The skepticism with which people nominally on the left treat the ideal of liberal democracy makes me positively murderous. Many of you desperately need a history lesson.
Replies
It's ballots or bullets. I know where I stand. But I would like to see the Democratic party that I align with be more aggressive about its defense and expansion of democracy. I think their failure to signal it's importance through action has contributed to the public malaise.
sep 3, 2025, 6:34 pm • 0 0 • view
Liberal Democracy is the moderate wing of Fascism
sep 3, 2025, 4:21 pm • 7 0 • view
Yeah, man. Thanks for popping in.
sep 3, 2025, 4:36 pm • 2 0 • view
hes right look at a fucking history book, Liberal democracy is stained with fascism. People are not saying, its actually fascism, but it the begs the question when liberalism is alwalys found in bed with it.
sep 3, 2025, 5:48 pm • 4 0 • view
You're confusing gentle mockery with an interest in debating this subject. Is it a specific difficulty understanding sarcasm or do you struggle with social cues in general?
sep 3, 2025, 8:17 pm • 0 0 • view
Translation: You don’t know anything about the subject but you wanted to dismiss my comment regardless. Now you want to play the “I’m just messing around” card. Yawn.
sep 3, 2025, 9:33 pm • 2 0 • view
I refer you back to my previous response. For more information, please reread.
sep 3, 2025, 10:03 pm • 0 0 • view
How pathetic and childish.
sep 3, 2025, 10:09 pm • 1 0 • view
I think you should demand to be taken seriously. It's the kind of left-field play that might break the logjam here.
sep 3, 2025, 10:38 pm • 0 0 • view
sep 3, 2025, 11:00 pm • 1 0 • view
You look tired, man. Sleep well. x
sep 3, 2025, 11:05 pm • 0 0 • view
This is not irl, there are no social cues in text based communication unless you know the person you’re communicating with. Are you a subtle asshole to everyone you speak with or just online?
sep 3, 2025, 9:32 pm • 1 0 • view
You just did it again, man. You should probably stop doing that.
sep 3, 2025, 10:00 pm • 0 0 • view
Your unbothered sarcasm is not a vibe bro.
sep 4, 2025, 2:02 am • 2 0 • view
Indeed. It's most productively understood as polite encouragement for you to fuck off. That's (sincerely) your key takeaway here.
sep 4, 2025, 7:25 pm • 0 0 • view
Imagine what liberals would say to John Brown today. "Have some decorum." "If you don't like slavery you should really use the proper channels." "Violence against state institutions is never justified"
sep 3, 2025, 7:06 pm • 3 0 • view
Pretty sure they did say those things.
sep 3, 2025, 7:28 pm • 0 0 • view
It seems that the trump admin is intent on giving us all a refresher course
sep 3, 2025, 4:45 pm • 0 0 • view
By all means please teach me a history lesson to rid me of this skepticism that has been fostered by a very leftist history teacher and a family that worked in government to include national security. I just watched a documentary on PBS about Nixon, but I could use another history lesson.
sep 3, 2025, 4:19 pm • 3 0 • view
I studied in Berlin with an East German history professor, and he described history before the Wall fell. The abuses of a left wing government without Democracy are not less than abuses under a capitalist Democracy, and similar to any capitalist authoritarian system.
sep 3, 2025, 4:39 pm • 5 0 • view
He didn’t think everything in a capitalist society was better, but his ultimate message about history was that Democracy, civil rights, and tolerance are the only valid means of governance. And a Democracy isn’t a maintenance free society, but it’s worth the effort.
sep 3, 2025, 4:39 pm • 6 0 • view
I do always say that every economic system have the same two things in common: they’re all designed to force you to participate and they’re all easily corrupted and the way I was taught was that both socialism and communism are more susceptible to corruption because the government owns the economy.
sep 3, 2025, 5:11 pm • 1 0 • view
Capitalism sets itself apart from the others because it demands infinite growth and that means it requires subjugation. It punishes failure and requires an impoverished class to work correctly. It leaves little to no safety nets that will help those who failed in the system.
sep 3, 2025, 5:11 pm • 2 0 • view
There is a difference between our governing system (democracy) and our economic system. They stand apart from each other (especially in capitalism). I think most of us leftists want capitalism & frankly all isms to end. We like democracy but it has been tainted by an oligarchy.
sep 3, 2025, 5:11 pm • 2 0 • view
Ultimately, that’s a significant reason why I do in fact believe in alternatives to free market capitalism, somewhere between social democracy and socialism. But without Democracy, there’s no economic model that leads to humanitarianism.
sep 3, 2025, 8:16 pm • 1 0 • view
I’d also argue that’s why billionaires don’t trust Democracy; they have a level of wealth that depends on ethical violations of some sort, and expanding Democracy for humanitarian ends would interrupt their greed.
sep 3, 2025, 8:16 pm • 1 0 • view
My biggest concern beyond the notion of fascism and techno feudalism is watching our planet being destroyed for the sake of maintaining a strong economy and feeding a consumer system. There should be a point in our society where we can perhaps take seriously the notion of free energy and automation.
sep 3, 2025, 8:43 pm • 0 0 • view
We should be advancing beyond the need for any economic system where we are forced to earn our living and purchase consumer goods. We should be advancing our robotics and our tech to enhance the human condition and preserve our planet. I think free energy is something that can be obtained.
sep 3, 2025, 8:43 pm • 0 0 • view
I think it's reasonable to expect people to know about things that happened before they were 18. Even things that have happened in other countries! bsky.app/profile/cart...
sep 3, 2025, 3:50 pm • 52 1 • view
I really don't get this whole "I wasn't around for X" shit some people love to fall back on. I wasn't around for Nixon or whatever, so what. Read a fucking book!
sep 3, 2025, 4:17 pm • 18 1 • view
How reasonable is that? I'm a 35yo millennial and there was a LOT of stuff I don't know until after I graduated, particularly stuff I assumed was older than it actually was. I remember what airport security was like in the '90s, but it's hard to explain it to someone who only remembers post-9/11.
sep 3, 2025, 4:05 pm • 0 0 • view
“We didn’t have to go through TSA. You could walk friends and family to the gate when dropping them off.” Pretty easily actually.
sep 3, 2025, 4:09 pm • 3 0 • view
Fair enough. Bad example. Another one is when I explain ICE is only 22 years old. Then you'd have to explain what border enforcement was like before ICE, and even I don't know that because I was nowhere near a border growing up and hadn't read up on it.
sep 3, 2025, 4:11 pm • 0 0 • view
I refer to them all as "Team Coffee Cow" bsky.app/profile/jdsb...
sep 3, 2025, 5:27 pm • 0 0 • view
Remember when we had to gently help some friends & family get off of AOL back in the day? Yeah well that was powdered sugar compared to modern social media In my case, FB+YT+__+__... has already 🥒pickled🥒 the brains of two elders in my family, irrevocably. Not sure we'll ever get them back
sep 3, 2025, 5:27 pm • 0 0 • view
100 percent they need history lessons, a leftist dictator would not fix everything. I struggle to imagine how we actually get from where we are now to a better future, with the court adopting Calvinball officially. I have sympathy for trying to imagine a path, even if it’s kinda dumb
sep 3, 2025, 4:02 pm • 1 0 • view
Reminds me of this positively ancient smackdown that for some reason lives eternal in my brain www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8iZ...
sep 3, 2025, 3:54 pm • 0 0 • view
Why can't they understand that this is what fuels 90% of the existing skepticism of DSA-type pols. When they commit to liberal democracy fully we can tell and we trust them! When they don't we do not
sep 3, 2025, 3:44 pm • 6 0 • view
Please describe specifically what is this 90%. Give us some facts and citations, thank you. Otherwise it appears your motivation is to drive a wedge through the party. Which only helps MAGA. Avoid that.
sep 3, 2025, 6:00 pm • 0 0 • view
We can and do distrust the centrist dems who do the same, it is not a factional thing
sep 3, 2025, 3:45 pm • 4 0 • view
Bernie having BJG as his press secretary in hindsight was such a fck up because she was a Glemwald type back then too
sep 3, 2025, 3:51 pm • 4 0 • view
Meh. Citizens United alone blows the ideal right out of the water. The left has no problem with democracy. The left's problem is the utter and predictable erosion of democracy by the forces of capitalism.
sep 3, 2025, 4:11 pm • 13 1 • view
Capitalism, neoliberalism, conservativism, and fascism all in collusion.
sep 3, 2025, 4:34 pm • 2 0 • view
But all alternatives to Democracy lead to the same outcomes that democratic erosion do. A revolution that doesn’t result in Democracy will result dictatorship or oligarchy if some sort, and the same systematic failings of civil rights will follow because people have no voice.
sep 3, 2025, 4:33 pm • 7 0 • view
The problem with democracy is that sometimes--many times--the people are simply *wrong*. You can't reasonably put things like, e.g., the efficacy of vaccines up to a vote. We've already seen how that's gone with climate change, and it's *super bad*.
sep 3, 2025, 7:30 pm • 0 0 • view
But who can be trusted as alternative to Democracy? Who gets excluded from decision making? What is the litmus test? It’s a universal fact that when a segment of society is not given a voice, they are not going to be given a dignified existence. That’s why prisoners aren’t allowed to vote in the US.
sep 3, 2025, 8:03 pm • 1 0 • view
I do agree absolutely that corporations and the pursuit of profits are a fundamental problem. I tend to think that independent agencies that can set regulations *tends* to be a better solution for complex problems than direct democracy. But then you can have courts dismantling then...
sep 4, 2025, 10:33 am • 0 0 • view
I broadly agree. I personally lean heavily towards anarchism (e.g., Bakunin), but I see real problems with making it work in a country of 1M+ ppl. I want systems that give individuals real liberty, without sacrificing e.g. the environment. I don't have the answers; it's very frustrating.
sep 4, 2025, 10:31 am • 1 0 • view
Personally, I do believe a form of social democracy or democratic socialism is ideal to protect Democracy, because it reduces the incentive to manipulate governance for personal rule. For example, it would have prevented Exxon from blocking climate research.
sep 3, 2025, 8:12 pm • 1 0 • view
But look at China, a place without Democracy and still creating enormous environmental damage (albeit, at a lower per capita rate than the US). It’s improving, but Beijing still has some of the worst air pollution in the world.
sep 3, 2025, 8:12 pm • 1 0 • view
The problem with the death of expertise in the US is not the result of Democracy, but of economic interests and both US and Russian interests spreading misinformation. Improving Democracy in the US would improve expertise, not destroy it.
sep 3, 2025, 8:12 pm • 1 0 • view
Let's talk internal contractions, liberal. You say you're for rule of law, human rights, and the environment. But you're also on board with neoliberal (capitalist) economics. And, let's face it, that's what your really care about. So your hypocrisy kicks in as soon as they come into conflict.
sep 3, 2025, 5:33 pm • 7 0 • view
America has a very unique definition of 'liberal'. Someone in the comments above put Regan and liberal in the same sentence, to Europeans that's laughable. Equally Americans idea of what 'the left' is also bizarre.
sep 3, 2025, 8:12 pm • 0 0 • view
Also, it would be the radical left of the time that would have supported John Brown. Liberals, being centrist and concerned with maintaining the social order with maybe mild and tepid reforms, would have been too busy telling abolitionists that they are going too far.
sep 3, 2025, 3:51 pm • 20 4 • view
They were, in fact, saying that John Brown was going too far. In truth, John Brown didn't go nearly far *enough* in his short time. Moderates were desperately trying to keep the US together, rather than abolishing slavery no matter the consequences.
sep 3, 2025, 6:59 pm • 3 0 • view
It's not the democracy part that the left is skeptical of. It is centrist liberalism's inability to reckon with the fact that political and economic power are inseparable. Centrists ALWAYS throw people under the bus when confronted with fascism or corporate donors.
sep 3, 2025, 3:48 pm • 32 2 • view
You're just throwing words around without knowing what they mean.
sep 3, 2025, 3:51 pm • 15 0 • view
What questions do you have? I'm happy to explain things.
sep 3, 2025, 3:52 pm • 1 0 • view
What do you think "liberal" means? Specifically, what do you think it means in 2025? If you're going to do that intellectually dishonest thing leftists do where they equivocate over the massive semantic shift that has happened over the last 250 years then you can just stop.
sep 3, 2025, 3:54 pm • 4 0 • view
Liberal = personal freedom… I.E: “fuck you I’ve got mine” and “I shouldn’t have to sacrifice any comfort: in fact I will sacrifice other people to maintain that comfort and call those others I sacrifice ‘extremist’ for desiring the same comfort I’ve found” Leftists and liberals are very different.
sep 3, 2025, 4:03 pm • 1 0 • view
OK, so you don't know what liberalism is then.
sep 3, 2025, 4:14 pm • 3 0 • view
What is your definition of “liberal”then? And how is it different from both “leftist” and “centrist”? Liberalism is the promotion of personal liberty, and free enterprise: which has resulted in a parasitic capitalistic system ironically antithetical to those goals.
sep 3, 2025, 5:04 pm • 3 0 • view
What is liberalism then hmm? Enlighten us?
sep 3, 2025, 5:43 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm so old I remember when people were embarrassed at their ignorance, rather than this preening celebration of lack of basic knowledge about the very topics they choose to discuss.
sep 3, 2025, 5:37 pm • 0 0 • view
Liberalism has always incorporated a belief that the "free market" is a part of political freedom. It maintains an emphasis on private property rights and market solutions. And that emphasis is a problem It is not "intellectually dishonest" to point out the varying ways the term has been used.
sep 3, 2025, 4:06 pm • 6 0 • view
OK, so you don't know what liberalism is then.
sep 3, 2025, 4:15 pm • 5 0 • view
Ah... You are only doing contarian nonsense and trying to waste people's time. Cool.
sep 3, 2025, 4:34 pm • 2 0 • view
No, he's saying you don't know what the definition of "liberalism" is in the context of this discussion. You CLEARLY have never looked that word up, don't know its history or importance to free society. You and every other graying leftist in this thread is showing their utter ignorance
sep 3, 2025, 4:39 pm • 2 0 • view
Lol he's making the OP's point. Just utter ignorance like this -- coming from an older guy, not a 25 year old -- is pretty embarrassing. We need mandatory civic education in schools. People don't know what liberal democracy is -- either one or both
sep 3, 2025, 4:18 pm • 4 0 • view
Y'all never fail to epitomize the concept. bsky.app/profile/kitt...
sep 3, 2025, 5:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Do you want us to split hairs between liberal and third way neoliberal?
sep 3, 2025, 4:33 pm • 3 0 • view
Yeah actually because the historical and contempary breadth of american liberalism far exceeds the clintonites.
sep 3, 2025, 4:46 pm • 3 0 • view
FDR was a liberal. LBJ was a liberal. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are liberals. AOC and Mamdani are liberals.
sep 3, 2025, 4:49 pm • 2 0 • view
I would argue that neoliberalism has contaminated that term so much that it is far more astute to refer to all of those people as Progressives
sep 3, 2025, 5:58 pm • 2 0 • view
Progressivism is liberal.
sep 3, 2025, 5:59 pm • 1 0 • view
"Very liberal", even.
sep 3, 2025, 6:01 pm • 1 0 • view
And the Gadsten "is a banner of the fight for democratic freedom".... Terminology can & does become too twisted to continue defending its origin. "Liberal" has become a fucking four letter word devoid of its origin due to these feckless pedantic BlueHOODED FASCISTS.
sep 3, 2025, 6:04 pm • 0 0 • view
This is fucking stupid contrarianism and nothing more
sep 3, 2025, 6:07 pm • 1 0 • view
You cant argue that the term 'liberal' has lost its meaning just because you are angry at democrats
sep 3, 2025, 6:14 pm • 1 0 • view
No, they aren't. Just because *you* don't know doesn't mean we don't.
sep 3, 2025, 4:47 pm • 13 0 • view
Nothing fuels the growth of fascism like division between factions of the left.
sep 3, 2025, 4:28 pm • 0 0 • view
Liberals aren't the Left. They're narcs.
sep 3, 2025, 5:34 pm • 9 1 • view
It's troubling that there are already replies saying, "We support democracy as long as it's under our specified conditions." I'm not big on horseshoe theory but people on both political extremes sure seem convinced the volk would demand their preferences if only the game weren't rigged against them.
sep 3, 2025, 4:23 pm • 5 0 • view
The key thing missing from liberal democracy, since Reagan, has been the "democracy". Sure, we've always had $ influence, but it was always forced to pay at least some lip service to the idea of a government of, by, & for the people. No more. It is government of, by, & for the plutocrats who own it.
sep 3, 2025, 5:11 pm • 8 0 • view
Sure, Liberal Democracy is cool & all, but it was supposed to be in a race, never to be won, between it and Radical Democratic theory. However, using myths & lies, it won. Now we pay homage to it, vs. commies, etc. It didn't have to be that way. But it is.
sep 3, 2025, 5:14 pm • 2 0 • view
Paraphrasing something I said before my suspension: "Liberal democracy is the premise that people like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin deserve legitimate pathways to political power. And that's why I don't support liberal democracy."
sep 3, 2025, 5:46 pm • 5 1 • view