Depends on what you mean by “insult.” There is a difference between being openly critical of harmful or counterproductive liberal behavior, and using a term purely to express contempt. Both could be could be viewed as insulting to the recipient, but one can be constructive while the other tends to mostly be destructive.

There is also a difference between an “anarcho-curious” liberal as you put it, and a staunch, unflinching, liberal whose political identity is intrinsically linked to protecting the systemic institutions that anarchists struggle against.

Op, I get that you just joined us a month ago.

But the liberals in this very network seized every coalition we formed, and deathcamped us. Liberals outside the internet, and in here, have punched solidarity efforts, intersection, mutual aid, and even empowered the very fascists in power.

They reason we despise them is not so much their liberal praxis of labeling and condemnation, but their divisive nature to oppose revolutionary acts. They don’t want to got their hands dirty when it comes to burying fascists. They want the browshirts in power to continue profiting from the slave forced labor happening right now in every prison.

Instead of demanding we should seize liberals from calling their neolib acts liberal, they should be the ones seizing fascists from continued abuses. They do not want their evils exposed. They want the quo to remain fascists.

So if you see a liberal, ask them: what are you doing to end the deathcamps?

The modlogs, and silences spoke for themselves.

This is something I’ve been kinda bewildered to see in the wild, especially amongst MLs circles. Like, surely a tremendous amount of people were Liberal before coming across some solid Anarchist stuff which made too much sense to ignore?

Speaking for myself, I certainly didn’t start out Anarchist. It took a long path going from following my religious parent’s ideas and traditional values, to questioning religion and becoming atheist, to investigating political ideas, where I came across right-wing libertarian concepts which seemed like the best idea at the time.

It wasn’t until coming across Chomsky that I ultimately went down the road to Anarchism proper, and finally all the pieces clicked into place.

Nothing wrong with calling things out as liberal as a descriptor and to accurately point out all of its many many downfalls, but could be quite offputting to use as an insult to people reading who consider themselves liberal still.

😂😂😂😂😂

This is a classic.

Think it’s a non-issue.

You might decide quickly that breaking binary thinking is necessary for that “insult” to land because they’ll simply think you’re quite a weird right winger.

Never, lol. If anything, we need to quadruple down on it. Make it socially unacceptable to still be a liberal as an adult.

Part of becoming an anarchist is to learn why people have so little patience for liberals and other pro-Western ideologies. Part of becoming an anarchist is to learn to listen to these people, especially if they are yelling at you. If an “anarcho-curious” liberal cannot even attempt to make it over that microscopic hurdle, then they’re not gonna attempt to unlearn any of their other baggage.

IMO, abandoning liberalism is part of the “ticket price” of becoming an anarchist. Liberals who refuse to abandon liberalism are enemies, no matter how nice they are or how caring they pretend to be or how much they adopt radical aesthetics.

Not using it as an insult has only allowed liberals to temporarily cosplay anarchism before betraying the real reason they get involved in things, which is to convince people voting for their Blue MAGA candidate will some how be a lesser evil and it never is.

I only see this online. I would cringe if anybody insulted someone to their face as liberal lol

Do we use it as an insult? Or is it just an insulting thing to be called because being a liberal is bad and embarrassing? Do proud liberals actually take it as an insult? When I call Bibi a fascist, I’m not insulting him- I’m labeling him accurately.

Do you mean turning it into a pejorative like with shitlib? Do you mean that we should stop insulting liberals?

Regardless of those semantics (which I am asking about genuinely and am curious to hear your thoughts on):

I feel like it’s a double edged sword- social pressure, guilt, and shame are all really effective at influencing people. I want liberals in our spaces to think “Oh shit, should I be embarrassed to be a liberal?”. I think radlibs in particular are a perfect target for this- surely if they realized how embarrassing it is, they’d move further left?

In the US , the word “liberal” can be understood as any ethical action which frustrates moral charlatans. I’ve heard an older American say that Salvador Allende was too liberal for American business intrests to tolerate, when in fact the business people were the liberals and Allende was a socialist. It’s important to distinguish liberals from leftists because liberal is understood to mean far more than it actually means in the US, and many “liberals” are actually leftists.

It also comes with a tiny minority of people, mostly on the auth “left” side, who dislike liberals not only because of their lack of radicalism, but also for their support of some progressive views (in my experience especially on gender, and also a bit on racism). Like, people who are progressive in regard to proletarian struggle, but conservative for other matters. It is a really tiny fraction, but they can be vocal at times, and most importantly their ideas can spread to other people who are not real conservatives, but who don’t care or care less about other oppressions than class struggle. And i think using liberal as an insult can push people in that direction.

@A404 Dunno if off topic but, is me calling PugJesus a shitlib part of this discussion?

Nobody does that except for fascists. Are you a fascist? No? What does that “we” means then?

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