66 – Differences Between Liberal and Left: A Primer (Patreon)

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By Sam Yang (@StuffFromSam) with help from Dr. Paul Raekstad (@RPlateaus) 

There has been a lot of confusion over the terms "liberal" and "Leftist." The distinction between the two was clearer in the past until "Leftist" disappeared from mainstream political discourse entirely. But since 2016 and the surge of Bernie Sanders, understanding the differences between liberal and Leftist has once again entered the mainstream. 

To illustrate how less confusing this was in the 60s, here's a song by 60s folksinger Phil Ochs called "Love Me, I'm a Liberal": 

"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." 

"I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy, as though I'd lost a father of mine. But Malcolm X got what was coming. He got what he asked for this time. So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal." 

"I go to civil rights rallies, and I put down the old DAR. I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy, I hope every colored boy becomes a star. But don't talk about revolution, that's going a little bit too far. So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal." 

"I cheered when Humphrey was chosen, my faith in the system restored. I'm glad the commies were thrown out of the AFL-CIO board. I love Puerto Ricans and negros as long as they don't move next door. So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal." 

It's not that this is no longer a working definition of "liberal," but rather, we've lost the vocabulary to express politics beyond liberal or to have any criticism other than from the Right. The discourse being either Right or liberal, but nothing left of that. The Right won't worry about what liberals want, but liberals will ignore the Left and worry about the Right. This gives the Right outsized power and influence. It's not that the Right doesn't know change is inevitable, it's that they want change to come at a snail's pace—so they can accumulate power faster than the world can change. This is why the Right has always been winning and how liberals have been helping.

When a liberal is afraid they're in an echo chamber, they look for criticism from conservatives, to be admonished for whatever good they've done; rather than looking to the Left to see what more they could have done. Jumping from the frying pan into the fire to escape your echo chamber reveals misplaced priorities—of not being in an echo chamber rather than not being a bad person. But that's their instinct, to care more about what the Right thinks of them rather than the Left. They will automatically worry about how their Midwest conservative relatives will feel, which often overrides concerns for oppressed and marginalized people—making their concerns invisible. This has been the discourse, and oppressed peoples have had to rely on the moral senses of liberals and wait. They're always being told to wait. Complaining, protesting, speaking truth to power, speaking your truth, will only help Republicans you're told. So just wait and be thankful for what liberals have already done for you.

Part of how liberals came to represent any mainstream resistance against the Right is because of the Red Scare, where you literally feared having any politics left of liberal would get you rounded up, arrested, or blackballed. Or even being associated with anyone with Leftist-leanings got you labeled a pinko, not quite red but pink to mean guilt by association. So it makes sense why many still have this fear. Consider how many people spend ten minutes describing a system that sounds like socialism, but whether due to fear or ignorance, can't recognize socialism?

The Left was also silenced by the liberal rhetoric that anything that is not liberal must be Right-wing. It's still done to this day: anti-fascists are accused of being the thing they hate most—fascists; if you go too far to the Left, you become Right-wing; if you're left of liberal, you are toxic; you're helping Trump; you ARE a Trump supporter.

So we lost our words.

Many of today's liberals assume there is no difference between a liberal and a Leftist. Many Leftists consider themselves to be liberals because they don't know what a Leftist is—sometimes referring to themselves as "progressives" or a "lefty" or just "really liberal" to say they aren't as centrist as most liberals. When the term "Leftist" came back into the lexicon, we no longer knew what it meant.

Some of us recognize there's a problem with our current system, but we don't have the words to express ourselves. And when we hear the right words, we don't recognize them to be the words we need.

As the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders finally comes to an end, many are now left to consider: "What are my politics?" They pinned their political identity to Bernie Sanders, but now what?

"What am I?"

In this time of self-reflection, perhaps it is time to ask yourself:

What is the Left, and what does it mean to be a Leftist?

You can say Leftist is an umbrella term that's an offshoot of the 1st International. This includes unionists, socialists, anarchists, and communists. The umbrella term of "Left" is meant to convey that there's a general family resemblance, which can be summarized as pro-people, pro-worker, and bottom-up. You have to remember, at the time of the 1st International, only a select few could own anything, so everyone in the Left were some variation of worker/ nonowner—this includes feminists, anti-fascists, and anti-racists.

Perhaps not in pop culture or in mainstream media, but this tradition of Leftism in feminism, anti-fascism, anti-racism, LGBTQx, intersectionality, and social justice still holds true in academia and activist circles to this day. Liberalism, like conservatism, requires hierarchy and gatekeeping, which is antithetical to anti-oppressive movements. This is only apparent, however, if you are well-versed in these movements. Just like being a tourist to a country, tourism doesn't require deep understanding. And a tourist doesn't know what they don't know. This is why the politics of well-known activists and academics are different from media pundits and celebrities.

Moreover, some of these movements have been co-opted by capitalists as part of their rebranding of capitalism into rainbow capitalism; which is to say, a rainbow of owners and managers that still maintain inequities for nonowners and workers. Liberals are proud capitalists. In fact, they were the first capitalists; conservatives adopted capitalism later. "Anti-capitalist liberal" is an oxymoron. But if someone is trying to say they support social justice while opposing capitalism, then they are a socialist (or any other Leftist offshoot).

The reason liberal and Leftist gets obfuscated is because liberals will take credit for the activist, grassroots work of Leftists. But liberalism is about working within the system, whereas activism, protests, and strikes work outside the system. Therefore bottom-up resistance and fighting outside of the system can never be liberal. Being given credit for the work of the Left falls apart IF you think about it. But only IF you think about it.

The best way to think about the Left is as bottom-up politics, which requires an analysis of power. To analyze power, we must first ask ourselves: Are there power hierarchies? If so, then how is the power structured?

To give you a real-world example, let's think about workplace sexual harassment. What is the liberal response when someone is harassed? Warn the person or fire them. If there is a lawsuit, then do classes and training to prevent future incidents. It assumes the problem is a lack of knowledge; the person didn't know better, not that this happens when there are power imbalances. So rather than looking at the structure of the workplace, it atomizes or individualizes the sexual harassment and makes it about "bad individuals" or the moral failings of the individual rather than the structure in which they work in. But for the victim, you have no say; you have no power, you have no third-party voice like a union to speak on your behalf or protect you when you do speak out, and you can't leave because your income is wholly tied to your job along with your health insurance. Liberalism says, "don't victim blame" while simultaneously making it about individual actions, which includes the actions or the inactions of the victim. So it's not your fault, but it is.

Liberalism says victims who speak out are brave, but it requires that much courage because they aren't given any power or autonomy to speak out. Liberalism says, "believe women" without giving them any power to speak truths for us to believe. Liberalism tells you to speak out while simultaneously making it almost impossible to speak out. Liberalism commends the bravery but is unwilling to take away the obstacles that promote fear. Liberalism will make you "Person of the Year" without removing any of the challenges that made you "Person of the Year."

Because if all obstacles are removed, what is liberalism? If all obstacles are removed, how will liberalism have their individual underdog stories to show that the hill can be climbed? However, highlighting individual stories of heroism is to also admit that these stories are rare. This is not by accident but by design. Most people need to fail to make the few exceptions rare and special. You need losers to have winners.

Meritocracy only blames the individual, which also says problems are rare rather systemic and by design. You just need better people. But constantly gambling on people to act as good moral agents in a dominance hierarchy is a recipe for disaster.

The other part of "believe women" is to understand that people might become incredulous when they hear how often workplace sexual harassment occurs, that's why you have to "believe women" that it's that bad. But it's not just bad for women (which often just means cishet white women), it's bad for persons of color, and for LGBTQx people.

Even outside of gender, race, and identity, consider how "less than" someone is considered if they don't have a car and take public transit? If they don't own a home? If they don't come from a privileged background? Imagine if on top of this you are black and queer? There are multiple power hierarchies, and because of them, people are constantly mistreated and trying to simply go after individual bad actors will never keep up or solve the underlying problem. It's treating symptoms but at an ineffective rate, rather than treating the disease. (Like taking a band-aid to fight cancer.) This goes back to the previous point about conservatism winning; it doesn't need progress to stop, just for progress to be slower than the spread of the disease. Conservatism ultimately wants to accumulate and silo wealth and power. Ask yourself: Have they been able to do this and compound it year after year?

Then who's really been winning?

Liberals get putting the white race above other races is wrong, or putting men above other genders is wrong. But they don't understand that when it comes to putting capital above people. "I won't shame you for your race, but I will shame you for taking the bus or not owning a home." Which then once again reinforces racism, sexism, and cishet white privilege.

How do liberals respond to the actions of people of the past? "That's how it was back then." They excuse the past to say, "Well, with the past, it's not individual moral failings, the problem is structural." "It was just how it was based on the expectations, based on the norms—the power structure of the time." But today is the past for the future, and the problem is still structural. Liberals use structure to excuse people of the past, but not as a rationale to change the present. They'll say, "People back then didn't know owning slaves was wrong." But the obvious Leftist response is, "The slaves knew, are you saying they aren't people?"

Rather than criticizing the structure—that the structure itself was racist—they use it as a means to make excuses. That it's still somehow individual failings, but that doesn't count when it comes to their predecessors. It's the worst of all worlds. It's the individual's fault, but it's also never the individual's fault. The past is excused, the present is dismissed, and the future is jeopardized. We're feeling these effects now from years of mortgaging the future. One can only imagine how much worse it'll get—a future we'll have to live through.

Another typical liberal contradiction is to matter of factly say "power corrupts" or "power corrupts absolutely" without any intention of wanting to fix the power dynamic that causes corruption. As if injustice and corrupt power imbalances are fixtures of reality that we must accept, like gravity. They even tell you as much, "It's nature; it's just how it is; it's how the world works; it's like fighting gravity." Nothing they're saying has any scientific basis, but they use scientific analogies to make us feel like we CAN'T change anything when they're really saying we aren't ALLOWED to change anything.

Think about your health; the liberal response is "we must not know what is healthy," whereas to a Leftist, we are unhealthy because the environment is designed to make us unhealthy. This could mean lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables, lack of sidewalks, lack of parks, the constant bombardment of advertisements for calorie-dense foods, unhealthy work hours, lack of daycare, government subsidizing of nutritionless foods, expectations of eating at your desk and never taking breaks, having to put your children before yourself, inability to go see a doctor to assess your health, a general scarcity of income and time to even consider your health, and so forth. Things are working out the way they're supposed to based on the conditions. Just as with a computer program; these conditions create these results.

When we think the problem is an individual knowledge problem, and we try to change our health for the better and subsequently fail, we believe we CAN'T change when really the solution is designed so that we are NOT allowed to change. It's designed to fail while simultaneously making us feel like we have control. Humans adapt to our environment. For there to be a new outcome, we need a new environment. As social creatures, rather than just individual changes, we need social change. If the conditions never change, then the equation is always you x 0. To change the outcome, we need new conditions.

Individual change is quick but short-sighted. Social change takes time and organizing but is much more effective in creating real change. This is how liberalism's atomizing robs us of big change, even as individuals. What's one of the most proven ways to change as an individual? Move to a new country. Why is it more impactful than trying to just change yourself where you are? Because your conditions have changed. This is what the Left wants, to have the benefits of moving to a new country without having to move to a new country. Change in an evolutionary sense means adaptation. We've already adapted to our conditions. To spark new adaptations means we need new conditions to adapt to.

To a Leftist, you can't look at individual actions without context. Actions don't happen in a vacuum. The context is the system we live and work in. Then the Left isn't looking at just the left side of a picture or looking at something with a left slant. When we say Left, it sounds like a perspective, but it's not meant to be literal. Perhaps the term itself makes things more confusing, but that's the commonly used and agreed upon term. The origins of the term itself only make things more confusing (much like the term "liberal"). But rather than thinking of it as an indicator of where this politics exists on a political scale, it's better just to know its intent.

If liberal and conservative are types of political perspectives, the Left is about better perception—to look at things critically and holistically. To look at the whole picture, which means actions and the context in which these actions occur. Liberalism looks at the world zoomed in: the oceans are dirty because I just bought a straw (or because of my individual actions). The Left looks at the straw but also zooms out to look at the water, and asks: "Where is this pollution coming from? Let's chase it to its source." Perhaps it's companies dumping pollutants into the water. Rather than cherrypicking, which is to start with a close-ended search of "how am I causing pollution," the Left begins their search more broadly, "what's causing the pollution?" Which method gets you more accurate results? Which would be more precise?

Even with complaints about so-called political correctness, is political correctness a slant or is it just more accurate and precise? If you call me Chinese and I tell you I'm Korean, is that a "politically correct" left slant? Or is it just accuracy? Do all the different political ideologies have evenly distributed knowledge with just different perspectives or are the differences more about being informed and uninformed, accurate and inaccurate? Uninformed and inaccurate is still a type of political belief, just a sloppy and dangerous one.

To go back to the workplace sexual harassment example, it's not only about hiring people who won't harass or educating likely culprits so they know better. That's only treating the symptom. Regardless of whether harassment occurs or not, the problem is whether there are people who have the power to harass if they chose to do so. If a person somehow got their hands on the Infinity Gauntlet, it's not about them being a bad person if they use it and a good person if they don't. The practical question we must ask ourselves is, should this person have this much power at all? Liberalism does not ask that question. Instead, it wonders how we can give other types of people besides Thanos a chance to wield the Gauntlet. In liberalism, the problem isn't that villains exist; the only problem is that they tend to be white men. Since liberalism reinforces power hierarchy, all it can do is try to sublimate the problem they see.

But whether a metaphoric Gauntlet or a private dictatorship, you can't gamble on the moral sensibility of those in power. The system needs to be reorganized so no one feels trapped in a position to accept harassment, so no one has the power to harass without consequence, and ultimately though you can't remove harassment altogether, you can reduce the ability by balancing out the power dynamics.

It's also not only about educating people. Lack of knowledge is a problem, but it's not the only reason inequities exist. People don't do wrong because they don't know better. The reason people don't have what they need isn't because they don't know what they need. This buys into the problem of meritocracy—that we have power imbalances because we are uneducated, rather than addressing the real problem—we have power imbalances because the system is designed to have power imbalances. Meritocracy is an after the fact justification of an unjust power structure, glorifying exploitation as merit.

To go back to the example of food, what's the point of educating people about healthy foods without giving them access to healthy foods—without increasing their wages to afford healthy foods? Just like telling people to speak out without giving them the autonomy to speak out.

Consider another contradictory liberal response: the shaming of people who do not vaccinate their children without giving everyone access to free vaccinations. It's like asking, "Why don't you buy a Lamborghini?" Because we can't afford it, stupid. The problem isn't that we don't understand how great a Lamborghini is. It's like assuming people don't own homes because they don't know how great owning your own home is. We are told we all need to buy eco-friendly cars, but what if you can only afford a used car? What if you need a used truck because you do landscaping or general labor work? This is the problem of relying on individuals to solve systematic problems, it not only doesn't solve anything, but it also blames and shames the ones who are shut out of the system who have no freedom to make any consumer choices to begin with. Liberalism assumes people make poor decisions because they are uneducated rather than seeing that it's because people are deprived of the luxury of choice. "Why don't you go take up horseback riding like I did growing up? I know. You must not know how great horses are. I'll get you a book that tells you all about it so you'll go out and get one."

Liberalism won't let you buy a house but then will insult you for not owning your own home. The liberal solution is doubly damaging because it not only slaps you but also tells you you're stupid for being slapped.

Liberalism says, "your back hurts because you don't work out," rather than, "your back hurts because you sit at a desk all day, which is bad for human backs." Liberalism is like a homicide detective who's also the murderer, why would it ever accuse itself of being the culprit when it can blame the victim? Rather than being a slant, liberalism avoids the whole picture through misdirection.

People complain that they feel our medical system mostly treats symptoms, but that's not just the problem of privatized medicine, that's how our whole neoliberal system works. If you actually got to the root of the problems and resolved them, the whole economic system would run out of business.

If you're selling solutions, you always need problems. If capitalism and bootstrapping are all about overcoming obstacles, you always need obstacles. And you need a whole cottage industry of people who can help you overcome them.

So what is a liberal?

The way "liberal" is used by libertarians is the same way it's used by "liberal" Democrats. It's about the rights of individuals and their personal property and has many principle differences than the international conception of the Left, which is more about the collective and public spaces. This is not a difference of degree but of kind. This goes to the origins of liberal capitalism and why libertarians often call themselves "classical liberals," because initially liberals and libertarians were all the same thing—just liberals. Capital is another word for property, which is why liberalism's freedom of property is what politically and legally protects capitalism. This is why "capitalist democracy" and "liberal democracy" are interchangeable. Liberalism is capitalism, and "democracy" in this case is the freedom capital and the owners of capital enjoy. For the rest of us, the selling point is: if capital is free, our freedom becomes the byproduct. This is not the same as direct freedom, which is why it doesn't work. Liberalism IS the illusion of trickle-down freedom.

Liberalism does not want to get rid of hierarchy as it finds hierarchy to be useful and efficient when it comes to making money. Liberalism is a money-making endeavor (not a happiness-making endeavor), and this is why it emphasizes business, management, and enterprise. If Republicans and conservative capitalists now represent the owner class, liberal Democrats represent the professional-managerial class. But managers and consultants have more in common with owners than they do workers. This is why managers take the side of the owners when it comes to strikes and unions.

However, management and owners can also get into disputes—usually over money, which is highlighted to make it appear that these two political belief systems represent everyone, including the workers. The thought is if they are polar opposites, then somewhere in-between, everyone is represented.

Liberalism and conservatism are two methods of conserving and navigating hierarchy. Whereas conservatism tells you to bootstrap, liberalism wants to give you night classes. If conservatism is about willpower, liberalism is about education. But to both conservatives AND liberals, having a structure to climb is not oppressive. Or perhaps they don't care whether it's oppressive or not, just that hierarchy must exist regardless. They both believe in a ruling class; they just disagree on HOW this ruling class should rule. If liberalism is capitalism, then Right-wing liberals just call themselves Republicans. (Thinking of it in this context will also put into perspective the "flipping" of Democrats and Republicans after the Civil War.)

From the perspective of the bottom, if conservatives want to keep the master's house, liberals would want the master's house redesigned rather than dismantled and give other groups opportunities to be masters. They'll even tell you as much: "We can't dismantle the system. Change has to be slow. Big change is too radical. We shouldn't get rid of billionaires; they're good at what they do. They're problem solvers. Billionaires are people, too. They got where they are because of meritocracy."—and so forth. This goes back to the concept of rainbow capitalism, a rainbow/ diverse coalition of CEOs. But having a diversity of rich people and a diversity of poor people does not resolve the ultimate issue, that there are a majority of people who are suffering, and a minority of people flourishing. This is why diversity is NOT inclusion. Diversity is a part of inclusion, but inclusion also means flattening the power differences so that EVERYONE can be included. Or put simply, inclusion means include EVERYONE, diversity means, diversity among those already included. Therefore you can never have inclusion under capitalism.

Meritocracy is the belief that if you are rich and powerful, you must deserve it. This is more religious thinking than it is science. It assumes Jeff Bezos makes 100,000,000,000 times more than the average person because he is 100,000,000,000 times smarter and harder working than the average person. That's just not scientifically possible.

Remember the liberal love affair from recent history with Bezos and Elon Musk? They used to be compared to Tony Stark from Iron Man. Tony Stark can do it all; incredibly smart and fit in every category so he deserves to be rich, and the same must be true for all billionaires. This is why talks from CEOs and billionaires get so many shares; they're admired because of this belief that since you only get what you deserve, their wealth represents how much better they are than everyone else. This is called the Just-World bias—Jeff Bezos being so rich is proof that it must have happened fairly. It's a form of circular reasoning where the bias becomes its own proof. But if Bezos was actually just and paid his fair share of taxes, paid all his employees a proper living wage, would he still be as rich? No. He would still be rich, but his employees across the world would also be a lot better off as well. Can you be rich in a just way? Sure. Can you be Bezos richer than everyone else in a just way? No. Is the answer for us all to be poor? No. Then there would be nothing attractive to being part of the Left. The Left is saying we all want to be comfortable as well, but how about just basic human rights to begin with.

Liberals and conservatives will call out a Leftist for having nice things, which misses the point. The point of the Left is to say, we all want nice things. This, however, is done intentionally to make the Left less appealing—that the Left wants you to be homeless, which doesn't make sense when so many Leftists are fighting to prevent homelessness. One of the dumbest ideas from the Red Scare that people still tout is this notion that socialists want you to be poor and only the capitalists care about your welfare. Again, it only takes a bit of reflection to dismantle this smear. But only IF you reflect.

Then what is neoliberalism?

Neoliberalism is simply privatized governments. In the past, as imperfect as it was, the government had its lane and the private sector had theirs. Neoliberalism is the encroachment of the private sector more and more into public spaces and sectors, then using the government to enforce the rule of the private sector. So if you come up with some idea, but it's trademarked by Apple and you didn't know, the government on behalf of Apple will come after you. You organize a strike at Amazon, and Amazon can fire you then have the government remove you off the premises or have you arrested for trespassing. And at that point, it becomes very easy to add more charges against you.

Liberalism is the umbrella—neoliberalism is one strategy for liberalism. And this does not mean all parts of the government shrink, the government's role changes from serving the people to enforcing neoliberalism and the rights of the private sector. So the right hand of the government is increased, such as police, the military, and other state agents while the left hand is dismantled, such as healthcare, unemployment benefits, unions, community projects, zoning, and so forth. This is why neoliberalism was initiated by leaders within the government and can be considered a state project. It didn't decrease the total size of the government; for leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, it decreased aspects of the government they didn't like while increasing the aspects they did like. It's the government marrying the private sector, where the government becomes privatized and the private sector becomes more of the government. A type of state capitalism that doesn't reward any of its citizens. But in neoliberal state capitalism, the government doesn't own the corporations; the corporations, in effect, own the government. Think of it as a pie chart; the government doesn't actually shrink, just more of the government becomes privatized.

The conservatives made corporations people; however, the liberals make sure we never consider corporations as people when we're thinking of people to blame for problems such as pollution. As we get the worse of all worlds, corporations get the best of all worlds, the benefits of people without any of the responsibility. Cause most of the problems while people get the blame. It's always the people's fault. It's like being on a runaway train and blaming the passengers whenever the train goes off the rails. It's the people's job to get it back on the tracks, but they are also the ones penalized and punished for any faults of the train. But they're also not allowed to take control of the train either to prevent more human suffering.

This is how capitalism is also fascist, because if the people are to blame, then like the previous Thanos and the Gauntlet analogy, all problems become a matter of too many people and not too much capitalism. Sacrifice the people rather than capitalism. Send people back to work during the pandemic to save capitalism (think about how disproportionately the pandemic is killing people of color). When there's too much pollution, the problem is too many people. Capitalism is worth more than people. The more the runaway train runs free, the more people will get hurt and try to stop the train. Then you need the large right hand of the government to keep people tied to their seats. Capitalism is free, so we are not. Capitalism is valued, so we are not. The idea that there are too many people makes it seem like lives are expendable, like freedom is a zero-sum game. Then what happens? We need law and order, and to be tougher on crime and take away more civil liberties and institute more surveillance and take away more privacy. There's never too much capitalism, only too many people. Capitalism is never too free; the problem is people are too free. And when you have too many people with too much freedom, you need fewer people and less freedom. This ranges from concentration camps at the border, search and seizure without a warrant, to indefinite incarceration without due process, to infinite debt. What if we strike or protest or organize and lose our jobs, which also means our healthcare, then what? Life on the street can be worse than prison, and can be de facto torture then a death sentence. Then how are we not constrained while capitalism gets to run free? According to the US Supreme Court, capitalism is a person, yet it can't go to jail or end up on the streets, doesn't have to pay the same taxes we do, and will always be bailed out by us and the state. Then who's really free and who's the prisoner in this system? Why is a runaway train being protected over its passengers when it's constantly maiming us?

Capitalist fascism, also like traditional fascism, eventually scapegoats a group or a race for the problems of capitalism. This could be for lack of jobs, lack of prosperity, the spread of diseases, crime, or even back to our pollution example—too many people often mean too many brown, black, or yellow people only. In the case of the pandemic, under capitalist fascism, it's not that capitalism means destroying the natural land, it's that the Chinese were doing it wrong. It's not a problem of global capitalism, it's because Asians are weird and gross and if they stopped being gross, there would be no pandemic. Ever. Under capitalism, the pressing topic isn't about the ecology of disease, which is the study of diseases that spread due to loss of natural land or because of global warming, it's about the "Chinese virus." Conservatives outright blame China whereas liberals won't say that out loud but will share fake videos about "wet" markets. FYI, "wet" market just means public market in Chinese. So why isn't that properly translated by the media? Because in liberalism, you always blame people. And since liberal thought leaders are promoting "Unity," then the blame is on foreign peoples excluded from our "Unity." Only capital gets to be a global citizen.

When the US military says it fights for American freedom, it means freedom for capitalism. We never see any benefit; neither do the majority of the other countries involved, we the people only suffer the costs. But capitalism gets direct benefit and gets to enjoy more international freedom and gain more international public spaces.

When neoliberal state capitalism has this much power over us, it's not about us being good actors. That's like saying it's fine Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet and it's our fault for not listening to him. No, nothing should have that much power. Not only because it will always be abused, but also out of principle. Being given permission to exist is not the same as having the freedom to exist.

Both liberals and conservatives believe the private sector does almost everything better than the government, so their instinct is to let them handle everything. One just wants more oversight than the other when this happens. Therefore, neoliberalism includes both conservatives and liberals. It's the overarching want to privatize, but where conservatives want to conserve the old industries, liberals are on the side of startups and tech—but for tech to solve all of our problems, they have to gain access to more lanes. If liberal means open-minded and new, and conservative means status quo and old, liberals want new companies and new tech-oriented capitalism, whereas conservatives want to preserve the old—but it's not a difference of kind, but of degree—new capitalism vs. old, Coke vs. Pepsi, Vox vs. Fox. Replace the master rather than getting rid of the master.

If you want tech to solve the climate crisis, they need more of the pie chart that the public sector currently occupies. But capitalist consumption always has a carbon cost, so how can the capitalist private sector solve the climate crisis while still having us consume more and more goods every year? This is the profit motive: to make more and more money. That means to sell more and more stuff, which includes services. This is antithetical to the needs of the environment. Another liberal contradiction: preserve resources by buying more stuff. Even your electric car is charged with electricity from coal. Capitalism always has a cost, which makes sense because it's capitalism. Nothing is ever supposed to be free; if it were, it would no longer be capitalism. 

There is this belief among liberals that the Left and liberals are two sides of the same coin, both thinking about the same things but coming at it differently. But this is also not the case. The Left not only analyzes but also cares about more things, whereas most liberals are of the laissez-faire attitude of going along for the ride— of going along for the train ride, assuming things will take care of themselves, with one or two issues they make exceptions for. Perhaps another way to think about liberals are as single-issue conservatives—laissez-faire about everything else other than one issue. But what happens when that issue gets resolved? After the Civil Rights Act? After Roe v. Wade? How many liberals turned outright conservative after more white women became CEOs or starred in more movies? How many after gay marriage? How many after the legalization of marijuana? Whatever good things liberals care about, the Left also cares about, but it's not vice versa. This is why it's not two sides of the same coin, but rather that the Left has priced in all the good concerns of liberals. This is why there is such frustration because whatever liberals bring up, Leftists have already thought about. And whatever new things the Left brings up, liberals are incredulous to because they haven't already thought of it. But "believing" is about fighting against incredulity's want to dismiss problems it's not aware of—liberalism is always a hypocrite because its words are in conflict with its principles. But if liberalism lived up to its words, it would be socialism.

Liberals, as much as they tout lack of education as the scourge of all our problems, are uneducated about the Left (among many other things). Liberals also naively assume the same must be true for the Left with regards to liberals. Even conservatives are aware of the concerns of liberals (they might not agree with all their concerns, but they're aware of them). It's like a white liberal who is unaware of Asian American customs assuming the same ignorance must be reciprocal for Asian Americans (which, by the way, happens all the time). Who in this country isn't aware of white customs? Who living in the US is unaware of liberal concerns? Everyone knows about the default, but the default doesn't know about everyone else. This, again, is power analysis, something that is not present in liberal politics. This is why liberals will apologize for the powerful and attack the powerless. This is why 50% of liberals are confused by "not punching down" and the other 50% have never heard of this concept. In liberal logic, if hierarchy is just a fixture of reality, then why do you need to analyze it? And they don't. So they defend up and punch down, unaware of the oppression, racism, and sexism they are reinforcing. This lack of awareness is how they maintain their internal moral superiority.

Liberals then are always arguing from a place of ignorance, but have no problem splaining Left politics to Leftists (or splaining Asian American culture to Asian Americans). Most Leftists were liberals before becoming Leftists. Liberalism is also the main voice in the media and in the political discourse, which oddly enough is part of why they will watch conservative news—"to get out of their bubble," as they put it.

Their arrogance comes from having the loudest voice, and because they talk to conservatives, they think they know everything. But you don't know what you don't know. So whatever you know, you assume is everything there is. The first rule of Dunning–Kruger club is to not know you're in Dunning–Kruger club.

Ultimately, the difference between liberal and Left is not just a difference in perception but also in attitude: knowing and wanting to know more vs. not knowing and not wanting to know.

The ones who don't know and don't want to know will be liberals who become conservatives later on. The ones who know and don't care are already conservatives. The ones who don't know but want to know, those are the ones whom we cannot give up on. After all, that's how most of us came to the Left.