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I realized that "left-leaning" is an inaccurate characterization. To me being left means being liberal. To quote wikipedia, "Liberalism is a political and moral

I realized that "left-leaning" is an inaccurate characterization. To me being left means being liberal. To quote wikipedia, "Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. " And I subscribe to liberalism. Twitter and WaPo's staff, sometimes, are nothing but liberal. A liberal wouldn't call anyone who questioned Fauci nazi or anti-science. A liberal wouldn't want to lock someone up or doxx someone just because they criticize Biden government. A liberal wouldn't celebrate the illness of Justice Thomas just because he is a conservative. A liberal wouldn't call someone who criticizes Sharia a xenophobic yet thinks it's totally okay for Khamenei to call for "eradicating" an entire nation and its people. A liberal wouldn't blatantly call Asian parents racists just because they support standard tests and entrance exams by popular schools. A liberal wouldn't call a government Nazi who didn't even try to consolidate power in the pandemic but celebrate another government for consolidating lots of power in the name of handling the pandemic. Those people do not appear to be liberals. They are radicals.

Jotra7 5y ago
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cryptonector 5y ago
Historically, "liberal" encompassed markets. I.e., historically, "liberalism" encompassed capitalism (in the sense of being mostly free to trade one's labor for others' goods and services). "Left-leaning" thinking is generally very suspicious of, if not outright opposed to, capitalism, and in that sense "left-leaning" is very illiberal. The meanings of these terms have shifted somewhat over time, so to equate "left-leaning" and "liberal" isn't wrong at all. One distinction I find helps is between "capitalism" and "capitalist". To me "capitalism" == "freedom to trade property, labor, goods, and services" (which, due to human nature, does lead to wealth accumulation), while "capitalist" doesn't mean "someone who believes in capitalism" so much as "oligarch" / "robber baron". A colleague once put it to me like so: trust in capitalism, not capitalists. Capitalists all too often rent-seek, and because they have accumulated enough capital to have outsize political power, they are a threat to their societies. Capitalism, in so far as it produces capitalists, is dangerous, but if the alternative is less freedom for individuals lest some of them become tomorrow's capitalists -especially if it is significantly less freedom- then I'd rather stick to capitalism. Of course, this is a result of my definition of "capitalism", and you might well disagree, but forget what word we should use to name a system with such freedoms. The important thing is the idea that those freedoms are a good thing, and that not having them is a bad thing, and that the price to pay for them is the risk of oligarchs arising, and that we need mechanisms to deal with that problem that don't throw the baby out with the bath water!
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Your definition of capitalism is actually compatible with left-libertarianism, in the original sense of the word not Rothbard's, market socialism and other forms of left-anarchism and socialism. The only difference compared to your definition are the views on capital, which could be generalized as saying that those who mix their labor with capital should have democratic decision making with regard to that capital.
unethical_ban 5y ago
This is quite a rant and quite a lumping of diverse and unrelated opinions. You have quite a chip on your shoulder. Without researching or commenting on the bulk of your strawman army, I will posit this: Wishing for the death of a harmful actor with a lifetime appointment to political office is not immoral. If there were some avenue, some knowable end date of a terrible human's influence on a critical pillar of government, maybe it wouldn't be so. Alas, we have no term limits for this role.

Jotra7 5y ago

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cryptonector 5y ago

Historically, "liberal" encompassed markets. I.e., historically, "liberalism" encompassed capitalism (in the sense of being mostly free to trade one's labor for others' goods and services). "Left-leaning" thinking is generally very suspicious of, if not outright opposed to, capitalism, and in that sense "left-leaning" is very illiberal. The meanings of these terms have shifted somewhat over time, so to equate "left-leaning" and "liberal" isn't wrong at all. One distinction I find helps is between "capitalism" and "capitalist". To me "capitalism" == "freedom to trade property, labor, goods, and services" (which, due to human nature, does lead to wealth accumulation), while "capitalist" doesn't mean "someone who believes in capitalism" so much as "oligarch" / "robber baron". A colleague once put it to me like so: trust in capitalism, not capitalists. Capitalists all too often rent-seek, and because they have accumulated enough capital to have outsize political power, they are a threat to their societies. Capitalism, in so far as it produces capitalists, is dangerous, but if the alternative is less freedom for individuals lest some of them become tomorrow's capitalists -especially if it is significantly less freedom- then I'd rather stick to capitalism. Of course, this is a result of my definition of "capitalism", and you might well disagree, but forget what word we should use to name a system with such freedoms. The important thing is the idea that those freedoms are a good thing, and that not having them is a bad thing, and that the price to pay for them is the risk of oligarchs arising, and that we need mechanisms to deal with that problem that don't throw the baby out with the bath water!

heavyset_go 5y ago
Your definition of capitalism is actually compatible with left-libertarianism, in the original sense of the word not Rothbard's, market socialism and other forms of left-anarchism and socialism. The only difference compared to your definition are the views on capital, which could be generalized as saying that those who mix their labor with capital should have democratic decision making with regard to that capital.

unethical_ban 5y ago

This is quite a rant and quite a lumping of diverse and unrelated opinions. You have quite a chip on your shoulder. Without researching or commenting on the bulk of your strawman army, I will posit this: Wishing for the death of a harmful actor with a lifetime appointment to political office is not immoral. If there were some avenue, some knowable end date of a terrible human's influence on a critical pillar of government, maybe it wouldn't be so. Alas, we have no term limits for this role.