I’m gonna start categorizing the weird bad faith responses I get. I call this one the “Mission Accomplished”: Where you simply announce proudly that the other person has just unwittingly proven your argument without you even needing to make any kind of statement at all, and just start running victory laps for yourself, hands held proudly in the air.
“Liberal reform is ineffectual from a leftist perspective because it stops short of changing the system that is being opposed”
weird bad faith responses
Is it weird because you don’t understand it? Or because it’s uncomfortable?
Aha! A concrete statement. This one, I can respond to.
“Liberal reform is not enough. It’s a positive thing for the world if good things happen obviously, but by no means enough. Continuing to work for genuine reform is necessary if any survivable society is going to continue on earth beyond this generation. On the other hand, letting Trump end the world prematurely is obviously also something we should avoid if we want to be in a position to do any of those things.”
Fixed it for you. I would love a landscape where Biden is the weird right-wing outlier because we have left-wing candidates in the ring. How do we get there?
Or, are you suggesting doing away with voting and political parties entirely and just living in a libertarian utopia where clearly the people with all the money and corporate power won’t instantly take over even more so than they already have? You tell me.
You asked for examples of direct action earlier - this is it bud.
Dissenting to a party that refuses to take meaningful action against threats to ‘any survivable society’ is the bare-minimum action you could possibly take. Voting is the one tool that is given to you by a liberal democratic system to voice support or opposition, and if you’re unwilling to use that tool to pursue necessary action, then i’m really not sure there are any actions you would find more agreeable to your strikingly liberal disposition.
A worker’s union exercises power by threat of a worker’s strike, a leftist coalition exercises power -in part- by threat of withholding support. You wouldn’t blame a worker’s union of being in favor of layoffs for going on strike to win concessions, at least not unless you’re a boot-licking capitalist.
