That’s because there’s not one single definition, especially on Lemmy.
To most people in the US, it’s anyone politically left of center. Primarily Democrats.
To leftists, a liberal is anyone who espouses capitalism. Republicans are liberals because they fucking love capitalism. Democrats are liberals because they believe that, despite its faults, capitalism is the best system and that it can be improved with reform and regulation. Since Lemmy abounds in leftists, you will see this usage a lot.
Finally, to conservatives, liberal is a slur. It’s the OG woke. It means anyone we don’t like. Conservative politicians even call each other liberals, especially during primary season.
I once went to a city council meeting in Utah. The city’s engineer was giving a report on traffic projections if they installed a stoplight in the place of a stop sign. He was very explicit that he was giving estimates of the most traffic that the intersection should see under the proposed change. He was calling them conservative estimates because they were good estimates, and if he (accurately) called them liberal estimates the estimates would be rejected as faulty. Because folk in Utah apparently can’t comprehend a language where ‘liberal’ has a nonpolitical, nonobscene meaning. So the liberal estimates were conservative estimates because fuck you ain’t gonna do a job for it to be rejected (by idiots) for stupid reasons. At least that’s the mood the guy seemed to have I could have been projecting.
I would argue that both liberalism and leftism are spectrums and parts of them overlap, so it’s not like one ≠ other. After all, any participation in democratic process means going reforms and regulations way, even if the endpoint is abolishing capitalism, which would be a logical goal for democratic socialism, for example.
That’s because there’s not one single definition, especially on Lemmy.
To most people in the US, it’s anyone politically left of center. Primarily Democrats.
To leftists, a liberal is anyone who espouses capitalism. Republicans are liberals because they fucking love capitalism. Democrats are liberals because they believe that, despite its faults, capitalism is the best system and that it can be improved with reform and regulation. Since Lemmy abounds in leftists, you will see this usage a lot.
Finally, to conservatives, liberal is a slur. It’s the OG woke. It means anyone we don’t like. Conservative politicians even call each other liberals, especially during primary season.
I once went to a city council meeting in Utah. The city’s engineer was giving a report on traffic projections if they installed a stoplight in the place of a stop sign. He was very explicit that he was giving estimates of the most traffic that the intersection should see under the proposed change. He was calling them conservative estimates because they were good estimates, and if he (accurately) called them liberal estimates the estimates would be rejected as faulty. Because folk in Utah apparently can’t comprehend a language where ‘liberal’ has a nonpolitical, nonobscene meaning. So the liberal estimates were conservative estimates because fuck you ain’t gonna do a job for it to be rejected (by idiots) for stupid reasons. At least that’s the mood the guy seemed to have I could have been projecting.
This is accurate.
I would argue that both liberalism and leftism are spectrums and parts of them overlap, so it’s not like one ≠ other. After all, any participation in democratic process means going reforms and regulations way, even if the endpoint is abolishing capitalism, which would be a logical goal for democratic socialism, for example.