(I know this is about Rifftrax, but we don’t have a Rifftrax community.)

  • @[email protected]
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    18 months ago

    Since I don’t defend capitalists how am I a liberal? I want a world where the people own the businesses they work for and have a say in how they are run, instead of shareholders owning them. I don’t see how that’s liberal at all.

    What is it you believe anyway?

    I’m not the one ignoring it, genius. You are the one peddling the techno-fetishist idea that you can simply

    handwave all these problems away with capitalist-approved techno-fixes that is designed from the ground up to preserve the destructive status quo they created in the first bloody place.

    I am not saying they will fix all issues. Just that they are a useful tool. You are bending what I have said to support your own bad arguments.

    I guess it’s true what they say - a liberal will rather imagine the end of the world than imagine the end of capitalism. So much for liberal “rationality,” eh?

    Wasn’t it a marxist who said socialism or barbarism? It seems liberals and marxists are both death cults. Makes sense when you know that Marxists kill all the other socialists like the anarchists.

    • @masquenox
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      18 months ago

      Since I don’t defend capitalists how am I a liberal?

      You don’t have to defend capitalism to be a liberal.

      I want a world where the people own the businesses they work for and have a say in how they are run

      I think you mean, “own the means of production.”

      Just that they are a useful tool.

      Oh, it’s useful for many things… colonialism, for one. Just ask Bill Gates!

      kill all the other socialists like the anarchists.

      I think you mean Marxist-Leninists. Very different from just plain old Marxists. Marxist-Leninism is “Marxist” in the same way that Social Darwinism is “Darwinist.”

      • @[email protected]
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        8 months ago

        Do you support some non-Leninist version of Marxism? Leninists are the most common form of Marxist. It’s therefore difficult to say they aren’t real Marxists. I am actually not against some ideas like libertarian marxism as it’s Leninists I fell out with.

        You don’t have to defend capitalism to be a liberal.

        Also weren’t you saying that liberals are all about capitalism earlier? How can you be a liberal and not support capitalism? I swear liberal is an American term anyway hardly anyone uses it where I live. Shouldn’t you just say capitalist?

        • @masquenox
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          18 months ago

          Leninists are the most common form of Marxist.

          No, they’re not. There are plenty of Marxists that doesn’t even self-describe as Marxists - in the same way that physicists who study and use Einstein’s theories don’t self-describe as “Einsteinists.” It would be silly. Even anarchists accept Marx’s critique of capitalism - does that make them “Marxists?” Generally, Marxist-Leninists use Marx’s image in the same way the Catholic Church uses images of Christ - ie, they care more about “owning” Marx for political capital than anything Marx actually wrote or meant.

          Also weren’t you saying that liberals are all about capitalism earlier?

          Capitalism is a feature of liberalism.

          How can you be a liberal and not support capitalism?

          Lots of liberals purport to criticize capitalism - you simply have to look at politicians like Bernie Sanders to see that. However, their criticism is purely constructive - their purpose is to protect the liberal status quo by reigning in the most overt excesses of capitalism. Their purpose is most definitely not to dismantle it. Dismantling capitalism (whether through peaceful means or otherwise) is where the left starts - it doesn’t matter what CNN or France24 decides to call “leftist.”