The US uses lib to mean socially liberal, in opposition to the cons. The rest of the world uses it to mean fiscally liberal, as in support of not regulating capitalist markets, which is an anti worker position.
People often get pissy that a word can have more than one definition.
Meanwhile im an American and spending so much time online with Europeans and internet leftists has resulted in my wife having to remind me not to insult libs at social events because people will think I’m talking about the left not capitalists.
I’ve also converted to metric which annoys everyone at work but they respect my reasoning too much to stop me
On the point of metric, my partner is more used to Imperial measurements so I’ve just put up little hand drawn conversion charts around the house, mostly the kitchen.
On the point of lib bashing, that’s harder. You can really only have those more nuanced conversations with open-minded people in smaller groups (or just find your local socialists).
Progressive really isn’t the catch all that people think it is. The existence of progressive conservative movements and self professed progressive christian Democrats in the past should be enough to prove that. It’s a nice label to state the aspirations of your political ideology(and your results focused method) but not a way to describe your ideology.
One of America’s most historically popular progressive politician who used government power to bust trusts and fight for “a fair deal”, for example, was still an economic liberal, a conservative American exceptionalist and a warhawk.
And even more generally, Western liberal democracy which most flavors of anarchism and socialism view as a system that is neither based on securing liberty or particularly democratic.
The US uses lib to mean socially liberal, in opposition to the cons. The rest of the world uses it to mean fiscally liberal, as in support of not regulating capitalist markets, which is an anti worker position.
People often get pissy that a word can have more than one definition.
I didn’t even know the second definition existed at all. Ty for sharing.
Given the number of Americans on here it’s now starting to make sense why I keep seeing commenters get snagged on the word “liberal.”
Liberals are not progressive. At least not except incidentally. I think that’s true everywhere…?
Meanwhile im an American and spending so much time online with Europeans and internet leftists has resulted in my wife having to remind me not to insult libs at social events because people will think I’m talking about the left not capitalists.
I’ve also converted to metric which annoys everyone at work but they respect my reasoning too much to stop me
Be the change you want to see in the world.
On the point of metric, my partner is more used to Imperial measurements so I’ve just put up little hand drawn conversion charts around the house, mostly the kitchen.
On the point of lib bashing, that’s harder. You can really only have those more nuanced conversations with open-minded people in smaller groups (or just find your local socialists).
Progressive really isn’t the catch all that people think it is. The existence of progressive conservative movements and self professed progressive christian Democrats in the past should be enough to prove that. It’s a nice label to state the aspirations of your political ideology(and your results focused method) but not a way to describe your ideology.
One of America’s most historically popular progressive politician who used government power to bust trusts and fight for “a fair deal”, for example, was still an economic liberal, a conservative American exceptionalist and a warhawk.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
And even more generally, Western liberal democracy which most flavors of anarchism and socialism view as a system that is neither based on securing liberty or particularly democratic.
Thank you, that makes more sense.
If you don’t know what liberal means, sure.