may i remind you that as a left-libertarian:

  1. i support the constitution, despite its flaws, and even the flaws about the founding fathers.
  2. i support limited government within a socialist framework
  3. i’m pretty sure there are revisionists here on hexbear which is fine - everyone has their own opinion, and some (including the people here) have their own taste of socialism/communism.
  4. i do NOT condone the actions of stalin in any way, shape and form - between stalin and trotsky, i’d go with trotsky. he should’ve succeeded lenin in the 1920s to begin with.
  5. there are democratic and libertarian forms of communism such as/like de leonism, left-communism and even council communism.
  6. i find the idea of a multi-party communist country (like in ‘reds! a revolutionary timeline’ (you can also find the wiki here (just DON’T vandalize it, and i mean it!), or in nepal through ‘people’s multiparty democracy’) to be interesting.
        • DylanMc6 [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          i assume you mean neoliberalism - if you can ask me, neoliberalism is a pretty wasteful thing. is there any reason why you called me a liberal?

            • DylanMc6 [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
              1·
              5 days ago

              firstly, i think that if the us becomes a socialist nation, the constitution will have to be reformed, the government will have to be restructured to fit within a socialist framework, and a second bill of rights would be ratified.

              secondly, the rules say 'Respect that people have differences of opinion and that every leftist has a place in our community - discussing differences in theory is fine and encouraged, just don’t make it personal". it’s fine if you’re a stalinist - that said, what stalin did during his tenure is very inexcusable, gulags and all. if trotsky was given the job instead of stalin, he would’ve decentralized the soviet government completely. plus, there are democratic and libertarian forms of communism such as:

              1. de leonism (a cross between marxism and syndicalism (named after daniel de leon) in which the government has a party-union framework, rather than party-state)
              2. anarcho-communism (which emphasizes the ‘stateless’ part of communism)
              3. council communism (in which a communist government consists of workers’ councils)
              4. left communism (any communist ideology that opposes stalinism) i’m somewhere in the ‘anti-stalinist left’.

              and by the way, what are your thoughts on the us constitution?

              • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
                7·
                5 days ago

                The US constitution is a worthless rag penned by slavers, designed to forever protect the interests of rich landowners.

                I believe Stalin only did two things wrong in his whole tenure: Not suppressing kkkristianity enough, and stopping at Berlin.

                • DylanMc6 [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
                  1·
                  5 days ago
                  1. i find ‘food not bombs’ to be very interesting. i also support blm because i strongly support equity.
                  2. i was in my bedroom, chilling.
  • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    5 days ago

    cia infiltrates your country and starts shoveling weapons to local insurgents, wdyd? meow-floppy

    you get sieged, and nice little men in free press in very fancy costumes promise that siege will be lifted if you just sell your nice resources to nice fancy men, no biggie, they know what they are doing and will bring prosperity for all? meow-floppy

    after providing free education, nice fancy man invite your best specialists and artists with higher salaries, wdyd? meow-floppy

    (for my suspicions, i do think some sort of ansyn bottom-up is likelier route inside the usa, cause porkies can’t fight something they can’t see, but be real about some other stuff inside whole ass countryand society)

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      5 days ago

      In this situation I would support the rights of insurgents to not do bad things and I would emphasize the idea of unity and respect to frustrate the attempt at subversion.

    • DylanMc6 [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      by “ansyn”, do you mean anarcho-syndicalism?

      also, i live in the us. if the cia decides to have a coup against the us, the people would fight back. then the cia would get reformed when the people wins.

  • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    5 days ago

    Why do you support the constitution of your country[1]? If the current constitution has good parts then surely those could just be copied into a new constitution, right?

    1. I am contractually obligated to point out that you didn’t specify which country you’re talking about; I know which country you’re from only because there’s exactly one country whose netizens rarely feel the need to specify which country they’re from. I can only assume the “founding fathers” are not the Eidsvoll Men. ↩︎

      • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netEnglish
        5·
        5 days ago

        …But it’s a minor point, anyways. I just want people who seem to have a mindset that centers their own country to challenge that mindset, to think internationally, right. But that discussion is out of the way now, anyways. The bigger point is, again, why do you support the US constitution? I ask because even back when I was a liberal, I still supported my countries of citizenship getting new constitutions; I considered it obvious that these types of documents left for a few centuries will become outdated, and found the apparent “worship” of the Norwegian and US Constitutions to be very perplexing.

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        5 days ago

        Do you think you generally find out how you feel about some political issue by imagining how your personal values and experiences could inform an ideal society? You know, like starting from the idea of individual freedom as a goal unto itself, then trying to square existing contradictions using that goal and trying to find solutions to problems that satisfy that value?

        Asking because the way you’re talking about politics in this thread is pretty different from how people on here usually think about things. We try to first identify the material reality and contradictions that exist in the systems around us, and try to analyze how sectors of society (as delineated by their relationship to the means of production, i.e. are they the havers or the have-nots) are pushed, structurally, into specific actions or behaviors. Then we try to understand what is to be done to bring a possible new world, one without as many of the oppressive systems present in the current one, into existence, but not necessarily a utopia either (because we can identify that the contradictions present in the current world will necessarily be transformed, not just eradicated, when brought to their tipping points). That way, things are always based in a historical process and material reality, not just vague values, morals, or even ideology (not that those things are bad, but they are inherently contextual/local and hard to build a movement that unifies all the workers of all the world when they all have different ideas about them).

        I think you probably think the former way because that’s just the default in Western discourse, we call it idealism, Enlightenment Idealism, Liberal Idealism, whatever. Most members of the ruling class nowadays are idealists too, but some of the most successful among our enemies were people like Kissinger who don’t really care about some utopia they want to build, instead they just do their best to analyze material reality and strategize around the real material threats and the place in history that they occupy. The most successful revolutionary leaders like Lenin, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Sankara, etc all did it too.

        • DylanMc6 [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          to answer your question: i support individual freedoms because i support the freedoms of speech, of religion, of the press, to assemble peacefully and to redress grievances (or simply ‘complain about potholes to the governments’). i support collectivism because i think if one CAN’T do something alone, then the community should help them out.

          also, i think idealism and materialism can go hand-in-hand - for example, i support ideals such as/like freedom and equity, and i think that the conditions we are in right now may spark a socialist society where these ideals are the words on the street, and would therefore change these conditions. i think this is the best way i can answer your concerns.

          oh, and henry kissinger enabled war crimes.

          • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            3·
            5 days ago

            You’re kind of missing the point of materialism. Viewing freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, and other rights as individual issues that one may support or oppose is antithetical to materialism. The point of materialism is to acknowledge that there actually is no such thing as a human right except that which can be enforced via political power and, ultimately, violence or the threat of violence. In other words: materialists don’t “support” freedom of the press, they analyze how one may come to control the press and use it to exert power in favor of one’s class interests. Same thing with any other right. Those rights don’t exist, the ruling class only plays ball when necessary and can do away with them when needed; idealist “progressives” would rather try to pressure the ruling class into recognizing their rights, while Marxists and co perfectly understand that the only way to guarantee rights is to overthrow the ruling class.

            Thinking that a new world, even a socialist one, is brought about by changing people’s minds is pretty much the definition of idealism and mostly everyone on this site rejects that. History bears out that massive populations of people who hold reactionary beliefs can be pushed to join revolutionary movements when their conditions radicalize them. It also shows that, as radical and progressive as the academics, artists, and other intellectuals of a given society might be, if the material conditions for revolution aren’t present those ideas don’t change the world by themselves at all. Without a gun to back up an idea, it’s just a prayer, even if a million people believe it.

            • DylanMc6 [any, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
              1·
              5 days ago

              in that case, i mostly support materialism. i’m NOT sure if it’s okay for anyone to pressure the ruling class into fitting in in a socialist country. that said, the government should be that of the people by the people for the people, as lincoln said in his gettysburg address, rather than the government of the rich and wealthy snobs who stifle people’s liberties. that’s one of the reasons why i support left-libertarianism.

              “…government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth.” - abe lincoln, 1863

          • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            3·
            5 days ago

            Did you arrive at your ideology by trying to think of something that just vibes well with your personal values, or by synthesizing an observation of your surroundings, history, material conditions, and theory developed by previous revolutionary movements?