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.
Access to clean drinking water should be a right.
That would require an illiberal regulation of the commons to protect it from individual autonomy, and Liberals HATE the commons and love individual autonomy
I’ve seen your post history, You don’t have the authority to speak for “Liberals”
LOL. Liberal isn’t a fucking identity. It’s a political philosophy with a rich and storied history, major foundational texts, and actual meaning. The fact that you think only Liberals can talk about Liberalism is exactly the sort of brainrot that makes contemporary Liberals so fucking intolerable and unmoored from reality
What if I told you that words change with modern context? Perhaps instead of clinging to your Ivory Tower and poring over your historical “texts” you could pull your head out of your ass long enough to recognize that modern liberals have different values and a more distinct identity than the original label would suggest.
I had an argument with a co-worker who joined the Young Democrats about the lobby part.
Both parties want lobbies, BAD. My argument is that 90% of the issues with the parties stem from bribery and lobbying. Those positions should not attract the mega-wealthy, they should not provide unchecked power to make those people and their friends mega-wealthy. Those positions should pull large salaries and no extra benefits. They should be on the same level of healthcare as any enterprise company.
Both parties want lobbies, but most citizens do not; most actual voters, when asked directly about the issue, oppose money in politics and want to repeal Citizens United.
But do all liberals really feel this way or have they spent the last 50 years entrenching the system that celebrates all this shit?
They’ve spent the last 200 years creating and entrenching it
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)
Actually, that’s a good question to see if you live in a real shithole country:
Are you afraid that your child might be shot while at school?
There are some REAL shithole countries where that never happens :) You need to raise that bar a little :)
Sorry, but I can’t imagine a lower bar.
Americans have normalized the fear of their children being shot at school. What could be lower than that?
Ah, yes, having a mortal disease and being unable to afford the medical treatment…
Also liberals, “But the parliamentarian…”
😁Beautiful.
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
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?
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 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.
Can I get a fuck yeah?!??
FUCK YEAH!
Much better
Cosigned
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think the government owes more to veterans. I do not think they inherently deserve more as a moral imperative of the universe.
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.
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 didn’t make it, if I did it would have been that way.
Because it frames the homeless issue in an undeniably harsh light. “If even vets end up homeless, WTF are we doing?!”
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.
Fixed it
You made it leftist but forgot to change the title.
Normies don’t generally understand this distinction.
Sorry but the liberals in governments all over don’t act like they believe much of this at all.
The Liberals here just want to burn coal in peace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 political ones
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 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.
“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).
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.
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
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. 🫡
Things liberals believe in but will do nothing to implement, and in some cases actively impede.
Liberals, or the left?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.