This is the fediverse it's full of new people, adventurers, change makers. The majority of people who would be interested in this platform will have a more progressive bent. So the majority of people here will be more accepting of liberal policies.
Quibble: Many here are explicitly leftist, in the a leftist-not-liberal sense, and will even use "liberal" derogatorily. So, progressive, yes, but liberal, not necessarily.
Good point, many think left = liberal = US democrats who are centrists at best from the international perspective. So no, most people on here probably aren't actual leftists, but I'm guessing when they say they 'lean left' they mean US-liberal-not-conservative, not socialist or whatever.
to make matters more fun, many 'explicitly leftist' lemmings are tankies (blind supporters of russia, china, north korea, etc), who are explicitly not leftist but authoritarians masquerading in the skinsuit of the people's revolution.
Liberal policies are an actual thing, a thing that leftists frequently disagree with.
Libertarians are often placed on the right part of the left-right divide. The fact you’ve chosen the label libertarian instead of conservative is animated by the exact same “purity test” that you find so silly.
I would like to throw out there that the ACLU is a libertarian organization that would likely line up with the majority of the beliefs of Lemmy users. With that said I understand most people aren't using libertarian in its 'correct' meaning as the ACLU does.
Yea I tend to think than when someone identifies as a Libertarian they almost certainly don’t mean a civil libertarian, which is how the aclu actually identifies themselves.
We have grown from a roomful of civil libertarians to more than 4 million members, activists, and supporters across the country. The ACLU is now a nationwide organization with a 50-state network of staffed affiliate offices filing cases in both state and federal courts. We appear before the Supreme Court more than any other organization except the Department of Justice.
I only know because I interned there and it's something they talked about. Maybe it was always preceded with 'civil' I just don't remember that as well. The big issue amongst the workers when I was there was that in principle they supported Citizens United, and most of the employees did not support it in practice.
Just adding my experience to the topic, not sure why I got down voted for it. I'm not trying to push anyone to be libertarian just pointing out other ways the definition can be used.
You were downvoted because you dared to question the group think. Bad terrible actions irredeemable actions. How could you dare to bring your face here again?. Shame unending unyielding shame. Feel it understand it. You deserve it. /S
You realize that libertarianism is not a left right spectrum of the political orientation, correct?
For example Stalin was an authoritarian based in leftist ideology. Hitler was an authoritarian based in right-wing ideology.
Notice that while their economic goals are at complete odds with one another, they are both authoritarians.
I'm libertarian because I believe in freedom of choice. I'm not a conservative because the only things I care about conserving are the oceans and the forests.
I hope that in the future we can stop using the worst monsters and strawmen from our peers chosen political affiliation to color our view of those peers.
I'm not entirely sure about what are the reasoning behind your comment, but i see it as : llibertarian implies no state + parks and forest require state = incompatibility. I'd disagree on the parks and forest require state, i thinl they only need organization, meaning one or more NGO could handle it. Accepting this, not that much incompatibility between libertarian and forest remains (accepting libertarian as left wing meaning that does not imply private property)
I like the Democratic socialists. I don't like it when they seize power that will be upsurped by the next administration in powerand used to oppress people.
Notice that while their economic goals are at complete odds with one another, they are both authoritarians.
You're thinking of the political compass there, which has two axes, one being the economic one (left/right) and the other being the Authoritarian (top) vs Libertarian (bottom) axis.
But the left/right most people use is a one-dimensional system which puts everything on that one axis. It's based on how the French parliament used to be set up between the radical left and the aristocratic right.
The point being, the two left/right axes aren't equivalent. I personally also think in the political compass, that's the system we learnt in school, so I'm unclear on what falls where on the basic left/right axis. But Wikipedia has this to say:
While communism and socialism are usually regarded internationally as being on the left, conservatism and reactionism are generally regarded as being on the right.[1] Liberalism can mean different things in different contexts, being sometimes on the left (social liberalism) and other times on the right (conservative liberalism or classical liberalism). Those with an intermediate outlook are sometimes classified as centrists.
You seem very confused I edited a comment and it posted to itself. It's the same fucking comment should I have deleted the tree and collapsed the thread?
It isn't a purity test, it's a necessary accommodation of the fact that people in the US (and I say this as an American) think that the left ends at progressive liberalism, while everyone else in the world sees progressive liberalism as center-left at best because they acknowledge that 'the left' extends quite far past the bounds of Liberalism (the philosophy, not the political leaning), because Liberalism is about individualism and property rights but most people to the left of that are collectivist in some way shape or form.
Personally myself, I'm a bit of a geoist and a bit of a minarchist. I would advise that if you are interested you should start reading, John Lock and David Henry Thoreaus essays on governent and from there branch out.
Not only that, I’ve tried pitching the fediverse to right wing people, but they didn’t bite.
Even the crypto bros that were all about decentralization couldn’t see why a decentralized social media platform was superior.
This also didn’t matter for people who care about “free speech”.
You think the allure of being fully independent and having your own instance would be right up their alley given how they value independence, but nope.
Seriously? Why isn’t there a right wing instance? My guess is that a right wing person can’t fathom owning something that benefits others which doesn’t give them back profit.
You think the allure of being fully independent and having your own instance would be right up their alley given how they value independence, but nope.
Because it's not about freedom of speech for them, it's about freedom to force people to listen. Having their own server where they can shout at each other all day doesn't serve their purpose. Their panties get wet by forcing others to listen.
The only one I know of shut down and the admin posted this message:
I knew Lemmy had its challenges, but I hoped it would evolve for the better. Sadly after 2 years, the culture of censorship through defederation has only grown stronger.
So they shutdown because they couldn't federate with any other instances and considered that censorship. A few people in that thread linked to another instance I've never heard of as an alternative and that one 404s if you type in the address so I guess they're all still on reddit and twitter.
Cause no one is stopping you from going to said instance and just having the discussion there.
If there was this super important leak that needed to be out there, if it’s posted on a right wing instance that is a defederated ghost town, it’s still out there. People can link to it and leverage the instance to have the needed discussions.
Censorship means removing access, defederation does not wipe it off of the Internet.
Because "crypto bros" care about making money, not any ideology, except in a performative sense. If you pitched the fediverse to the original researchers inventing cryptocurrency and the early adopters, they would likely be receptive. But these are no longer associated with the current crypto crowd.
Trump's tremendous social media platform truth dot barf runs on Activity Pub, they just don't federate with anyone by default. It's like they don't want dissenting views on there. Weird.
Like everything on the right, decentralization is a means to an end, not a value in itself. They only care about it when it's useful for helping them get ahead. Just like they only care about free speech when it's them speaking to people who don't want to hear their bullshit.
"free speech", as your quotation marks imply, does not really exist outside of theory. In reality, free speech is a set of laws governing hate speech or other dangerous speech.
Both the right and the left have ideas of what they think these laws should be.
But there is no such thing as "free speech" in the real world.
there are 3 major right-wing instances: lemmy.ml(ran by the Lemmy developers), lemmygrad.ml(the openly fascist version of lemmy.ml) and hexbear.net.
if anyone wants to argue, I don't. Anyone supporting Russia is right-wing. Authoritarianism is inherently conservative, reactionary and therefore right-wing.
There's a reason the step up from just left/right axis is the up/down of libertarian v authoritarian. Auth-left is very much a thing and is what tankies are
I am unfortunately not. It was more meant as a way to say that for instance criminals (yes, even the worst ones) have value. That they deserve to live and have a decent life, no matter what.
That immigrants and asylum seekers should be treated with respect and given the help they need.
But also that animals have value. The way a lot of animals are treated is in no way acceptable.
I have tried being a vegetarian in the past, but have failed every time.
The ole' carnist blind spot. It is extremely fatiguing to hold contradictory beliefs as you do, and to have to constantly edit your thoughts to protect yourself from the profound psychological effects of such contradictions. Having inconsistent beliefs means never being able to act according to your beliefs, never being genuine, never having integrity. It sucks to live like that and you'll never know just how much it sucks until you stop. You think it's harder to have integrity. It's actually so much easier.
Its one of many contradictory ways I live my life. I am well aware of many of them, and change them gradually to align myself more with my beliefs. I find that I manage OK, but sometimes wish I was better.
I'll probably become ovo lacto flexitarian in the future. That was what I managed to be for the longest. And it has 80% of the same effect or more. The rule was that I never bought meat or made food with meat. When I was served meat at family or friends, I would just eat it then. It reduced all the social friction, and made it so much easier. I lasted for a year or two.
Pure vegan is unrealistic short term for me. Maybe I'll try in the future, or flexitarian vegan instead of ovo lacto flexitarian. Not sure.
If you consider Democrats left wing then yes, by far the most here are left wing, since by most European standards Democrats are clearly right wing.
Republicans are extreme right by most standards. Republican (MAGA) is basically an American version of AfD!
So by that standard I guess about 80% here are left wing, maybe even more?
See, this is why so many right-wingers are seen as simply not intelligent enough to understand basic science. Numerous studies have shown that the left-wing is on average, plumper, juicier, and more tender.
I bet you probably also believe those wing pieces with two bones are better than the big one-bone wings that look like little chicken legs, too. Typical right-winger, your brain has been melted by right-wing propaganda.
Sorry, but reality has a left-wing bias. Educate yourself, and do better.
I'm as left-wing as they come but to imply that drummies are somehow superior to flats is wrong-headed and shows your own biases. I'll concede that the little chicken legs are easier (and more fun) to eat, but the quality of the delicate meat between the two little wing bones in the flats ones makes them more of a delight to me.
I promote right-wing policies: you should always use the right wings for your airplane, using whatever wings you happen to have left in stock is a recipe for disaster. Left-wing policies are dangerous.
Maybe. But your impression of it may be skewed, because there are a lot of non-USA people here. That creste some mismatch in terms that tend to overwaight the perceived size of left-leaning people. But it's terminology, really. What in USA is considered "left" more-or-less align with what is considered left outside of USA. But what an average Trump supporter call "conservative", in the rest of the word is simply know as lunacy.
There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.
There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.
There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.
As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.
So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whatever-the-fuck-kind-of-stupid-noise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.
No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Yes. Signing up is not easy. Most people here can understand written instructions and have some basic technical knowledge. People who are not stupid tend to lean left.
I like to consider myself leftist. But it's true that I don't agree in all that most current left wing political parties stand for.
I think all human are born equal, and should have a good life. That politics should be used to improve everyone's life.
But in the what does this mean or how to do it I feel more and more differences lately.
To give an example, I cannot really stand identity politics. I think that the best course of action is to dissolve identitarian (is that word real?) groups instead of exacerbating their differences. I feel like people should be getting rid of labels instead of having more and more labels every day.
That's just a personal opinion, based on the idea that if you define different groups the chance of conflict between groups is bigger than if you define only one group. And I do get the idea behind identity politics within the left wing spectrum. I just don't agree that's the best course of action.
I don't see it that way. Speaking as non conforming gender bisexual.
I think I can properly defend my rights without making groups that exclude others from it.
Again, just my opinion, and something that I do not agree not in the final goal (everyone being happy and free) but in the how to achieve it.
Also as an European I think identity politics (in this context) were mostly born in USA and imported here later. But we had achieved way more liberties before identity politics than after. We were one of the first countries in the world that legalized gay marriage for instance, and we didn't need the kind of identity politics that exist today to achieve it. And since identity politics took over I feel like we haven't be able to achieve much more, because we take a conflicting approach that meets much more resistance from excluded identities than the previous approach.
At least that's my humble opinion and perception of reality.
That sounds like you are agreeing with my premise.
When rights were being extended to (sexual) minorities identity politics was not needed. Did progress slow down because of identity politics or did identity politics form because expansion of rights slowed down?
I don't know your country, and I certainly know less about it's politics than I do about my own in the US.
I do think progress slow down because identity politics indeed. And progress became more fragile, being easily erased by all the people who got pissed off by identity politics.
Each year I see less and less people willing to support minority issues because identity politics let them out. Without that supposed the minority, by definition, is left in a minority position. And the only way it can change things is from a minority rule, which is not the best as it pisses off a lot of people this way.
The thing about identity politics is that it's useful for majorities. I don't see the point in using identity politics for minorities, by definition they are doomed to lose. Wider interclass politics are needed for minorities to get rights in a sustainable way.
I do think that identity politics got dominant not because of their usefulness to minorities. But because their usefulness to a few politicians (politicians as a wider term not only elected officials), which allowed them to gain short term power and privileged using them. But they doesn't seem to do much to help the minorities. Isolating them from wider support to get a short lived iron claw over them feels not right to me.
I might be wrong here. Once again, this is just my particular perception, and I do not have strong evidences for this claims, just feelings and personal experiences.
"wider inter-class politics" we call that intersectionality. I support the interests of POC and the disabled and the neurodivergent and the working class because it's the right thing to do and I hope they will do the same for me. Solidarity.
You have more faith in majorities to do the right thing than I do. My country was founded on genocide and slavery. Some European countries were too but maybe farther back in history.
But you are not part of their movement, at most are a supporter. You get excluded from being part of it if you try. You need labels to be included. No labels no representation. That's why we see people collecting more and more labels each day, because without a label you are nothing in the movement.
And you may support, but you are not part of the decision making, you are not considered when decisions are being made. Solidarity is expected from you, but you should not expect nothing in return.
This may suffice for you. You may need nothing for your selfless support. But most people are not like that. More people when they feel that kind of exclusion just move out ot the movement and do their own thing. Because everyone wants their voice to be heard. This explain a lot on what has happened with politics in the later years. Thus why I advocate for the end of identity politics, and return to class politics, include everyone as equals, without some being "more equals than others" if you catch my drift.
Majorities might or might not make better or worse decisions that minorities. But democracy is the best system we know for a reason, and without including everyone, truly including them, minorities could not rule for long, and then other minority would take place and undo all that the previous minority did (as shown by recent events).
I also have a hard time with ID politics and the like, but I'm also a privileged white dude so my primary gripe will always be focused around economic disparity. The BLM protests helped me see it this way: There is not war but the class war, but there are multiple fronts. If we don't at least try a little to protect minority groups, we won't have any progressives left
While I don’t understand gender politics, alternate pronouns and labels, I long since realized that it doesn’t matter. I’m all for everyone living their lives their way with equal respect. You do you, and be the best you you can, whatever you that may be, and I’ll be happy to call you friend
I'm a Marxist-Leninist, so yes. I think you'll find most people on Lemmy in general fall into the major categories of "Liberal," as in the US Democrat style, Anarchists, and Marxists. Different instances lean in different directions on this, with overall few outright conservatives.
I'm a left libertarian. I embrace decentralization, collectivism, freedom from corporate and central government tyranny, and want to maximize individual liberty and progressive values as we ideally move towards a society like the Culture series by Ian M. Banks.
I'm not Anarchist because it's too chaotic and unrealistic, and I'm not ML because I don't like State authoritarianism and central planning.
Can you give some examples of how that works? Like, who pays for roads, who handles environmental regulations (or are there any), who establishes education standards (or are there any), etc. I'm not trying to argue, it just seems like on the internet people referring to "state authoritarianism" and "central government tyranny" ranges from "adults can't be transgender" to "I have to pay taxes and the government won't let me own slaves."
Roads: large towns and cities would mostly handle their own road maintenance. Roads connecting towns would probably be joint ventures. Projects would be funded and contracted by the towns and financed by town income tax. Rural areas would be underfunded, but that's partly intentional - dense population centers are more sustainable.
Environmental regulations: handled at the level of impact. for example, water quality standards for a river bind everyone who accesses the river. restrictions (e.g. standards for heavy metal levels) would be passed by minority vote - if 40% want a standard, that's enough. carbon credits would be administered at the Federal or World levels, by a combination of central government and treaties.
Education: probably pretty devolved, mostly a choice by municipalities in what they offer/teach. there'd likely be standardized tests that most places agree on for transferability (e.g. how the SAT works today.) religious schools could exist in religious communities, or you could have a Montessori program in your secular socialist Kibbutz.
Slavery: illegal at the Federal/World level. same with indentured servitude and coercive contracts. one of the most important functions of the central government is to protect the civil liberties of individuals.
So the principles are mostly:
Externalities are handled at the level of their impact.
More power locally, less power centrally. City governments are more like micro-nations bound by a sort of EU.
Cities largely have a lot of direct democracy with some representatives. Critically, city governments wield lots of power over the businesses that operate in the city. This is critical to check corporate power.
Federal government exists as a backstop to safeguard fundamental rights and for truly national concerns.
i like what you are saying, just a few modifications I would make:
-Water control and regulation should be based on watersheds. all organizations operating in a given watershed are beholden to the laws of that watersheds own regulator. this would allow for actual management of the resource and protection from exploitation.
-there would need to be a strong incentive to work together with other municipalities and not be antagonistic. I am unsure what that would look like, but when you reduce central power, smaller powers can attempt to oppress others more easily.
I'd consider myself liberal, but I embrace some traits considered leftist in some areas (universal healthcare, free education) and right in others (restrict immigration based on key economic and educational indicators, deport criminals).
Depends on what kinda right wingers your talking about
Ik a few people who believe in more laissez-faire free market economic policies, and they're pretty chill
Sounds like a liberal to me. Centrists always think they are leftists because of the guilt of supporting capitalism. You support social programs. You do not support any form of removing capitalism. You are not a leftist, you are a centrist.
That was mostly concentrated on exploding-heads.com, who after being defederated from by almost every major instance (except Lemm.ee that prides itself on maximum diversity of opinions) appears to have dissolved internally, presumably with everyone moving over to Truth Social.
Progressive who's been here for a bit. The fediverse has definitely swung more left-wing recently - when I first started up two years ago there was a fair amount of conservative bs, libertarian tech-bros and russian bots - it was about a 50/50 split depending on what instance you were on.
The bot problem seems to have been largely dealt with now, and conservative voices have been more or less drowned out by the new influx of users fleeing twitter and Reddit crackdowns. Many are agreeing that the current administration is bad for everyone. There are a number of hard auth-left moral purity testers that kind of a pain in the ass that pop up from time to time.
The actual left wing, the something socialists something are partly on hexbear.org and lemmygrad.ml. And they are called tankies and blocked on lemmy.world. So how left wing can most people here be? The thing is that "left" has become synonymous with (neo)liberal values. Like there doesn't have to be a free, independent press or social media and them being owned by capitalists is just fine.
The problem is that over the last decade any nuanced opinions on those topics has become less and less "politically correct". And that is the correct term, anyone who isn't politically correct and in line with the liberal mainstream opinion (= imperialist propaganda by the US state department and think tanks) must by definition by a paid shills of Putin, China or Trump. There are those people of course, but the dynamic has become more and more polarized and steeped in conspiratorial thinking. And that is by "design". It's profitable and it serves the US imperial agenda and it's easier to avoids the frustration of talking to trolls and fascists - just paint everyone of a different opinion with the same brush.
I mean you can't even talk about talking about it, like not seeing those people as anything but "assholes". The range of allowable opinions has drastically narrowed. It's not even liberal in the modern sense of the word. People are too scared to be liberal any more.
This comes a bit down to utilitarianism vs ethics based on principles. But that's a lie, it's really about who has power.
I'm just watching a video by Majority Report where he talks about the question "Why is democracy is good" which the Democrats sort of fucked up in the election. And he makes a pretty painful point that it's a "show me, don't tell me" question. If you live in a democracy and constantly exploited, overworked, fucked over, in terror of economic hardship or terror attacks, harassed by police, then what is the point? What is the benefit? I'm not making the point that democracy is bad, but that a shell of a democracy, a fake, is leading especially the "dirtbag left" to adopt a pretty hostile posture.
So what is the actual quality of life in China vs the USA? What are the actual material benefits looking at living in an apartment, working, raising children and living a peaceful life?
How do YOU know that life in China isn't actually better and people more happy than in the USA? I don't believe that is true but it's a valid question. Of course China has massive problems and corruption and abuses. But there are a billion people there that were on a medieval level after WWII. The CCP has massively invested in e.g. education and healthcare and infrastructure.
Or compare quality of life in China vs democratic India. Similar can be said about Iran, 55% of University graduates were women. But it's painted as black and white.
Sure you have freedom of speech with the means of communication owned and controlled by the oligarchs. And you can say whatever you want on reddit and get downvoted to hell - which goes to my previous point, that the propaganda is so internalized and polarized now that you don't need threats of state violence to keep the population in check.
So those opinions are not just for fun. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer is an aphorism that is leading the west inevitably towards fascism. So all the "posturing" about how superior our principles and freedums are is just... well it's a delusion. It's happening right now. They are stealing your future right now and there is nothing you can do because they control the media.
But still the socialists are completely rejected and banned from the largest lemmy instances.
This comes a bit down to utilitarianism vs ethics based on principles
No, it doesn't. Either one, democracy is still better... Science does best with freedom from suppression.
I'm not making the point that democracy is bad
You are, in fact, making that point
which goes to my previous point, that the propaganda is so internalized and polarized now that you don't need threats of state violence to keep the population in check
Social suppression is a world apart from state suppression, and downvotes on reddit are not an example of keeping people in check. that's a terminally online viewpoint.
Of course China has massive problems and corruption and abuses
They are literally a dictatorship. That's an incredible understatement.
How do YOU know that life in China isn't actually better and people more happy than in the USA?
They are actively commiting genocide.
Sure you have freedom of speech with the means of communication owned and controlled by the oligarchs
There's plenty of options for uncontrolled communication. Corp suppression is still wholly different from gov suppression;they can't toss you in jail.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer is an aphorism that is leading the west inevitably towards fascism.
That's your opinion, and does not reflect reality.
Your response to a trend toward fascism(which is happening, but not inevitable), is to say we should embrace it like china does?
They are stealing your future right now and there is nothing you can do because they control the media.
Are you intentionally being obtuse about the fact that china has massive censorship. I'm not here to say the usa is good. You're ignoring European reality, favoring the usa in your arguments because it's closer to supporting them.
So all the "posturing" about how superior our principles and freedums are is just... well it's a delusion
We objectively speaking have more freedom of speech than china does at the present moment.
But still the socialists are completely rejected and banned from the largest lemmy instances.
Tankies. Not socialists. Socialists are often speaking and getting upvoted.
When asked, I usually tell people that I vote Dem because it's as close to my anarchist ideals as I can get. I would consider myself a social-anarchist, in that I feel laws shouldn't be written around societal structures and ideals. Society and culture changes, and I shouldn't be punished because some dude generations ago decided that something was inappropriate back then. It isn't now, and shouldn't be codified that way,
I'm all for the better man (or woman, or whatever). If we see eye to eye on all the important stuff then I'll vote for you if I'm legally allowed. I don't care about your affiliations as much as your history and your record as a public servant. Hence, why I always vote Dem because there's absolutely NOTHING but pussy ass nazi bitches in the GOP.
I think most people feel this way, right? Like you are left-leaning if you like the policies in left-wing platforms put forth by left-wing parties, so you vote for the left-wing candidates who advocate for them. Likewise, candidates are left-wing because they are members of such parties and advocate for such policies. So saying 'I only vote for people on the basis of their policies and voting record' is like saying 'I only drink water when it's wet'—technically true, but it misses the point that you chose it because it was wet.
Yes, this site is very left-leaning. I have seem plenty of moderate opinions downvoted because they are centrist or centre-right, and the anti-Trump, anti-Elon and anti-USA sentiment is deservedly heavy right now.
Keep that in mind when reading comments, this place is a bit of an echo chamber at the moment.
I don’t adopt views wholesale - I evaluate each issue on an individual basis, so my views tend to be a mixed bag. From a political standpoint, most people would probably see me as an unreliable ally as my views can be hard to predict. While I agree with many, if not most, “left-wing” ideas, there are still plenty of others that would get me labeled as a Nazi MAGA Republican.
That said, on Lemmy I’m definitely in the minority when it comes to holding certain beliefs that many would label “right-wing,” even though on other issues I can out–left-wing even most leftists.
For sure, left wing are most of what I see here, except for trolls and bots
If I needed a label, probably Progressive. I liked Biden’s platform and agreed we needed to try a centrist like him to see if it was possible to start working together again. I also believed he did at least as well as anyone could, and if his legacy hadn’t been torn to bits by turnip would have positioned the US well for decades to come. He could have shifted that Overton window, sowed the seeds that a more Progressive candidate could reap.
But if I try to articulate a common theme for my current beliefs, it is to invest in the future. I’m a strong believer in a good education for all as the foundation of our future. I’m inspired by the possibilities of science and technology. We need people to have the opportunity to strive, improve, and to dare, knowing we will catch them if they fall
Earlier in life I thought I was much more Conservative but the twisted thing is I now say the same things from a very different perspective.
I’m a strong believer in family values: every family member deserves equal respect and human rights, every new parent deserves quality time with a new child without regard for work, every child deserves the best healthcare without regard for their parents income, every child deserves a top notch education and the resources to succeed at it, every elderly or disabled person deserves to have their needs met and continue a decent life.
I believe in innovation and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. A solid education for all allows each person the opportunity to achieve their potential. A comprehensive safety net lets each person reach for the stars without fear, lets them dare to fail without perishing, allows them to learn from a failure and try again.
I believe in self-sufficiency and independence. Every person deserves a basic income to survive without burdening anyone else. Every person needs healthcare sufficient to recover without losing their independence, their savings, or their loved ones. People who choose city life should be able to walk out their door with only what they carry, and get anywhere. Comprehensive well maintained infrastructure is the ultimate independence
I believe in fiscal responsibility. Every investment to look toward the future, build a better society, a better environment, a better humanity
I believe in capitalism. Competition is enabled by a legal framework facilitating fairness, equal opportunity, transparency. Capitalism maximizes potential in a free market regulated by politics for the long term benefit of the voter/consumer
I've been on Lemmy for about two months and there is a good amount of left-leaning folks here. I definitely consider myself in the left-wing category. I hover somewhere between a bit liberal, a bit socialist, and a bit of a commie, but absolutely no authoritarianism.
Funny you had to put a disclaimer for authoritarianism. The world's history and propaganda have made it synonymous with the far left, where that ideology was never about absolute power, but quite the opposite.
The mainstream conservatives (i.e. those within the Overton window of what’s acceptable in mainstream society, or not open Nazis/KKK) have the big corporate networks. Those Nazis who are too Nazi for Elon Musk have their own instances which everybody else fediblocks from orbit just to be sure, where they can run around, sieg-heil and shout racial slurs all day to their hearts’ content. Which leaves those to the left of the centre-right, who are divided between the tankie-triad instances (full of people who think that Stalin did nothing wrong and Putin’s OK too) and the rest (which ranges from liberals to ancoms).
"Come to Lemmy, we have batshit insanity from more than just the two sides" 🤪
Although on Lemmy.world, you won't see two of the Big Three instances that spread the majority of authoritarian propaganda present on Lemmy, because lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net have been defederated.
The conservatives likewise were defederated from, and apparently fell apart internally, presumably moving over to Truth Social.
If you or anyone else truly wants to read every POV though, then you can check out Lemm.ee that aims to defederate from as few instances as possible.
Even so I'll add a warning that Hexbear.net is a troll instance. They don't so much truly believe in anything so much as spoil for a fight, which is fine except consent does not matter to them and they refuse to restrain themselves outside of their instance that was created for that purpose. Also they have been caught actually lying to instance admins. Even so they can be fun to talk with, so long as you aren't taken by surprise e.g. mistaking it for people being serious:-).
It does seem that way from what I’ve seen. What am I? I’m the guy whose got it figured out. Always vote for the worst candidate. Its reverse psychology and works like a charm
worldwide, I would put most people on the right side of the American left/right. there are a lot of people in south asia for example. china and russia are conservative as fuck also. without looking at a wikipedia table I think that's probably most people already.
Western Europe is pretty leftish I guess, but it's not a lot of people
you are thinking of the western countries, not the world. most of the worlds population is not in the west. most are living in highly conservative societies where the social progression led by the western world is decades behind.
There are a lot of countries where being gay results in prison or death
In my country (one where its technically illegal to insult people based on their sexual orientation), a candidate that wants to make civil unions legal for same-sex couples is considered left-wing because of that
Maybe in certain communities? Some power tripping mods do exist. Likely they could be reported to the instance admins and possibly removed for such a scenario. It's happened before in some extremely high profile cases.
Downvoting the admin of Midwest.social would get you banned though.
Fortunately there are communities such as ![email protected] that help spread knowledge of such information across the Threadiverse.
The rules are usually really quite simple. Don't be a dick and don't spread hate. If "right wing opinions" can't stay out of those simple rules, they're not right wing opinions, they're bigots and that has never and will never be okay.
Listen, there are assholes everywhere, and even mild centrists can be dicks and break the rules. We can speak about tendencies and generalizations if you like, but there are plenty of people who aren't bigots who are giant flaming assholes on social media.
I align more to the right, but in Turkey political leaning doesn't really matter, the thing that matters is whether you're siding with Erdogan or not. Like, Imamoglu is a president candidate supported by the left leaning party CHP, but I would absolutely vote for him against our current dictator.
CHP are Kemalists. idk how anyone worshipping that genocider could be called left-leaning (maybe if you're an ethno-nationalist?). I'd say the real left wing in Turkey would be the Kurdish people fighting for autonomy, the feminists and queers fighting the cops in the streets and the union movements.
Mustafa Kemal has absolutely nothing to do with any genocide when the whole thing occured under Ottoman Empire (specifically, under Enver Pasha's command), CHP is one of the parties that rallied the protests against Erdogan, and want better laws for all sorts of people like lgbtq, immigrants and kurds.
I personally disagree with giving more rights to immigrants and don't like the idea of negotiations with terrorist organizations to divide the country, but am in favor of improving any citizen's life overall regardless of their sex, religion or ethnicity.
I personally disagree with giving more rights to immigrants and don't like the idea of negotiations with terrorist organizations to divide the country
if you disagree with immigrants having human rights, that's just fascism my friend.
also you calling Kurds terrorists says a lot about how you're actually just a genocide denier cosplaying as "just an average person without a political position"
I'm not calling Kurds terrorists. I'm calling seperatist groups like PKK terrorists. Any Kurd citizen living in Turkey is more than welcome to voice their opinions, which they do via own political party (which holds third to fourth place in most polls conducted recently.), I believe they're trying to negotiate a peace deal without dividing the country. There are certainly things I disagree with their methods, but peace will be better than war overall.
I am not against immigrants themselves having basic rights, but I don't see the point in giving them extra benefits, life is sink or swim anywhere. Why does my taxes fund immigrants who have made 9 kids they know they cant afford to get extra funding from the government? Why people who cannot read Turkish at all are appointed citizenship to vote to see who governs my country? Fuck that.
I'm Canadian. I support social programs and humanist programs. I support regulation of business so they don't abuse their positions of power over people and to curb their habit of doing bad things in the name of more profit. I'm for taxing those with hordes of cash and giving the struggling worker a break. I support people to have the freedom to be who they want to be (gay, straight, trans, etc) as long as they aren't hurting other people (IE pedos don't get to harm children because they "were born that way" or god said it was cool). I support protecting the land, water and animals. I think Trump is a cunt.
Why even lump pedos in the same sentence with the gays
This is an age-old hurtful stereotype. I'm hoping you don't believe there's any connection, because I have heard that before from bigots in my life and it just makes me see red. Same as the whole "homophobes are just closeted gays let's point that out as if it's a sickness".
I'm just tryin to exist, not be considered "harmful" to anyone
It's not a new argument. This goes back decades, with actual laws being passed linking homosexuality to pedophilia and making it a crime and/or classified as a mental disorder to be gay.
I think it's generally useful to abandon the notions of the Political Compass. Rather than relying on online tests, ask yourself if you think public ownership should be the principle aspect of the economy, or private ownership, and that will tell you if you're more left-wing or right-wing.
Yep, it's all vibes-based and merely attempts to approximate ideologies while obscuring their real mechanisms. It adds confusion more than it clarifies.
I don't consider myself left leaning. Both left and right are corrupt and neither actually practice what they preach. The left is the US is currently the lesser of two evils though. I do consider myself a socialist-libertarian. I think government should be there to keep the populace safe, and provide basic human necessities to all, and no more. The govt should not be able to execute capital punishment nor declare war. Retalitory strikes, defense and supporting allies defending themselves are all fine, but we could get rid of most of the military and funnel that money back to socialist programs and be a MUCH wealthier and happier country.
yes
This is the fediverse it's full of new people, adventurers, change makers. The majority of people who would be interested in this platform will have a more progressive bent. So the majority of people here will be more accepting of liberal policies.
Quibble: Many here are explicitly leftist, in the a leftist-not-liberal sense, and will even use "liberal" derogatorily. So, progressive, yes, but liberal, not necessarily.
Good point, many think left = liberal = US democrats who are centrists at best from the international perspective. So no, most people on here probably aren't actual leftists, but I'm guessing when they say they 'lean left' they mean US-liberal-not-conservative, not socialist or whatever.
to make matters more fun, many 'explicitly leftist' lemmings are tankies (blind supporters of russia, china, north korea, etc), who are explicitly not leftist but authoritarians masquerading in the skinsuit of the people's revolution.
From my perspective I think that that is very silly. I don't care for purity tests, but what would I know? I'm just a dirty libertarian.
Liberal policies are an actual thing, a thing that leftists frequently disagree with.
Libertarians are often placed on the right part of the left-right divide. The fact you’ve chosen the label libertarian instead of conservative is animated by the exact same “purity test” that you find so silly.
I would like to throw out there that the ACLU is a libertarian organization that would likely line up with the majority of the beliefs of Lemmy users. With that said I understand most people aren't using libertarian in its 'correct' meaning as the ACLU does.
Yea I tend to think than when someone identifies as a Libertarian they almost certainly don’t mean a civil libertarian, which is how the aclu actually identifies themselves.
This is literally the only time the word libertarian appears in their own history https://www.aclu.org/about/aclu-history
I only know because I interned there and it's something they talked about. Maybe it was always preceded with 'civil' I just don't remember that as well. The big issue amongst the workers when I was there was that in principle they supported Citizens United, and most of the employees did not support it in practice.
Just adding my experience to the topic, not sure why I got down voted for it. I'm not trying to push anyone to be libertarian just pointing out other ways the definition can be used.
You were downvoted because you dared to question the group think. Bad terrible actions irredeemable actions. How could you dare to bring your face here again?. Shame unending unyielding shame. Feel it understand it. You deserve it. /S
Authoritarians are often exceedingly fragile.
Neat, I appreciate your insight. Upvote from me and today I learned.
You realize that libertarianism is not a left right spectrum of the political orientation, correct?
For example Stalin was an authoritarian based in leftist ideology. Hitler is an authoritarian based in right-wing ideology.
Notice that while their economic goals are at complete odds with one another, they are both authoritarians.
You realize that libertarianism is not a left right spectrum of the political orientation, correct?
For example Stalin was an authoritarian based in leftist ideology. Hitler was an authoritarian based in right-wing ideology.
Notice that while their economic goals are at complete odds with one another, they are both authoritarians.
I'm libertarian because I believe in freedom of choice. I'm not a conservative because the only things I care about conserving are the oceans and the forests.
I hope that in the future we can stop using the worst monsters and strawmen from our peers chosen political affiliation to color our view of those peers.
You can't be both a libertarian and pretend to care about parks and forests. Pick one.
That's not true. I'm pretty sure most people don't 100% agree with The strictest definition of their chosen label.
I'm not entirely sure about what are the reasoning behind your comment, but i see it as : llibertarian implies no state + parks and forest require state = incompatibility. I'd disagree on the parks and forest require state, i thinl they only need organization, meaning one or more NGO could handle it. Accepting this, not that much incompatibility between libertarian and forest remains (accepting libertarian as left wing meaning that does not imply private property)
It wouldn't kill you to read
But based on your username, that may not be in your skill set
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism
You’re about one “and I think healthcare is a human right” from being a progressive/dem soc.
I like the Democratic socialists. I don't like it when they seize power that will be upsurped by the next administration in powerand used to oppress people.
You're thinking of the political compass there, which has two axes, one being the economic one (left/right) and the other being the Authoritarian (top) vs Libertarian (bottom) axis.
But the left/right most people use is a one-dimensional system which puts everything on that one axis. It's based on how the French parliament used to be set up between the radical left and the aristocratic right.
The point being, the two left/right axes aren't equivalent. I personally also think in the political compass, that's the system we learnt in school, so I'm unclear on what falls where on the basic left/right axis. But Wikipedia has this to say:
you forgot to switch alts to argue with yourself
You seem very confused I edited a comment and it posted to itself. It's the same fucking comment should I have deleted the tree and collapsed the thread?
It isn't a purity test, it's a necessary accommodation of the fact that people in the US (and I say this as an American) think that the left ends at progressive liberalism, while everyone else in the world sees progressive liberalism as center-left at best because they acknowledge that 'the left' extends quite far past the bounds of Liberalism (the philosophy, not the political leaning), because Liberalism is about individualism and property rights but most people to the left of that are collectivist in some way shape or form.
Libertarian as the USA mean or the rest of the world mean?
As in the traditional meaning of the word
Thanks. I look forward to learning about libertarianism with and from you. Not saying I'll agree, but that I look forward to learning more.
Personally myself, I'm a bit of a geoist and a bit of a minarchist. I would advise that if you are interested you should start reading, John Lock and David Henry Thoreaus essays on governent and from there branch out.
Don't be ridiculous. I'm not a new people. I've been a people for almost my whole life. I bet most of us have.
Not me, I've only been a person for the past couple years. Prior to that I was a caffeine-powered AI.
Just say yes
Most people everywhere are slightly left of centre*. Most leaders everywhere are slightly right of centre*.
*Not in the American sense. Y'all crazy.
Not only that, I’ve tried pitching the fediverse to right wing people, but they didn’t bite.
Even the crypto bros that were all about decentralization couldn’t see why a decentralized social media platform was superior.
This also didn’t matter for people who care about “free speech”.
You think the allure of being fully independent and having your own instance would be right up their alley given how they value independence, but nope.
Seriously? Why isn’t there a right wing instance? My guess is that a right wing person can’t fathom owning something that benefits others which doesn’t give them back profit.
Because it's not about freedom of speech for them, it's about freedom to force people to listen. Having their own server where they can shout at each other all day doesn't serve their purpose. Their panties get wet by forcing others to listen.
i think there were one or two right wing instances, but they got defederated from everyone
Do they still exist? I’m honestly curious if they are active or if it’s abandoned
The only one I know of shut down and the admin posted this message:
So they shutdown because they couldn't federate with any other instances and considered that censorship. A few people in that thread linked to another instance I've never heard of as an alternative and that one 404s if you type in the address so I guess they're all still on reddit and twitter.
Damn, I actually didn’t see that coming, I guess they will move the goal post from any starting point.
I'm going to play devil's advocate and ask: How is it not censorship?
Cause no one is stopping you from going to said instance and just having the discussion there.
If there was this super important leak that needed to be out there, if it’s posted on a right wing instance that is a defederated ghost town, it’s still out there. People can link to it and leverage the instance to have the needed discussions.
Censorship means removing access, defederation does not wipe it off of the Internet.
I would argue that censorship includes the suppression of information in its definition, not only it's removal.
Which were they? As in what was their domain name?
one of them was called exploding-heads.com.
Because all other instances would assume that it’s for Nazis and defederate.
Because "crypto bros" care about making money, not any ideology, except in a performative sense. If you pitched the fediverse to the original researchers inventing cryptocurrency and the early adopters, they would likely be receptive. But these are no longer associated with the current crypto crowd.
They don't care about making money, they care about gambling and having a gambling addiction and trying to justify it
Trump's tremendous social media platform truth dot barf runs on Activity Pub, they just don't federate with anyone by default. It's like they don't want dissenting views on there. Weird.
Like everything on the right, decentralization is a means to an end, not a value in itself. They only care about it when it's useful for helping them get ahead. Just like they only care about free speech when it's them speaking to people who don't want to hear their bullshit.
"free speech", as your quotation marks imply, does not really exist outside of theory. In reality, free speech is a set of laws governing hate speech or other dangerous speech.
Both the right and the left have ideas of what they think these laws should be.
But there is no such thing as "free speech" in the real world.
Maybe they would like nostr more
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostr
there are 3 major right-wing instances: lemmy.ml(ran by the Lemmy developers), lemmygrad.ml(the openly fascist version of lemmy.ml) and hexbear.net.
if anyone wants to argue, I don't. Anyone supporting Russia is right-wing. Authoritarianism is inherently conservative, reactionary and therefore right-wing.
Sorry, but no
There's a reason the step up from just left/right axis is the up/down of libertarian v authoritarian. Auth-left is very much a thing and is what tankies are
Some of us are simply europeans.
A right wing European is still a little bit too liberal for MAGA
A right wing European is also a little too right wing for Lemmy.
I believe all life have value, no matter what.
I believe in justice and equality.
I believe in the rule if law.
I believe in democracy.
I believe in the freedom of speech.
I believe in religious freedom.
I believe no one should go hungry.
I believe no one should freeze.
I believe no one should die from preventable diseases.
I believe everyone has a right to education.
I believe everyone has a right to healthcare.
I believe everyone has a right to participate in society and the internet.
I believe everyone should contribute if they can, because that is fair.
I believe people should be able to retire.
I believe most people are good, and want to do good.
I believe in cooperation, and working towards a common goal.
I believe that all people should have a minimum set of rights, that are non-negotiable.
I trust my neighbours, my family and strangers.
Based on these values I could be placed anywhere from center-right to far-left in Europe.
In the US I am a filthy commie
I am also vegan.
I am unfortunately not. It was more meant as a way to say that for instance criminals (yes, even the worst ones) have value. That they deserve to live and have a decent life, no matter what.
That immigrants and asylum seekers should be treated with respect and given the help they need.
But also that animals have value. The way a lot of animals are treated is in no way acceptable.
I have tried being a vegetarian in the past, but have failed every time.
Sorry to disappoint. I wish I was better.
The ole' carnist blind spot. It is extremely fatiguing to hold contradictory beliefs as you do, and to have to constantly edit your thoughts to protect yourself from the profound psychological effects of such contradictions. Having inconsistent beliefs means never being able to act according to your beliefs, never being genuine, never having integrity. It sucks to live like that and you'll never know just how much it sucks until you stop. You think it's harder to have integrity. It's actually so much easier.
Its one of many contradictory ways I live my life. I am well aware of many of them, and change them gradually to align myself more with my beliefs. I find that I manage OK, but sometimes wish I was better.
I'll probably become ovo lacto flexitarian in the future. That was what I managed to be for the longest. And it has 80% of the same effect or more. The rule was that I never bought meat or made food with meat. When I was served meat at family or friends, I would just eat it then. It reduced all the social friction, and made it so much easier. I lasted for a year or two.
Pure vegan is unrealistic short term for me. Maybe I'll try in the future, or flexitarian vegan instead of ovo lacto flexitarian. Not sure.
If you consider Democrats left wing then yes, by far the most here are left wing, since by most European standards Democrats are clearly right wing.
Republicans are extreme right by most standards. Republican (MAGA) is basically an American version of AfD!
So by that standard I guess about 80% here are left wing, maybe even more?
See, this is why so many right-wingers are seen as simply not intelligent enough to understand basic science. Numerous studies have shown that the left-wing is on average, plumper, juicier, and more tender.
I bet you probably also believe those wing pieces with two bones are better than the big one-bone wings that look like little chicken legs, too. Typical right-winger, your brain has been melted by right-wing propaganda.
Sorry, but reality has a left-wing bias. Educate yourself, and do better.
I'm as left-wing as they come but to imply that drummies are somehow superior to flats is wrong-headed and shows your own biases. I'll concede that the little chicken legs are easier (and more fun) to eat, but the quality of the delicate meat between the two little wing bones in the flats ones makes them more of a delight to me.
Do Twix have wings?
I promote right-wing policies: you should always use the right wings for your airplane, using whatever wings you happen to have left in stock is a recipe for disaster. Left-wing policies are dangerous.
Do you work at Boeing? 😜
My priorities in politics is:
In my country that makes me right leaning. In the US with the current president that apparently makes me a leftist.
You communist!
Oh dear, here come the tankies!
Well we know where you stand without doubt
Spoken like a true liberal.
Maybe. But your impression of it may be skewed, because there are a lot of non-USA people here. That creste some mismatch in terms that tend to overwaight the perceived size of left-leaning people. But it's terminology, really. What in USA is considered "left" more-or-less align with what is considered left outside of USA. But what an average Trump supporter call "conservative", in the rest of the word is simply know as lunacy.
What is considered left in the USA is largely considered center or center right outside of the USA
Well, it's a big and heterogeneous "outside" if we want to be nitpicky about it.
Anti-Conservative
Thanks, Frank! Very eloquently put!
if by left-wing you mean i think more than 3 months ahead, then yes.
I hope so
Yes. Signing up is not easy. Most people here can understand written instructions and have some basic technical knowledge. People who are not stupid tend to lean left.
Is the sky blue?
By which country's standards?
I like to consider myself leftist. But it's true that I don't agree in all that most current left wing political parties stand for.
I think all human are born equal, and should have a good life. That politics should be used to improve everyone's life.
But in the what does this mean or how to do it I feel more and more differences lately.
To give an example, I cannot really stand identity politics. I think that the best course of action is to dissolve identitarian (is that word real?) groups instead of exacerbating their differences. I feel like people should be getting rid of labels instead of having more and more labels every day.
That's just a personal opinion, based on the idea that if you define different groups the chance of conflict between groups is bigger than if you define only one group. And I do get the idea behind identity politics within the left wing spectrum. I just don't agree that's the best course of action.
Minority groups didn't make up identity politics, majority groups did, when they engaged in oppression of minorities.
Queer people don't have that much in common. Straight people forced us to band together for our rights.
Gay people don't have much in common with trans people, but straight people can't tell us apart/treat us the same so we band together.
Disabled people, people of color, it's similar stories.
I don't see it that way. Speaking as non conforming gender bisexual.
I think I can properly defend my rights without making groups that exclude others from it.
Again, just my opinion, and something that I do not agree not in the final goal (everyone being happy and free) but in the how to achieve it.
Also as an European I think identity politics (in this context) were mostly born in USA and imported here later. But we had achieved way more liberties before identity politics than after. We were one of the first countries in the world that legalized gay marriage for instance, and we didn't need the kind of identity politics that exist today to achieve it. And since identity politics took over I feel like we haven't be able to achieve much more, because we take a conflicting approach that meets much more resistance from excluded identities than the previous approach.
At least that's my humble opinion and perception of reality.
That sounds like you are agreeing with my premise.
When rights were being extended to (sexual) minorities identity politics was not needed. Did progress slow down because of identity politics or did identity politics form because expansion of rights slowed down?
I don't know your country, and I certainly know less about it's politics than I do about my own in the US.
I do think progress slow down because identity politics indeed. And progress became more fragile, being easily erased by all the people who got pissed off by identity politics.
Each year I see less and less people willing to support minority issues because identity politics let them out. Without that supposed the minority, by definition, is left in a minority position. And the only way it can change things is from a minority rule, which is not the best as it pisses off a lot of people this way.
The thing about identity politics is that it's useful for majorities. I don't see the point in using identity politics for minorities, by definition they are doomed to lose. Wider interclass politics are needed for minorities to get rights in a sustainable way.
I do think that identity politics got dominant not because of their usefulness to minorities. But because their usefulness to a few politicians (politicians as a wider term not only elected officials), which allowed them to gain short term power and privileged using them. But they doesn't seem to do much to help the minorities. Isolating them from wider support to get a short lived iron claw over them feels not right to me.
I might be wrong here. Once again, this is just my particular perception, and I do not have strong evidences for this claims, just feelings and personal experiences.
"wider inter-class politics" we call that intersectionality. I support the interests of POC and the disabled and the neurodivergent and the working class because it's the right thing to do and I hope they will do the same for me. Solidarity.
You have more faith in majorities to do the right thing than I do. My country was founded on genocide and slavery. Some European countries were too but maybe farther back in history.
But you are not part of their movement, at most are a supporter. You get excluded from being part of it if you try. You need labels to be included. No labels no representation. That's why we see people collecting more and more labels each day, because without a label you are nothing in the movement.
And you may support, but you are not part of the decision making, you are not considered when decisions are being made. Solidarity is expected from you, but you should not expect nothing in return.
This may suffice for you. You may need nothing for your selfless support. But most people are not like that. More people when they feel that kind of exclusion just move out ot the movement and do their own thing. Because everyone wants their voice to be heard. This explain a lot on what has happened with politics in the later years. Thus why I advocate for the end of identity politics, and return to class politics, include everyone as equals, without some being "more equals than others" if you catch my drift.
Majorities might or might not make better or worse decisions that minorities. But democracy is the best system we know for a reason, and without including everyone, truly including them, minorities could not rule for long, and then other minority would take place and undo all that the previous minority did (as shown by recent events).
I also have a hard time with ID politics and the like, but I'm also a privileged white dude so my primary gripe will always be focused around economic disparity. The BLM protests helped me see it this way: There is not war but the class war, but there are multiple fronts. If we don't at least try a little to protect minority groups, we won't have any progressives left
While I don’t understand gender politics, alternate pronouns and labels, I long since realized that it doesn’t matter. I’m all for everyone living their lives their way with equal respect. You do you, and be the best you you can, whatever you that may be, and I’ll be happy to call you friend
I'm Independent, but cannot support Republicans anymore ... so I guess I'm a Democrat that hates gun control.
if you go far enough left, you get your guns back. :)
I'm a Marxist-Leninist, so yes. I think you'll find most people on Lemmy in general fall into the major categories of "Liberal," as in the US Democrat style, Anarchists, and Marxists. Different instances lean in different directions on this, with overall few outright conservatives.
I'm left handed. I don't have wings.
Lefty Lemmy righty reddit
Ehhh. Eh?
Lefty Lemmy. Liberal Reddit.
Seems more the take. Reddit has a small vocal conservative minority.
Slashers slashdot
I'm a left libertarian. I embrace decentralization, collectivism, freedom from corporate and central government tyranny, and want to maximize individual liberty and progressive values as we ideally move towards a society like the Culture series by Ian M. Banks.
I'm not Anarchist because it's too chaotic and unrealistic, and I'm not ML because I don't like State authoritarianism and central planning.
Can you give some examples of how that works? Like, who pays for roads, who handles environmental regulations (or are there any), who establishes education standards (or are there any), etc. I'm not trying to argue, it just seems like on the internet people referring to "state authoritarianism" and "central government tyranny" ranges from "adults can't be transgender" to "I have to pay taxes and the government won't let me own slaves."
There's a few ways to handle, but for example:
Roads: large towns and cities would mostly handle their own road maintenance. Roads connecting towns would probably be joint ventures. Projects would be funded and contracted by the towns and financed by town income tax. Rural areas would be underfunded, but that's partly intentional - dense population centers are more sustainable.
Environmental regulations: handled at the level of impact. for example, water quality standards for a river bind everyone who accesses the river. restrictions (e.g. standards for heavy metal levels) would be passed by minority vote - if 40% want a standard, that's enough. carbon credits would be administered at the Federal or World levels, by a combination of central government and treaties.
Education: probably pretty devolved, mostly a choice by municipalities in what they offer/teach. there'd likely be standardized tests that most places agree on for transferability (e.g. how the SAT works today.) religious schools could exist in religious communities, or you could have a Montessori program in your secular socialist Kibbutz.
Slavery: illegal at the Federal/World level. same with indentured servitude and coercive contracts. one of the most important functions of the central government is to protect the civil liberties of individuals.
So the principles are mostly:
i like what you are saying, just a few modifications I would make:
-Water control and regulation should be based on watersheds. all organizations operating in a given watershed are beholden to the laws of that watersheds own regulator. this would allow for actual management of the resource and protection from exploitation.
-there would need to be a strong incentive to work together with other municipalities and not be antagonistic. I am unsure what that would look like, but when you reduce central power, smaller powers can attempt to oppress others more easily.
Thank you for this. It seems more in keeping with the original idea of the US, a federation of states.
It doesn't work.
I'd consider myself liberal, but I embrace some traits considered leftist in some areas (universal healthcare, free education) and right in others (restrict immigration based on key economic and educational indicators, deport criminals).
Right wingers have, or cause, trouble in open forums, so most social media that isn't operated as a walled garden, tends to be more left leaning.
Depends on what kinda right wingers your talking about Ik a few people who believe in more laissez-faire free market economic policies, and they're pretty chill
Most people are progressives.
The only disconnect is messaging and image.
Literally every state and community
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/majority-of-americans-support-progressive-policies-such-as-paid-maternity-leave-free-college.html
Electoral college, propaganda, tribalism, stupid people.
Man you really have to do some gymnastics to keep believing this dumb ass shit.
Do you advocate seizing the means of production and are a worker? If not, then you are not a leftist.
You can be "left wing" without being a "leftist". I wouldn't classify them as the same, personally. Left wing really includes anyone left of center
Sounds like a liberal to me. Centrists always think they are leftists because of the guilt of supporting capitalism. You support social programs. You do not support any form of removing capitalism. You are not a leftist, you are a centrist.
I suppose most people here are not alt-right at least.
That was mostly concentrated on exploding-heads.com, who after being defederated from by almost every major instance (except Lemm.ee that prides itself on maximum diversity of opinions) appears to have dissolved internally, presumably with everyone moving over to Truth Social.
Progressive who's been here for a bit. The fediverse has definitely swung more left-wing recently - when I first started up two years ago there was a fair amount of conservative bs, libertarian tech-bros and russian bots - it was about a 50/50 split depending on what instance you were on.
The bot problem seems to have been largely dealt with now, and conservative voices have been more or less drowned out by the new influx of users fleeing twitter and Reddit crackdowns. Many are agreeing that the current administration is bad for everyone. There are a number of hard auth-left moral purity testers that kind of a pain in the ass that pop up from time to time.
The actual left wing, the something socialists something are partly on hexbear.org and lemmygrad.ml. And they are called tankies and blocked on lemmy.world. So how left wing can most people here be? The thing is that "left" has become synonymous with (neo)liberal values. Like there doesn't have to be a free, independent press or social media and them being owned by capitalists is just fine.
Hexbear isn't socialist. It's a group of assholes defending China and Russia, denying the Uyghur genocide and the aggression of Ukraine
The problem is that over the last decade any nuanced opinions on those topics has become less and less "politically correct". And that is the correct term, anyone who isn't politically correct and in line with the liberal mainstream opinion (= imperialist propaganda by the US state department and think tanks) must by definition by a paid shills of Putin, China or Trump. There are those people of course, but the dynamic has become more and more polarized and steeped in conspiratorial thinking. And that is by "design". It's profitable and it serves the US imperial agenda and it's easier to avoids the frustration of talking to trolls and fascists - just paint everyone of a different opinion with the same brush.
I mean you can't even talk about talking about it, like not seeing those people as anything but "assholes". The range of allowable opinions has drastically narrowed. It's not even liberal in the modern sense of the word. People are too scared to be liberal any more.
...saying china is a democracy, or good, the kind of thing I hear these types saying is just as propagandized a take. That's the issue...
This comes a bit down to utilitarianism vs ethics based on principles. But that's a lie, it's really about who has power.
I'm just watching a video by Majority Report where he talks about the question "Why is democracy is good" which the Democrats sort of fucked up in the election. And he makes a pretty painful point that it's a "show me, don't tell me" question. If you live in a democracy and constantly exploited, overworked, fucked over, in terror of economic hardship or terror attacks, harassed by police, then what is the point? What is the benefit? I'm not making the point that democracy is bad, but that a shell of a democracy, a fake, is leading especially the "dirtbag left" to adopt a pretty hostile posture.
So what is the actual quality of life in China vs the USA? What are the actual material benefits looking at living in an apartment, working, raising children and living a peaceful life?
How do YOU know that life in China isn't actually better and people more happy than in the USA? I don't believe that is true but it's a valid question. Of course China has massive problems and corruption and abuses. But there are a billion people there that were on a medieval level after WWII. The CCP has massively invested in e.g. education and healthcare and infrastructure.
Or compare quality of life in China vs democratic India. Similar can be said about Iran, 55% of University graduates were women. But it's painted as black and white.
Sure you have freedom of speech with the means of communication owned and controlled by the oligarchs. And you can say whatever you want on reddit and get downvoted to hell - which goes to my previous point, that the propaganda is so internalized and polarized now that you don't need threats of state violence to keep the population in check.
So those opinions are not just for fun. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer is an aphorism that is leading the west inevitably towards fascism. So all the "posturing" about how superior our principles and freedums are is just... well it's a delusion. It's happening right now. They are stealing your future right now and there is nothing you can do because they control the media.
But still the socialists are completely rejected and banned from the largest lemmy instances.
No, it doesn't. Either one, democracy is still better... Science does best with freedom from suppression.
You are, in fact, making that point
Social suppression is a world apart from state suppression, and downvotes on reddit are not an example of keeping people in check. that's a terminally online viewpoint.
They are literally a dictatorship. That's an incredible understatement.
They are actively commiting genocide.
There's plenty of options for uncontrolled communication. Corp suppression is still wholly different from gov suppression;they can't toss you in jail.
That's your opinion, and does not reflect reality.
Your response to a trend toward fascism(which is happening, but not inevitable), is to say we should embrace it like china does?
Are you intentionally being obtuse about the fact that china has massive censorship. I'm not here to say the usa is good. You're ignoring European reality, favoring the usa in your arguments because it's closer to supporting them.
We objectively speaking have more freedom of speech than china does at the present moment.
Tankies. Not socialists. Socialists are often speaking and getting upvoted.
U.S. science no longer leads the world. Here’s how top advisers say the nation should respond
I'm just hungry dude
When asked, I usually tell people that I vote Dem because it's as close to my anarchist ideals as I can get. I would consider myself a social-anarchist, in that I feel laws shouldn't be written around societal structures and ideals. Society and culture changes, and I shouldn't be punished because some dude generations ago decided that something was inappropriate back then. It isn't now, and shouldn't be codified that way,
I'm all for the better man (or woman, or whatever). If we see eye to eye on all the important stuff then I'll vote for you if I'm legally allowed. I don't care about your affiliations as much as your history and your record as a public servant. Hence, why I always vote Dem because there's absolutely NOTHING but pussy ass nazi bitches in the GOP.
I think most people feel this way, right? Like you are left-leaning if you like the policies in left-wing platforms put forth by left-wing parties, so you vote for the left-wing candidates who advocate for them. Likewise, candidates are left-wing because they are members of such parties and advocate for such policies. So saying 'I only vote for people on the basis of their policies and voting record' is like saying 'I only drink water when it's wet'—technically true, but it misses the point that you chose it because it was wet.
Yes, this site is very left-leaning. I have seem plenty of moderate opinions downvoted because they are centrist or centre-right, and the anti-Trump, anti-Elon and anti-USA sentiment is deservedly heavy right now.
Keep that in mind when reading comments, this place is a bit of an echo chamber at the moment.
I don’t adopt views wholesale - I evaluate each issue on an individual basis, so my views tend to be a mixed bag. From a political standpoint, most people would probably see me as an unreliable ally as my views can be hard to predict. While I agree with many, if not most, “left-wing” ideas, there are still plenty of others that would get me labeled as a Nazi MAGA Republican.
That said, on Lemmy I’m definitely in the minority when it comes to holding certain beliefs that many would label “right-wing,” even though on other issues I can out–left-wing even most leftists.
For sure, left wing are most of what I see here, except for trolls and bots
If I needed a label, probably Progressive. I liked Biden’s platform and agreed we needed to try a centrist like him to see if it was possible to start working together again. I also believed he did at least as well as anyone could, and if his legacy hadn’t been torn to bits by turnip would have positioned the US well for decades to come. He could have shifted that Overton window, sowed the seeds that a more Progressive candidate could reap.
But if I try to articulate a common theme for my current beliefs, it is to invest in the future. I’m a strong believer in a good education for all as the foundation of our future. I’m inspired by the possibilities of science and technology. We need people to have the opportunity to strive, improve, and to dare, knowing we will catch them if they fall
Earlier in life I thought I was much more Conservative but the twisted thing is I now say the same things from a very different perspective.
I've been on Lemmy for about two months and there is a good amount of left-leaning folks here. I definitely consider myself in the left-wing category. I hover somewhere between a bit liberal, a bit socialist, and a bit of a commie, but absolutely no authoritarianism.
Funny you had to put a disclaimer for authoritarianism. The world's history and propaganda have made it synonymous with the far left, where that ideology was never about absolute power, but quite the opposite.
The mainstream conservatives (i.e. those within the Overton window of what’s acceptable in mainstream society, or not open Nazis/KKK) have the big corporate networks. Those Nazis who are too Nazi for Elon Musk have their own instances which everybody else fediblocks from orbit just to be sure, where they can run around, sieg-heil and shout racial slurs all day to their hearts’ content. Which leaves those to the left of the centre-right, who are divided between the tankie-triad instances (full of people who think that Stalin did nothing wrong and Putin’s OK too) and the rest (which ranges from liberals to ancoms).
Last time I took the political compass test, I was center-right, firmly in the libertarian quadrant, exactly in the sub-section labeled "libertarian".
That means my political stances align 100% against the Republican party and authoritarianism in general.
I am extremely left-wing, so probably skew the average all by myself. :P
Is there a difference? Chicken is chicken. But I do like flats more than drums.
I'll take your drums, you can have my flats.
People that cry they are being silenced will say yes.
I simultaneously miss and don’t miss reading posts by Trump Supporters on Reddit.
It’s nice to read comments from the other side, even if those comments are batshit insane.
"Come to Lemmy, we have batshit insanity from more than just the two sides" 🤪
Although on Lemmy.world, you won't see two of the Big Three instances that spread the majority of authoritarian propaganda present on Lemmy, because lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net have been defederated.
The conservatives likewise were defederated from, and apparently fell apart internally, presumably moving over to Truth Social.
If you or anyone else truly wants to read every POV though, then you can check out Lemm.ee that aims to defederate from as few instances as possible.
Cheers!
I do get morbidly curious about politics and will probably check it out.
Even so I'll add a warning that Hexbear.net is a troll instance. They don't so much truly believe in anything so much as spoil for a fight, which is fine except consent does not matter to them and they refuse to restrain themselves outside of their instance that was created for that purpose. Also they have been caught actually lying to instance admins. Even so they can be fun to talk with, so long as you aren't taken by surprise e.g. mistaking it for people being serious:-).
Yes.
Yes. They are fanatics too. Like Twitter but instead of wanting to kill people for profit, IRS wanting to kill people for not being left.
Come on, that's not true. We just want to "re-educate" you guys
It does seem that way from what I’ve seen. What am I? I’m the guy whose got it figured out. Always vote for the worst candidate. Its reverse psychology and works like a charm
Could you please define exactly what you mean by "left-wing"?
worldwide, I would put most people on the right side of the American left/right. there are a lot of people in south asia for example. china and russia are conservative as fuck also. without looking at a wikipedia table I think that's probably most people already.
Western Europe is pretty leftish I guess, but it's not a lot of people
The American "left" is on the far-right of almost every other country in the world. Not right, not even center. You need recalibrating
you are thinking of the western countries, not the world. most of the worlds population is not in the west. most are living in highly conservative societies where the social progression led by the western world is decades behind.
There are a lot of countries where being gay results in prison or death
In my country (one where its technically illegal to insult people based on their sexual orientation), a candidate that wants to make civil unions legal for same-sex couples is considered left-wing because of that
Yes, seemingly every commenter
there's a few thousand commies too
Yeah right wing opinions will just get you banned on most instances
Apart from the Tankie Triad, i'd doubt right wing opinions would get you banned (i'm not against believe it if i saw some examples though).
Hate speech and promotion of oppressions that right wingers tend to consider as simple 'opinions' might though.
Maybe in certain communities? Some power tripping mods do exist. Likely they could be reported to the instance admins and possibly removed for such a scenario. It's happened before in some extremely high profile cases.
Downvoting the admin of Midwest.social would get you banned though.
Fortunately there are communities such as ![email protected] that help spread knowledge of such information across the Threadiverse.
The rules are usually really quite simple. Don't be a dick and don't spread hate. If "right wing opinions" can't stay out of those simple rules, they're not right wing opinions, they're bigots and that has never and will never be okay.
Listen, there are assholes everywhere, and even mild centrists can be dicks and break the rules. We can speak about tendencies and generalizations if you like, but there are plenty of people who aren't bigots who are giant flaming assholes on social media.
I align more to the right, but in Turkey political leaning doesn't really matter, the thing that matters is whether you're siding with Erdogan or not. Like, Imamoglu is a president candidate supported by the left leaning party CHP, but I would absolutely vote for him against our current dictator.
CHP are Kemalists. idk how anyone worshipping that genocider could be called left-leaning (maybe if you're an ethno-nationalist?). I'd say the real left wing in Turkey would be the Kurdish people fighting for autonomy, the feminists and queers fighting the cops in the streets and the union movements.
Mustafa Kemal has absolutely nothing to do with any genocide when the whole thing occured under Ottoman Empire (specifically, under Enver Pasha's command), CHP is one of the parties that rallied the protests against Erdogan, and want better laws for all sorts of people like lgbtq, immigrants and kurds.
I personally disagree with giving more rights to immigrants and don't like the idea of negotiations with terrorist organizations to divide the country, but am in favor of improving any citizen's life overall regardless of their sex, religion or ethnicity.
I'd suggest you open a history book not written by Turkish nationalists for once. I found this NPR episode on his involvement in the Armenian and Kurdish genocides enlightening: https://www.npr.org/2023/10/26/1198908163/the-three-faces-of-ataturk
if you disagree with immigrants having human rights, that's just fascism my friend.
also you calling Kurds terrorists says a lot about how you're actually just a genocide denier cosplaying as "just an average person without a political position"
I'm not calling Kurds terrorists. I'm calling seperatist groups like PKK terrorists. Any Kurd citizen living in Turkey is more than welcome to voice their opinions, which they do via own political party (which holds third to fourth place in most polls conducted recently.), I believe they're trying to negotiate a peace deal without dividing the country. There are certainly things I disagree with their methods, but peace will be better than war overall.
I am not against immigrants themselves having basic rights, but I don't see the point in giving them extra benefits, life is sink or swim anywhere. Why does my taxes fund immigrants who have made 9 kids they know they cant afford to get extra funding from the government? Why people who cannot read Turkish at all are appointed citizenship to vote to see who governs my country? Fuck that.
Yes
Need to count the number of "fascists" per posts to get an accurate determination
I'm Canadian. I support social programs and humanist programs. I support regulation of business so they don't abuse their positions of power over people and to curb their habit of doing bad things in the name of more profit. I'm for taxing those with hordes of cash and giving the struggling worker a break. I support people to have the freedom to be who they want to be (gay, straight, trans, etc) as long as they aren't hurting other people (IE pedos don't get to harm children because they "were born that way" or god said it was cool). I support protecting the land, water and animals. I think Trump is a cunt.
I'm probably pretty left-wing.
Why even lump pedos in the same sentence with the gays
This is an age-old hurtful stereotype. I'm hoping you don't believe there's any connection, because I have heard that before from bigots in my life and it just makes me see red. Same as the whole "homophobes are just closeted gays let's point that out as if it's a sickness".
I'm just tryin to exist, not be considered "harmful" to anyone
That's the new MAGA argument. I was getting in front of it.
They're basically arguing if gay and trans people are born that way, and that's fine, then pedos are born that way so why isn't that fine?
It's a stupid argument because gay and trans people by default exist without victims.
In my opinion there is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay, bi, trans, asexual, etc.
It's not a new argument. This goes back decades, with actual laws being passed linking homosexuality to pedophilia and making it a crime and/or classified as a mental disorder to be gay.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13218719.2023.2280519
It's just a sore subject is all.
I think it's generally useful to abandon the notions of the Political Compass. Rather than relying on online tests, ask yourself if you think public ownership should be the principle aspect of the economy, or private ownership, and that will tell you if you're more left-wing or right-wing.
Yep, it's all vibes-based and merely attempts to approximate ideologies while obscuring their real mechanisms. It adds confusion more than it clarifies.
I don't consider myself left leaning. Both left and right are corrupt and neither actually practice what they preach. The left is the US is currently the lesser of two evils though. I do consider myself a socialist-libertarian. I think government should be there to keep the populace safe, and provide basic human necessities to all, and no more. The govt should not be able to execute capital punishment nor declare war. Retalitory strikes, defense and supporting allies defending themselves are all fine, but we could get rid of most of the military and funnel that money back to socialist programs and be a MUCH wealthier and happier country.
The only reason the left is the lesser of the 2 evils right now is because they aren't in power.
"I'm 15 and this is deep"
Lol