At least quarantine that shit to the dunk tank.

I’m not on hexbear to spend all my time thinking about libs lol, I’m on hexbear because I like hexbear. I like the riffs, and the topics, and the cool knowledgeable users who post stuff I would never see otherwise. I’ve learned a ton here over the years, and it really feels like a wholly unique space on the internet.

    • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      39·
      10 months ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

      Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, constitutional government and privacy rights. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.

      Everyone here makes fun of liberals because the private property and market economies keep getting in the way of the equality and human rights parts.

      • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        23·
        10 months ago

        lmao at liberals explaining how companies like Blackrock are bad and we need to stop them while the philosophy and politicians they’ve hitched their wagon to says that is all juuuuust fine

        • Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
          12·
          10 months ago

          I think it because most of “us” don’t have a political ideology that we conform to 100% or politicians we can vote for that we actually agree with.

          I’m with everyone on the “capitalism fucks us all” but I have a very hard time seeing the proletariat utopia succeed in various places, luxury goods production for one example. For me personally I think the greed incentive drives people to create something like the next PlayStation, but a state or stateless system wouldn’t give two shits about what people want to play. There would be very little incentive to create truly difficult and expensive things.

          Again, I’m with you all on the “capitalism is fucking us” as greed is running rampant, I want equality and inclusion of all peoples, I want housing provided and healthcare to be a right. I just don’t have a political ideology to fully identify with so “libtard” or “succdem” is the closest I can get.

          • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
            17·
            10 months ago

            I have a very hard time seeing the proletariat utopia succeed in various places, luxury goods production for one example

            important to remember that socialist states are sanctioned and embargoed by the west. Cuba, for example.

            And yet Cuba — a small, besieged, island nation — still managed to develop their own COVID vaccines. Their infant mortality and literacy rates are better than America’s. They house their homeless. Imagine where they would be now without western sabotage. Imagine if they could trade freely with the rest of the world and actually seriously develop their economy. With their priorities, where would they be today? “Utopia” is a high bar but “better than America” is not.

            If good people were in charge of America, for that matter — if businesses did not own the government, police, and military — imagine what could be done immediately with the stroke of a pen. Infrastructure, healthcare, education, costs of living and housing, theenergy grid, Flint’s drinking water. These problems are straightforward to fix, we have the resources and know-how already. It’s just politically impossible, because a class of people with interests opposed to everyone else’s holds all the power.

            • Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
              3·
              10 months ago

              Absolutely, I’m with you on all of that! Sorry I don’t have a better response to a detailed reply, but I appreciate it!

              • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
                9·
                10 months ago

                Also, returning to your earlier point, about socialist economies not producing a lot of luxuries

                1. as mentioned before, they were sanctioned and embargoed and had to focus on meeting basic needs
                2. the countries were rapidly industrializing and had immature economies — e.g., China before the revolution was a preindustrial feudal state

                The USSR did produce some luxury goods later on, but in lesser quantities than the west, because the USSR lacked the west’s vast trade networks and third world colonies. In 1985, exports and imports each accounted for only 4% of the USSR’s gross domestic product. They produced a lot of their own goods using their own population’s labor, which probably made it harder to develop specialized industries to the same extent you’d see in wealthy capitalist nations that perform a lot of trade.

                Also, socialist states have done a lot of central planning — again, because they were rapidly industrializing — but socialism does not forbid markets. “Socialism” just means “workers control production, rather than owners.” Communist Yugoslavia has been described as a market socialist state. Even in capitalist economies, there are worker co-ops that participate in the market. Markets might be better at producing luxury goods and niche shit than centrally planned economies.

                …why doesn’t lemmy put a space under my last bullet?

          • Zodiark [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            16·
            10 months ago

            You’re a liberal that wants regulation and a welfare state. Your cheap consumer goods are made off cheap extraction of raw materials in the developing world. No way you’d pay 3k for a PS5.

            • Asafum@feddit.nlEnglish
              4·
              10 months ago

              It all depends on what my income would be in that scenario. If a 3k PS5 meant that no one was being exploited (I’m a blue collar laborer so that means me too) then possibly our incomes would be such that 3k doesn’t seem so bad.

              A friend of mine works for Intel and makes a fuckton of money so he bought a $5k couch. I’d never in my wildest dreams buy a couch that expensive, but if my income was like his I might think about it different.

              My point was more that things lead by committees are much less likely to give the O.K to have labor diverted to the production of “Fun Toy” that people do really want because it’s not a necessity and there’s no benefit to society other than temporary entertainment.

              • HornyOnMain@hexbear.netEnglish
                6·
                10 months ago

                Well yeah, but on the flipside these resources that would be used for fun toys aren’t diverted away from making sure there are no homeless people, or children who can’t eat or cancer victims who can’t afford treatment and so will just die - all of which happens every day in America despite it having the resources to stop this from happening.

                Once everyone is housed and fed then PS5s and stuff will be made, but before then resources wouldnt be diverted away from starving kids so some guy could play video games.

                Like look at the gains Russia made in income equality during its existence, the moment that the graph gets to 1917 and Russia becomes communist rather than a right wing monarchy the income of the wealthiest plummets and the combined income of the poorest half of society doubles in just a few years

                Edit: but also good on you for actually reading and engaging with the people in this thread <3

      • Farman [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        10 months ago

        I think a key part of liberal tradition is that it is idealistic. Wich makes that wikipedia article a lib vew of themselves. There was hardly any reference to capitalism aside from the vacous statments saying liberals like free market.

    • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      23·
      10 months ago

      lol

      *sorry, I just woke up and this was the first comment I saw. I’ll edit in a more serious response in a second

      In all seriousness, almost all liberal politicians in America are neoliberals, and the few ineffectual progressives are complicit with them and vote with them more often than not. American liberal voters support them because they either don’t see the wolf in sheep’s clothing or they don’t care. Lots of comfortable well-off liberals are fucking ghouls on economic topics. And that’s domestically. Even the progressives will still support coups and sanctions against, e.g., Venezuela.

      Also this is a communist forum. we tend to think workers should control production, while libs think owners should control production. idk why i didn’t mention this lol

    • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      10 months ago

      lol, pointing to dictionary.com just blew my mind… did you click “see more” or search to see if there are multiple definitions of liberal and liberalism elsewhere?

      Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak?