this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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[–] PatMustard@feddit.uk 8 points 9 months ago (4 children)

JK Is a Liberal and can't imagine a better world

Wtf do you people think "liberal" means? Some people think it means communist, some think it means socialist, some somehow think it means fascist. I'd love to what you actually mean when you use a word that has a specific meaning of "anti-authoritarian".

[–] Muyal@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The word "liberal" is associated with the right everywhere except the US.

[–] Bondrewd@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

I think you meant neo-liberal.

[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I hear this a lot, so I dug a bit. What do others think?

From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_Kingdom

...the derogatory connotation is much weaker in the UK than in the US, and social liberals from both the left and right wing continue to use liberal and illiberal to describe themselves and their opponents, respectively.

Is it possible, that in the rest of the world, many partys call themselves liberal and after ages of conservative governments calling themselves liberal, many people in the UK have not heard "the left" call themselves liberal?

It may also be far too general of a term to be of value.

[–] PatMustard@feddit.uk 3 points 9 months ago

It may also be far too general of a term to be of value.

This is my main complaint. We humans love putting things in little categories and labels, but if you're using a word that you think means X and everyone else thinks it means Y or Z then suddenly we're all taking at cross purposes and everyone thinks everyone else is chatting shit.

[–] iegod@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)
[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Liberalism is pro-Capitalism, therefore it's right wing.

[–] oce@jlai.lu 2 points 9 months ago

Liberalism is also pro social freedom. We should specify economically or socially liberal, depending on the political party it may be a different percentage of each.

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 9 months ago

Liberal means centre-right to right in most of Europe, and right-wing in much of the rest of the world.

[–] Bondrewd@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I was already contented with the fact that people here were going to circlejerk themselves into this.

Liberalism is an ideology of freedom. Freedom is a matter of circumstances. Being free to exploit others closes down your world thus it is not to be considered liberal. Neither will you be free if you get a cop on every corner or taking away your possessions in the name of equality.

You only really gain freedom through following the intuition on what would open up the world the most for the most people.

For America, the answer is more socialism. But the Democrats and the Republicans are neo-liberals.

[–] Xerodin@lemm.ee 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

In political party terms, a liberal is someone who supports the economic system of capitalism but wants to give concessions to the general population (free healthcare, cheap public transportation, etc) to placate the people from changing the system. The idea is if people are making a somewhat decent living then they will be less disgusted with the ludicrous amount of money the actual wealthy make and won't revolt. Messaging from conservative parties has purposely conflated liberals with leftist (socialism/communism) ideology in order to tie it to the Red Scare and convince lower income people that the idea is meant to take more from working class people.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Social Welfare is neither historically nor currently a liberal value.

Generally the idea seems to be social liberalism, e.g. people should laregely do what they want, and since a few decades bastardized with neoliberal economics, which are the opposite of freedom. E.g. ideas like reinstating slavery, selling children, murdering people with impunity all based on an arbitrary freedom of contracts.

American liberals are far right conservative/reactionaries sprinkled with some gay rights by most countries standards.

[–] PatMustard@feddit.uk 1 points 9 months ago

Isn't that American "libertarians"?

[–] PatMustard@feddit.uk 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Firstly, thanks for actually giving me an answer! Secondly, that sounds insane, I've never heard any definition of "liberal" that means that, though I have heard that the USA just has their own completely different definition of the word. For instance in Britain the term "liberal democracy" is used to mean "not a dictatorship". Language is about communication, assuming everyone uses your own pejorative definition of a word is not good for discussion!

[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Hey OP, just in case you didn't gather this from the various other comments, in political science, Liberalism refers to a specific movement (think John Locke, social contract theory, abolishing various aristocratic privilaeges, etc) but can be applied to modern political philosophies too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Liberalism in media terms often means something quite different depending where you are in the world. But, it typically refers to something like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism. Pro-market, pro-welfare (to a limited degree), somewhat focused on individual freedoms, etc. It's a wide-ranging term and can cover anything from as far right as America's gov't to as far left as something like Sweden's.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Here it means "Someone who is loyal to the status quo"

[–] PatMustard@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That sounds like the definition of "conservative"

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] PatMustard@feddit.uk 1 points 9 months ago

open to new ideas

So the exact opposite of "loyal to the status quo"?

[–] Halosheep@lemm.ee 3 points 9 months ago

As far as I can tell, it seems to be a catch all for "people I don't like". There's no real meaning and often times the same commentor describes conflicting idealogies as liberal.