Funny, those guys don't usually agree on that much

Do you know what the word 'liberal' actually means

It has 2 common definitions:

Neo-liberal: a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending

Leftism in general.

You're almost never going to hear the right-wing use #1. Authoritarian communists will use #1 as a catch-all for modern capitalism.
- The US is such a right wing country that liberals are the mainstream left. In Europe, liberals are centrists and they aren't further to the right than American libs.
- It's extremely frustrating hearing this repeated so often here.
  
  It's fine if this is the colloquial definition you're used to hearing and using, but this is certainly not the way it's used outside of American politics and pretending like it's the only use comes off as both ill-informed and condescending.
  
  When used derisively from the left, rest assured it is not referring to either of your adopted generalizations but a very specific ideology.
- Liberalism has never meant "leftism in general." It has always been an ideology supporting the individual via private property rights. Neoliberalism is the modern form of it.
  
  Liberalism was considered left when feudalism was right, but liberalism has never meant leftism.
- I'm sorry but this is just flat out wrong in the way that only an American can be wrong
This discussion is funny from a German pov, as our main local liberal party (the FDP) is pretty right wing and has been so since the 1940s. "Liberalism" always had a quite neative connotation to me therefore. They are also the party most open to working together with the far right (the AFD).

Liberalism can be right wing or left wing. It makes more sense to structure the political specrum like this. But even that is far from prefect.
- Liberalism can be right wing or left wing.
  
  Eh. Its traditionally in that "economically conservative, socially liberal" pocket, wherein you can do whatever you want so long as you've got enough passive income.
  
  Fascists tend toward a more rigid social caste system (ideologically) wherein being rich isn't enough to save you from state violence. That's a big part of its popular appeal, particularly when liberal institutions decay into kleptocracies.
  
  Traditional Marxism tends toward the social egalitarianism that fascists can't stomach (race mixing, gender equality, and worker internationalism) while advocating full public ownership that liberal rent-seekers can't stomach.
  
  So, in the modern political spectrum, liberals tend to be "centrists" who use their economic influence to rent out social egalitarianism. Fascists tend to be "right wing", advocating for those same private entities to purge themselves of unpopular social groups. And Marxists tend to be "left wing", advocating for an abolition of rents and a full egalitarian economy.
  
  But if you go back a century (or move over to a country that's more left or right leaning) the colonial era monarchies and theocracies end up forming the right-wing pole, while fascists join liberals at the social center, and Marxists join a much more lively native anarchist community that's in its last-gasp efforts to resist colonial occupation.
- that's because liberalism in Europe is mainly "liberty" for rich people to do what they want
- Are they? I would say the CDU under Merz is more likely to work with the AfD
Open-minded, permissive, tolerant
- Look rather than dunk on you, I'm going to recommend Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast, because it gives a fair overview of what the liberal revolutions were about, why socialism grew out of that moment, and how there came to be this irreconciliable beef between liberalism and socialism. The whole thing is great, but 1848 is the real crisis point if all you care about is the schism.
- It means you support capitalism, hence why "liberalization of the economy" means selling off public utilities, land, housing, and resources.
- "I spread my butter liberally."
- Don't know why you're being downvoted.
  
  Liberal literally means free. As in "If it doesn't harm me, you're allowed to do it". So yes, openminded, permissive, tolerant.
  
  Don't know why a lot of the US-Americans had to twist the meaning of it.

I'm on the left, but I'm far from a communist, much less an authoritarian one, and I 100% use lib or liberal as an insult. I think to most people younger than 50, Liberal refers to a certain type of Democratic voter. They'll hang a BLM sign in their window but support NIMBY policies that keep people of color out of their neighborhoods. They'll talk a good game about labor rights and unions, but still go to Starbucks and throw a shit-fit if their order is wrong. They cared very deeply about Iraq and Guantanamo when Bush was President, but stopped bringing it up once Obama was in office.

The Third Way Democrats of the 90s basically turned American Liberals into Neo-Liberals. I will still support them when I have to, since they hold all the levers of power over the only ostensibly progressive party in America, and not siding with them at this point basically ensures the rise of fascism, but I have no love for Liberals.

don't usually agree on that much

Where have you been the last 8 years

Yeah Tankies/AuthComs are just such an odd mixture of accelerationists, "own the libs" and just general stupidity of "a strong man makes strong men" bullshit that they support any fascist if it means maybe someday they might not be on the chopping block.

If Tankies were an actual voting bloc they'd be somewhat impactful for the first time since maybe 1949. That would imply going outside however.
- Remember, men who want a strong man want to be dominated, therefore they are themselves weak

You can tell this was made by a salty neo lib

It's really funny how no one really likes liberals but liberals.

Conservatives: "They're too freedom loving for my tastes! Why can't they just stay and home and be good corporate stooges like us?"

Auth-Communists: "They claim to like freedom but still willingly use the capitalist forces to oppress who they like. Liberals are okay with personal freedom until it impacts the white moderates. ~~That's our job!~~"

Anarchists: "It's literally weird to call yourself a liberal when all they do is oppose any movement against the status quo. If they can't convert them to sell away their soul to the state or capitalism, they're terrorists. They're more like conservatives than any actual progressives, and even progressives admit 100% capitalism isn't great."

Libertarian capitalists: "They claim to be for freedom but constantly require the state to check in on if people are enjoying their freedom like that Nanny's they never had. I just wanna grill for god's sake!"

Like it's just funny to me no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you have a somewhat decent reason to hate liberals (except conservatives are too stupid to tell liberals apart from "commies").
- You could build that list for every political party/perspective
"My party is committing genocide and lost all of its credibility and ethos. Boo hoo."

At least they aren't using the word "progressive" anymore.

Yes, leftists absolutely know what the word "liberal" means. It refers to a pro-Capitalist ideology centered around the idea of individual freedoms via private property rights.

Leftists disagree that allowing private property creates a freer population, and understand that Liberalism is the dominant ideology in developed Capitalist nations.

Software developers are staying silent on this one.

“We’d like for our software to ThingDo. Our team has estimated 4 weeks for this work. What’s your estimate?”
“Wait, you want to write it from scratch? Why not just plug in ThingDoer library?”
“…ah, right. Damn libs.”
Only good library is the standard library, packages are much better 😤
But I like my libs... Often enough produced with a pretty communistic and anti-authoritarian mindset... (And too often, lack of support for the workers... Ups) But I like them.
I thought I was in programmer humor for a sec when I first saw the image, then I died a little bit

Republicans are also liberals. At least in the true sense of the word. So it's low-key funny when they use the term liberal as an insult.

I myself am not a liberal. Fiscally at least. Socially I'm a progressive.

I'm just excited to see what happens when they find out their PC has been invaded by libs.

And then proceeds to own them by deleting them all
In American political terminology, "liberal" means a different thing than in Europe. It implies being left-wing on social issues. Republicans by definition cannot be liberals (in the American sense of the term).
- It would be like saying "it's funny when Americans say they're going to 'wear their boot', how are you going to wear part of your car?"
  
  They are using a different definition of the word, and pretending they aren't is being wilfully ignorant at best. Pretending the other definition doesn't exist just serves to alienate people who might actually agree with you.

I am the only true leftist. The rest of you are posers and/or feds.
- Hey, I'm neither of those. I'm an op!
- look, tankies aren't leftists, they are fascists wearing the skin of the lefties they killed
The Other Kind of Leftists
- Please tell me this tweet isn’t real
Would him putting on the Darth Vader armor be an analogue to many "toxic" leftists using doxxing sites dominated by the far-right to try and ruin the lives of people that aren't 100% into Stalin?
- putting on the Darth Vader armor
  
  doxxing sites dominated by the far-right
  
  Yes. Becoming an unkillable cyborg space wizard and outting someone paying for a message board full of Nazi copypasta are the same.

Lmao check out all the salty libs seeing themselves get called out in these comments.

sincerely, an anarcho-syndicalist

Pretty much. "Lol why don't you like libs?"

...cause we don't like things the way they are, and the only goal of the libs appears to be prevent any sort of progress. Maybe we are allowed relief from existing problems, but fuck you if you wanna fix em!
- the only goal of the libs appears to be prevent any sort of progress.
  
  "Liberal" in America is literally synonymous with "progressive". The entire point of the party is progress.
  
  @Cowbee@lemmy.ml here's another one
The only time I ever see evidence of Anarcho types they are being literally as annoying as possible.

Edit for clarity, it's never "I started this charity/group/political campaign with signups/events/or public engagement." Only ever "fuck everything, I can't wait for society to fall apart such that the magic future can begin"

Bro you gotta be constructive not destructive if you want to sway opinions
- Anarchists are pretty active in their communities, with mutual aid and direct action being cornerstones of the ideology and whatnot. If you spent any time in activist spaces you'd know that
- I returned because I noticed your edit. I was being a bit snide, mostly because the meme is assuming everyone who calls someone a lib is authoritarian-aligned. If you'd like to know about the positive work I do as an organizer, I'd be happy to share. However, to me those actions are just the right thing to do and not worth bringing up randomly.
- ..you said, being literally as annoying as possible and contributing nothing constructive
  
  ..he said, fully cognizant of the hypocrisy, which is why he decided to contribute a snarky editorial comic

They agree on a lot more than you'd think, once you parse out each cult's different groupspeak

FDR, Churchill , Hitler, and Mussolini also had a lot in common when you get down to it. Same as humans and chimpanzees. It's the differences that actually matter.
- I mean they each protected capitalism in their own way:
  
  FDR, being old money who'd just seen MacArthur send in the tanks to raze a camp of rebellious soldiers and knew how these things tended to go, invested in guillotine insurance via the New Deal.
  
  Hitler and Mussolini used the other approach, privatizing/selling off state assets and applying colonial methods they'd perfected in Africa back home to buttress capitalism and protect profits.
  
  I'm not gonna get started on Churchill.

I will not stand for this anarchist erasure

It's more that OP seems unable to fathom anyone to the left of them being both rational and uncool with liberalism. That's why they specifically said "Authouritarian Communists," the SpOoKiEsT LeFtIsTs.

Almost like AuthComs are authoritarian before they are communist, and thus have more in common with the American Fascist Party than any actual leftists.

I'd say they both agree on the main point of both philosophies "everyone has to follow every ridiculous rule I come up with except me"

Conservatives, fascists, and Auth-Communists just disagree on what color the flag should be, and the name of the party in charge handing out the police to dispatch onto the people.
- Right? Some people say it's horseshoe theory, but it's more just a pallette swap.
- Good things and bad things are exactly the same. A justice system that enforces the will of the capitalists is exactly as bad as a justice system that enforces the will of the people.

wait until you learn about fiscally liberal vs socially liberal.

Tell me you don’t hang out with anarchists without telling me…

There's only one axis on the political spectrum, and everyone left of Biden (a rightwinger) is a tankie, isn't this obvious?
- no, everyone right of "I won't vote at all in 2024 because I refuse to vote for Biden" is a conservative
  
  didn't you get the memo
Or marxists even lol
don't anarchists call themselves libertarians?
- What? Are you high?
- No, they call themselves Libertaire. Libertaire was adopted by french anarchists at the end of the 19th century when anarchist publications were banned from France. Sadly, as Americans do, the word was misused and transformed by Milton Friedman, on the behalf of oil companies, and later that failed actor named Ayn Rand, to described unabashed, unregulated, capitalism and corporatism.
  
  No anarchist worth it's salt would ever use the word libertarian instead of Libertaire.

I used to think it just was synonymous with the left, but I've recently been seeing a lot of comments on Lemmy saying liberals aren't leftist so now I am not sure if it means anything or if those Lemmings are just dumb.

I've grown up with the term "bleeding heart liberals" being applied to groups like Green Peace and hippies that promote love and unity by people who are just complete pieces of shit, and in that context I was always like "I guess I'm a liberal 🤷🏻‍♂️"

Liberals are somewhere between center left and center right. In the US, the alternative to republicanism is the “liberal party” and because they often encompass people further left than the party line, they are seen as left wing. Generally, I associate people who are always in favor of slow electoral measures, a strong state, strong individualistic rights that are positively defined (the right to do rather than not having the right to do) and the view that capitalism is the only method that had worked so far and is therefore best with liberalism. But thats far from an academic definition.

When you add in the fact that people usually end up seeing another person’s politics in relative to their own, things get unintelligible for someone trying to pinpoint an ideology.

An anarchist like myself will probably point towards someone like Biden or Obama and say they are a liberal or neoliberal, which is probably accurate enough (if I do say so myself), but I’ll also call conservatives like Romney, Bush, and Raegan, liberals or neoliberal even though those are people most self titled liberals would hate. A staunch authoritarian communist might call AOC or Sanders a liberal because they aren’t revolutionary communists, even though I’d personally consider them somewhat socialist progressives. Heck, I’ve ben called a liberal by hardcore communists even though my views are more similar to their definition of communism than theirs, and I’ve been called a liberal by some alt right people even though their views are closer to liberalism than mine.

Fox news, on the other hand, would call a pink haired person on a college campus a liberal for the pink hair alone. They might label a gay trump supporter who has a pride flag a liberal because of their homophobia combined with the association pride has with liberals to them. They might call someone who is genuinely far left a liberal because they either can’t comprehend their beliefs or because they don’t catch some of the indicators that they are looking at a communist, anarchist, etc.
- US Dems and mainstream liberals are definitely right to far right by (mainland) European standards.
  
  The political window in the US is very different from the European ones.
My thoughts exactly! Every real-life human I've ever spoken to uses it to mean open-minded and every definition I look up agrees, yet for some reason half the people posting here think it exclusively means economically-neo-liberal capitalist.
- Yeah these are old school definitions, like how a "liberal education" means you get a broad education in differing perspectives (ironically, this term is now associated with a Eurocentric take on topics). In the same sense, "liberal policies" would mean freedom of religion, sexuality, etc.
  
  All good things that progressives agree with, but it also entails more pernicious property rights, and the protection of the state/establishment against those who threaten those rights.
  
  It doesn't necessarily have to be this way, but this is what I believe it's come to mean in practice. It also has very little to do with how one votes, especially in a democracy like the U.S. where you've just got your "monkey loves you" and "monkey needs a hug" choices.
- Perhaps they are seeing "free enterprise" and associating that with being something only pertaining to capitalism, even though you can have free enterprise without capitalism.
- The context is typically pretty important for how it is being used. The user of the term often provides more than enough context I find.
  
  If 'liberal' is being used in a derogatory sense, which isn't going to be captured by an academic definition, it's often aimed at neoliberalism in a pretty broad sense.
  
  Which is probably what this meme is referring to: the shared rejection of neoliberalism. The motivations are different but that's immaterial to these things. I mean: it is specifically referencing an American political party here: so I wouldn't be looking for a political science definition on 'liberal'.
- 1 favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
  
  2 noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
  
  3 of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.
  
  4 favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
  
  5 favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression:
  
  6 of or relating to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
  
  7 free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant
  
  8 open-minded or tolerant, especially free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
  
  Only 5,7 and 8 are "open minded" Being favorable to progress does not mean being open minded and what constitutes as progressive is in itself up to debate. Individual rights and liberties can be understood as neo-liberal capitalism of "well the law allows you, your economic situation doesn't concern us, and now back to slaving 60 hours a week." Or it could mean "We need to enable people to enjoy their liberties so we need to ensure their basic human dignity with healthcare, education and social welfare to empower them."
- It's easier than accepting nuance, and it's usually from the same people who demonstrate that same lack of nuance in everything else they post.
'Liberal' is one of those words that has so many definitions that it can have contradictory meanings. It can mean 'open to / tolerant of'. It can denote a style of education that tries to be broad rather than deep. It can describe various political positions - the 'Liberal Party' is left-wing in Chile, centrist in the UK and Canada, and right-wing in Russia, Japan and Australia. This is also what OP is memeing about. At this point, to avoid confusion, I would just avoid using the word except in the purely academic / technical sense.
Some authoritarians strongly believe that they're far left. But an authoritarian regime cannot be left. If you're not liberal, you're an authoritarian, not left, and it doesn't matter what type of authoritarian bull shit you're subscribing to.
I used to think it just was synonymous with the left, but I’ve recently been seeing a lot of comments on Lemmy saying liberals aren’t leftist so now I am not sure if it means anything or if those Lemmings are just dumb.

@Cowbee@lemmy.ml

I've been fucking telling you, insisting on a Eurocentric definition confuses people, and that confusion is exploited by fascists.

American definition of liberal: socially liberal

European definition of liberal: economically liberal

I use lib for shared objects.

Lib bashing in left spaces is the mating cry of the tanky

It might be cathartic every so often, but too much makes the wrong people feel safe.

Liberals do not belong in left spaces, left is literally defined by anticapitalism.
- Having a fight over who is or isn't allowed in left spaces instead of having the discussion about leftist policy is what got the left where it is in today's political discussion.
  
  Defining a movement by who's not allowed in it leaves you without any ability to get anywhere legitimately.
- No, left is defined by liberalism. Anti-capitalism is far right authoritarian bull shit.

I 'am' an anarcho-communist and I don't like libtards. Libtards to me are 'progressive capitalists' that have no systemic insight what so ever and think all it takes to bring upon heaven on earth is to try and be nice.

I mean, you should try and be nice obviously but you are not going to soy latte your way outta this my dudes.

I don’t like libtards.

You can just call them liberals. You don't need to meld the term to a slur.

I mean, you should try and be nice obviously

By shaving the first two letters off an r-bomb? Come on, guy. I get what you're saying, but this is an awful way to phrase it.
Friend I'm not a friend of liberals myself but can we please not use ableistic terms that end with "-tard"?

Reserve that shit for the right wing
- Ok, even though I know this will make no difference to 'you people' (sorry just cannot help myself xD).
  
  In this case I choose to use this specific word because it's so obviously a dogwhistle for right wing extremists that in the context of this meme I think it's funny, since my actual stance is neither authoritarian or rightwing.
  
  I don't seriously mean to perpetuate negative stereotypes with regards to people with mental handicaps.
  
  Just as a curiosity, are you by any chance from the US? I just cannot imagine anyone from Europe making such a big deal about a joke like this, let alone use the term ableist.
  
  I guess my brain has just rotted as a result of a few decades of being on the internet. Inside i'm still an edgy teen apparently. No actual offense meant :)
> is anarcho-communist

> accuses others of lacking systemic insight
- I'm unsure what you mean by this. Would you be willing to elaborate?
Libtards

Is a right wing fascist term. I don't think you're an anarcho-communist. I think you're a right wing pretending to be leftist to try to suppress the Democratic vote. You guys have tells.

Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleed...

Authoritarian Communist

I see this term used so often from the lofty reaches of some national news rag or echoing out of a Senate star chamber. The CEO is stamping it into an EULA, as an irrevocable term of service. The corporate union-buster is putting it up in 120 point font in a company wide mandatory power point presentation. The evangelical minister is denouncing it from the pulpit as part of a catechism call-and-response. The nosey neighbor is whispering it into the phone, hoping a SWAT team will remove someone from the block. The police holding you face down in a bucket of water are screaming it in your ears.

Beware the authoritarian communist. Beware the tankies. Beware the Chinese / Russian / Venezuelan social terrorists, fifth columnists, and outside agitators. Beware the college kid in the Che Guevera t-shirt. Beware the Anti-American. Whatever you think we might be doing to you now, they'll be ten times worse.
- It's just a more politically correct way to say tankie.
https://scratch.mit.edu ?
Usually because it's a fascist doing the scratching, so the liberal punches him
- What an absolutely childish and moronic way or rewriting history. Typical lib.

"Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism, free markets, representative democracy, legal rights and state monopoly on violence. It includes a large portion of the present day political spectrum, from the centre-left social democrats to the far-right conservatives and American libertarians."

That is.... a lot of people
- Yes. Liberalism is the dominant ideology in the World today.

North American, upper middle class authoritarian communists. That shit is just cosplay for them lol

Op, are you in the US?

In the US, the choices for voting are Republican and Democrat.

Which of these parties is "liberal?"

The argument being made when non conservatives dislike liberals is when the liberals in question align with the Ds, because the Ds have every interest in pushing vaguely progressive policies during elections and never actually follow through in office.

Remember student loans? Still out there Remember universal healthcare? Still gotta pay for insurance Remember tax reform? Still paying higher rates than people who can't conceivably spend all of their money.

The primary goal of the Dems when in power is to maintain power. Fuck those guys. Not quite as hard as Republicans, but it stands.

Signed, Not a fucking tankie

The democrats are the liberal party. They support abortion, religious freedom, police reform, civil rights (sometimes), drug decriminalization, etc.

That being said, they are trying to encapsulate and entire half of the political spectrum. There's going to be gaps, disagreements between individual party members, and places where one policy or value has to override another.
- They support
  
  Abortion (in campaign ads and fundraising emails)
  
  Religious freedom (by wagging a finger when Republicans don't and then doing fuck all about it)
  
  Police reform (by throwing cash at cops for "better training" while refusing to actually change the inherently abusive system)
  
  Civil rights (sometimes) (when it won't effect the bottom line of their owner donors like AIPAC and the fossil fuel industries
  
  Drug decriminalization (in theory, but never in practice)
  
  they are trying to encapsulate and entire half of the political spectrum
  
  No. They are trying to be IN CHARGE OF over half of the political spectrum. The only ideologies other than their own (which is center right to right wing) that they ever try to appeal to is the couple dozen "undecided that are almost but not quite Republicans" left in the country.
  
  There's going to be gaps, disagreements between individual party members, and places where one policy or value has to override another.
  
  Nope, there's going to be nothing but neglect and abuse towards anyone to the left of the leadership, which is now to the right of Reagan.
  
  In spite of the name, the Democratic Party is not democratic or even a party. It's a private for-profit corporation controlled by a small group of people who are in turn controlled to varying degrees by rich people, other corporations, and industry lobbying groups.
- Nah, your first statement is close, but you miss by a bit:
  
  "The democrats are the liberal party. They [pretend to] support abortion (when trying to get elected), religious freedom (when trying to get elected), police reform (when trying to get elected), civil rights (when trying to get elected), drug decriminalization (when trying to get elected), etc."
  
  When not trying to get elected they don't actually DO anything.
  
  Drug decriminalization was a big deal in the 70's and we are maybe just now kinda getting around to it.
  
  I didn't even call out the shit behavior on civil rights, you did that.
  
  They seem a-ok with police fucking with college kids right now.
  
  They've had 50 years since roe v wade to guarantee the right to abortion, and they didn't.
  
  What DID they do?
  
  Helped give money to people who are already rich through tax breaks. Helped give money to people who are already rich through deregulation they allowed through. Helped give money to people who are already rich through defense contracts. Helped give money to people who are already rich by overthrowing foreign governments with control over resources out oil barrons want.
  
  Id call those "gaps", yeah.
I am not, and I've observed that every American seems to have their own definition of what "liberal" means, which is not really very helpful when trying to use the word in a discussion
- I'm reasonably sure making discussion difficult is the goal. When the right refers to libs, they mean "anything left of me" without ever acknowledging that a significant number of people being referred to are neither progressive lib or left. The American D party is a center right organization, so how do I, as a leftist express "fuck the platform of the 'liberal party' is pushing, they're clearly bought and paid for too, and are serving the bourgeoisie and don't give a fuck about me, but I still have to put the guy in charge back in charge cause the alternative is dictatorship."
  
  Yep, sounds about right.
Democrats tried to fix all those things but were blocked by Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court. And that is Democrats fault somehow? Give us more numbers, we'll get you more results.
- I vote D because I have no other valid choice. When Obama was in the president seat, he had both houses of congress and only managed to get the aca. Don't get me wrong, telling insurance they have to cover preexisting conditions is a good thing, but only by the standard that we are required to use insurance anyways. We need single payer.
  
  Don't misquote me. I don't think D and R are the same thing. I know that I suffer less under D leadership than R, however, things only actually ever seem to move further right. For example, why are we throwing college kids in jail for stating the obvious: that supporting the massacre of civilians is heinous? I think that D and R are playing the same game, Power, and the little people who aren't rich are the ones paying their dues.

Secret lovers.

I tend to see the derogatory 'Liberal' and moreso 'Lib' used for Neo-liberals and those supporting the neoliberal policies that have dominated the last few generations.

I otherwise see it used in the context of the phrase "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" which is pithy but tracks with history and typically the more antagonistic usage. It is almost entirely used to provoke a reaction from the 'libs' it is directed at, accuracy notwithstanding.

With context it is almost always pretty self explanatory which is being used.

When the horseshoe becomes a circle…

Who doesn't hate those dang rightwingers, The Liberals?

to be fair, the word "liberal" has lost its meaning in the US, because there no differentiation between economic liberalism and social liberalism. the guy in the meme would be a classic socialist in europe. we do have liberals here too, but they are the economic liberalism-type and more in line with the US-Republicans in economic questions, like tax cuts for the rich and businesses.
- It's as meaningless as any words that hang on the notion that there's a "spectrum".
  
  You either you accept what works and fosters human well being and liberty, adjusting your politics accordingly to reality as we learn more about the world, or you're conservative, a fundementally irrational denial of reality.
  
  This is why seemingly different groups like Marxists and neo-nazis end up at the same place ultimately; they're unwilling to give up on failed ideas. It doesn't matter what label one applies, if you're still trying failed ideas after they've produced untold amounts of harm then you're just on one road to fascism or another.
  
  It's a binary, not a spectrum.
- There's a huge differentiation between social and economic liberalism! Liberals in the US means almost exclusively social liberalism. Liberal in the us is progressivism.
  
  Economic liberalism is a Republican position, not a Democrat one.
  
  @Cowbee@lemmy.ml I promise this is the last one, I've made my point
You're confusing liberalism with social progressivism, and leftism with social programs.

At the end of the day, Capitalism is right wing, Socialism is left.
- 👍
Just throw workers owning the means of production on there and we've got a ~~stew~~ real progressive.
yes but you don't participate in riots and vote for joe biden instead of third party, therefore you are no better than transphobes

/s if it wasn't obvious
Not what your voting record demonstrates if you've been voting for liberal establishment figures.

Remember a politician's talk < actions and campaign finance.

Nice

"Authoritarian" would require that we, you know, have some authority. Which we don't.

Neolibs do. And they just used it to arrest a bunch of students and people protesting against a genocide.

You all project so fucking hard it's ridiculous.

“Authoritarian” would require that we, you know, have some authority.

No, it would require you to support the idea that there should be some central authority telling people what they should be doing. Which you do.
- That's pretty much every non-anarchist ideology then, no?
- Lol okay bud. Then tell me how you justify 44 Democrat senators, 36 Republican senators and Joe Biden working together to block the rail strike? I can't wait to observe your abilities as a mental contortionist.

Lemmy going 2 seconds without complaining about tankies challenge impossible...

this website has defo been infiltrated by right-wing groups

this website has defo been infiltrated by right-wing groups

I mean it was kind of inevitable on lemmy.world, right? An ostensibly centrist instance that kind of tries to brand itself as the "mainstream" socially acceptable lemmy instance. It was basically liberal from the start, you know? Appealing to users flooding in from the reddit exodus. The more explicitly leftist influenced things are going to act more, you know, liberal with the banning out of self-preservation, and so are inevitably going to kind of like, paradoxically, cordon themselves off into little, I mean, basically echo chambers, so they're not going to appeal to a kind of broader audience as much.

It's all kind of inevitable from the structure of the site, I think.
Liberals pulling out a Merriam Webster definition and acting like they’re the holy good guys while making no effort to understand what liberalism even is…

Is such a liberal move I’m not even surprised anymore.

Enjoy your right wing echo chamber, real funny how that always happens when liberals and fascists get in a room together.
- ah yes, lemmy, the "biden is just as right wing as trump, harm reduction isn't real, and if you don't vote third party in 2024 you're a genocide enabler" website, famously a right wing echo chamber
I mean if everyone right of communism is "right wing", sure

Do any of them know what the >word "liberal" actually means?

No. Most barely know what a "word" is.