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[TD1]

Hehe. Okay. In seriousness, could you explain why you think liberals are right wing? I've never heard anyone put that forward before. Maybe it's different in Sweden?

Liberal conjures images of SJW and students burning their bras.

Though, that being said, I am aware of an older and more dignified breed of liberal, albeit one whose voice has become thready and choked with little use.

[da_nang]

Liberal Party (capital L) is right-of-center, liberals (lower-case) is left-of-center.

Locally speaking, of course.

Though my info might be outdated.

[hector13]

The classical liberal is a conservative (the Liberal Party in Australia is the Conservative party) while filthy left-wing commie appears to be the more modern take on it.

[scriver]

Liberals are and will always remain firmly rightwing, and they have been so since the 19th century and industrialisation happened. There was a short, brief moment during the 18th century and the origin of the terms "left- and right wing" (from the French parliament seating) where liberals was left wing, but that was before the terms became what they are today. Today we have socialism on the left, and liberalism and conservatism on the right.

The classical liberal is a conservative (the Liberal Party in Australia is the Conservative party) while filthy left-wing commie appears to be the more modern take on it.

As socialism has been slowly subverted by liberals so have they taken our identifiers from us. This is part of why today you will have many people who see themselves as "leftists" endorse outright (lulz, pun) laissez faire politics such as open borders and free trade.

[Loud Whispers]

The semantics of decline don't matter too much, we're all going down the shitter together

[voliol]

It also has to do with how much easier it is for humans to imagine binaries, I think. In the socialism/liberalism/conservatism trifecta, all three ideologies have reasons for conflicting with each other. However, when any one of them loses traction (for whatever reason), it is haphazardly mashed together with one of the remaining ones. In the long run this leads to conflicting views of what the mashed together block is really about, especially as the forgotten part gets rejuvenated. In the US, this is about ”leftists” breaking out of ”liberalists”, with confused conservative onlookers. In Sweden it’s about a conservative upswing breaking apart the ”right”

Traditionally, Sweden has had a socialist (led by the Social Democrats(S)) block and a conservative/liberal block, with a focus on the (economically) liberal during the last decennia. However, as a new conservative party, the Sweden Democrats(SD) popped up, and S slowly drifting in the liberal direction, the old blocks collapsed and new ones are being formed. The government is still formed by S (and the tiny Green Party), but now backed up by the liberal half of the ”right-wing” block. Against them, a conservative block is being formed by the conservative remainder of the ”right-wing” block, and SD. In the opposition there is also the socialist Left Party. I find this interesting in oh so many ways, but the most interesting one might be that SD calls all non-conservative parties ”left(ist)-liberals”. I think the stance might make block-forming easier.

[Reelya]

Hehe. Okay. In seriousness, could you explain why you think liberals are right wing? I've never heard anyone put that forward before. Maybe it's different in Sweden?

Liberal conjures images of SJW and students burning their bras.

Though, that being said, I am aware of an older and more dignified breed of liberal, albeit one whose voice has become thready and choked with little use.

Classical liberal, economic liberal, neoliberal. Liberal Party of <X Country>. Pretty much everywhere except North America when people say they're liberals they mean the classical / economic / Adam Smith type. For example, literally no people on the spectrum of left-wing politics in Australia would describe themselves as "liberals".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Australia

The contemporary Liberal Party generally advocates economic liberalism (see New Right). Historically, the party has supported a higher degree of economic protectionism and interventionism than it has in recent decades. However, from its foundation the party has identified itself as an anti-socialist grouping of liberals and conservatives. Strong opposition to socialism and communism in Australia and abroad was one of its founding principles. The party's founder and longest-serving leader Robert Menzies envisaged that Australia's middle class would form its main constituency.

Liberals to mean some sort of social democrat / social justice types is very recent usage.

[scriver]

SD calls all non-conservative parties ”left(ist)-liberals”.

You have no idea how much it vexes me

Americanisms go home, Sweden for the Swedenisms

[voliol]

SD calls all non-conservative parties ”left(ist)-liberals”.

You have no idea how much it vexes me

Americanisms go home, Sweden for the Swedenisms

Very funny coming from a party with the supposed goal of preserving "Swedish culture". Too bad for them humility and non-nationalism has become rather ingrained in that very culture.

For the non-Swedes in this thread, I'll take the opportunity to explain SD. Basically, they're a far-right nationalist populist party. They also used to be neo-nazis. Now, parties do not necessarily stay the same, as time goes on their political positions may slowly shift. The problem is that they were nazis (here defined by a confirmed nazi being the party leader) but 25 years ago, and the current high members of the party were active back then. As of the 2018 election they are the third largest party in the Riksdag(the Swedish parlament), at 17.5% of the votes. It is worrisome.

[scriver]

It should be noted that the current (and probably eternal chairman style) party leader joined up with them with the explicit goal of changing them into his own party -- he used to be a moderate (as in the Moderate Party, not the adjective) -- and that his time as party leader has been waylined by constant conflict with the more neo-Nazi factions to the point of them disbanding their youth organisation a couple of years ago after the youth org refused to be not explicitly neo-Nazis at all times.

That doesn't change that they're a bunch of historyless populists buffoons with no understanding of Swedish culture or tradition who is exactly the kind of people that provide constant fuel for the "nationalism is only extremist and always bad" viewpoints of course but I feel it should be mentioned to provide a more fleshed out understanding. How much of it is an act to appear more palatable is something will hopefully never have to stop wondering about.

[Iduno]

Is this the most British political display ever?

[Loud Whispers]

So in London we had a few medium sized BLM protests, and there was a notable incident when about a hundred football hooligans and far right groups started attacking the police standing watch over both protests / monuments at risk. Police couldn't keep the protests completely separate however, which resulted in some of them kicking the shit out of each other. Which leads to this absolute gem, when one far rightist got cut off from his allies and was getting beaten up on the floor:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

One of the BLM protesters he was trying to fight picks him up and carries him to safety via police lines, in what'll probably be one of the more iconic pics of the 21st century. I love the juxtaposition between the absolute unit and his look of weary determination, and the flabelly boomer and his look of complete confusion

Also for an added angle / context, bucket helmet guy is also shielding the racist guy's head from bottles & bricks:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Literally a team of wholesome swolesome

[scriver]

And here i was going to make a joke about bucket head's mad maxian hillbilly visage. Shame on me!

There was actually a similar thing from one of the American protests (I assume Detroit) where a police officer got separated from the big units and a bunch of protesters formed a black line of their own to protect him from less heroic people. People can be pretty great.

I tried to find the picture from it but couldn't now. Google decided I wanted to know about an anti-Behonce and an anti-anti-Beyonce protest from 2016 though so at least I learned something new.

[Iduno]

Yeah, congratulations UK on managing to avoid helping poor people. As an American, I can tell you it's most important to put corporations first. Having to provide the same services as public institutions makes privatization unprofitable, which is a bad thing. I'm not being sarcastic, my voice just sounds like this.

We in the US welcome you to our level of educational quality.

[Naturegirl1999]

Why wouldn’t the government provide vouchers for school lunches?