Could you please define exactly what you mean by “left-wing”?
Some of us are simply europeans.
A right wing European is still a little bit too liberal for MAGA
I believe all life have value, no matter what.
I believe in justice and equality.
I believe in the rule if law.
I believe in democracy.
I believe in the freedom of speech.
I believe in religious freedom.
I believe no one should go hungry.
I believe no one should freeze.
I believe no one should die from preventable diseases.
I believe everyone has a right to education.
I believe everyone has a right to healthcare.
I believe everyone has a right to participate in society and the internet.
I believe everyone should contribute if they can, because that is fair.
I believe people should be able to retire.
I believe most people are good, and want to do good.
I believe in cooperation, and working towards a common goal.
I believe that all people should have a minimum set of rights, that are non-negotiable.
I trust my neighbours, my family and strangers.
Based on these values I could be placed anywhere from center-right to far-left in Europe.
In the US I am a filthy commie
I’m a Marxist-Leninist, so yes. I think you’ll find most people on Lemmy in general fall into the major categories of “Liberal,” as in the US Democrat style, Anarchists, and Marxists. Different instances lean in different directions on this, with overall few outright conservatives.
Do you advocate seizing the means of production and are a worker? If not, then you are not a leftist.
You can be “left wing” without being a “leftist”. I wouldn’t classify them as the same, personally. Left wing really includes anyone left of center
Sounds like a liberal to me. Centrists always think they are leftists because of the guilt of supporting capitalism. You support social programs. You do not support any form of removing capitalism. You are not a leftist, you are a centrist.
if by left-wing you mean i think more than 3 months ahead, then yes.
yes
The actual left wing, the something socialists something are partly on hexbear.org and lemmygrad.ml. And they are called tankies and blocked on lemmy.world. So how left wing can most people here be? The thing is that “left” has become synonymous with (neo)liberal values. Like there doesn’t have to be a free, independent press or social media and them being owned by capitalists is just fine.
Hexbear isn’t socialist. It’s a group of assholes defending China and Russia, denying the Uyghur genocide and the aggression of Ukraine
The problem is that over the last decade any nuanced opinions on those topics has become less and less “politically correct”. And that is the correct term, anyone who isn’t politically correct and in line with the liberal mainstream opinion (= imperialist propaganda by the US state department and think tanks) must by definition by a paid shills of Putin, China or Trump. There are those people of course, but the dynamic has become more and more polarized and steeped in conspiratorial thinking. And that is by “design”. It’s profitable and it serves the US imperial agenda and it’s easier to avoids the frustration of talking to trolls and fascists - just paint everyone of a different opinion with the same brush.
I mean you can’t even talk about talking about it, like not seeing those people as anything but “assholes”. The range of allowable opinions has drastically narrowed. It’s not even liberal in the modern sense of the word. People are too scared to be liberal any more.
…saying china is a democracy, or good, the kind of thing I hear these types saying is just as propagandized a take. That’s the issue…
This comes a bit down to utilitarianism vs ethics based on principles. But that’s a lie, it’s really about who has power.
I’m just watching a video by Majority Report where he talks about the question “Why is democracy is good” which the Democrats sort of fucked up in the election. And he makes a pretty painful point that it’s a “show me, don’t tell me” question. If you live in a democracy and constantly exploited, overworked, fucked over, in terror of economic hardship or terror attacks, harassed by police, then what is the point? What is the benefit? I’m not making the point that democracy is bad, but that a shell of a democracy, a fake, is leading especially the “dirtbag left” to adopt a pretty hostile posture.
So what is the actual quality of life in China vs the USA? What are the actual material benefits looking at living in an apartment, working, raising children and living a peaceful life?
How do YOU know that life in China isn’t actually better and people more happy than in the USA? I don’t believe that is true but it’s a valid question. Of course China has massive problems and corruption and abuses. But there are a billion people there that were on a medieval level after WWII. The CCP has massively invested in e.g. education and healthcare and infrastructure.
Or compare quality of life in China vs democratic India. Similar can be said about Iran, 55% of University graduates were women. But it’s painted as black and white.
Sure you have freedom of speech with the means of communication owned and controlled by the oligarchs. And you can say whatever you want on reddit and get downvoted to hell - which goes to my previous point, that the propaganda is so internalized and polarized now that you don’t need threats of state violence to keep the population in check.
So those opinions are not just for fun. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer is an aphorism that is leading the west inevitably towards fascism. So all the “posturing” about how superior our principles and freedums are is just… well it’s a delusion. It’s happening right now. They are stealing your future right now and there is nothing you can do because they control the media.
But still the socialists are completely rejected and banned from the largest lemmy instances.
This comes a bit down to utilitarianism vs ethics based on principles
No, it doesn’t. Either one, democracy is still better… Science does best with freedom from suppression.
I’m not making the point that democracy is bad
You are, in fact, making that point
which goes to my previous point, that the propaganda is so internalized and polarized now that you don’t need threats of state violence to keep the population in check
Social suppression is a world apart from state suppression, and downvotes on reddit are not an example of keeping people in check. that’s a terminally online viewpoint.
Of course China has massive problems and corruption and abuses
They are literally a dictatorship. That’s an incredible understatement.
How do YOU know that life in China isn’t actually better and people more happy than in the USA?
They are actively commiting genocide.
Sure you have freedom of speech with the means of communication owned and controlled by the oligarchs
There’s plenty of options for uncontrolled communication. Corp suppression is still wholly different from gov suppression;they can’t toss you in jail.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer is an aphorism that is leading the west inevitably towards fascism.
That’s your opinion, and does not reflect reality.
Your response to a trend toward fascism(which is happening, but not inevitable), is to say we should embrace it like china does?
They are stealing your future right now and there is nothing you can do because they control the media.
Are you intentionally being obtuse about the fact that china has massive censorship. I’m not here to say the usa is good. You’re ignoring European reality, favoring the usa in your arguments because it’s closer to supporting them.
So all the “posturing” about how superior our principles and freedums are is just… well it’s a delusion
We objectively speaking have more freedom of speech than china does at the present moment.
But still the socialists are completely rejected and banned from the largest lemmy instances.
Tankies. Not socialists. Socialists are often speaking and getting upvoted.
No, it doesn’t. Either one, democracy is still better… Science does best with freedom from suppression.
U.S. science no longer leads the world. Here’s how top advisers say the nation should respond
Lefty Lemmy righty reddit
Ehhh. Eh?
Lefty Lemmy. Liberal Reddit.
Seems more the take. Reddit has a small vocal conservative minority.
Slashers slashdot
This is the fediverse it’s 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’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
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.
Even so I’ll add a warning that Hexbear.net is a troll instance. They don’t so much truly believe in anything so much as spoil for a fight, which is fine except consent does not matter to them and they refuse to restrain themselves outside of their instance that was created for that purpose. Also they have been caught actually lying to instance admins. Even so they can be fun to talk with, so long as you aren’t taken by surprise e.g. mistaking it for people being serious:-).
Most people everywhere are slightly left of centre*. Most leaders everywhere are slightly right of centre*.
*Not in the American sense. Y’all crazy.
My priorities in politics is:
- Don’t wreck the economy.
- Uphold the rule of law.
In my country that makes me right leaning. In the US with the current president that apparently makes me a leftist.
You communist!
Oh dear, here come the tankies!
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 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!
I’m Independent, but cannot support Republicans anymore … so I guess I’m a Democrat that hates gun control.
if you go far enough left, you get your guns back. :)
