this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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Near as I can tell, a leftist would do anything to keep a liberal out of power over believing only 75% of the same things as them, and allow the right to take control, but at least they get to keep the moral high ground of not allowing a liberal to do that 25%. Never mind that the right actively opposed everything to leftist wants completely.
Liberals are "the right" and they sure as hell don't believe 75% of the same things as leftists. Leftists in the west also don't really have the power to keep liberals out of power, hence why liberals have consistently been the only ones in power for decades. Liberals on the other hand, absolutely do have the power to keep leftists out, and they will go as far as allying with fascists to murder leftists in their beds.
Liberalism is literally and historically where the left begins. The right is authoritarianism and the left is liberalism to anarchism. Liberals are not leftists but it is a signof a distinct lack of education in political philosophy to claim liberalism as a right wing ideology.
Liberalism didn't exist for most of history, so trying to invoke "history" to argue that liberalism has some kind of timeless and eternal claim to being on the left is unconvincing. Yes, liberalism was the left in the eighteenth century, but we're in the twenty first century.
The division of political ideologies into left and right derives from the French Parliament which had the monarchists on the right and the liberals on the left.
Every reference to right and left stems from this so yes in fact Liberalism has always been where the left starts even if liberals are nit leftists because the political left is anti-authoritarian.
The binary has not changed and I promise you any claim ypu make to the contrary is going to be mired in euro-centric beliefs.
I always try to tell the Marxists this, but they always come up with some dumb rebuttal.
Liberalism is the ideological basis of Capitalism. When Capitalism was a progressive force, ie during the French Revolution, it was considered left wing. Now that Capitalism has become entrenched and turned to Imperialism, the progressive side is undeniably Socialism, while liberalism entrenches the status quo.
Simply saying that liberalism at one point was progressive does not mean history has not had several centuries of shifts and developments since then.
You're being incredibly euro-centric with your claims here.
How so?