this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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The term "liberal" is toxic. Liberal's are disliked by "the right" and by progressives. They are truly useless snowflakes that do nothing but virtue signal and sell everything and everyone out that threatens their convenience and comforts.
I don't think it is toxic, as much as it is almost always misused. Read the following and tell me how many people you know have been using the term correctly.
WIKIPEDIA: Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.
For leftists that's exactly who we're talking about when we say liberals. The right to private property and equality and the consent of the governed are logically incompatible. Right liberals (e.g. US Republican party) emphasise the former, and moderate liberals (e.g. US Democratic party) pay lip service to the latter while only actually protecting the former. It's really only about property in the end.
I wouldn’t say those three things are inherently logically incompatible, but there would be a lot of grey areas.
The power structure of the federal government doesn’t make it any easier to actually exercise the federal government to accomplish helpful objectives, but making things worse is a relatively easy exercise.
The focus on state level politics seems much more meaningful to actually accomplish any goals, since at least there is not as big of a hurdle where land and money have more power/representation than real people.
They are not logically incompatible, but we will have to make clear and specific decisions about where one ends and the other begins.
Unless you are asking me to live in a society where I must share my toothbrush with others because I am not allowed to keep any private property.
I do believe in private property: with modest, reasonable limits. Which we can and will discuss the details of over time, and I understand that will likely become a heated discussion at times, but I believe it is an inevitable and necessary one. Does that disqualify me from being a leftist? Does it make me a liberal too? Let me know.
I'm coming for that toothbrush 😈
Private property in this context means things which generate/are used to generate capital, not just any kind of object which people might have and use. The important distinction is that capital is social, it is a means of coercing others to do work for you. That's true for a factory, where people work for the owner, or for a rented property where the tenant must work to pay the owner. It's true in a way even for wages - when you spend money you are buying the products of people's labour (which under capitalism was not produced in a just way). It's not the case for your toothbrush.
The distinction that liberalism made was that everyone should in theory be allowed to own private property rather than royals appointed by divine right and hereditary nobility they delegated some power to. Not that in the 1700s we were suddenly allowed to have our own clothes for the first time in history.
Isn't it though? I didn't make my toothbrush. It came from the toothbrush factory. In fact, it's an electric toothbrush. Which presumably requires a lot of somewhat high tech inputs and resources to create. Would someone have developed this innovation without some economic pressure to do so? I'm not totally convinced. I think there is some role for capital in that sense. Maybe I'm wrong.
Thank you for taking my somewhat tongue in cheek comment so generously though. My humor is not always placed appropriately and doesn't always come across well, but it sometimes provokes people to respond, and I'm simply trying to learn and keep an open mind, and I appreciate your time and effort in sharing your knowledge.
FFS if you want to stick on the toothbrush thing you are (what actually seems intentional) being obtuse about it.
Stuff like a toothbrush you wouldn't have to share around or whatever you are thinking. If it's a needed or benifcial for society, you would most likely have funds or resources given to you in either the form of a toothbrush or money to buy a certain minimum standard of tooth brush.
No idea why you have to make insane leaps to things like people stealing your personal belongings.