• limer@lemmy.ml
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      13 hours ago

      My opinion of a liberal is one who thinks change can happen by hoping a central authority figure will fix it.

      Some liberals think no change is needed as long as authority is followed.

      The key idea is that both types are authoritarians, and need to follow rules and orders

    • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
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      18 hours ago

      Liberalism is a political tradition that dates at least to the enlightenment era. One of the defining characteristics of liberalism is the emphasis on the individual. This makes it highly compatible with capitalism, in fact, I would call Liberalism the state religion of Capital.

      As the dominant political and intellectual tradition in the west for centuries, it can be difficult to even imagine a politics not built around fighting over different flavors of liberalism.

      In my opinion, there’s a huge gap between the values liberalism espouses in theory (individual liberty, human rights, self-determination) and what we actually see in practice (slavery, fascism, imperialism, ecocide, genocide, world war).

      Of course, committed liberals view fascism as outside of their tradition, whereas their ideological opponents generally regard fascism as an extension of liberal ideology. This quickly devolves into a No True Scotsman debate.