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I've also been thoroughly confused by a weird form of "liberal" that has infested social media. It's not necessarily left-leaning as in "help the poor workers,

I've also been thoroughly confused by a weird form of "liberal" that has infested social media. It's not necessarily left-leaning as in "help the poor workers, unionize, strong manufacturing domestically, etc". It's "offshore everything, maximize profit" damn the workers. It's very much not a left position in the traditional sense.

orthecreedence 6y ago
Yeah it's bizarre. (Us) Americans sure love to chop up our words, and it seems even more we love to create binary classifications for three different axes of beliefs (social, political, economic). Like, ok, if I'm a communist but believe the government should be as small as possible to serve only its core set of functions, which box do I fit into? If I think women should have the right to choose what's best for their bodies, but I support free speech and the right to bear arms, what am I? The whole left vs right, liberal vs conservative thing is so stupid, but our FPTP voting system and media are happy to keep the fight raging.
- fernandotakai 6y ago
  >Like, ok, if I'm a communist but believe the government should be as small as possible to serve only its core set of functions, which box do I fit into? If I think women should have the right to choose what's best for their bodies, but I support free speech and the right to bear arms, what am I? that's how i feel -- i want a small government and i want people to do whatever they want with their own bodies while being able to own guns. people say i'm libertarian, but i don't agree with a lot of libertarian points of view (i still think government has a place in society and i think we do need some social safety net, like public health care and even negative income taxes.). there's not a box that i feel inside other than "classical liberal" (in the milton friedman sense of the term) but whenever i say that, i' met with either laughter or hate. honestly, it's quite hard to discuss political issues nowadays on the internet, where everyone is super extreme and if you don't fit any boxes, you get silenced (including here, btw).
bitwize 6y ago
And a weird form of "leftist" that's all about "I deserve a prestigious job/free shit/authority over productive people because I dye my hair odd colors and identify as/want to fuck an unusual gender". But again, not a peep for the struggling working schlubs here and abroad.

orthecreedence 6y ago

Yeah it's bizarre. (Us) Americans sure love to chop up our words, and it seems even more we love to create binary classifications for three different axes of beliefs (social, political, economic). Like, ok, if I'm a communist but believe the government should be as small as possible to serve only its core set of functions, which box do I fit into? If I think women should have the right to choose what's best for their bodies, but I support free speech and the right to bear arms, what am I? The whole left vs right, liberal vs conservative thing is so stupid, but our FPTP voting system and media are happy to keep the fight raging.

fernandotakai 6y ago
>Like, ok, if I'm a communist but believe the government should be as small as possible to serve only its core set of functions, which box do I fit into? If I think women should have the right to choose what's best for their bodies, but I support free speech and the right to bear arms, what am I? that's how i feel -- i want a small government and i want people to do whatever they want with their own bodies while being able to own guns. people say i'm libertarian, but i don't agree with a lot of libertarian points of view (i still think government has a place in society and i think we do need some social safety net, like public health care and even negative income taxes.). there's not a box that i feel inside other than "classical liberal" (in the milton friedman sense of the term) but whenever i say that, i' met with either laughter or hate. honestly, it's quite hard to discuss political issues nowadays on the internet, where everyone is super extreme and if you don't fit any boxes, you get silenced (including here, btw).

bitwize 6y ago

And a weird form of "leftist" that's all about "I deserve a prestigious job/free shit/authority over productive people because I dye my hair odd colors and identify as/want to fuck an unusual gender". But again, not a peep for the struggling working schlubs here and abroad.