• Uiop@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    18 days ago

    I am getting more and more confused.

    Liberty ≈ Freedom.

    Liberal is someone beliveing in something adjacent to freedom. Libertarian is someone believing in something adjecent to freedom.

    But I only hear bad things about liberals, alright I already knew 'Merricans are stupid, they get angry about a word while not even being autistic. But I also somethymes hear about libertarians. what the fuck is that supposed to be, especially compared to its namely cousin?

    Well I know I’m not being entirely fair to the poor, old 'Murricans, there surely is something they all know about their system, that has not yet reached me. Still calling someone by one of your core tenets ('Murrica, land of the free, home to lady liberty…) and believing that to be an unterstandible slur sure is weird.

    • JayDee@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      Sorry, Bud. The names are mostly just advertisements and not necessarily useful for understanding the underlying philosophy.

      American Liberalism (capital ‘L’) is fluid over time at best in its philosophy, and is actively shifting to further elitist interests from a less charitable perspective. It often prioritises corporations over people and cherry picks which cases of violence are or aren’t acceptable by the state.

      American Libertarianism (again, capital ‘L’) is Anarcho-capitalism, which believes the world would be a better place if the state was bordering on non-existent, and companies were allowed to operate completely unregulated.

      • Trantarius@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        16 days ago

        Libertarianism isn’t nearly as extreme as anarcho capitalism. It argues for minimal government where possible, but still supports governments providing military and law enforcement, emergency services, etc. The libertarian party, for example, is basically what Republicans were pre-trump on fiscal and economic issues, but without any desire to restrict stuff like gay marriage or marijuana. A libertarian is as much an anarcho capitalist as a socialist is a communist (they’re not).

        • JayDee@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          That is not significant a distinction for me to care to differentiate one from the other. They both are right-libertarian, are wanting laissez-faire capitalism with as close to zero oversight as possible, and are cutting taxes as low as possible by gutting public services. Whether one still wants to keep state-funded cops and fire departments is no longer relevant when the end results of both are corporate-nation hellscapes in my view.

    • Dr. Bluefall@toast.ooo
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      17 days ago

      Libertarian has two different meanings, depending on who you talk two.

      In the modern day, and unless they qualify it, “libertarianism = anarcho-capitalism”.

      Classical libertarianism (sometimes left libertarianism, or libertarian socialism) is more akin to anarcho-syndicalism. Advocacy for ownership of the means of production via trade unions and the like, with the goal of obsoleting the state and capitalism, that kinda thing.

      EDIT: Also, capital-L “Liberalism” in the US is more than a little bit of a departure from liberalism. It’s mostly evolved into a meaningless pejorative the far right uses against the center-left (and when I say that, I’m talking about center-left from an American perspective, so really more center-right)

      • Uiop@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        17 days ago

        what the fuck am I talking about?

        well im confused. so what do you wanna do about it?

        • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          Idk you calling people stupid while also coming off as extremely ignorant on the topic just makes you seem like both an asshole and an idiot.

          You can either be an asshole or ignorant but if you’re both then all I can ask is Jesse what the fuck are you talking about.

          • Uiop@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            17 days ago

            Well people are stupid. I am a hypocrite, I am somethymes an asshole. And I’ll call americans stupid for however long I wish to.

            As for me being ignorant… The search-engines are never useful. I asked for information and gave some sort of premediated Information about my previous understanding. Now I know more than beforehand. Because some people were helpful.