363
But I have so many followers! (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19125321

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[–] 120 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I think there's a serious disconnect between what liberal means in the US and what it means elsewhere.

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  • [–] 39 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Same for conservative

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    "Conservatives" are usually right wing extremists, thats the same everywhere.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I think they mean “anyone who doesn’t support Musk/Trump.”

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago

    And that's dumb. I'm "liberal" in the technical sense (i.e. the old definition of liberal, i.e. the founding fathers), but not in the present sense (i.e. "progressive"). I despise Musk and Trump, but I also despise Biden and Harris. I want more personal freedoms, and both major parties seem to be trying to take them away from me, but in different ways and with different justifications.

    So I don't use X, largely because I don't see a point, but also because I'd really rather avoid all the nonsense from the Musk/Trump fans there. I want free speech, and I'm not convinced X is it.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    As I understand it, that's some Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson shit.

    Back in the 70s liberal/liberalism meant pretty much the same thing in the U.S. as elsewhere. Nixon even called his reelection something along the lines of "a victory for western liberal democracy." Part of liberalism is a focus on rights of the individual, including civil rights. Civil rights and many other liberation movements of the era used the language of that aspect of liberalism.

    Enter a bunch of religious assholes of the time. They loved all the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, right to private property, greed, etc. of individual rights but had a big problem with women wearing pants and expecting to be able to go to work without being sexually assaulted, gay people existing openly and breathing, and probably the civil rights movement too but it was going out of style to be open about that. They started using liberal/liberalism in a denigrating way to describe feminists, LGBT people, and any other group that got their puritanical knickers in a twist.

    After a couple decades the terms were completely divorced from their original political theory definitions which would, I think, have Republicans considered more liberal than Democrats. But I suppose that could depend on which aspects of liberalism you give more weight to.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago

    Exactly. As a libertarian, I call myself liberal, because that's exactly what that word has meant historically. I absolutely hate the DNC and RNC because I find both to not be liberal in the sense that I mean it. The DNC seems adamant about taking away my rights so it can "protect" me or whatever, and the RNC wants to take away my rights to enforce some weird religious set of morals. These days, I qualify it with "classical liberal" to indicate that I don't mean the current usage of "liberal" (i.e. "progressive"), but instead mean the traditional idea of liberalism, i.e. individual rights. I don't even particularly like the Libertarian Party in the US, especially recently with the weird right-wing takeover.

    I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal (again, in the classical sense, meaning negative rights, not positive rights).

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    We are an extremely rightwing society and it is normalized to the point that my fellow citizens can't even accurately identify Leftist policies. Socialism is considered evil. Our propaganda machine has done its job very effectively for decades.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Well, I do consider socialism to be "evil" because quite often it is non-voluntary. I am 100% on board with voluntary socialism (e.g. unions and co-ops), but I'm very much a fan of consent and really don't want others to be making decisions for me. A lot of policies I support could be considered "socialist," but I refuse to identify as socialist because of the proximity to forms that absolutely seek to take away individual self-determinism.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Consider the regimes evil. Socialism is blameless.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    What was that leftists like to say about Nazis in a bar? If you tolerate Nazis in your bar, you're a Nazi bar?

    Surely that applies here. So many socialists tolerate or even defend terrible regimes, such as that in Venezuela, China, and Cuba. That certainly doesn't mean all socialists tolerate it, but given the track record of socialism in producing authoritarian regimes, I have to think that many (most?) willfully ignore it, which is almost as bad. That doesn't mean every implementation of socialism is bad, it just means I cannot give blanket support to "socialism" and need a lot more qualifiers first.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It is a relative term, like someone considered an extrovert upon coming to the USA would likely be thought of as an introvert.

    An because I'm from the USA, I will now add smiley faces - it's the law. 😊 😁

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