is serving the people (rather than the previous model, that prosperity comes from serving and protecting a good quality of life/conditions for the people directly).
With this political belief came market deregulation, privatization of public services, and markets as partners or cooperators of government.
Oh, look! It’s a long list of things conservatives hate!
It looks like OP has upset a lot of the divisionists on lemmy by positing that liberals actually want things they agree with….
“GASP! That can’t be! Because we are supposed to hate liberals because that what we keep telling ourselves to do! How can they possibly want things that are good when we keep tellingbus they want things that are bad! Owwwww! My braaaaiiiin!”
So there aren’t a whole bunch of Social Liberals in representative government today. Most tend to be Neoliberals.
Since the stagflation of the 70s, Liberalism has mostly been about the belief that government isn’t there to provide a good quality of life, with good public services and conditions. Liberalism and neoliberals in the modern usage tend to now believe that the government is there to provide the best market conditions for businesses.
This shift in meaning was called “the third way”, and includes people like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.
This shift put the government in the drivers seat of being king makers to the market, of working closely with markets and industries to hear what they want and provide it for them.
This is why establishment Democrats are generally considered center-right… The ones not fitting that mold (who perhaps still believe government should provide quality of life conditions) are labeled progressives.
But generally Liberalism today, in terms of representative government, is the belief that good market conditions must be protected and upheld for businesses, in order for society to prosper. That was the resolution/response to reganism and stagflation.
lol…. Right.
From Wikipedia:
“Under the centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1983 to 1996, the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating governments pursued many economic policies associated with economic rationalism such as floating the Australian Dollar in 1983, reductions in trade tariffs, taxation reforms, changing from centralised wage-fixing to enterprise bargaining, restrictions on trade union activities including on strike action and pattern bargaining, the privatisation of government-run services and enterprises such as Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank and wholesale deregulation of the banking system. Keating also proposed a Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 1985, but this was scrapped due to its unpopularity amongst both the Labor Party and electorate.[citation needed] The party also desisted from other reforms such as wholesale labour market deregulation, the eventual GST, the privatisation of Telstra and welfare reform. The Hawke-Keating governments have been considered by some as laying the groundwork for the later development of both the New Democrats in the United States and New Labour in the United Kingdom.[33][34]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
So yes, it is correct to say that these behaviors define the (current) New Democrats and New Labour political positions that are in power in the establishment left of many western democracies. They have been the establishment left for 30 odd years now.
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The connection isn’t the thing being proven. The character is… And you can’t really deny that New Labour and the New Democrats are right leaning in their fiscal conservativism:
The New Democrats, often referred to as Moderate Democrats, are a center to center-left and liberal faction within the United States Democratic Party. They are seen as culturally liberal on social issues while being fiscally conservative on certain economic issues.[6] New Democrats dominated the party from the late 1980s through the early-2010s and continue to be a large coalition in the modern Democratic Party.[7][8][9]
New Labour was influenced by the political thinking of Anthony Crosland and the leadership of Blair and Brown as well as Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell’s media campaigning. The political philosophy of New Labour was influenced by the party’s development of Anthony Giddens’ Third Way which attempted to provide a synthesis between capitalism and socialism. The party emphasised the importance of social justice, rather than equality, emphasising the need for equal opportunity and believed in the use of markets to deliver economic efficiency and social justice.
Anyone alive during the 1990s saw the waves of privatizations being done by establishment left governments. So arguing that people shouldn’t believe their lying eyes isn’t a way out… there are countless examples.
To deny that is to play a game of historical revisionism. It’s not something you can just hand wave away.
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Because they have a page specifically on conspiracy theories about UFOs?
…I often hear right wingers say you can’t trust Wikipedia. But again, I’m talking about the privatization and economic rationism in the establishment left which aligns it with fiscal conservativism and crony capitalism.
You seem to think this is a discussion about Wikipedia. It’s not.
Leftists on the Fediverse hate hearing when liberals agree with them. It’s very confusing to me, a mostly rational person.
😁Thanks for fixing it, much better.
take my upvote
Can I get a fuck yeah?!??
Give me an F!
Fuck yeah you can.
FUCK YEAH!
Much better
Beautiful.
Cosigned
Lobbyists are not necessarily a problem. Lobbyists for corporate interests are usually a problem. But there are lobbyists for non-profits, unions, and advocacy groups, too. Their job is to be a face to face to those with political power and government authority to advocate for some interest. Those interests are can be a net good for everyone. They can bring awareness to issues, new perspectives on issues, and provide a voice for those who may otherwise be ignored or lost in the noise. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. When bribery gets involved, or behind the scene deals, or when lobbyists get to write the laws to financially benefit their employers at others’ expense, that is the problem we often see with lobbyists.
Update: y’all hate some nuance, huh.
But there are lobbyists for non-profits, unions, and advocacy groups, too.
Correct, but those interest groups should be allowed some kind of formal consultative role in the political process, rather than being forced to throw money around
The lobbyist is the consultative role. Their job is to consult. The only money that needs thrown around to lobby is the salary of the lobbyist. Now because we have a corrupt system that does not suffiently enforce the law, plenty of lobbyists throw around money to gain favors and deals with government officials, and that obviously should neither be the expectation or even allowable. But that doesn’t made a paid role as a person who job is to advocate for some cause inherently a problem, so long as they do so ethically and, ideally, for a worthy cause.
So, I think the people doing that job should be making standard working class wages, and they should, for example, be elected by their respective interest group organisations to a formal legislative body that consults on and can propose legislation, but not pass it.
Like the house of Lords, but instead of being full of rich people named Baroness Killthepoor, it’s an actually useful body.
Lobbyists are an informal adhoc means of essentially legalizing bribery, that has been codified over time. While legitimate good might come from that system, as you’ve pointed out, some kind of formal democratic system by which formalise and democratize that consultative role should be enacted.
That’s not a the worst idea in premise, but the logistics of that is a concern for me.
Who decides who is allowed to be a formal interest group with a vote in the body? Is anyone allowed to form any group that has equal voting power? That is a terrible idea for so many reasons I can think of. Is it chosen by the legislature or executive? That gives it a ton of room for corruption, favoritism, etc. Are they restricted to one group per area of interest? If not then you could have proposals passed by the sheet number of co-interested individual interest groups alone. If not, then who decides what is a distinct enough interest to allow a new group?
That being said, the entire system being an above board process, publically accessible and answerable, would already be a dramatic improvement over the current lobbying practices, so… no matter how bad a mess, it likely would never be worse.
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You’re thinking within the confines of the suboptimal system we currently have. What if lobbying wasn’t useful because there was no central authority figure to plead with? What if nobody’s voice gets lost in the noise because the people who can help are near enough to hear them?
You may have missed it, but this is an anarchist take, so your argument doesn’t really apply, whether it’s true or not.I’m not an anarchist. And we don’t live in an anarchy. And we will never see a true long term anarchist society of any real scale in our lifetime. That is fine if you are talking about some idealistic utopian goal. But I’m talking about the world we live in now.
And they didnt say that they shouldn’t be necessary or viable because there is no central goverment authority to advocate to. They said they shouldn’t be allowed. Those are two different stances (and not very anarchist to talk of disallowing advocacy roles).
How does “people should not like in poverty” fit with anarchy? I’m asking out of curiosity, not to be contentious.
Supporting unemployed or disadvantaged needs collectivism, some system to contribute to people in need, which then also needs some kind of tax collection and governance. Do anarchists expect individuals to support people in need as their own independent choice?
Yeah. See. You can’t ask lemmy “anarchists” questions. They only know how to yell at you about shit that only works in their heads.
How does “people should not like in poverty” fit with anarchy? I’m asking out of curiosity, not to be contentious.
Rich vs poor is a garbage social hierarchy.
Supporting unemployed or disadvantaged needs collectivism, some system to contribute to people in need, which then also needs some kind of tax collection and governance.
This is just capitalist/statist assumptions within the hegemonic narrative.
People don’t need “some system” to solve poverty. People need to end the current system that creates and depends on poverty.
Poverty is (supposedly) a made-up metric in result of capitalism. If capitalism no longer exists any worker gets enough to escape poverty just by working
How? How is that enforced? How are resources distributed? How can any of that actually work in practice?
Supposedly
I do not defend this statement
NO ONE, ESPECIALLY VETERANS, SHOULD BE HOMELESS
Would be better without the ‘especially veterans’ part. WTF makes veterans so special? Why is a homeless veteran more concerning than any other homeless person?
I am a veteran, by the way. But fuck this shit.
I didn’t make it, if I did it would have been that way.
MAGA & GOP view themselves as the pro-military party, which is really important because it means veterans often vote for them. The reality is MAGA & GOP is happy to vote for more military spending of the variety that puts money into the military industrial complex. They are way less willing to spend it in ways that benefit actual veterans.
I’m against war & the military and do not think highly of those that join. That said they are, technically, a public servant. And public servants should be granted public resources such as housing & healthcare & food. So yes, ‘especially veterans’, should get housing.
But also yes, everyone should.
I’m not pro military by any stretch of the imagination, but I see this fundamentally as an employer’s duty of care.
If you hire people to do a job, and that job results in lasting damage, you should be liable (morally and civilly) for fixing the damage. Anything else is just pushing the externalities off to society at large.
Then why specifically talk about Veterans and not, for example, Firemen. Surelly the contributions for society of the latter are vastly better than the former - in fact, in the US the former have always been used to pillage the resources of foreign nations (there has literally not been a military attack on the US for over a century, so it sure ain’t Defense), resources then overwhelmingly captured by a select elite which is thus made even richer, hence more powerful, hence more politically influent, the very opposite of the “Liberal thinking” that document claims to portray.
It looks to me like either the author of that is American and that shit is them leaking their lifelong brainwashing about the Military or it’s a piece of political propaganda whitewashing Liberalism (what’s in that list sure as hell does not match the actual policies of Liberal Politicians) which targets Americans hence blowing the “Veterans” dog-whistle, which pretty much only works in America.
The US doesn’t have an established history of firemen homelessness. The homeless vet abandoned by a stingy and heartless government is an established trope in American culture. That’s not remotely true for firemen. Calling out veteran homelessness is a useful tactic, people do it because it can cut across the normal boundaries of partisan politics.
Also, there technically have been a few military attacks on the US within the past century but they were not especially effective. During WW2 the Japanese military hit the US west coast a few times in submarine attacks, they also had a campaign of balloon bombings which killed a number of people in Oregon.
I think the government owes more to veterans. I do not think they inherently deserve more as a moral imperative of the universe.
Because it frames the homeless issue in an undeniably harsh light. “If even vets end up homeless, WTF are we doing?!”
Logically, anyone homeless should be given enough to basically survive, but it’s usually drugs or psychosis, and it’s hard to morally force people into treatment.
In this case, I feel it’s being used as a right / moderate driving point.
Cuts both ways, though.
The government hired the vets.
‘We’ hired the government.
If, in the course of duty, a veteran got fucked up enough mentally/physically/pharmasudically, that they can’t function in society. The government (which we hired) owes it to them to try to make it right. Not like here’s your house and you car and 1-800-EAT-STEAK, but like here’s your support line, here’s a small apartment with a working bathroom and someone to check up on you.
Worst case, a service member fell down a dark path through no fault of the military and gets complimentary help, well, good news, we also think that everyone should get that complimentary help.
There are already housing plans, funding and assistance plans for vets, just take a little of that massive fucking defense budget and look after at least the people who did the fucking burn pits back in the day.
Housing first works.
I mean honestly, as a non veteran, they risked more than most of us civilians have ever had to risk for our nation’s security. And by Nation I mean the people, not the country. So yes I do believe all veterans should be entitled to certain benefits above and beyond the average citizen. The same was true for soldiers in ancient Rome.
No, that’s why this debate exists in the first place. Not a single US soldier alive today except the very few remaining who were stationed at Pearl Harbor ever engaged in defending the nation - and even the Pearl Harbor scenario is debatable because the US illegally occupies Hawaii and had we not been illegally occupying Hawaii it wouldn’t have been attacked.
Every single veteran alive today that needs intensive medical care received nearly all of their damage fighting wars of choice and aggression, not defending the US
I agree that every war since WW2 has been unjustified, but the soldiers did not know that when they enlisted. They still chose to risk their lives to defend our nation. You can hate them as much as you want, but many of them sacrificed their lives and their limbs for our security.
The Nazis were funded and supported by American businessmen. American involvement in WW2 wasn’t justified. It was an attempt to salvage Western fascism from destruction by the Soviets. That’s why the Americans worked with the Vatican and the Red Cross to save 10k Nazis from Nuremberg.
But I don’t hate veterans. I just think the reason they deserve care is not based on whether they did anything to protect the US.
Fixed it
Wait did you beat me to it? 😆
You made it leftist but forgot to change the title.
Normies don’t generally understand this distinction.
It’s so lovely watching pedantic, ideologically uncompromising nitwits “scorpion and frogging” us to the end of civilization.
See you all in hell!
I thought you were overreacting. I’m sorry.
Sorry but the liberals in governments all over don’t act like they believe much of this at all.
Liberal in the US seems to mean something different than anywhere else. Most classifications don’t line up that way, though the far right extremism seems to be aligning across countries since 2016.
Yes, but that would make this make even less sense. The US sometimes uses liberal as a stand in for left-leaning. The more common definition is against regulation, so sometimes socially liberal, but also, and more importantly market liberal (think Argentina’s president for an extreme example). So this is very us liberal coded, just with goals far exceeding what most us “liberal” politicians currently try to achieve.
Look mate, if you go check the definition of “Liberalism” in Wikipedia it’s literally self contradictory.
For example, the whole Private Property Rights shit collides with the Freedom part - give people the right to own Land and to do whatever they want with their Land (which includes keeping other people out of it or from using it) and that lowers Freedom for everybody else who now can’t access that Land.
Ditto for other shared resources - if somebody owns them, others can’t use them.
Ownership of those for which “no more of it is being made” (most notably Land) is probably the keystone of inequality, not just modern day but all the way back to the time when Monarchs took ownership of the Commons.
Liberalism is like the Bible - there’s something in there for everybody but the whole thing is a self-contradictory fable promising people that they too will one day be in bliss (one promises Heaven, the other promises the possibility of becoming Rich) as long as they keep being obedient sheep.
There are many definitions of the word “liberal”. Which one are you using?
The political ones, pick any used commonly in the US and they won’t match up with their use in other countries.
The political ones
I’ve lived many years in 3 different countries in Europe.
In none of them were Liberal politicians making policies in accordance with the ideas listed in your post.
Worse, the more openly “Liberal” the party the harder they defended the very opposite of most of what’s there.
I literally do not know of a single “Liberal” party anywhere in the West which does not practice pretty much the opposite of that - they’re all pro-privatisation, pro-deregulation and more broadly their policies generally increase the Power of Money whilst decreasing the Power of the entities controlled by the Democratically Elected representatives of the citizens (i.e. the State, which is controlled by the elected representatives of citizens).
In practice every single on of them has policies which de facto reduce the powers controled by voting - which is equal(-ish) for everybody - and increase the powers controlled by Money and Asset Ownership - which is spectacularly unequal, with some having literally billions of times more power than others - or in other words, to replace Democracy with Oligarchy.
The Liberals here just want to burn coal in peace.
Its the difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism. Classic liberals believe in laissez-fare policies and the free market, while modern liberals still believe in a market economy but support more social policy and government involvement in things like infrastructure, health, education etc.
In most places “liberal” refers to classical liberal, whereas a modern liberals would more likely be termed progressives or the centre left. In the US liberal tends to refer to modern liberals while classical liberals are referred to as conservatives.
The ‘modern liberals’ in the US government have been resisting social policies like single-payer healthcare and ~50% of OPs image though. Aside from like 4 people who’ve been outnumbered or just paying lip-service. Is what I meant in my comment.
Yeah that’s fair, sounds like they have ditched their modern liberal roots and are just acting as classic liberals, so just conservatives in liberal clothing
The example of the US Democrats (and pretty much every single western mainstream party which is supposedly left-of-center) doesn’t show a Modern Liberalism that matches what you claim is the modern one.
I think you’re confusing Left-wing Liberalism with “Modern”.
Left-wing Liberalism is basically Social Democracy - trying for Equality of Opportunity rather than trying for Equality of Outcomes like Socialism, totally accepting of private ownership and favoring mechanisms like Public Education and Progressive Taxation rather than more Autoritarian ones to try and make for a more equal world.
Right-wing Liberalism is Neoliberalism - basically “the Power Of Money should be above the Power Of The State”, only it’s all wrapped up as “the State should not own anything and should not interfere in the Free Market”. A nation where Money sits above the State in the power hierarchy can’t a Democracy even with a vote and elected representatives since what those elected representatives control - the State - sits below what Money controls, and such power structure is actually known as an Oligarchy.
(If I remember correctly there is actually an MIT study for the US that shows that it is in fact and Oligarchy and has been so for more than a decade)
In the modern days Right-wing Liberalism has been dominant in the West, something you can see even in Scandinavia which were maybe some of the last western nations were social-democracy was still dominant (until maybe a decade ago).
All this to say that in practice the present day (hence, “modern”) Liberalism in pretty much all of the West is the right-wing take on Liberalism - Free Market Liberalism, aka Neoliberalism.
The meme and Wikipedia both disagree with you
Please tell me where the Right To Private Property in the Wikipedia definition ends and the Freedom one starts.
Specifically, were do the rights of Land Ownership stop and the Freedom of all human beings to access and use the very surface of the planet they live in starts.
Because without that contradition in the very definition of Liberalism in Wikipedia solved, you don’t actually have a concrete workable political ideology with actual policies.
I think that if you honestly look at it with a logical and analytical eye you’ll find that the various different modern political ideologies which claim to be liberal differ mainly in how they chose to handle the conflict between Right To Private Property and Freedom.
Ahh I think we may have a misunderstanding. Im not saying it’s a good ideology, what I am saying is that it is a very well defined ideology that has been around for hundreds of years. People have written tomes of text on the concept over the centuries and the Wikipedia article distills that. I haven’t read all the tomes, but the article does line up with what I have read on the topic.
I think almost all political ideologies have flaws, some significantly bigger than others. For every one you might believe is best, there will always be someone who disagrees with you, either on the overarching ideology, the finer details or even the feasibility of implementation.
That said you mention a contradiction in the definition but I’m not sure where you’re reading that. It highlights right to property sure, but it is pretty specific about the freedoms it espouses:
political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. None of those even loosely equate to the freedom of all human beings to access and use the very surface of the planet they live on.
For what it’s worth I think you’re right that the right to private property is at loggerheads with what you define as freedom and liberalism doesn’t deal with that issue. Instead its stuck within the basic capitalist structure present in most western countries.
Modern liberalism only pushes for a social safety net within that capitalist structure with a goal of using increased government regulation and operation of critical infrastructure for the benefit of the people. The structure’s flaws remain and could be argued are inherent and easily warped to benefit some individuals over others. But the same can be said about potentially all other societal structures.
As I wrote in another post, Liberalism is like the Bible in that it’s vague, self-contradictory and contains a little something to please everybody.
It’s like the 17th century version of a paper published by a Think Tank funded by ultra-rich people that’s meant to be used to deceive public opinion into supporting something that when implemented in practice mainly benefits said ultra-rich people.
IMHO it makes no sense talking about Liberal policies (which is what the OP is doing) alongside talking about the vague and self-contradictory ideals of Liberalism from over a century ago since those ideals are way too vague to even form a political ideology (something I illustrated by pointing out that both Social Democracy and Neoliberalism fit within those Liberal principles by balancing differently two contraditory principles of Liberalism), much less guide policy making.
Those are some fair points and you’re right it’s a vague idea. Liberal is an adjective that’s applied across the political spectrum so it requires people to be specific about what they mean. The term liberal can be contradictory but classical and social liberalisms are two very different things and need to be treated as such.
Most of Lemmy (OP included in this case) tend to refer to social, centre/centre left liberals when they talk about liberals. Here in Aus, and in a lot of other places it more refers to the classical centre right/right laissez-faire RWNJ definition of liberal.
“modern” doesn’t mean present day. “Contemporary” means present day. “modern” is either a grand social movement (modernism - break from tradition, urbanization, industrialization, technologically infused, experimental) or it’s a time period (1500 - ?1970s?)
Modern Liberalism is not “present day liberalism” it’s a form of liberalism that emerges in industrial societies, as opposed to, say Jeffersonian liberalism which was entirely about the freedom to buy, sell, breed, rape, and kill people you owned for the purpose of getting rich from cash cropping farms you owned on land you got by genociding subhuman natives.
Indeed under that use of “Modern” you are correct and Liberalism in the first half of the 20th century was as that poster described.
However “Modern” is also often used as short for “Modern Day” which is an expression for things from the recent past and present day rather than the formal “Modern” classification in History, and what you described as “Modern” Liberalism does not match the “Modern day” practice of Liberalism.
Since I don’t quite see the point of talking about Liberalism from more than half a century ago in the context of a post which is literally about what Liberalis believe (Present tense, hence about Present Day Liberalism), I assumed the previous poster meant Modern in the sense of “Modern day” as that version of Liberalism was the one that made the most sense to talk about in that context.
If the previous poster meant “Modern” in the “Modern day” sense as I claim, then they’re ignorant (which is the point I was making), if however them meant it as the Historical classification of Modern as you say, then they were either being deceitful (by talking about Historical Liberalism whilst trying to pass it for present day one) or illogical (since talking about history in a context which is about present day Liberal beliefs and praxis makes no sense unless one provides the links in the chain between the talked about historical one and the present day one, which they did not provide).
Things liberals believe in but will do nothing to implement, and in some cases actively impede.
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Liberals, or the left?
It’s economic liberalism vs social liberalism. It’s the fucked up political language of the US. They mean what the rest of the world would call left. But unfortunately due to our misuse of the term it allowed neoliberals to come in, take over, and work against the people.
They mean what the rest of the world would call left
🤡
In the rest of the world there are middle of the road Catholic parties you can get behind half of this at least. The U.S. is unusually cruel.
It wasn’t misuse of terminology that led to neoliberalism, but the crisis of profitability in the 60s:
Liberalism itself has always supported private property, because it originated as the ideological justification for the replacement of feudalism with capitalism.
The problem is that the Right To Private Property in Liberalism clashes with the Freedom part.
In simple terms, if people own limited resources such as for example Land and have the right to do whatever they want with it, that reduces the Freedom of everybody else (since they can’t go into that Land much less do what they want with it). If landowners have unlimited “right to private property” then the more Land is owned, the less Freedom there is (since you can’t just make more Land for use by everybody else).
(And there are further practical considerations that need to take in account in actual policy making anchored on Liberalism due to real world having things like Negative Externalities and Tragedy Of The Commons situations - if you let individuals do whatever they want with what they own, in aggregate they can destroy the very things required for the survival of everybody)
So that inherent contradiction creates a lot of room for interpretation and actual Liberal political teories with actual policies have to chose their own balance between the Right To Private Property and Freedom in their interpretation of Liberalism.
From what I’ve seen Neoliberals are Liberals which chose a balance between the two were Right To Private Property is VASTLY more important than Freedom, whilst at the other end of the scale Social Democrats have Freedom be as much or maybe even more important as Right To Private Property.
I agree. But again, social vs economic liberalism. Economic liberalism 100% is all for private property, and private property is theft. Yes. But the socially liberal crowd, while not traditional leftist. Are much more open to limits on that. They really need to adopt another moniker, unfortunately. Go back to progressive even.
But the socially liberal crowd 100% believes all that.They just need to ditch all the economic liberals and stop letting them run the party.
The Economic Liberals are all also Social Liberals because being for gender, race, sexual-orientation (and so on) Equality does not impact the only form of descrimination they defend: wealth discrimination.
Further, very few of the supposed modern day Social Liberals are not just Economic Liberals wearing a different mask: you can tell it because whilst they loudly criticize gender, race and sexual-orientation discrimination they literally NEVER even mention Wealth Discrimination, much less criticize it - it makes very little sense for one to be for Freedom of human beings in society and rage about how for example people’s treatment at the hands of the Justice System differs depending on their race and yet be totally silent about how people’s treatement at the hands of the Justice System differs depending on their wealth, especially as the latter is vastly more prevalent than the former - surelly any difference in the way Justice treats people is unfairly reducing the Freedom of those discriminated against and the principle of harm reduction dictates one goes after the thing with the biggest impact first or at least more intenselly that those things with more restriced impacts, hence outside countries were the other kinds are trully gigantic and with massive outcomes (Israel, Apartheid South Africa and so on) they should be raging even more against wealth discrimination than against other kinds of discrimination.
As I see it, the only real Social Liberals are Social Democrats, and those are mostly gone in the present day, when even the supposedly “Thinking Left” who claim to be Social Democrats loudly parrot Identity Politics whilst clearly refraining from talking about wealth discrimination and even when they talk about the latter, its much less often than the former even though the dimensions and consequences of the latter in pretty much all Western Democracies are far more massive than the former, to the point that average life expectancy for the poor is decades less than for the rich.
Defending wealth discrimination means defending the systems of racial bias/discrimination that wealth is built on. Schumer doesn’t care about Palestinians, blacks, or Mexicans. Pelosi either. They tolerate them, and don’t actively persecuted them. That’s way different than supporting and fighting for equality.
Can some social liberals be economic liberals? Sure if they’re uneducated. Are social liberals dedicated to economic liberalism, generally no. It’s just what they’re familiar with. But most of them support limits on and taxing wealth, universal healthcare, public housing and food etc. Things any actual economic liberal would abhor as it interferes with the markets.
Nah, actual leftists would be much more extreme.
There are a couple modified versions in the comments here. Check those out for what actual leftists want.
I don’t agree with the “especially veterans” part of the no one should be homeless. Veteran status, in itself, does not make one more worthy of a basic necessity of life. What I will agree with is that the government has a responsibility to make sure everyone is house especially veterans. The government owes them more than others for serving them. The universe does not.
It’s a key point to engage the moderates and the right, but fighting it risks sliding down the “all lives matter” slope.
The government hired them and fucked them up; the government owes them support. We (royal we) ‘let’ the government get to this point, even if it’s not specifically you and I. Our taxes going to that end is far from a travesty. Let’s cut back a little on defense and use the savings to prop up the guys that got fucked up on it’s behalf.
I don’t disagree with any of that. But if you’re framing the homelessness problem as a veteran homelessness problem then the applied solutions will likely leave non-veterans that still need help without. All homelessness is a problem. That is not the same as “all lives matter” because homelessness isn’t primarily a problem that veterans face. They’re estimated to make up 5 percent of the homeless population.
The government does have a particular responsibility to vets, and should be fixing that. But they have a responsibility to non-vets too. And the things that cause homelessness for veterans causes it for everyone else too. We can and should be helping veterans by addressing the root causes that effect everyone. But any solution that only results in helping vets (like supplying only veterans housing) when they could be helping everyone is unacceptable, particularly as plenty of people would consider the job done so long as the homeless that remain aren’t vets.
You mistook my answering the veteran part only as framing, no, we can easily afford to house anyone that is willing to be housed. (some homeless will refuse help/treatment even if they need it)
These are all reasonable common sense standpoints that should represent the political center in a sane society.
These should be unquestioned facts in a sane society regardless of politics.
How I wish we lived in a sane society. 🫡
