Libs vs Leftists. Learn the difference.

I just want women to feel happy and realized without fear of oppression or the need to partake in political violence, but what the fuck do I know.
- I feel that way about everyone.
  
  Yep
- Unfortunately we don't get to live in that reality
- I just want my "Thoughts and Prayers" to materialize without any effort.

On Monday, I was a liberal. On Wednesday, I became a leftist. I will not let my country slide into fascism without fighting back. I have a 73 year old mom who's married to a woman. That woman is one of the most important people in my life. I'm 51 and have known her since I was 19. If anyone comes for them, there will be bloodshed.
- Solidarity, comrade.
- ❤️
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- welcome welcome.
- Same here. I have a lot of people I care about in my life in the LGBTQ+ community. I'm armed and ready.
  
  Since you're a new Leftist, I think you might be interested in my Read Theory, Darn it! introduction to Marxism reading list targeting new leftists. Let me know what you think if you check it out! Getting armed is a good first step, the next is to read theory and get organized with your fellow comrades!
- Since you're a new Leftist, I think you might be interested in my Read Theory, Darn it! introduction to Marxism reading list targeting new leftists. Let me know what you think if you check it out!

It’s both. Most people have no appetite or aptitude for political violence.
- Until they eventually do
  
  Aptitude is only discovered by doing, and most people don't do a violence. So who knows how many savants are out there.
- That's just a difference in material conditions. We aren't all at the same level of danger.

ITT: People who think "liberal" means any one single thing.
ITT: People who think "leftist" means any one single thing.
- I mostly upvoted the meme for the energy.
- "Liberal" can mean centrism, capitalism with a human face, capitalism with some socially progressive elements, etc.
  "Leftist" can be anything from "liberal" (as the far-right likes to pretend left=evil), to any form of actual leftism, which also can range from libertarians to authoritarians, with the latter sometimes weirdly being pushed a lot by the right (Fidesz, the Hungarian far-right party masquerading as "moderate, center-right, christian democrats", have paid off the election debts of Munkáspárt 2006, and now they're one of their satellites).

Leftists are deluding themselves.
Just like I deluded myself that there was no way Trump could win a second term.
- The second amendment was to defend Americans from tyranny. Trump is that. Use of force in self defense is justified.
  "The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, the cartridge box. Use them in that order."
  
  https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment
  Tl;Dr the Constitutional Congress didn't really believe in citizen militias providing a sufficient check on federal power. Some power, sure, but by and large the British armies destroyed the militias in the field, with only a few notable successes.
  They did, however, recognize that they could serve as a rapid reaction force for wars against natives and putting down slave revolts until the real army showed up. And, of course, militias could be rolled into a professional army and retrained, like what happened with the Civil War.
  That isn't to say a genuinely popular revolt wouldn't work, it's just not what the 2nd was really about.
  
  The second amendment was to defend Americans from tyranny.
  Oh, give it a break.
  2A legalized colonialist white supremacist violence against slave rebellions and native peoples. That's it.
  
  If it actually happened, I would happily support it. The system is working as it is intended by those with the money to manipulate it. It needs to come down.
  I just don't believe enough people really give a shit anymore.
  They fucking re-elected him. We know who he is, what the GoP really is. And they still fucking elected him.
- Deluding themselves about what exactly?
  
  Yes. Make them explain their words. Deluding how, exactly? Deluded that women would fight for their bodily autonomy? That doesn't seem very delusional to me.
  
  (this is only directed at the people who seem to have wanted Trump to win to "accelerate" the ushering in of a socialist society):
  Deluding themselves about how often there isn't a glorious revolution, and ongoing, armed resistance by the oppressed isn't guaranteed.
  Accelerationists have a weird hard-on for revolution, as if it's easy-peasy to dismantle and replace all institutions all at once.
  This socialist thinks we ought to fight tooth and nail via disruption/extra legal actions, implied threats of the power of the masses (in the same mould that workers won rights by threat), AND ideally within the system itself.
  Because revolution is a roll of the dice.
- leftists very much believed trump could win a second term primarily because neoliberals would drop the ball during the election. we were warning liberals all year.
- Deluded ourselves that Americans have a spine?
  You might be right, but I think better of my countrymen.
- Sounds like projection, doesn’t it?

I agree that women are not going back "into the bottle" as it were. There definitely are females out there opposed to women's rights (especially reproductive and career rights). They will be opposed by a greater number of women + the men who want women to meaningfully participate in society. A nation that refuses to take women seriously ends up cutting their potential leadership, ideas, production, and so on basically in half. Already we see women planning how they are going to resist misogynistic policies, and maybe they don't need my support as a Canadian man but they've got it.
- FEEEEEEMALES!!!!!!!!!
  
  ? Is that a trigger word for you or something?

Both can exist.
- Yeah that's the point - the two pictures show two types of people who both exist.
- Yeah, and isn't the series as a whole about her trying to go from A to B?
- To me this is the right answer. Both always exist. I think people's propensity to believe the oppressed will definitely pick up arms in the face of oppression are kidding themselves.
- I I'm not sure why you felt that need to be said, it was the point wasn't it?

I guess I have trouble groking the difference between "liberal" and "leftist".
Could someone summarize?
- Leftists HATE capitalism. They want to replace it altogether with some alternative economic system (market socialism, planned economy or a combination of the two) depending upon the type of leftist. Differences in leftists also exist based on the HOW of replacing capitalism (violent revolution, democratic reformation and so on).
  Liberals ARE NOT leftists. Liberals believe that capitalism, with all its flaws is still the least bad economic system. They recognise some flaws of the free market and think that capitalism must be regulated to a certain extent by the government.
  So again, all leftists HATE capitalism. Liberals dislike a free market, but think that regulated capitalism is the least bad form of governance.
  Note: I know you didn't ask this, but just wanted to clarify - capitalism ≠ market. There's a large group of leftists called "market socialists" who want a market without the means of production owned privately.
  
  So which ones don't want abortions to be banned because Romans nailed a guy to a cross?
  
  That's kinda iffy. Liberals are still on the left, why should leftist be delegated only to democracy haters? It's basically making a special definition that isn't used on any common level
- The left starts at anti capitalism.
  Beyond that, for this meme, liberals are guilty capitalists the same way a Catholic porn addict is a guilty Catholic. They'll feel bad about homelessness, and spend billions "fixing" homelessness but never address the root cause... As that would interfere with their addiction. They'll feel terrible about drug addicts existing and spend billions "fixing" it by selling them different drugs and for profit rehab... But will never address the root of the problem. Liberals feel awful about x, but will never solve x of it interferes with capital. It's why they love rainbow capitalism, they get to feel good about finally doing the right thing... While making profit.
  Leftists want to solve the problem, no matter the cause. They don't support gay people because it's cheap, easy, and allows for profit; they do it because all people have inherent rights. They don't want to build all inclusive, hyper expensive, heavily monitored and limited access housing for the homeless, they just want to build homes and ensure those effected have food and water.
  Liberals are not left wing. Socially they only hold a vague mirage of left wing ideals as long as it doesn't harm capitalism. Economically, they're as right wing as any conservative or fascist. Fun fact fascism has only ever sprung from liberals.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_fascism
  It has its up and downs as an accusation but ask Eastern Europe if they agree with the broad concept.
- None of the answers you've received are really correct.
  Liberalism has a specific meaning in political science. Modern Liberals support market economies, strong individual rights, and the right to own private property (not personal property like your house, car, or toothbrush - private property means capital).
  I'm going to use socialism as a proxy for Leftism broadly because Socialism + Anarchism is too broad. Socialism is a political philosophy characterized by public ownership of capital (aka the means of production). That is the primary thing that binds leftists together.
  Leftists view Liberalism as an improvement over feudalism, the system that it replaced, but criticize Liberals for protecting the status quo of neoliberal capitalism and the injustices, inequities, and evils it has perpetuated (slavery, colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, labor exploitation, etc.). They also assert that any Social Democratic reforms Liberals champion are ineffectual at addressing the core problems of capitalism.
  The reason that the leftists in the meme have guns is because Leftists have historically been violently opposed to fascism and have engaged in revolutions to overthrow feudal, liberal, and fascist regimes.
  
  Modern Liberals support market economies,
  That's a very diplomatic way of saying liberals are pro-capitalism and pro-imperialism.
  
  Modern Liberals support market economies,
  Only partly true. Liberals support capitalist markets, but not worker owned markets (worker co-ops, market socialism.)
- After the French Revolution, they arranged the seats in the legislature with the most progressive on the left, and the most conservative on the right.
  This left-right axis is often still used in modern politics.
  On the American politics version of this spectrum, "liberal" defines those in the center who are in the middle and who accept whatever they are given. Leftist progressives fight for a better future.
  
  Okay liberal
- Liberals die on their knees, leftists die standing.
- Liberal plays by the established rules.
  Leftist revolts and fights back.
- To me, a leftist is someone who looks at the status quo and goes this is fucked up. We need to fix it.
  A liberal looks at the status quo and goes "this isn't this bad." Think Bill Clinton or Tony Blair. Politicans who continued to maintain the status quo after their conservative predecessors.
  If a leftist politician served after a conservative politician. The leftist politician would be like "fuck this" and upend the status quo.
  
  What you are saying is only applicable for North America/ Europe. Liberalism is already the status quo there, which is why liberals defend it. However what is liberalism in the first place?
  Liberalism: "Regulated capitalism is the least bad economic system. Also, the state shouldn't encroach upon the personal matters of an individual."
  Leftists: "Capitalism is the cause of all problems. Fuck capitalism. The eventual goal should be to have a stateless, classless society. However, we disagree quite a lot on how to achieve this goal. This goal is called communism. Some of us say that we should do a violent revolution. Some of us believe that we can abolish capitalism using democratic processes. Some of us believe that to achieve communism, we need a temporary powerful state led by smart people, intellectuals, etc. to achieve material conditions necessary for communism. Some of us believe that the previous idea is absolute dog shit, and instead, we can achieve communism slowly, using non state actors like cooperatives, unions, syndicates and so on."
  Conservatives: "Capitalism is good. The morals and traditions of our ancestors were better than the ones coming up now, and deviating from them would cause a lot of harm. We need to take steps to conserve these ideas."
  Fascists: "All problems in society are because of group X. We need to get rid of group X by either converting them to our ways (if possible), deporting them from our borders, or cleansing our country of them entirely by killing them. Democracy is a slow and inefficient process. We should give power to a strong, smart leader who can get things done a lot more efficiently."
  
  I thought liberalism literrally meant that personal freedoms are the most important thing to that person and the belief is the government should not restrict them and needs to actively protect them.
- Short answer liberals are the leftmost of the centrists,
  Liberals are not "centrists." They are right-wingers. If you are pro-capitalism, you are a right-winger. It doesn't matter how "nice" liberals try to pretend to be about it.
  No ifs, ands or buts.
- Liberal is the opposite of authoritarianism. Left politicies are less capitalism and more socialism. What America calls Liberal is more authoritative than what should be considered central party. Like in the political compass "Liberals" are middle middle top right, while "conservatives" are upper middle top right.
- Not a visual learner eh.
- Leftists want full auto space communism.
  Liberals want rights and liberties for all.
  Both can overlap or not depending.
  
  Liberals want rights and liberties for all except for the impoverished and repressed labour that makes liberalism possible.
  FTFY.
- No because a lot of it is bullshit people just drawing lines in the sand of an already silly way to plot political stances.
  The truth is all liberals should be leftists. Politics leans left and right and people are broken down from there.
  Currently people use the term "leftist" in too many ways but generally it suggests being against the system or capitalism. A liberal or liberalism is easy to Google but usually people mean it as left leaning folk who buy into the system, capitalism or neoliberal politics.
  
  Just because you don't know what words mean doesn't mean no one does.
- I’m the good kind and those idiots are the bad kind.

- 40% of voting women support trump
  Necessarily that means most voting women did not vote Trump.
  
  Except the fact that the women supporting maga is more likely to be gun nuts than the women supporting harris. They also have the military in control once Jan 20 comes.
  We ain't winning. They will massacre us. The US will have its own Tiannamen Square.

The majority of women are libs. It was the majority of women that voted Trump. They're not going to do anything.
- To be clear: The majority of women voted for Harris. The majority of white women voted for trump. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
  
  Fair enough but 45% is nearly half. It my not be the majority but my point is Trump is WIDELY supported by women.
- A lot of them abstained due to the dems failing to do anything on the state level.
  A lot of them who voted just thought the Project 2025 was there to make the libs cry, and no human would be evil enough to execute them all.
  Also a lot of Trump voters in the swing states are already regretting, if it continues, it can very well lead to a civil war, especially if Project 2025 will be executed. Who knows, maybe even the military will have issues with it.
  
  maybe even the military will have issues with it.
  As individuals that can vote, sure.
  As a whole-ass army... maybe? They'll have an issue with it if ordered to do anything unconstitutional. The tricky bit is what the individual leader(s) in the military think about any such order. An additional complication is how the Supreme Court may or may not weigh in, as their responsibility is to interpret the constitution.

Once more into the breach

Sooooo… better start learning the words to Bella Ciao huh?
- No, the Internationale!
  
  With respect to The Internationale, that's just not a banger like Bella Ciao is. If I'm thinking of 'let's oppose a fascist regime and/or do some Operation Gladio shit in 1970's Italy while carrying submachineguns, dressed in leather jackets and balaclavas', Bella Ciao is a much more appropriate choice for a modern era.
  A lot of the versions of The Internationale that I've heard sound more like school plays. It's not something one would describe as 'rousing'.

Good point. It's like keyboard justice warriors ranting about racism compared to actual BLM marchers.
- BLM marches and activism happened all over the world because of "keyboard warriors" spreading the word.
  
  srsly taking credit? wow

Liberal and leftist are both very vague terms with several definitions that place them both in very different places in the political spectrum.
You should just use other, clearer terms.
- These terms are rather well understood by leftists, it's only liberals who think they mean the same thing.
  
  No, conservatives think that. Liberal doesn't mean what leftists desperately want it to mean; neoliberal
- I see leftist as Revolutionary. The resistance. Quite honestly, I loved nazi hunter stories growing up and stories of the resistance movements and operations to smuggle the vulnerable to safety. I will be a part of it this time around.
- What is so vague about them?
  They seem perfectly clear-cut to me.
  
  Some people think liberal is right-wing, just not extreme (for example, liberal party of Quebec)
  Some people think liberal is centrist. (For example, liberal party of Canada)
  Some people think liberal is some sort of wide category including everyone left of center.
  As for leftist, some people think it means anything left of center.
  Others think it means left-wing, but more so than center-left.
  Others yet think it refers only to the most left-wing of political opinions, including communists, anarcho-communists, and adjacent ideologies.
  And even "center" is a vague term to begin with. What passes as center in the US is decidedly right-wing in other countries.

Yeah you have no clue that women actually side with capitalism all day every day

So headscarves no matter what. Got it.
- The difference is, they choose the balaclava.
  
  I think the balaclava chooses them.

So are you saying liberal is law abiding while lefties is a violent militia?
- "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."
  Thomas Jefferson
  Were the people who fought against the rapid corruption and authoritarianism of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Stalin-era Russia unjust for refusing to obey the laws that told them to kill Jews, Chinese and anarchists?
  Were the slave abolitionists in America wrong for freeing slaves, by illegal means? Were women who pushed for greater bodily autonomy by disobeying sexist laws incorrect?
  It is your moral duty to resist any law that imposes an unjust inequality to anyone and everyone.
  
  There you go, a call for insurrection, just like the right did when they lose. But ohh this one is done for good where the unjust haven't even started yet. The progressive lawmaker is working hard to trump-proof their state while the lefties is looking for insurrection. Lot of self own within america lately.
- Yes, liberals uphold systems of oppression while leftists break them. Very good little one.
  
  Ohh so you mean lefties deliberately not voting, which is breaking the system that lefties believe is oppressive, and then allowing the fascist to rise to power, then call for insurrection?
  Last i heard lefties are the one calling for protest vote or no voting. You want me to believe they're the righteous one?
- Yes, Liberals are whiny little cowards while leftists are the people who will actively fight back. I personally see nothing wrong with some good economic sabotage and militias.
  
  Ohh yes, whiny little coward that go out and vote while the brave leftists sitting at home protesting the choice they have to made which in return allowing fascist to be voted in which then they whine about fascist being voted in and threaten violence. Bravo, lefties, bravo.

Lmao, aren't guns too dangerous for y'all?
- For leftists? I think you should read some history lol
  
  And here I thought the left wanted more gun control, since it seems to be so important to them
- Keep thinking that.
  
  Honestly I think the idea that we're anti-gun is projection by right-wingers who are anti-gun because they want police and government to have more control. They won't admit it though because they believe that they should have guns to fight against us, but if they beat us, I guarantee they'd show their anti-gun side more prominently.
  
  I will
- Man being unironically Anti-gun is so cringe. Like really if you're anti-gun you almost certainly believe that people shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves and therefore should instead rely solely on the police for their own protection, because that's who you'll rely on now if you can't defend yourself.