Feel like I aged an additional 10 years. Not good for someone to wake up 3-4 times a night, then go to work and have to ingest caffeine to keep awake. Wish I had my kids 10 years earlier.
“The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) still has not completed a single segment of the system, the total estimated cost has ballooned to $128 billion and counting, and there is no expected completion date. CHSRA has recently focused its efforts on completing a 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield. May 29, 2024
lol Californians got robbed by their own government.
There are a lot of solid answers, but it’s good to remember that the US definition of a liberal, seems to be very different from the international definition. So, remember to keep context in mind, and whether it’s coming from an American or not.
As a non-American with political science training, I think this is key to why I have found this particularly baffling.
It's like if you were having a casual conversation about pretty much anything and some overgrown child suddenly jumps in and starts screaming you're a filthy deontologist. Like, uhm, sure, but I'm not sure how that's relevant, and I also somehow doubt you know what that word means.
In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.
The issues have changed slightly from the 1960s, but his song’s accusations of hypocrisy and NIMBYism among those who publicly espouse progressive causes still hit close enough to home.
I think a big part of the problem is that liberalism dates back to the 17th century, and western civilisation is kind of built on top of it.
As a result it could fit pretty much anywhere on the political spectrum. I consider myself pretty leftist, but of course I'm a fucking liberal. I take issue with inheritance and I believe in taxing billionaires out of existence, but that's completely consistent with liberalism. And so is disagreeing with me.
I guess a central thing about liberalism is refusing patriarchalism, which would explain why the stalinists and the trumpists alike get upset by it.
Ahh that’s interesting, so the issue is as much having a conveniently shifting position as it is a further-right-than-progressives static position. Thanks a ton, that helps me understand a lot!
Basically liberalism tends to be capitalist, whereas leftism tends to be anticapitalist. Historically, there’s been a pattern of centrists and capitalist allying with authoritarians and fascists against leftists, so the insult boils down to “you’d support a fascist before you went against capitalism”
A brief rough history, in case anyone is interested:
17th century: Kings and shit. The people supporting the rule of the king are in power. They become conservatives.
18th century: Liberals appear. They believe men have certain inherent rights from nature. They don't dig kings, but they do believe in private property. They sit to the left in parliaments, the conservatives sit to the right.
19th century: Marx gives us his take on history and labour. Liberalism is given a competing framework from the left.
20th century: All kinds of shit goes down, partly because the conservatives and the liberals are terrified of the Marxists and give the fascists the keys to the kingdom, partly because of a Marx-inspired Leninists take control in Russia. The "new" left (socialism) becomes a major force in the postwar era, promising to build a new world on the ashes of the old.
21st century: There seems to be a head on collision. People feel strongly about these concepts, but it seems many have forgotten where they come from or what they mean. Disinformation campaigns have gotten efficient. Green politics enter the field.
I think others have answered your question better than me, but I’ll chip in my two cents anyway.
The definition depends on who is saying it.
Within mainstream US politics, Republicans use “liberal” as a catch-all pejorative for any person or group further to the left of themselves. It is usually aimed at Democrats but could also refer to Greens, communists, etc.
The irony is that, in a broader political context, Republicans are very much liberals, too. People outside the US political mainstream who sneer about “liberals” are usually referring to this larger group, which basically encompasses the capitalist status quo in the “western” world.
I am currently rocking a Shanling M2X which I bought secondhand for €75,- from the local classified ad websites.
Officially supports up the 512Gb but according some reviews it can do up to 2Tb microSD cards ( headfonics.com/shanling-m2x-review/ ). I currently have a music collection of about the same size. The Shanling M2X can drive all the IEMs I throw at it, has enough file system support to read just about anything and has WiFi and Bluetooth. Although the WiFi can only be used to wirelessly sync files (which can be a pro but also a con, depending on how you look at it).
However if you don’t feel like going secondhand, Shanling offers a whole bunch of devices meant for offline playback of local files.
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