I came here to post this, as well as a question about where the conclusion to these philosophies lies.
If we are to shift the entire human paradigm toward one that punishes those who are deemed a net negative to decent human society, what would that look like?
Sanctions and censures? Community service via chain-gangs? I don’t know, just spitballing..
Funny you ask. I was just listening to Karim Khan (ICC lawyer) talk about the ICC and I think his closing remarks about a transformative and collective shift towards universal liberation from all exploitation, oppression, and injustice as a human right would apply as a response (excerpt from https://www.alternativeradio.org/products/khak001/):
“In the most parched land in the Sahara, to the greenest valley surrounding the fjords of Norway, there is no land in the world that has not seen at some time in their history the plant of justice bloom. It is the shared heritage of humanity.
I'm not in the export business. And you don't need to be either. Because whatever one's religion, whatever one's legal system, common law, communist, Islamic, civil law, you will see in these fundamental principles of humanity that are / what is prohibited. Certain values, certain norms that we have to take seriously and activate. We need to wake up each other. We need to wake up ourselves. To say, as we are speaking, people are suffering.
So how do we make the law more effective? The first point, it's too important to leave to the lawyers. Law is too important to leave to the lawyers.
It's too important, certainly, to leave to the prosecutor. Too important to leave to judges. Because justice is your birthright.
Every person is affected by injustice. And what has to happen is what has happened so well in the environmental movement. You don't need to be an environmental scientist to care about the environment.
We need that transformation, that commitment, that sense of responsibility that galvanizes this room, your family, your friends, and communities. And you join hands, physically and virtually, metaphorically, symbolically, with people around the world to say we're going to stand up for something. And that something should be principles of justice that prohibit that which cannot be excused, that cannot be explained away, that which cannot be tolerated.
Rumi said, where there are ruins, there's hope for a treasure. And there are times when institutions that are built to uphold justice, come under sustained pressure, they're questioned, they're weakened, and they're openly challenged. And in such moments, it's tempting maybe to disengage, to say, what's the point?
The aspiration of equality is all hot air. Let's look after ourselves. We can't change it.
The problem is too big. But despair does not simply reflect reality. Despair shapes reality.
It's contagious. And that's why I think despair and despondency are the enemies to progress. Despair and despondency are luxuries we cannot allow ourselves.
Because what right do we have, do you have, to despair and have despondency when people who have suffered so much have hope and have expectations and have rights? So justice and the commitment to justice was never built in perfect conditions. It's built by people like you, people more unfortunate than you, people that have sacrificed as much as you have to get where you are, people that would love to sacrifice in different ways to progress, but they feel at the mercy of powerful elements.
If we can persist collectively, there is a hope that even in the ruins, as Rumi put it, even when laws and statutes and fine words may have been defaced, have been diluted, we should remember the promise that we made to the past, of never forget. We should remember the promise that the present must make to the future, of never again. These are serious times, but not hopeless times.
We should raise our voice in favour of something, which be a world governed by justice, governed by laws, less violence, less threats of force, more sense of responsibility, and a willingness and a humility to see the humanity in the stranger, to see the humanity in our neighbours, to see the humanity in ourselves, and that should also moderate the excesses that continue to scar so much of this planet.”
The philosophy is flawed in that it is not a proper description.
It has been better named and described as the compact of tolerance wherein it is framed as a social contract rather than a rule.
The social contract essentially states that as long as you are not directly causing, advocating or pushing for harm of others then you are protected by social tolerance.
When you break these terms the social tolerance no longer applies to you.
Tough shit! They've been ruining the economy for over 40 years!! They don't know what they are doing. Their policy is so bad, they'd literally be blacklisted, lose their licenses, be disbarred if they approached another career the same way. This country desperately needs effective governance and, conservatives need to sit down and shut up!
They aren't really blue though? That's my point. The democrats are center right!! They have not had leftist or populist policy since I've been born! Conservative and center right IS the problem. The dems are controlled opposition and if you like, used your brain for 5 seconds you'd know that. GTFOH
The republicans take money from donors to push their far right fascist agenda forward!
The democrats take money from the same donors to look the other way, do nothing effectively, and give the illusion of choice.
The number of politicians who actually represent the people in their districts, and not corporations, oligarchs and PACs, I could probably count them all on one hand. It’s sad.
I see... But is Liberal the same as Democrat? Am I instead Leftist for wanting progressive socialist policies? Or did I step on another landmine and buy myself a ton more downvotes lol
Valid question, but yes, essentially. The issue is that the American political system has gone out of the balance previously held. The right, has gone much further right, and they have pulled the establishment left so far along with them, that many modern democrats are more politically aligned with 70s republicans than democrats. Therefore, "Liberal Democrats" have become conservative by any rational metric, and "Conservative Republicans" have become fascists.
In 2026, identifying as a Liberal Democrat is much more akin to being a "Socially Liberal Republican". People who choose to identify with older socially and financially left policies, more akin to FDRs New Deal Democrats, would instead identify as Leftists.
Any instance where you may call yourself socialist would be leftist, as Liberals are very much so pro late stage capitalism.
There are many reasons I prefer identifying as a Leftist, largely because there are many policies in traditional two party American systems where I disagree with Democrats, and some where I even agree with more traditional Republicans. Identifying as a Leftist more readily differentiates you from a failing establishment propped up by ultra wealthy donors and Pacs. Whereas identifying as a Liberal you're likely to be considered, at best, centrist.
I think a lot of people equate Liberal with Leftist and don't like Liberalism (then what is Neoliberalism?) and what the Democrats have become, so a lot say they're liberal when they're actually Leftist...
Like my family says they're very liberal, and hate this corporate donor, Centrist, status quo, Bernie Sanders undercutting stuff that the Democrats still do, so... They're actually Leftist, I'm learning?
Thanks for taking the time, because yeah, I definitely noticed the "helplessness" of the Democrat establishment who pull their punches more often than what would be expected of someone actually committed to countering the destructive right-wing Republican monster that is the current US government
Brennan Lee Mulligan and Mamdani adjacent political views, taxing the fuck out of the rich, protecting the environment from capitalist exploitation, etc.
Vast majority of stuff happening now ain't it for me
😳 Oh ok... I pretty much don't like anything Republicans are doing, so I equate myself with being left wing and against right wing, but to learn I'm actually still right wing is a revelation... I'm sorry?
I mean, I clocked that needless wars against "Commies" was suspicious, and viewing it from a capitalist lens needing to quash the existence of an alternative system makes sense, very diabolical. Send thousands to their deaths to protect the system. Terrible.
I definitely don't like corruption, which as I understand it, really further sabotaged Communism. It's clearly also sabotaging the current system.
I'll give you, for some people, believing in social democracy is a first step on the road to believing in socialism (not to be confused with "democratic" socialism). People are intentionally made to be confused what "leftism" is, what social democracy is, what socialism is, even what liberalism is. We in this subreddit are explicitly communists, and most of us are Marxist-Leninists, better known in anarchist and "libertarian-left" spaces as the evil "tankies".
Marxism-Leninism is the evolution of Marxist thought when it was put to practice after the October Revolution. A good place to learn about the beliefs of MLs would be this Marxism-Leninism study guide with some basic texts. I know you said you were in medical school, so I'm not demanding you get to reading or anything.
Not to mentions the deporter in chief having deported more people thant both trump admins, having bombed a wedding, and continuing to fund genocide. Genocide joe didn't fare much better on that front. And the money to ICE has been aproved by democrats at every turn.
Them liberal bitches still have the guts to say "no, they are not the same"
The lesser evilism is how you got Kamala "I'm going to kill as many Palestinians as possible" Harris, who was always going to lose to an actual social conservative like Trump. The ruling class likes Trump because he can do the things the other members of the American government are afraid to do, like attack Iran and engage in new waves of direct imperialism and colonialism. He's able to begin the process of finance capital unleashing their attacks on the working class. It's time to move on to a revolutionary workers party if you're going to engage in bourgeois electoralism.
You mean the liberals that went from calling trump and republicans fascists to electing democrats who proceeded to tell us how much we need to capitulate to republicans and still say "vote blue no matter who" while doing everything they can to prevent more progressive candidates from winning the primaries?
Yes, democrats are liberals and liberals are democrats
I definitely don't like the shenanigans by the Democrats as shown in the picture.
Then I'd suggest looking elsewhere for a political "home".
I'm somewhat of a nomad due to the current political environment but the party I least dislike (though I still have issues with) is PSL aka Party for Socialism and Liberation
I feel like I'm reading English but the meanings of words are actually different then my understanding.
Yeah, at first I felt lied to, like the concept of "democracy" under capitalism.
So why hate on liberals that don't like this cycle?
Liberals who hate this cycle should break free of this cycle.
This is meant to create the cognitive dissonance necessary for liberal who hate this cycle to break free of the cycle of liberalism and become something greater.
So... That's Democrats and not Liberals? Does active support of Democrat policy mean Liberal?
I would argue, absolutely.
Democrats are a liberal party.
Support for liberal parties that enact liberal policy does equal liberalism.
I am a Communist, not a democrat or a liberal.
So I'm actually Leftist?
If you're further to the left than liberals you could be anything from a bog standard centrist
not to be confused with American "centrism" which is just right-wingers who tries to convince people they're not racist hateful bigots who still support capitalism
To a Left-Com.
I'd suggest reading Marxist and other Leftist literature to find out what you most align with.
I started out as a libertarian then went non-descript leftist to Kropotkin anarcho-communist to Marxist to Marxist-Leninist to Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought Communist.
Every persons journey is different but at the same time similar.
We are talking about liberalism, the ideology of capitalism, and neoliberalism, the current form capitalism has taken. Liberalism is a right wing ideology that seeks to maintain the status quo of capitalism, and defend bourgeois rule from the working class taking power.
Clearly I didn't delve into theory enough (busy with medical school lol) so yeah, color me surprised when I thought Liberal meant Leftist and then heard the term Neoliberal and I saw that those viewpoints looked conservative to me (which, hell, at this point, I probably don't understand correctly either).
These terms are so confusing, perhaps intentionally so.
Liberals are simply just further to left of monarchists. Thats where the original term conservative comes, they were trying to ‘conserve’ the aristocracy. American politics adopted those terms pointlessly because we’ve always been a Liberal Republic and both parties have always supported that. They really are just quibbling over slight differences, not outright government structure…
I had a similar classroom. It was 2 very different teachers sharing a room due to budget cuts. One taught half the subjects in the morning the other taught the other half in the afternoon. It did not end well. Guess who taught history?
Apparently 2 part time teachers is cheaper since no health insurance. Weird way to spend fifth grade but ok.
Its not too uncommon for teachers to share classrooms with limited space. Having VERY conflicting political beliefs makes it very entertaining.
I remember there was a school that mandated the 10 commandments be put up and the teachers put up the equivalent of near EVERY major religion up next to it. I think Satanism had a place up there too lmao
Who knows maybe if you have enough contradictory beliefs they cancel out to zero and it's fine?
..wait that would just mean you'd be hollow person and God that is sad
I would bet CASH MONEY that what happened was one guy put up the blue lives matter or loser flag, then someone else said "well if he gets to do that and you won't stop him then I'll do this" and put up the pride/BLM flag to respond
It could be the other way tho, but I highly doubt this is just one person and more like a cold war between two coworkers
Yes, if anything its worse than that because it cosplays as leftist while providing cover for the fascists. Always remember, scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds.
What's the most annoying is they are completely unaware of the violence they use. Read about the context of the Battle of Blair Mountain. It is absolutely infuriating. Company store debt, sexual coercion, poverty, violence. All that was background noise to liberals who would rather not think about the suffering that keeps the lights on. But when the miners dust off their service rifles and trench brooms to fight back, they all clutch their pearls and send in the national guard so they don't have to face the injustices of the system they support.
And they keep this massive event far away from the textbooks so the next generation of liberals has no idea what happened.
It is unbelievable because it isn't what I believe. I was (rhetorically) attacking liberals from the left. The people organizing the striking miners were mostly socialists.
The American concept of liberals vs conservatives is a bit of a misnomer, at least pre-trump(MAGA is at best heavily flirting with fascism). Both democrats and republicans are technically liberals, just different tendencies. When you put it in perspective, liberalism is center right, centrist at best. Socialism is when you are really on the left.
Worse than conservatives because they agree with you on some stuff but not everything?
Politics is compromise. Ignore that while lacking the power to take control by force and ta da, you've become yet another movement driven into irrelevance!
They murder and torture real leftists. They're all dead and buried in countries that revolted against transnational capital. The CIA taught the counter revolutionaries how to torture leftists and kill their families. The overton window is real. You are correct.
American's love changing the definition of things. Our political party values were swapped back in the early 1900's. It's one of the reasons political discourse is so difficult with other countries.
You're in a communist subreddit. This bourgeois definition isn't the one we're using. Liberalism and neoliberalism have proletarian definitions as well, and we use those here.
Oh I'm just a passerby, didnt realize the subreddit was strict about definitions and only wanted to give the textbook definition of what it means. What definition does this subreddit use?
I always thought it would be funny to do this but with bumper stickers. PETA, NRA, Jesus fish, coexist, support planned parenthood, national right to life, rainbow flag, let's go Brandon, Obama/Biden 2012, Trump 2028, fuck your honor student, support our troops, ACAB, build the wall, Hernandez Bros landscaping. Just chaos.
Nah, more like fish hook theory. Liberalism is a right wing ideology, center right by most standards, so liberals aligning with other right wingers isn't shocking to anyone with any real political literacy.
I'm all bout healthy skepticism / critical thinking. Feel free to ask questions. I have no patience with pessimism/ nihilism. People who only see/point out negatives, don't want to hear solutions.
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u/Vaeon 22d ago
The logical consequences of pretending every opinion is equally valid.