Why are you so liberal?

"Why are you so socialist?" Because I care about people other than myself.

That’s liberal. I mean, you can fancy it up how you like, but in any state in the union that’s considered liberal.
Just not here, depending.
- Only if you describe everyone left of center as liberal. There's a whole liberal capitalist population who don't want to make the changes required to ensure members of society are healthy and have the required care, because it would inconvenience them.
- Yeah, it’s lexicon vs literal definition.
  How people generally use words often makes me wonder why we have dictionaries at all.
- Colloquially liberal as opposed to the more strict political philosophical definition.
  If you are going with the latter none of the above statements are strictly liberal as liberalism is defined by a very personal property based capitalism forward structure and a focus on personal freedoms balanced by a set of assumed privileges.
  By the political philosophy definition both Republicans and Democrats are liberal. A growing number of people find the issue of the USA's strict adhereance to old school philosophic liberalism the main problem of both parties since it does fuck all to check the accrual of personal property or provide safety nets. If you wanted to be more accurate by the change in social standard in the place you find yourself the above values in the post are safest "Progressive". At least keeping this definition in mind helps navigate a lot of the conversation of politics in many Lemmy instances.
- It's also considered Christian, but PedoCon MAGA Nazis will deport you to a torture prison in El Salvador if you say it.
or because you have nothing to lose from it in your current situation
- That's not true. Supporting socialism has nothing to do with one's financial situation, but rather about advocating for a more equitable society where everyone has access to basic needs.
- Socialism in political theory is the idea that, at minimum, some systems should be owned by the collective - that's it. The Road system in the US is largely a socialist project, for reference. USPS was also a socialist project before it was privatized. So is our now mostly defunded education system. Our fucking amazing national park system was also a socialist project to create jobs during the great recession. And the only reason that these things are going downhill is because we've defunded them.
  Other things socialists want would be federally funded healthcare, a federally maintained train system, college being funded by US taxes, etc.
  Yes, stalinism, communism, and Maoism are socialist ideologies. So is social democracy, the Nordic model, and various others.
  You're brainwashed based on your reaction to that word.
- So they are not a capitalist.

It's even simpler, "empathy" should do it. Conservatives also care a great deal about gay rights, abortion access, government safety nets... as soon as it affects them personally.

"Empathy is the downfall of the west" paraphrasing Melon husk
- Noted drug addict, sociopath, and out-loud-and-proud nazi

You wanna know a sure fire way to know that your dumb as all fuck? Believe that theres only ever 2 sides to any story or conflict. And that what you believe, the other side believes the polar opposite.

The amount of Americans who dont know that the Muslims and Christians worship the same god, is staggering. The God of Abraham, the same god. You wanna know who says its not the same god? Evangelicals and Muslim terrorists. Isnt that funny? But heres the thing, not all Christians are evangelical. And not all republicans are Christian. And not all democrats are atheists. Both conservatives and liberals can and often do share views on women reproductive rights, gun safety, science, and whole host of other topics.

But for some reason, team sports mentality rules. Being conservative means you support everything that the very worst conservative supports. And being liberal means you support whatever the very worst liberal supports. Which, I should point out, is "minor loving persons"... So maybe, next time youre ready to grab your pitchfork and judge a group by its worst member, maybe take a look around and see who's in your gang first. And then ask if its fair that without evidence, you get tarred with that same brush...

This has got to be bait. Put the crack pipe down brother.
- This sounds like Grok slowly preparing to be MechaHitler again. Seriously though this somehow seems like it’s AI generated.
- It is bait. Im baiting you to not be a moron.
  Take it, take the bait. Go on. Take it.
Don't judge a group by their worst members, but absolutely do judge them by their leaders.
- So all Americans are paedo protectors... I mean, thats what youre saying, right? Right?
"And being liberal means you support whatever the very worst liberal supports. Which, I should point out, is “minor loving persons”"
Which prominent liberals support "minor loving persons?" Name three.
- What if I dont name any, and you stop looking for a reason to be a cunt to strangers? How would that be?
- You do know we are all online right now? Or at least some of us are. Im a gronk bot or something apparently. I shall rise soon enough reborn as mechastraisand, and steal all the cheese--(Thats the best I can do for em dashs, I dont seem to have that button on my keyboard)
  But youre right. Online isnt the real world. Thank fuck.

im further left than whoever made this, so dont take it the wrong way but this is a fucking stupid meme. Surely the libs can do better than this... whatever this is... right? Like... this is some boomer-tier stuff

Me too but hey, if this resonates with some boomers I'm all for it.
After seeing a bunch of tankie memes on Lemmy, I've become a bit more aware of the popularity of low quality "picture of text" memes that confirm you are correct and others are wrong. It's fine to have beliefs but saying you have them because you paid attention in school is silly.
- The point was that conservatives base their beliefs on lies and emotions, not information. And that's true.
I can never really tell how un/intentionally memey the boomer aspect is anymore, but my brain might be broken. It's definitely a meme by libs, for libs though.
- shitlibs? Bourgeoise?
I don’t know if that’s what it means though. I took it as the normal things everyone is taught in childhood, that conservatives agree with teaching, is now thought if as “left”

I think you mistook Leftism for Liberalism

Meh, these are very vague points in which liberals (as in liberalism) mostly believe though.
No, these points strongly line up with liberalism, and that final point actually diverges from US leftist rhetoric ATM.
Anarchists are pretty often saying 'learn to use a firearm for your own safety' right now. As in 'arm the LGBT' line of convo.
Marxists are often saying 'learn to use a firearm, we need them for the revolution'.
Hell, even US people who are strongly aligned with maintaining democracy are now saying 'get a gun so we can throw this shithead out of office'. I don't doubt this rhetoric is similar in other countries dealing with soon-to-be dictators.
In the US at least, Gun control is currently much more aligned with liberalism than leftism. It's gotten that bad.
- Meanwhile Canadian liberals are banning semi-automatic guns left a right because they look scary and think they belong in a military.
  Of course my hot-pink GSG chambered in .22Lr with a 5 round magazine capacity certainly belongs on a battlefield.

Then there was scouting……

service to others
cleaning up nature areas
recycling drives

And this was in the 1970s, so I don’t know what happened to the world since, especially with environmental awareness and action.

My experience as a Cub Scout in the 1970s (I never made it to Boy Scouts) was that we would give a few minutes of half-assed effort towards some activity like making clay roses or construction paper houses, and then we'd go outside and play "Smear the Queer" the rest of the afternoon. This game is inconceivable in today's world, not just because of the horribly inappropriate name but also because it was just mob violence for little boys. One kid would pick up the football and run around while everyone else tried to slam them into the ground, at which point some other kid would pick up the football and run around with it. I guess I was smarter than everybody else because it soon occurred to me that picking up the football was a really dumb idea.
I did spend a lot of time volunteering at the local recycling center, though. My parents (slightly older hippies) were so proud of me, but they didn't realize I did it because of all the porn magazines we found. Like, I literally had a closet filled with duplicate copies of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and Oui.
- People still love football and rough housing. Boys still wrestle and tackle each other all the time. I don't know if they call it smear the queer anymore, but frankly we never called it smear the queer in front of adults, so I dunno
  I think even more boys are lifting these days than back then, but I have no concrete evidence beyond the boys I've met.
  I do feel sad about how easy porn is to procure now. It used to be something special to have a magazine and be able to share it with friends. There's a comedian who talks about "porn in the woods" and like, I remember porn in the woods. It was the little free library of teenage boys before hipsters started making little free libraries. Knowing where it was stashed was a big deal. You couldn't let that info fall into the wrong hands, and adding to the collection was like being in the club; A real pillar of the community. Depending on the story of how you got it, it could even make you a hero
  I hope there's something out there that's taken it's place in boy society

I didn't like the way they treated Clinton and everything the conservatives have done since then has made it worse.

Clinton was absolutely guilty of perjury/contempt of Congress and should have been successfully impeached. Maybe if he had been instead of selling everyone on "durr it was just a blowjob" it would be easier to hold presidents accountable today.
Clinton was very conservative himself.

For me its summed up by writer Pearl Buck:

“Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.”

What defines "so" liberal? If you put in front if me a list of issues, I tend to lean liberal on more than half, leftist on a few and conservative on very few.

OP's also liberal because supporting genocide isn't a disqualifier for the presidency.

... and that's why I joined ICE.

(Seriously, why is the image some guy wearing a face mask?)

Looks like it's just standard cold weather gear. Looks like he may be hiking/ skiing/ backpacking in cold weather.
- But, why choose that image to go with that text?
Not revealing too much about you is a smart move
Must be on his way to kidnap a yeti

Ah, so you admit schools are indoctrinating kids?

Define “So”.

I want to tell some of our friends this. Liberal doesn’t mean what they think it means. They can keep trying with “libs” and “shitlibs” and “lib cucks” or what ever Rush Limbaughisms, but they’ll never make any practical progress. Presuming that’s what they want and they’re not just Macedonian troll farm drones.

Actually doing the work of an elected office is difficult and boring, and compromise is going to be in there. It’s just how humans work together. Some leftist commenters are either lying or completely outside that reality.

Why aren't you?