Reddit.jpg
Reddit.jpg
"how does this keep happening!!!" :cat-confused:
I'm banned from SRD so pls do a lil trolling for me:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/wnnhy2/tankiejerk_a_popular_subreddit_dedicated_to/
Fuck me, I ended up posting a wall of text.
wall of text
Before we start talking about alliances with the "Liberals" against the "Fascists", we first need to establish, what is a Liberal to begin with? Because this very simple question seems to beguile the vast majority of US political opinion-havers. The very first thing everyone needs to do is throw out the colloquial definition of Liberalism used in the United States. Liberalism has a specific meaning in political science, and hundreds of years of history to reflect on, going back to the "enlightenment." We have the writings of Locke, Montesquieu, Mirabeau, as well as the American "Founding Fathers," in addition to a couple more left leaning ones like Rousseau and Paine.
Specifically, Liberalism is the ideology of "representative" democracy, constitutionalism, "rule of law," private property and free markets. Furthermore, Liberalism is an idealist philosophy (in contrast with materialist philosophies such as Marxism). Idealist philosophy takes an approach starting from ideas, and believes the world can be shaped by ideas, whereas materialist philosophy takes the opposite approach, that ideas are simply a reflection of material reality.
Liberalism encompasses everybody from Bernie Sanders to Mitch McConnell. They are all Liberals. They all fundamentally believe in the constitutional institutions, "representative" democracy, free markets, "rule of law," and private property. They have significantly different opinions within this framework (i.e. how "representative" democracy should be, or how inalienable property rights should be), but none of them are advocating for the overthrow of the system. At the end of they day, they can be summed up as institutionalists. Bernie Sanders is just as much of an institutionalist as John Roberts.
Liberalism is a fundamentally bourgeois ideology. When push comes to shove, the liberals will always take the side of preserving the institutions as well as the status quo of social and property relations they represent. The more the status quo becomes untenable, the more Liberals will support violent, counterrevolutionary means to preserve it. In this way, the entire Liberal Democratic state slides inevitably towards fascism as Capitalism fails to serve the needs of the public.
This isn't something you should take personally. If you truly believe in social justice, if you know where you'd end up standing at the decisive moment, and you know it isn't with the fucking Fascists, you are probably not a Liberal. You have simply been inculcated in a world where Liberalism is the status quo, where Liberalism is portrayed as the bastion against evil. Where Liberalism is portrayed as "the long arc bending towards justice."
There are a lot of people who self-identify as Liberals who actually posses a much more radical potential, but Liberalism itself exhausted all of its radical potential with the overthrow of Feudalism. From that point forward, for centuries, it has operated as the justification of the status quo.
The reply to this is an absolute banger
I'm using liberal in the sense that many leftists who annoy me do, to describe anyone who's not truly right wing but disagrees with them on something.
I'll also that that a lot of what other leftists (and to lesser extent you) say hinges on the assumption that most modern liberals are well versed in politics and are loyal to liberalism. I agree that many people who identify as liberal would probably actually be further left if given more information, especially if it's not in the condescending way that many leftists are wont to do.
I don't fully agree with you about Sanders. I may be wrong but he strikes me as somebody who is in favour of socialism, but knowing that he can't achieve socialism in short time, is trying to be pragmatic. He won't manage to create a world ruled by the workers in his lifetime but he makes efforts to improve the lives of workers within this one.
I don't believe that we could or even should attempt to throw out the system and institute a socialist one in one motion, we have to transition from one to the other. An attempt to transition too quickly would almost certainly lead to another outcome like the USSR or CCP.
Finally, I just get frustrated that so many leftists seem to act like liberals are the real enemy, and that anyone they disagree with is a liberal who must be purged from the ranks. Liberals share some socialist ideals, and it is more effective to cooperate over what we can agree on for the time being.
Point bounced right off their head. Just the perfect demonstration of the differences you outlined between liberal idealism and socialist materialism. They even give their own interpretation of how a liberal revolution ought to happen, totally divorced from history or theory, so we don't end up with another "bad" outcome.
It is a giant heap of brainworms, but at least the guy replied. More than I expect from Reddit.
Finally, I just get frustrated that so many leftists seem to act like liberals are the real enemy, and that anyone they disagree with is a liberal who must be purged from the ranks.
What part of "liberals support free markets and private property" does this person not understand?
Mother fucker I do not care if you are Bernie or Mitch McConnell you both hold the same fucking beliefs in supporting private property and free markets. Whatever your other policies are you are an enemy of socialists because these beliefs are utterly incompatible with socialism.
You are on team capitalism and we are on team socialism. You are team liberal and we are team leftist.
I don’t fully agree with you about Sanders. I may be wrong but he strikes me as somebody who is in favour of socialism, but knowing that he can’t achieve socialism in short time, is trying to be pragmatic. He won’t manage to create a world ruled by the workers in his lifetime but he makes efforts to improve the lives of workers within this one.
God fucking damn it. Sanders did campaign on legitimately demsoc policies in 2020, but if you look at virtually everything that he has done before and since, as well as some of the other things he has said during his campaign (disavowing socialism outside of the Nordic model), he is very clearly a socdem at best.
The whole fucking point of socialism is that you won't get there by taking incremental steps from liberalism.
Their response was the perfect encapsulation of why liberals are not allies to socialists, and they still didn't get it.
That reply tho
Too quick of a transfer and we'd end up like the USSR or CPC
:yes-comm:
Nicely done, I actually read it aloud to myself cuz I'm half drunk and I'm working on my diction. Reads like a nice speech.
Is there any possibility you could link this so I can see the brilliant replies you got?
There doesn't seem to be any place on Reddit for us boring normal social democrats.
I mean, a lot of us are in the neoliberal sub.
Poetry
I'm shocked they're still telling themselves that.
Permanently Deleted
"a lot of us are in the neoliberal sub"
🤣
I looked at the sub the other day and the top post by far was a smugpost about Manchin voting for the "massive" climate change bill. The sub has basically been a neolib sister sub for years now because the moderators heavily favour them when it comes to their arbitrary content moderation.
Posted without a single degree of self reflection
What is this "normal boring social democrat" supposed to mean? Social democracy is just as dead as communism in the US right now
Look we just want high wages, strong regulation, and redistribution of wealth, but without any of the levers of power necessary to achieve it. Is that so much to ask?
You see, social democracy came about because smarter heads in the the working class just kindly asked and voted the bougies to give them a bigger slice of the pie. It had nothing to do with those radical tankies, or the gigantic bear in the room in Moscow scaring the shit out of the said bougies. Bernie Sanders was able to coast his way into office and get shit done without being ratfucked whatsoever!
In seriousness, it's just darkly hilarious to me that we've come full circle on a century's worth of concessions being rolled back, and the supposed "socialists" in the West are somehow more up their own asses than the old Social Democratic parties, who at least understood some class analysis.
Liberals really just need to accept they're conservatives and move on.
it would save so much time
They'd still be called commie satanists by the ones calling themselves conservatives now.