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Personally? For me, I don’t care what kind of leftist you are.
For now, we are united against one singular goal, the total annihilation of Donald Trump’s fascist regime of religious cultists and billionaire oligarchs.
Before we throw a single punch at one another, we have to solve this first. We’d all rather eachother’s ideals than him if given the choice.
What kind am I?
Not a neo liberal or a Tankie.
I’m in-between. I’m caring enough to not agree with Conservatives and want a change to the status quo. I’m educated enough to know how the world actually works and that things can’t be free and other people won’t do stuff for free. Capitalism has its place, but needs to be highly regulated.
You can be anti-capitalist without being a “tankie.” It seems like your position is driven by your aversion to those you perceive as being to your right and to your left rather than on a consistent ideological framework.
I’m educated enough to know how the world actually works and that things can’t be free and other people won’t do stuff for free.
This is capitalist realism. Your education has not made you smart enough to see that capitalism is reality, it has made you so set in your constrained worldview that you’ve become incapable of imagining anything outside of the framework of capitalism. For the majority of time that humans have existed on earth they have organized themselves in a myriad of different ways without the need for private property and exploitation of others. I recommend reading some anthropology, I personally prefer David Graeber.
Hey tankie, I’ve had conversations with other tankies that believe no business should be making a profit and there is no such thing as a good company. They think a business should provide services for free, while they sit on their ass and collect UBI. UBI is something I support, but if I create a business that aims to help people one way or another with a product or service, I’m not doing it for free.
There are other forms of societal framework and I’m sorry, but Marxist Lenonist communism isn’t it. There’s a reason communism always devolves into authoritarianism. And we don’t need to go back to feudalism, which is primarily what has been throughout history, which you ignore.
Even Adam Smith was pretty clear what happens when capitalism is unregulated:
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of…
The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty maintenance of the labouring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition that they are going fast backwards.
Ye, if you don’t manage capitalism, the demon capital manages you.
I would like us to seriously try alternatives, but failing that, at least put the mad dog on a leash.
flexible on range of solutions for dealing with the billionaire problem
I want a society that is a democratic communist society ruled by a democratically elected council. None of this single person has ultimate authority, because that’s the worst weak point. All laws apply to the leaders as well as the masses. Money should either be abolished, or capped. No individual should be able to acquire enough influence that they can dictate anything about others lives. Democratize and co-op all workplaces. All basic rights of humans are absolutely not allowed to be profited off of.
In our current system, no individual should be able to acquire enough influence that they can dictate anything about others lives.
Humans are fallible. Any council can be corrupted or dominated slowly, especially as long as currency and power corrupts and hierarchies can exist. Democratic socialism is a utopian idea of a fallible system, when what you are really asking for is the abolishment of corruption, prejudice and greed itself, the cancers that ruin otherwise harmonious societies.
Until a form of government arises that rewards the participant for seeking purpose rather than fame or reward, we’ll just be replacing fractured systems, destined to fail, over and over and over again.
but, per my own personal bias, I don’t believe people are inherently good enough to act that way. I believe we will destroy ourselves before we ever get there. The individuals that would dominate the next system of government will be the ones holding the pen to craft it, so it goes…
The Baha’is have a system that kinda works like that. They don’t have clergy, the have democratically elected spiritual assemblys. The rule is that no one that wants the position can have it. The communities elect people that have proven they can lead with humility.
Your ideal society in the best case scenario is… 500 or so years away!
“Ally? That’s a funny way to spell FASCIST!”
-the American left during the 24’ election
*Doesn’t vote to enable fascism.
Your parties are seriously a mess, though. Sorry to say. Yes, come the vote under a FPTP duopoly I agree maximum impact is to vote for the lesser of the two, but I honestly don’t think much is going to change for you guys if all you do is vote.
I just want people to have food, shelter and healthcare at an affordable price.
So you want billionaires hoisted up by their figgins as a warning to the rest of the bourgeoisie?? That’s what I’m hearing here.
Ugh George Soros poisoned Progressivism!
By “affordable” I’m assuming you mean free. Always wanting a handout, of course.
I just want untaxed inheritance, corporate welfare on top of more tax breaks for me and all my friends, unregulated surveillance and data collection of the plebs so I can continue to make even more money (untaxed obvs), exclusive and elite private universities, and a justice system where I can live free of consequence and purchase a judge at a reasonable price because I believe in being fiscally conservative.
Food, shelter, and healthcare are things I’ve just never had to think about really. Although, I would also prefer that if too many people are worrying about those things in my immediate vicinity, they be shuffled around or forcibly moved to a different vicinity.
That way I don’t have to start thinking too much. It’s really unfair when that happens, because it starts to make me feel all kinds of uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is not something I’m used to feeling, and since I don’t like to think about things, I never stop and think about why somebody else being uncomfortable would also make me feel so uncomfortable.
Logically, the solution is to just put those people somewhere not visible to me, and then complain about what society is “turning into these days” when they slip through the privilege perimeter.
TERRORIST.
Some call this “Leftist extremism”. =/
Like … all people?
Every single one
What about people we don’t like?
Seems reasonable.
Anti-Conservative
There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.
There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.
There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.
As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.
So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whatever-the-fuck-kind-of-stupid-noise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.
No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Also, those who insist on political purity tests reveal themselves to be temporarily-inconvenienced-dictators-in-waiting.
While I am totally in the “bind all and protect all” camp and really against the “in group protect, out group rules” and I think conservatism is often in practice “protect me and rule others”, I am not sure if I agree with it being called conservatism.
I think fundamentally the hierarchy in right wing politics imply an in/out group. But just like conservatism is a form of right wing political views, so you could argue that the hierarchical political views are a Form of “in group protect, out group bind”.
Whatever you want to call it, is part of conservatism, I believe. But I don’t like to call it conservatism, so it feels like we are defining two related but different things with the same name, which will be confusing and could be used by e.g. “progressive” capitalists to claim that they aren’t conservative and therefore not “in group protect, out group bind”.
I am not sure if I agree with it being called conservatism.
Yes, Wilhoit, if I’m understanding his treatise correctly, addressed this point:
For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.
The corollary label could be “Anti-Establishment”. Perhaps, “Anti-Authoritarian”.
I don’t know what the best term is, but I fairly certain conservatism is probably one of the worst. I think tribalism and anti-tribalism would be a better starting point while that was a meaning already too.
I think tribalism and anti-tribalism would be a better starting point while that was a meaning already too.
On this, I agree.
However, I propose that the “Anti-Conservative” label, with all of its flaws, has more utility in presenting its economic and political implications within the admittedly linguistically absurd political discourse in my country (U.S.A.).
I think, there, we have a disagreement. To me, it would sound like you reject the republicans specifically in a us political discussion, a position that I wouldn’t be interested exploring, because of how strong the tribalism in us politics is. I would just assume that you are supporting the democrats. While with the understanding of the conversation, I would assume you aren’t supportive of any of the us political party and vote for the least bad option.
In other words, I wouldn’t want to explore your political position if you use that term as I would assume I understood. Consequently I would misunderstand your position. And I think others would do the same.
If someone would identify as a conservative, they wouldn’t take you seriously anymore, as they would understand it that you reject them, even tho in practice they would agree with you on a lot of stuff and you aren’t necessarily rejecting them.
😅 My apologies, I’ve been re-reading this reply many times and I’m not following your argument against the utility of using the “Anti-Conservative” label for myself if someone asks what is my political position (within the United States)?
Is your thesis that “Anti-conservative” is not specific enough?
My apologies!
For a conservative™ (the way most people use the word), hearing “anti-conservative”, probably makes them reject you immediately as from their pov, you reject them.
For a left wing person, hearing “anti-conservative” probably makes them assume that you talk about conservative™ and not conservative as you mean it.
So in both cases, you don’t have the conversation that you want if you want to promote your political stance, as you kinda encourage them to not engage with your political stance.
Also, those who insist on political purity tests reveal themselves to be temporarily-inconvenienced-dictators-in-waiting.
I hope this isn’t about leftists refusing to support biden/kamala in the US.
You didn’t have to support them. You just had to use your brain and choose the lesser of two evils. Like which one of these people is more likely to illegally deport me for exercising my first amendment rights? I think you’ll find the answer to that question soon.
Or maybe support someone who isn’t one of the two evils
I keep doing this hoping the centrists will get the message and enact PR or else risk losing to the Big Bad which threatens us all. But so far I’ve been disappointed…
I only have my one measly little vote. They determine the entire platform and what policies get proposed. It’s so unfair. I just want to vote for the representative who actually represents me without risking fucking feudalism. I’m not even asking for direct democracy here…
Our (U.S.A.) best option for that in recent history was Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election.
Thats still one of the two parties
Bernie is certainly a diamond in the rough - but don’t ignore that rough.
He is an independent as a Senator. But you’re correct in that he ran as a Democrat in 2016.
Here you are protecting conservatives that have a vested interest in the genocide of palestinians.
the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
it’s a nice sentiment, but you really need to have criticisms of the political economy if you want to address the root cause. the reason “the law” doesn’t protect everyone is because the law is set up to prioritize the will of people with money and property over everyone else. I think the more common through-line is anti-capitalism rather than “anti-conservatism”.
I think the more common through-line is anti-capitalism rather than “anti-conservatism”.
I will concede that this clarification makes sense if one regards capitalism and conservatism as de facto interchangeable.
Personally, I like the “Anti-Conservative” label as defined by Wilhoit because it more accurately describes my own political position within the specific constraints of voting and engaging in political discourse as a U.S. citizen.
Personally, I like the “Anti-Conservative” label as defined by Wilhoit because it more accurately describes my own political position within the specific constraints of voting and engaging in political discourse as a U.S. citizen.
So as someone who doesn’t actually want to address the systemic mass inequalities, because it might require something other than voting, got it.
What a vapid and obtuse thing to say.
What other actions do you want me to take, other than organizing and voting?
Shall I run for office? Shall I take up arms against the government? Should I abandon my family to do those things? I will have to in order to be remotely successful at either.
On the latter, I am not a combat veteran. I wouldn’t know where to begin, and I’m not inclined to throw my life away easily.
Furthermore, I believe wildcat strikes would be far more effective at dismantling the machinery of disenfranchisement, subjugation and oppression than armed revolution.
Shall I run for office? Shall I take up arms against the government? Should I abandon my family to do those things? I will have to in order to be remotely successful at either.
Start by being honest with yourself about what the problem is. That’s why I raise the point that the political economy is at fault and won’t be fixed by simply purging the people you see as engaging in wrongthink. Personally I organize with like-minded people and do direct actions.
The original work you quote talked a tough game:
Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whatever-the-fuck-kind-of-stupid-noise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.
No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh.
which you immediately walked back:
within the specific constraints of voting and engaging in political discourse as a U.S. citizen.
If you really think that out-groups should not be getting ruled over by in-groups, then you really need to recognize that US hegemony has been the most powerful ‘in-group’ in history. Workers in America get paid more not because their work is more valuable but because money can flow freely over borders while people cannot. Labor aristocrats are the workers who are given a small share of the spoils from the rest of the world in exchange for their political inaction. Capitalism is wildly authoritarian and much of what you take for granted as ‘constraints of US political discourse’ are predicated on the US’s hegemonic role within that system.
This entire line of argument seems like you’re trying to pose as if you’re maximally defiant against the status quo, but you also want to continue being anti-communist.
Furthermore, I believe wildcat strikes would be far more effective at dismantling the machinery of disenfranchisement, subjugation and oppression than armed revolution.
Revolutionary organizing has been far more effective, historically speaking.
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not one
a rare sighting on lemmy
Somewhat yeah, but I think there are a few others, just mostly not people who are that vocal about it
Yeah I’m not really either but you just get attacked so I tend to stay out of politics here
Other day I tried explaining to lemmy why it’s disrespectful to hang a LGBT flag on the side of a mountain and just got a bunch of hatred lol
The kind that got chucked off reddit for being mean to Trump, Musk and Netanyahu.
marxist leninist
Me too. Join a lefty instance so you can choose when you deal with .worlds reddit-lite crap and not be force fed it.
Have you tried like not being one
I used to be a neoliberal.
There is an in-between.
I grew up in a conservative, right-wing, rural environment, and have moved slowly from being moderately right-wing in school, to a neoliberal in college, to a socdem, a socialist, and eventually marxist leninist after college. I am quite comfortable with where I’m at right now. I am willing to continue learning, and I have learned quite a lot over the years. I read a fair amount on all of my prior political convictions, and I don’t shy away from discussing everything I stand for.
Get your finger out of the trigger guard.
To be fair, if you saw the movie, he was definitely ready to pull that trigger within the next milliseconds. But yeah shouldn’t be pointing in the air without any trigger discipline
Where is the bubble that says “imperialism by Russia is fine”?
Ahh yes, the “left party”
I agree we need a third party where leftist policies are allowed to exist
You need a different electoral system then
We could put the dems in the same circle with the left if we paid them enough. Have we tried that yet? Everyone empty your pockets on the table here and lets count.
I hope they all vote for Democrats though, in places where FPTP voting is still used
Btw what’s up with all these states up and banning Ranked Choice Voting? Most of them in the past 1-2 years too. I’m not exactly sure of the context, like if there was a bill or a referendum, but with a referendum I would have expected it to say “rejected”/“not adopted”, instead of “banned”. Definitely seems like RCV needs to be really fought for, and seems like the major parties are afraid of it.
Yeahhhh, I hate to break it to you but…there’s a lot of them that do not vote blue especially when it counts.
Hillary lost because the DNC ran a corrupt campaign where they ignored the will of their voters.
Kamala lost because the DNC ran a corrupt campaign where they ignored the will of their voters.
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what if im pro imperialist but anti capitalist?
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Fuck you?
Trolls usually vote for Republicans
Remember, Republicans are the proletariat, at least at the bottom, and they are the reactionary forces that you eventually will need to adopt if you would want to see a better day. They are the reactionary elements of capitalism in crisis. They are those that were left to their own devices to fester in agony due to liberalism.
Then you’re neither a leftist nor a Democrat.
The leftist thing depends on if imperialism in their eyes brings about egalitarianism.
The old “let’s put socialism in the name” trick
Like the CCP? At least rhetorically.
yeah I’m a centrist:
I’m so tired of the labels, I just want things to be better for everyone
so you’re with the no labels party then, Joe Manchins party?
/s
Not this lifetime buddy.
Better could be just one step, it might feel hurceulian but we can start with just the little steps.
Don’t worry anytime you have a slightly different opinion they’ll force the label on you then insult you for the label they applied.
By far the worst trait on the left by a mile.
