Lemmy is populated by far left Americans who were banned from Reddit for extremism. Strict ideological conformity is required or you’ll get actual death threats. Don’t go there unless you want violent communist revolution and hate discussing interesting ideas.
It’s not my fault a lot of like-minded people also thought “Fuck Reddit”. If they want more liberal or conservative people on Lemmy they’re welcome as long as they follow the rules. Problem is that liberal or conservative people don’t really mind the stuff happening on Reddit, so why would they?
It’s not like right wingers have never fucked off and built their own “free speech” social media sites, with blackjack, and hookers.
Oh wait they do it all the fucking time. They’re just mad we figured out we can play their game too.
They’re also mad it makes it obvious that there are more of us than there are of them, since they get filtered into their own little defederated silos on Lemmy. They hate reality’s well-known liberal bias.
I always thought I was liberal. Why am I here? Maybe the labels have shifted around and I’ve held on to the same ideas?
I just find it weird when people group liberal and conservative in the same bucket. Labels are about as dangerous as parties, they muddy the discussion.
“Liberal” is not a useful word, imo. It means different things to different people. Hexbear users define it in the sense of neoliberalism, a historically right position. To many it means “progressive.” To others, it means “somewhere on the left, and I don’t care to put myself into a particular box.”
If we’d quit shitting on people who call themselves “liberal,” we might actually have a more cohesive coalition, rather than rejecting anyone for the tiniest perceived infraction, real or imagined.
Liberal, to me, is the opposite of authoritarian. No idea what other people consider it to be, but IMO it’s entirely disconnected from the left/right spectrum. You can have authoritarian left, right or center, same way with liberal.
Like in, “liberal democracy.” But consider what “the opposite of authoritarian” means in the context of financial policies. The predictable movements of money are punishing to those who don’t own capital in a self-perpetuating vicious cycle that ends with a few wealthy people and millions of people suffering poverty. A lack of regulation of finances results in total authority of capital. Neoliberalism seeks to reduce the authority of the state while increasing the authority of capital.
It is not just finances, a lack of regulation is a problem in a lot of areas because the naive capitalist idea that people will be able to vote with their wallets doesn’t work for 90% of product issues (anything you can’t see, anything you don’t purchase often, anything you can see but lack the expertise to judge, …).
I think it’s connected to unregulated capitalism in the eyes of its opponents here.
I think the problem with US politics is that liberal is by party design, grouped with the socialists too. Here in northern Europe, the liberal parties are usually considered our right to far-right parties, while conservatives are a bit more centrist and often without any influence.
That actually helps, at least with your post. All the more why I hate labels, when they totally flip around depending on the perspective of the person using them. This isn’t just a US/Europe thing, it’s true of history too. Hence the “Party of Lincoln” trope that Republicans like to wave around, ignoring that the party names shifted and flipped over time.
Socialists and other US extreme left ideas merge in with the Democrats because when they first materialized as political movements and a third party, thanks to our political system they either had to die out or pick a side to stay alive.
Agreed, I mean absolutely no disrespect.
None taken or meant either. I just see it a lot, and I guess this morning it triggered a response. :D
I don’t know what to call myself, I just know what ideas and values I believe in, and the ones I hate.
As a liberal myself I find conservatives think we’re communists and progressives think we’re fascists.