• comfy@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      I’m not sure what I am any more.

      Political labels are pretty junk, especially after centuries of mass media and propaganda in the mix. I find it helps to learn to convey your values specifically if you want to avoid that whole mess.

      • The ‘left-right spectrum’ is subjective and relative which makes it pretty useless without having a ton of context. “Leftist”, by itself, is mostly a meaningless term. To socialists, a progressive liberal is usually considered center or even right wing. Some socialists even call other socialists right-wing. It’s just pointless.
      • What the US mass media calls ‘liberals’ is a progressive liberal in political science. What the US mass media calls a conservative is usually a conservative liberal aka right-liberal, that’s why they constantly prize liberty and freedom. The US libertarian is simply a classical liberal. They’re all liberals!

      Useful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k - “Why the political compass is wrong”, explaining how vague and ultimately ineffective the left-right auth-lib models of politics are.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        10 minutes ago

        I don’t like progressive used that way because historically progressivism was just about an ideology that was results driven and often independent of other labels. There were progressive conservatives like Teddy Roosevelt and the Nelson Rockefeller Republicans in America (though the progressive conservatives in Canada are anything but). They were fundamentally liberals though, essentially a watered down version of radlibs.

          • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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            7 minutes ago

            You just said leftists support some form of socialism. According to the Wikipedia page, a social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist and democratic approach toward achieving limited socialism.

            So social democrats have to be leftists then

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              23 seconds ago

              No, not really. First of all, Wikipedia is not some holy text. Many Social Democrats consider themselves open to working towards a collectivized economy, but the facts remain that

              1. Such a path has historically proven to be impossible

              2. Such a definition of Socialism used on that Wikipedia page generally equates it to “Socialism is when the government does stuff.”

    • glitchdx@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      If you’re looking for a label, I recommend not. Soon after you pick one, the definition for that label will change and no longer fit your ideology. This change might be due to your own understanding improving, or due to societal shifts, or both.

      Write out your ideology in long form. People tend to support good ideas when not attached to politically charged labels.

    • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      If you’re not conservative, you’re liberal.

      Kids are trying to pretend the term is more complicated than that.