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I appreciate our community (leminal.space)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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Saw some posts about .ml today and thought I'd jump on the bandwagon lol

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[–] 30 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

a liberal is probably your average usa democrat that is considered conservative by european standards

a leftist is anyone that democrat might consider too radical (like bernie sanders who, for a lot of leftists, might just barely be considered leftist)

edit: i’m being downvoted - am i wrong? i was under the impression that this was the difference between a liberal and a leftist

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  • [–] 23 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    didn't downvotes you, but broadly speaking the way liberal gets used by Marxists/anarchists, it's referring to the people who still think we should have/reform capitalism. social Democrats are the left wing of that.

    'leftist' is bit of a squishy term because it doesn't actually distinguish people's position on the political economy

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Liberal is an actual ideology. A hallmark of liberal thought is that business can do things better than government. Leftist thought starts at capitalism is bad, and is much deeper than you think. Democrats of all types are liberal. The kicker is so are the Republicans. It's one reason that Republicans are able to push the Democrats to do anything they want. They don't fundamentally disagree on things.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    the problem with left and right is that there is more than one dimension they're being used in. for instance see the political compass.

    also the most basic definition of liberal is unregulated. it doesn't necessarily mean just economic. could be drug use or gun posession etc.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Even the compass is flawed, though it's somewhat better than the linear representation. I feel like, though the average person may mostly inhabit a particular quadrant, the majority will have something they resonate with in at least one of the other 3 quadrants (even if they won't admit to it, haha).

    My instinct, though, is that we should spend less energy squabbling about classification and more on getting along and lifting each other up. Expressing that, though, will in itself earn you the label of either a "commie libtard" from the right or "not a real leftist" from the tankie crowd (which is pretty rich coming from them lol). It's a game that can never be won.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Pretty decent description.

    I was a liberal up until this year and I've been radicalized pretty hard but that also means I fucking despise the people who are hardcore haters of liberals. They're on the right side, just need more pushing.

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