You may be a Liberal if...

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This is a parody? Wow, you must be killing it on the Leningrad comedy circuit.

Perhaps if his material was original . . . ?

If you think you're a liberal, but "experts" on the internet inform you you're not a classical liberal, are you still a liberal?

No original material. Instead material will be appropriated from the bourgeoisie to be redistributed amongst the workers.

The word "Liberal" in America means someone who is left of center, mildly not conservative. In favor of the govt. helping folks occasionally.

But in Europe and the UK they still use "Liberal" in the 19th Century sense to mean "for keeping capitalism free of government meddling" which is a major tenet of Conservatism.

So when Europeans and UKers speak of "classical Liberals" or of "Neo Liberals" they are speaking of something more akin to what Americans mean by "conservatives" or "Libertarians".

"Laissez-fair Liberalism" was the ruling creed of the Nineteenth century- let the Capitalists do their thing unregulated. But when late 20th century American students study economics we get confused by that word "liberal" because we think of Liberals as being for things like regulating safety in the workplace.

Similarly back in the Seventies when I saw the Australian movie "Don's Party" ...about an election in Australia...I had to keep reminding myself that their "Liberal Party" is their Conservative Party (think GOP), and their Liberal party (equivalent to our Dems) is called "the Labour Party" to understand the drunken dialogue in the movie, and to translate it into American terms.

To my understanding, the Canadian Liberal party is actually midway between the Conservative party and the NDP, with the Conservatives being to the right of the Liberals. Of course they also have splinter parties and regional parties, such as CAQ, that are hard to categorize.

Not sure if we share the same definition of "liberal" (an increasingly ambiguous term), but assuming you mean capitalists who are left-of-center on social issues:

Liberals love authority. Liberals are fine with violent government authority as long as it imprisons people, breaks up protests, kills people who spook the police. Ironically, many liberals and hard-line capitalists often support government-funded housing for the homeless: prison. Authority is, however, as you say, not acceptable when it actually benefits the poor.


They live in a world where you can somehow achieve a just society while still having gross economic inequality. Questioning capitalism would move them away from their mainstream, centrist comfort zone. It could cost them friends or respect and those things are more important apparently.


Now I'm confused. Most self-described liberals consider themselves that as opposed to being leftists.


I'm not sure if a majority of 'liberals' support affirmative action. Many of them believe in it to some extent. I don't really consider that a bad thing. I am not sure what all it means outside America, but here affirmative action is about making up for centuries of minorities having virtually no access to power. I can understand it being perceived otherwise in the former Yugoslavia, where there is relatively more equality between ethnic groups than in America. Emphasis on "relatively".


I meet very few 'liberals' who support class struggle. Liberals, in my experience, support equality yet see class struggle (or 'class warfare' as they often disparage it) as somehow bigoted or socially destructive--as if the contempt the rich feel for the poor is at all comparable to the contempt the poor feel for the rich.


Again, I'm confused. Here, you say liberals spread info and ideas that support the right, yet before you said liberals are (sort of?) leftists. I do agree with the idea that capitalist liberals are unwitting allies of the nationalist-capitalist status quo--especially given their distaste for radicalism


Every minority is going to have bad apples. Every group of anything has bad apples. In my experience though, liberals have been much more likely to side with Israel out of a knee-jerk desire to not be seen as anti-Semitic. Even liberals who consider themselves otherwise tolerant are very much capable of seeing Muslims as a bunch of bigoted, dangerous, unwashed heathens.


Individualism as it is understood for most of American history was built around a fixation on property rights. "Individualism" is about not questioning the right of the property owner to gain as much property as they wish and to do whatever they want with that property. This is why things like taxation, business regulation, and wealth redistribution as seen as anti-individual. To these capitalist liberals, individualism is not about making sure everyone gets to achieve individual fulfilment so much as it is about making sure a small minority of individuals can accrue as much wealth and property as they can, regardless of justice or the cost to society.


I'm unsure what kind of things you're referring to here. Are you suggesting liberals are more likely to drag their personal issues into public? I'm confused.


As I said before, part of conforming to American society means identifying as an 'individualist'--specifically, 'individualist' in a very narrow sense that benefits property owners and almost no one else. In America, we are taught that capitalism and this kind of individualism are the results of "free thinking". "The Founding Fathers (blessings and peace be upon them) were enlightened, virtuous free-thinkers, and they agreed that capitalism is good and economic equality is bad! If you question those free-thinking Founding Fathers (BAPBUT), then you must be anti- free-thinking!" Therefore, conformity is framed as a sign of being a free-thinker. Ironically, questioning this conventional wisdom often causes one to be branded a sheep-like conformist who can't think for himself. Goodness! If only I were a brave individualist, then I too would loudly advocate the most socially acceptable economic and political ideologies!
It is a paradox which few Americans seem to notice.

You mean those who think they're "leftist radicals" when they don't give a crap about workers' rights?



No wonder why I can't get friends due to my views. Then again, if they're gonna live in mainstream ignorance that is blissful for them, then let them be, they're sowing their own destruction anyway. Communism can work practically if we eliminate liberals and reactionaries.



And yet they're the ones who lick the boots of the Democrat party, part of the capitalist two-party system. A necessary evil is to get rid of Trump but even then one way or another, America will sow its own Balkanization from the amount of polarization it got from the elites making people get angry at each other over petty differences. That's the same that was for Yugoslavia when Serbs made people get angry over ethnic differences and break down Yugoslavia within a decade after Tito died. Communism abolished in 1990 with the end of SKJ and nationalists winning elections and Yugoslavia collapsing in 1991 in a violent way with Serbs committing genocide and massacres from 1991 to 1999 and yet they wonder why NATO bombed them in 1995 and 1999.



Relatively yes. Socialist Yugoslavia fares better than America in terms of equality because Yugoslavs (Bosnians, Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins) and Albanians didn't whine about others being different in terms of religion, culture, and nationality. This was only during the Tito period. The 1980s and 1990s were when the Serbs started to slowly tear down Yugoslavia by whining about how they were "oppressed" and how Croats and Muslims were the biggest threat to Yugoslavia. Thankfully Tito did the necessary in 1974 by adding to the constitution that the republics may secede so that the Serbs never bring Yugoslavia back to its royal dictatorship.



This proves my point. Liberals think that balancing the gap between the rich and poor is "bigoted". No wonder why USA isn't under 0.4 on the Gini index.



You didn't get the point. They're self-proclaimed leftists, not true leftists. They're puppets of the right-wing who want to disorganize the leftists by pretending to be allies of the leftists. As there were reactionaries and totalitarians in communism such as Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Juche, there are now reactionaries in a more covert form which they proclaim themselves as "liberals" and claim to support the social issues but that's not the common cause they're talking about. They're talking about their own need to increase power just like the Serbs!



Democrats and Republicans are usually the ones who side with Israel while there are more radical liberals who ally with Palestine rather than Israel. Still, both do not even know that Jerusalem is a religiously diverse place and that they're ignoring the Brotherhood and Unity of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Pretty much they want violence so they can earn money from violence. No wonder why imperialists profit from religious violence between Muslims and Jews.



Truly the definition of practical individualism. Individualism means that a small minority can self-manage but the rest are to suffer because they're not "successful" and therefore must be slaves to the victors.



Ah. I was referring to private things such as fetishes and kinks. Pride parades organized by the capitalist class usually have public displays of fetishes and kinks as a means of demonizing LGBT and profiting from the culture war between the Democrats and Republicans in America. LGBT are not horny people. LGBT are normal people but liberals and reactionaries are making them uncomfortable. The current LGBT movement needs to get rid of its bad apples which are the liberals who are manipulating the movement with their own agenda so they can profit from the misery of that minority.



America, the Land of the Free. However, to be free in America, you must conform. If you think that non-conformity is also freedom then you are anti-American and a sub-human and an illiterate peasant who must be exterminated. Pretty much for any imperialist regime that's how it works.

If "My Body My Choice" doesn't apply to selling your organs

Two things -

This is nonsense - fetishes and kinks are sometimes publically displayed by the LGBT people taking part in pride parades; it's their decision.
There's a clue in the name you seem to be missing - "pride".

Secondly, you're going to have to find a better way of discussing... whatever this is without making generalized attacks on "liberals".

See: viewtopic.php?t=204613

Additionally, talk of wanting to "eliminate" people, without further context, can easily be read as supporting violent eradication. Be very careful when using that sort of language. Not only can it leave people feeling threatened, it could be construed as evidence for both individuals and the collective (WrongPlanet users/autistics/whatever) being violent.

Do they really want to express their fetishes and kinks or is it just pressure from the corporates and the elites? Be careful. If someone is proud of who they are, they shouldn't be proud of what the big corps are forcing against them.

Yes.
No.

I honestly believe that the philosophy of the New Left is "reject economic stability, embrace positive action and be horny" as per Herbert Marcuse who literally said that the second phase of the revolution is fighting to freely express our sexual instincts which I do not see as a good thing because sexual liberation would lead to more cases of women getting raped. He literally based his New Left theory on Sigmund Freud (some criticized him for misinterpreting Freud in the book "Eros and Civilization"). Not to mention, he also discarded the class struggle altogether in favor of wanting people to be horny without rational consequences.

If Marcuse wants us to be what we want in a sexual manner, then rape would be a bigger problem today than it is now. Therefore, I stand my ground against liberal approach to communism.

How so?

That’s not true. Rape is still a big problem in conservative societies. Rape is often more about control and power than sex.