The “liberals” I was referring to are more like other working class normies, not thought leaders.

If we are going to go forward with this, we will have to agree to draw a sharp distinction between members of the working class whose heads have been filled with liberal propaganda from birth - which, to a higher or lesser degree, essentially includes all of us who grew up in the liberal world - and true liberals who fetishize the “correctness” of their private domination over the means of production (and unspoken but de facto domination over the working class who makes all the production happen) because the key to their power and privilege is enshrined in the core tenet of liberalism itself (that’s tenet - singular - because they only really need one).

Now, you can call these liberal elites capitalists if you wish (and if you really want to creep a working class normie out, you can use the term “bourgeoisie”), but remember… separating the capitalist from his chosen ideology - which is liberalism, not capitalism - has done more to hinder the left than it has helped. In fact, it has allowed liberal media to essentially immunise the working class against anyone who even uses the term “capitalist” in their narratives.

You can test this for yourself. Ask most working class people what a “liberal” is, and most of them will get it half-right (very few will describe Donald Trump, for instance, as a liberal - though, to be fair, plenty of leftists fails to recognise that as well). Ask them what a “capitalist” is and… well, all bets are off. Most people I talk to thinks it’s somebody who works in finance.

That is how the left has missed the boat on liberalism - by separating the capitalist from liberal ideology, the left has disempowered itself and the wider working class from even recognising liberal political machinations to protect the liberal status quo for what they are.

It has made the left politically clumsy.

I’d say you are anti theory from your comments

Not really. I just think that leftists should perhaps double-check said theory before deciding that it’s the working class’ fault for not embracing them.

But i think there is advantages to being openly socialist,

Perhaps it’s because I’m an old… but I just don’t feel the need to wear a political “brand” as part of my identity. Besides… I have zero tolerance for purity testing.

you dont think reactionaries are wrong about liberals?

I think there is a deap-seated (and thoroughly justified) disaffection with liberal elites amongst the working class - and this disaffection is, with good reason, not just limited to those who can be strictly classified as capitalists. It is the liberal elite themselves which have harnassed this disaffection - at the end of the day, all reactionary politics is designed to protect the status quo.

The dilemma for the liberal elite is not complicated - manage the working class by tossing more crumbs from the table (so-called “progresive” liberals) or manage the working class through greater repression (whom I call fundamentalist liberals). The carrot or the stick. This is why you see the fundamentalist liberals roiling up those elements of the working class that have already been prepared and empowered to violently repress the wider working class for the protection of the status quo, and this is why you see progressive liberals constantly giving ground to the fundamentlist ones - the lies (ie, the carrot) is becoming less and less effective. The idea that Donald Trump is a fascist is a ludicrous one - the liberal does not do the dirty work of protecting their ill-gotten private property themselves and wouldn’t know how to do so if their lives depended on it. They outsource that to the hencherproletariat - actual fascism, which is always a working class phenomenon. There’s a good reason why you don’t see the rich sending their children off to become cops.

do you reject communism?

Yes. The concept is far too esoteric for my liking.

we

Sorry to hear about your multiple personality disorder, okay?

You don’t need to come in so hot.

Fine. I’ll quit with the “coming in hot.”

Okay?

You dont talk like any leftists I’ve ever met, so its really hard to determine where you are coming from.

That’s because my political label is working-class normie - not “socialist” or “anarchist” or whatever.

And for idealism and ideology, these are complicated concepts and I dont think we are on the same page as to their meaning.

Ideologies are not complicated things at all. At their core they all come down to a very simple thing - who it is that must be protected by power and who it is that must be exploited by it. Everything else is simply fluff that (at best) play a supportive role. Take the liberal fetishisation of “law & order,” for instance - despite this fetishisation it is absolutely not central to liberal ideology at all. It is merely a structural characteristic of liberal ideology -a necessary aspect to facilitate the necessary violence that keeps the working class where liberal elites (the people leftists insist on calling the “bourgeoisie” because… reasons) wants them to be.

This is what the quote up there refers to.

As for 1919 I have no clue what you are referring to.

The Spartacist uprising - you know, that whole thing.

The way you talk about liberals is not qualitatively different from how reactionaries describe liberals.

Yes - because that is how leftists should have been talking about liberalism right from the start.

I don’t know any main stream media leftist pundits,

Neither do I, so I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

Are these accurate assessments of your positions?

Wow… you got all that despite my (alleged) “obtuseness”?

The main problem with liberals is their idealism,

So it’s not the ideology they cling to that dictates that the private owners of the means of production must de facto form the elite classes of society that must be protected and enabled by power while those who do not must be exploited and repressed by it?

It’s just their (alleged) “idealism”?

but their hearts are leftist.

So you ascribe to the “liberals are just misguided leftists who haven’t read enough of my favorite Beardy McDeadguy’s holy texts” school of leftist magical thinking.

Do tell… how has that been working out for the left since 1919? You know, that year when liberals first overtly took hands with fascists and enabled them to crush a leftist uprising?

What is PhotoGimp?

Really? Then why did the left allow literal liberals to hijack and own liberal hatred?

Fundamentalist liberals (ie, the people who call themselves “conservatives” these days) and their working-class allies (ie, fascists) spewing hatred for liberalism is literally a trope - not so with leftists, who never misses the opportunity to alienate the working class by using the term “bourgeoisie” when the term liberal would suffice perfectly.

How many leftists do you know that, when given the opportunity to explain their politics, starts their narratives with liberalism - you know, the ideological justification for the private ownership over the means of production that the working class is already familiar with because fundamentalist liberals who calls themselves “conservatives” can’t stop whining about it - and work their way backwards to it’s (actually quite obvious) connections to capitalism and fascism?

Or do all the leftist pundits you know simply start regurgitating the same narratives leftist elites from a hundred years ago used - you know, those narratives that the modern working class has been thoroughly immunised against by decades of liberal media?

In the case of GIMP it’s an interface that makes any kind of sense. Have to admit that Inkscape is looking pretty damn good these days - even though it’s not really a replacement for Illustrator and is more a good replacement for progs like Freehand and Coreldraw.

Liberalism is a fundamentally oligarchic ideology.

It’s central tenet holds that those who privately own everything must be protected by the law but not bound by it, while those who do not must be bound by the law but not protected by it.

It’s truly sad that the left has completely missed the boat when it comes to liberalism.

one of the world’s leading age verification providers collects and shares highly sensitive personal data

There’s the point right there, liberal.

Yawn.

Not just lazy - boring, too.

In other news, turns out standing in the rain will make you wet!

No shit… liberalism - you know, that fundamentally oligarchic ideology that dictates an individual’s status in society purely through their level of private ownership over the economy - treats billionaire parasites like quasi-religious entities whose every utterance should be treated as gospel.

Are people only noticing this now?

Ooooh… did I upset you, tankie?

You know, I think I prefer the ole “wall-of-bolshie-gibberish” the old tankies used to compensate for their inadequacy - you lot are just downright lazy.

Is that what you’ve got, tankie?

The cringiest memes this side of MS Paint?

Hand the USSR over to fascists? You mean that thing Stalin almost managed to do through his own blazing psychopathy?

Oh, do tell… how many soviet citizens died needlessly at the hands of Nazi invaders due to Stalin’s raging incompetence?

you aren’t a real sadist if you haven’t read the 120 days of Sodom. /s

Trying to read that is what proved to me that I’m not really “open-minded” at all - and I’m perfectly fine with that.

Fr though, theory is great and more people should read it, but also we must burn our bookshelves to be free as it were.

That is perfectly fine… but there is a good reason why the working class rejects politics that is purely based on theory - it’s the reason why the status quo does not rely on political theory to shape it’s propaganda, but rather the lived experience of the working class.

Theory can enlighten you, but it can also constrain you - ask any leftist to ELI5 the relationship between liberal ideology, fascism, and the capitalist mode of production without resorting to “Marxist-speak” and you’ll see it for yourself. Very few can.

Oh really? They are doing all of this because they are (supposedly) “protecting kids?”

Why should I bother reading an article written by somebody who is so confidantly wrong straight off the bat?

I almost forgot that we’re not allowed to do or think anything without first running it past a Beardy McDeadguy that hasn’t been around for almost a hundred years.