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[–] 22 points 13 hours ago* (14 children)

Sorry but the liberals in governments all over don’t act like they believe much of this at all.

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  • [–] [S] 19 points 12 hours ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 hour ago

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

    There are many definitions of the word "liberal". Which one are you using?

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

    The political ones, pick any used commonly in the US and they won't match up with their use in other countries.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 hours ago (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago* (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 0 points 42 minutes ago (1 child)

    The meme and Wikipedia both disagree with you

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  • [–] 1 point 34 minutes ago*

    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.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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