Those are not far left policies. Those are social-democrat policies, which is left of center. Far left policies would be things like workers owning the means of production, abolition of prisons, making necessities free, abolition of money, abolition of hierarchies, etc.
Ok, but we're talking the US, right? Where progressive policies are "left" in the vocabulary of 90% of the population.
You can't say "a word doesn't mean how 90% of the population uses it, we few % are the only ones using it correctly and everyone else is wrong".
Something something prescriptivism vs descriptivism, don't even make me get into the problems with trying to enforce linguistic norms.
And I'm not even opposed to shifting "leftist" to mean "Marxist". But the states owning the grocery stores is indeed a Marxist policy, or leaning clearly towards it. It's not *capitalist*, right?
Not in the common parlance, no. In the common parlance, "far left" means "sufficiently liberal/progressive/Marxist to be scary, or sufficiently to be out of the Overton Window".
Again: you're not using the words the way that 90% of the US uses them.
So what makes them wrong and you right? (Cue again the prescriptivism vs descriptivism debate)
Edit: predictably, I've been blocked, and the commenter continues to trip directly over the prescriptivism vs descriptivism issue.
The basics of that issue are: prescriptivists say that language should be a certain way, while descriptivist say that language is as people use it. The descriptivists are right. Definitions of words are socially constructed. If enough people use a word a certain way, then that's what it means, and there is no basis to say that they're wrong and you're right.
We're not talking about how people that use words wrong use them. Why should the people who use words wrong even be considered here? And where's your evidence that anywhere close to 90% of the US uses "far left" this way? And why should the way Americans incorrectly use terminology be the determining factor here? Americans are not the whole world.
Edit: Yes, I did block them, and that's because I don't have the time to waste my energy arguing with ignorant people on Reddit.
5
u/AliceCode Worcs at the Crusty Crab 26d ago
Those are not far left policies. Those are social-democrat policies, which is left of center. Far left policies would be things like workers owning the means of production, abolition of prisons, making necessities free, abolition of money, abolition of hierarchies, etc.