unamerican rules

diskmaster23@lemmy.one to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 672 points –
60

The cool thing is, once you gain some maturity, you don't care what people call you.

I've been accused of being an "enlightened centrist" when I criticize both Trump and Biden.

Except I'm criticizing them from way over on the far-left.

Thats the thing I dont get about americans, you have a far right and center right party and some people there seriosly think thats thats normal??

It's like that astrophysics phenomenon where the spectrum shifts to one side. I guess redshift in this case since their more far right party is the red one.

The American Right: "We should subjugate and oppress anyone who isn't a straight white christian."

The American Left: "That seems a little aggressive, how about a compromise where we just oppress them a little bit?"

Actual Leftists: "What in the actual fuck...?"

hello fellow liberals, i too would like to partake in leftist activities such as voting for senator bernard sanders (i-vt)

I’d rather be a lib than an actual insurrectionist traitor

I don't think OP was at the Jan 6 riot

Never know, you might have been there as well.

I'm pretty sure the venn diagram of commies and Jan 6 rioters is two separate circles

Who knew it would be capitalist supporters that would actually try to over throw the government instead of commies.

You ain't done nothing if you ain't been called a red

If you've marched or agitated then you're bound to hear it said

So you might as well ignore it, or love the word instead

Cause you ain't been doing nothing if you ain't been called a red

source

I don't understand half the american terms used for their politics

Me neither. Let's have a tea party and discuss things.

I'm not american so I have no idea what "liberal" is reffering to here tbh. Can anyone explain it to me pls?

In this context "liberal" is being used as a synonym for communist, because that's how American right wingers use it, but to a a leftist (socialist, communist, anarchist - the target audience for this meme) liberals, or more accurately neo-liberals, are center right capitalists. So while a right winger might throw all of these as insults at someone left of fascist, a leftist would only take offense to being called a liberal.

I think leftists currently refer to all pro-capitalists as "liberals."

Liberals are certainly pro-capitalist, but a modern leftist wouldnt refer to a fascist or conservative as a liberal. The term is pretty much used to describe people who claim to be left leaning while still advocating for incremental (rather than radical) change, such as the modern American democratic party. It is used as a derogatory because liberals generally speaking don't have any intention of dismantling the corporate capitalist oligarchy, or implementing true socialist policies.

Even if some self-identified liberals do desire these changes - to a leftist their methods are seen as ineffectual by design, therefore further contributing to the longevity of the broken capitalist system.

Well said. The whole mainstream media is this way. It's all economically right, and it goes on a spectrum socially. So, when you look at diagrams like this, it gives you a false sense that there are ideas to consider from centrists to communists. Because from this diagram, CNN is a socialist/communist media platform, but that isn't true at all.

I'm a European leftist and I would say that conservatives and liberals have a big overlap. In Germany, the conservative party likes to work with the liberal party best and the social Democrats with the Green party. None of these is really left from my perspective and all of them call themselves Center and are more or less liberal, but the green and obviously the liberals more than the others.

Okay, good. That's a much more useful term than if liberal was used to describe all pro-capitalists.

Maybe they meant libertarian. Right wing people against government intervention on people's lives, just in favor of little to no regulation on anything. Or liberal left, as opposed to radical left (which usually means Marxist), or maybe centrists, which usually are more liberal. In general it means being more in favor of a less powerful government.

That is not what they mean. They mean American liberal in its newest incarnation.

Hm, yeah idk what that is exactly, I'm not from the US so whatever

I actually much prefer the Han Solo format for this stuff

I reply “Stop! Don’t talk to me! It’s contagious! RUN!”

I was recently on the receiving end of this when I implied I might be ambiguously LGBT+. The devout Christian with whom I was conversing disengaged because The Gay could be contagious.

Consider it as a superpower. Making idiots run away from you.

Now I'm trying to think what would be the equivalent of the "liberal" insult in my country... We hear a lot of you're the "extreme left", just as bad as the extreme right. You're "outside of the republican/democratic frame". As in you're too radical too be part of the "polite democratic society".

The "liberal" insult coming from a right winger would be used in a similar way to what you describe there, but to a leftist "liberal" is also an insult in a very different sense. Leftists basically use liberal as a derogatory for people that aren't far enough to the left. There's a lot of nuance to it in the way that the term is used now, but that's kind of the gist of it.

We call those not far enough to the left "social democrats". And they're proud of it generally, since the term implies they're part of the polite/non radical democracy. So they argue those farther to the left are anti-democratic.

So what do you call a guy who delivers a trophy to a convicted child rapist, like Harrison Ford did?