Progressive who’s been here for a bit. The fediverse has definitely swung more left-wing recently - when I first started up two years ago there was a fair amount of conservative bs, libertarian tech-bros and russian bots - it was about a 50/50 split depending on what instance you were on.
The bot problem seems to have been largely dealt with now, and conservative voices have been more or less drowned out by the new influx of users fleeing twitter and Reddit crackdowns. Many are agreeing that the current administration is bad for everyone. There are a number of hard auth-left moral purity testers that kind of a pain in the ass that pop up from time to time.
Yes. Signing up is not easy. Most people here can understand written instructions and have some basic technical knowledge. People who are not stupid tend to lean left.
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
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 whateverthefuckkindofstupidnoise-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.
- Frank Wilhoit
Thanks, Frank! Very eloquently put!
Could you please define exactly what you mean by “left-wing”?
I suppose most people here are not alt-right at least.
I simultaneously miss and don’t miss reading posts by Trump Supporters on Reddit.
It’s nice to read comments from the other side, even if those comments are batshit insane.
“Come to Lemmy, we have batshit insanity from more than just the two sides” 🤪
Although on Lemmy.world, you won’t see two of the Big Three instances that spread the majority of authoritarian propaganda present on Lemmy, because lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net have been defederated.
The conservatives likewise were defederated from, and apparently fell apart internally, presumably moving over to Truth Social.
If you or anyone else truly wants to read every POV though, then you can check out Lemm.ee that aims to defederate from as few instances as possible.
Cheers!
I do get morbidly curious about politics and will probably check it out.
yes
This is a fediverse is full of new people, adventurers, change makers. The majority of people who would be interested in this platform will have a more progressive bent. So the majority of people here will be more accepting of liberal policies.
Quibble: Many here are explicitly leftist, in the a leftist-not-liberal sense, and will even use “liberal” derogatorily. So, progressive, yes, but liberal, not necessarily.
to make matters more fun, many ‘explicitly leftist’ lemmings are tankies (blind supporters of russia, china, north korea, etc), who are explicitly not leftist but authoritarians masquerading in the skinsuit of the people’s revolution.
Good point, many think left = liberal = US democrats who are centrists at best from the international perspective. So no, most people on here probably aren’t actual leftists, but I’m guessing when they say they ‘lean left’ they mean US-liberal-not-conservative, not socialist or whatever.
From my perspective I think that that is very silly. I don’t care for purity tests, but what would I know? I’m just a dirty libertarian.
Liberal policies are an actual thing, a thing that leftists frequently disagree with.
Libertarians are often placed on the right part of the left-right divide. The fact you’ve chosen the label libertarian instead of conservative is animated by the exact same “purity test” that you find so silly.
You realize that libertarianism is not a left right spectrum of the political orientation, correct?
For example Stalin was an authoritarian based in leftist ideology. Hitler is an authoritarian based in right-wing ideology.
Notice that while their economic goals are at complete odds with one another, they are both authoritarians.
You realize that libertarianism is not a left right spectrum of the political orientation, correct?
For example Stalin was an authoritarian based in leftist ideology. Hitler was an authoritarian based in right-wing ideology.
Notice that while their economic goals are at complete odds with one another, they are both authoritarians.
I’m libertarian because I believe in freedom of choice. I’m not a conservative because the only things I care about conserving are the oceans and the forests.
I hope that in the future we can stop using the worst monsters and strawmen from our peers chosen political affiliation to color our view of those peers.
You’re about one “and I think healthcare is a human right” from being a progressive/dem soc.
I like the Democratic socialists. I don’t like it when they seize power that will be upsurped by the next administration in powerand used to oppress people.
You can’t be both a libertarian and pretend to care about parks and forests. Pick one.
I’m not entirely sure about what are the reasoning behind your comment, but i see it as : llibertarian implies no state + parks and forest require state = incompatibility. I’d disagree on the parks and forest require state, i thinl they only need organization, meaning one or more NGO could handle it. Accepting this, not that much incompatibility between libertarian and forest remains (accepting libertarian as left wing meaning that does not imply private property)
It wouldn’t kill you to read
But based on your username, that may not be in your skill set
That’s not true. I’m pretty sure most people don’t 100% agree with The strictest definition of their chosen label.
you forgot to switch alts to argue with yourself
You seem very confused I edited a comment and it posted to itself. It’s the same fucking comment should I have deleted the tree and collapsed the thread?
I would like to throw out there that the ACLU is a libertarian organization that would likely line up with the majority of the beliefs of Lemmy users. With that said I understand most people aren’t using libertarian in its ‘correct’ meaning as the ACLU does.
Yea I tend to think than when someone identifies as a Libertarian they almost certainly don’t mean a civil libertarian, which is how the aclu actually identifies themselves.
We have grown from a roomful of civil libertarians to more than 4 million members, activists, and supporters across the country. The ACLU is now a nationwide organization with a 50-state network of staffed affiliate offices filing cases in both state and federal courts. We appear before the Supreme Court more than any other organization except the Department of Justice.
This is literally the only time the word libertarian appears in their own history https://www.aclu.org/about/aclu-history
I only know because I interned there and it’s something they talked about. Maybe it was always preceded with ‘civil’ I just don’t remember that as well. The big issue amongst the workers when I was there was that in principle they supported Citizens United, and most of the employees did not support it in practice.
Just adding my experience to the topic, not sure why I got down voted for it. I’m not trying to push anyone to be libertarian just pointing out other ways the definition can be used.
Libertarian as the USA mean or the rest of the world mean?
As in the traditional meaning of the word
Thanks. I look forward to learning about libertarianism with and from you. Not saying I’ll agree, but that I look forward to learning more.
Personally myself, I’m a bit of a geoist and a bit of a minarchist. I would advise that if you are interested you should start reading, John Lock and David Henry Thoreaus essays on governent and from there branch out.
It isn’t a purity test, it’s a necessary accommodation of the fact that people in the US (and I say this as an American) think that the left ends at progressive liberalism, while everyone else in the world sees progressive liberalism as center-left at best because they acknowledge that ‘the left’ extends quite far past the bounds of Liberalism (the philosophy, not the political leaning), because Liberalism is about individualism and property rights but most people to the left of that are collectivist in some way shape or form.
it’s full of new people,
Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a new people. I’ve been a people for almost my whole life. I bet most of us have.
Not me, I’ve only been a person for the past couple years. Prior to that I was a caffeine-powered AI.
Just say yes
If you consider Democrats left wing then yes, by far the most here are left wing, since by most European standards Democrats are clearly right wing.
Republicans are extreme right by most standards. Republican (MAGA) is basically an American version of AfD!
So by that standard I guess about 80% here are left wing, maybe even more?Yeah right wing opinions will just get you banned on most instances
Apart from the Tankie Triad, i’d doubt right wing opinions would get you banned (i’m not against believe it if i saw some examples though).
Hate speech and promotion of oppressions that right wingers tend to consider as simple ‘opinions’ might though.
Maybe in certain communities? Some power tripping mods do exist. Likely they could be reported to the instance admins and possibly removed for such a scenario. It’s happened before in some extremely high profile cases.
Downvoting the admin of Midwest.social would get you banned though.
Fortunately there are communities such as !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com that help spread knowledge of such information across the Threadiverse.
The rules are usually really quite simple. Don’t be a dick and don’t spread hate. If “right wing opinions” can’t stay out of those simple rules, they’re not right wing opinions, they’re bigots and that has never and will never be okay.
Listen, there are assholes everywhere, and even mild centrists can be dicks and break the rules. We can speak about tendencies and generalizations if you like, but there are plenty of people who aren’t bigots who are giant flaming assholes on social media.
People that cry they are being silenced will say yes.
Right wingers have, or cause, trouble in open forums, so most social media that isn’t operated as a walled garden, tends to be more left leaning.
Depends on what kinda right wingers your talking about Ik a few people who believe in more laissez-faire free market economic policies, and they’re pretty chill
I’m a left libertarian. I embrace decentralization, collectivism, freedom from corporate and central government tyranny, and want to maximize individual liberty and progressive values as we ideally move towards a society like the Culture series by Ian M. Banks.
I’m not Anarchist because it’s too chaotic and unrealistic, and I’m not ML because I don’t like State authoritarianism and central planning.
Can you give some examples of how that works? Like, who pays for roads, who handles environmental regulations (or are there any), who establishes education standards (or are there any), etc. I’m not trying to argue, it just seems like on the internet people referring to “state authoritarianism” and “central government tyranny” ranges from “adults can’t be transgender” to “I have to pay taxes and the government won’t let me own slaves.”
There’s a few ways to handle, but for example:
-
Roads: large towns and cities would mostly handle their own road maintenance. Roads connecting towns would probably be joint ventures. Projects would be funded and contracted by the towns and financed by town income tax. Rural areas would be underfunded, but that’s partly intentional - dense population centers are more sustainable.
-
Environmental regulations: handled at the level of impact. for example, water quality standards for a river bind everyone who accesses the river. restrictions (e.g. standards for heavy metal levels) would be passed by minority vote - if 40% want a standard, that’s enough. carbon credits would be administered at the Federal or World levels, by a combination of central government and treaties.
-
Education: probably pretty devolved, mostly a choice by municipalities in what they offer/teach. there’d likely be standardized tests that most places agree on for transferability (e.g. how the SAT works today.) religious schools could exist in religious communities, or you could have a Montessori program in your secular socialist Kibbutz.
-
Slavery: illegal at the Federal/World level. same with indentured servitude and coercive contracts. one of the most important functions of the central government is to protect the civil liberties of individuals.
So the principles are mostly:
- Externalities are handled at the level of their impact.
- More power locally, less power centrally. City governments are more like micro-nations bound by a sort of EU.
- Cities largely have a lot of direct democracy with some representatives. Critically, city governments wield lots of power over the businesses that operate in the city. This is critical to check corporate power.
- Federal government exists as a backstop to safeguard fundamental rights and for truly national concerns.
Thank you for this. It seems more in keeping with the original idea of the US, a federation of states.
i like what you are saying, just a few modifications I would make:
-Water control and regulation should be based on watersheds. all organizations operating in a given watershed are beholden to the laws of that watersheds own regulator. this would allow for actual management of the resource and protection from exploitation.
-there would need to be a strong incentive to work together with other municipalities and not be antagonistic. I am unsure what that would look like, but when you reduce central power, smaller powers can attempt to oppress others more easily.
-
It doesn’t work.
Socially center. Economically moderate leftist. Anti-authoritarian market socialist. I dare to say, like most elder American millennials.
I don’t consider myself left leaning. Both left and right are corrupt and neither actually practice what they preach. The left is the US is currently the lesser of two evils though. I do consider myself a socialist-libertarian. I think government should be there to keep the populace safe, and provide basic human necessities to all, and no more. The govt should not be able to execute capital punishment nor declare war. Retalitory strikes, defense and supporting allies defending themselves are all fine, but we could get rid of most of the military and funnel that money back to socialist programs and be a MUCH wealthier and happier country.
The only reason the left is the lesser of the 2 evils right now is because they aren’t in power.
“I’m 15 and this is deep”
Lol
