Lemmy is populated by far left Americans who were banned from Reddit for extremism. Strict ideological conformity is required or you’ll get actual death threats. Don’t go there unless you want violent communist revolution and hate discussing interesting ideas.
“Liberal” is not a useful word, imo. It means different things to different people. Hexbear users define it in the sense of neoliberalism, a historically right position. To many it means “progressive.” To others, it means “somewhere on the left, and I don’t care to put myself into a particular box.”
If we’d quit shitting on people who call themselves “liberal,” we might actually have a more cohesive coalition, rather than rejecting anyone for the tiniest perceived infraction, real or imagined.
Liberal, to me, is the opposite of authoritarian. No idea what other people consider it to be, but IMO it’s entirely disconnected from the left/right spectrum. You can have authoritarian left, right or center, same way with liberal.
I think it’s connected to unregulated capitalism in the eyes of its opponents here.