Calling you a "single issue voter" when that issue is genocide.

You can pressure democrats left after voting for them unconditionally

"The fact that you can criticize the government proves that we live in a democracy!" (especially funny when it happens on self-hosted fedi platforms deliberately operated in third-party jurisdictions due to censorship on Silicon Valley platforms).

a socialist leader is filthy rich because le ebil dictator owns literally everything in the country.

I like to hit em with this graph when they try to suggest socialist governments are new boss same as the old boss.

Anytime they bring up “culture” to explain why the global south struggles

Opposing genocide is "privilege"

any rambling paranoia about russia tbh

its just stupid and im sick of it

My current favorite is their weird presidential calculus where anything you do other than voting for Kamala is a vote for Trump. In their math even 0 equals 1 because not voting is somehow also a vote for Trump

That openly-fascist people can be reasoned with to abandon fascism.

I feel like words are the only non-monetary thing that liberals truly value. They don't value action, they value discussion. And sure, in most situations, starting with diplomacy is the sane thing to do. But sometimes words aren't gonna work. Dealing with Hitler would have ended up with gunfire no matter the specifics. He wasn't gonna be talked out.

But the business owner takes THE RISK. FUCKING WHAT RISK? The risk of having to liquidate your assets and have to work a normal job like your employees do for you? You don't get to take that kind of risk unless you already have a fuckload of money or enough that a bank thinks it can get a steady return on investment, no one is taking any risk here.

I’m a staunch pacifist and also 100% behind helping Ukraine.

Co-opting of pacifism is peak liberalism, it's such a blatant example of liberals trying to paint themselves as "peace-loving" while being imperialists and accepting none of the flak that actual pacifists receive, and even readily engaging in that flak. "Oh, but I only support defensive wars," motherfucker, it's called the "department of defense" because every fucking side in every fucking war post-Ghengis Khan always frames themselves as "defending." If you accept that you can still be a pacifist while saying war is acceptable if you believe it furthers the aim of peace, then you could be a full blown neocon and still call yourself a pacifist.

Actual pacifists may be cranks, but I have some respect for them for having actual principles that they will stand by even if it means incurring a personal cost. Liberals want to steal valor(?) for their own self-aggrandizement while believing in nothing and sacrificing nothing. And that's not even getting into, "I'm a pacifist, so I just got out of the situation and called the cops."

"Look, I'm as left as they come, but..." proceeds to deliver a take that Reagan would've thought was a little much

"You're one of them gays aintcha? [insert resistance movement/socialist state/ect here] would kill you for that dontcha know?"

It feels like the people who say things like that are deeply queerphobic and they would be would be utterly delighted to see LGBT+ people dealt with of in such a way. I don't think they would bring it up otherwise.

Mine is every variety (and there are many) of "you can't have (society improving somewhat) because that's not how things work, sweetie. This is the grown-ass adult world where (society improving somewhat) can't happen because (sophistry here)."

Obamas tan suit

Idk but recently my favorite is the person that is losing their shit about getting banned from c/games and for some reason tried to complain about Russia and the news mega in the same post.

"I'm not against immigrants, I'm against ILLEGAL immigrants."

"Okay, I would make ALL IMMIGRATION LEGAL. No more illegal immigrants ever again. Problem solved, right?"

Backpedaling should be an Olympic sport.

Earlier today I showed my mom the Soviet animated short film Polygon. It is a stunning and dark anti-war film, and at the end of this film she said, "Someone should show this to Putin!" — and this bothered me a bit, though I didn't air my grievances out loud. There are certainly some implicit points I would agree with, that Putin is an untrustworthy bourgeois leader, that world leaders often wage wars without knowing their actual human cost, that objectively speaking Russia has invaded Ukraine; but I still felt like my mom's heart was coming from a place of really just buying into propaganda by the same Western capitalists who profiteer from making the war as long and destructive as possible, eager to further their interests in the region even if it leads to a nuclear third world war.

My mom's remark reminded me of when I was visiting relatives across the pond in occupied Anishinaabewaki a number of years ago, and one of the things we did for one of our get-together traditions was to talk about a goal we had for the next time we'd see each other. And I had said that I'd just started learning Russian, so I wanted to become proficient in that language by the next time we saw each other. And one of my relatives said something along the lines of, "Hopefully you can get to the bottom of who's meddling in our elections!" — and even being a radlib at the time I just thought that that was a really inappropriate thing to say to someone taking an interest in another language and another culture... Indeed, I recall the whole room being kind of awkwardly silent after that, so it seems the other libs were in agreement.

That relative who made the "election meddling" remark is of course still a settler who is reinforcing and benefiting from an illegal occupation of the country in which she resides, a country which isn't even given the dignity of dotted lines on a world map. And when she concerns herself so much with elections that are fundamentally illegitimate, I don't have much hope for her to suddenly "become based". My mother on the other hand, she grew up in that settler-colony but has now spent half her life outside of it, and she's been very supportive of me being a communist and she has accepted or unlearned many things about the world, and even said that she treats me as an authority on politics to some extent; however, there's still so many things that she hasn't unlearned — and given that we live in the imperial core, and given her own background, that she might never unlearn. And that disappoints me to think about, because I generally do have a lot of respect for her and wish her only the best.

...So yeah, I guess "dae ebil Putler" is going to be my "favorite" facepalm-inducing take that libs regularly trot out. Even left-wing groups in my country with large Marxist and/or anarchist factions will do this tailist bullshit about Ukraine, that leaves me wondering how much I have to actually put up with their nonsense to get anything done.

"the system just needs some better rules!"

"It's complicated". But only on the things that clearly aren't.

Mine is a statement that takes many forms but usually boils down to the exact same mindset -- namely that the current "villain of the week" is always assumed to be the most primitive simpleton imaginable.

It's not even limited to leaders of foreign countries. Somehow, liberals are incapable of attributing any strategic ability to their enemies.

For example, they will see a corporation get into a legal fight, where it is quite clear that the corporation is morally in the wrong, and they will immediately claim the corporation is going to lose because of some supposed foolishness by the corporation.

If you ask them about their reasoning, it usually becomes clear that they are actually completely clueless about the topic. Confusing patent, copyright and trademark law is a classic in this area.

But they just can't imagine that these corporations, who regularly exploit the system to their advantage, and have highly paid teams of lawyers doing this for them, might know what they are doing, and might very well succeed.

Maybe it's because even the acknowledgement of this possibility is already interpreted as support for the villain. You can't claim that the Russians aren't losing, because if you do, you must obviously support Russia.

Liberals would rather delude themselves with boundless hubris than correctly assess the situation.

I think mine is "socialism might work in theory but it's never worked in the real world." Like, motherfucker, tell me how infinite growth with limited resources is supposed to work in the real world. Because that's your fucking "theory". And regarding socialist theory, please enlighten me on what all you know about socialist theory, since you know it "only works in theory".

Theory.

THEORY.

GAHHHHHHH.