I really don't like liberal Democrats:



Just being left of the extreme right doesn't make you a leftist, but liberal Dems seem to consider themselves such, painting everyone left of themselves as too "radical" and, thus, dangerous. Dangerous to what? The status quo, presumably.


They're smug, privileged, often educated, are insufferably paternalistic, and they don't understand how anything works. Furthermore, they'd rather pretend that they do and control a debate or protest than concede to someone of inferior social privilege who may have more experience and direct knowledge than they do.


They assume every impoverished, marginalized, minority group belongs to them. They think they represent the interests of the people. They believe in representation, because their constituents don't like to take personal responsibility into the political sphere, and because they believe people are "too stupid" to know what their best interests are -- and, while they try and take ownership of the left while actually picking it apart and shutting out socialists, their arrogance and lack of effectiveness pushes different people toward their conservative Republican allies or even further into the extreme right.


They play by the rules and expect everyone else to, no matter how much harm it causes, probably because they helped write them.


They've largely departed from classical liberalism, which informed the libertarian and libertarian socialist perspective on freedom and the inalienable rights of human beings, and have become the party of neoliberalism, supporting exploitative institutions like the IMF and trade globalization abroad.


They love cops. They'll call the cops when they don't feel safe, even though most people rightly don't feel safe when cops are present. They'll inform the cops of everything going on. They'll hug cops at protests. They'll cry when cops use their state-sanctioned power to beat people, use excessive force, murder people, but they're loudest when opposing the people's self-defense or retaliation against cop violence. This is because they don't respect the people, they only respect law. They can sympathize with beaten, trodden animals, but not with self-respecting people who fight back against injustice.


They're those people who think love is what's going to magically fix everything in the political and economic sphere. Likewise, they'll claim to be pacifists, while overwhelmingly supporting imperialist politicians and regimes.


They believe capitalism is "the best system we have", despite all evidence to the contrary, as well as nonsense like "ethical consumption". Therefore, they support the exploitative state capitalist structure to no good end, and believe that the way to make everything better is to elect more liberal Dems into offices, push social programs into law that they think might make it easier for people to survive, however badly, under a shitty system. They either can't or won't legislate anything that has wide popular support, due to lack of support of such policies from the special interest groups (the wealthy) and lobbyists who finance their campaigns. Thus, any policies and laws they write are convoluted, weak, ineffective, must be approved by officials who generally oppose them, are typically gutted, filled with concessions, can take a lot of time to pass, take even longer to go into effect, and are easily repealed by subsequent administrations. In some cases, these laws penalize or otherwise harm the people they were written to benefit, or are just ignored by enforcers on a state level anyway. In other words, they'll treat the symptoms of gross inequality and injustice, and ignore the causes... and they're hardly even any good at that! Because of liberal Democrats, the suffering of people and constant ecological destruction under hierarchical systems like state capitalism is indefinitely prolonged, until we experience a significant collapse, severe enough to end it -- at which point, few will be prepared or empowered to meet the challenges.


They get involved in a non-committal way to many social struggles, even when asked not to, usually as highly visible "allies". They attempt to police the behavior of groups. They threaten to withhold support if things get "violent", which can mean literally anything to them. They like symbolic protests, not revolutions, and they encourage people to accept how things are or to change things "from within the system" (ie ineffectively) instead of encouraging people to take power into their own hands to effect change. They seem perpetually and willfully ignorant of how political and economic change occurs, both historically and in the present. They don't really want change. They tinker with reforms, so that nothing upsets their privilege. Liberalism supports capitalism, private property, statism, and the various mechanisms and institutions that protect their privilege from the threat of greater equality, which is why they spend so much time decrying anything they feel might lead us into "anarchy" or "communism", sleeping with the enemy while pretending to have your best interests in mind.


They support electioneering, and are the ones who are constantly trotting out all the stupid cliche's that literally everyone has heard a billion times for decades on every single election cycle, about the "lesser of two evils", and "wasted votes" on 3rd parties, and "if you don't vote, you can't complain", and other fucking unintelligent shit. Then, if their candidate wins, they'll disappear for four years, only to resurface just as ignorant as ever.


When you subject them to criticism, they'll ask you what you think would work so much better, but it's a rhetorical question, and they aren't listening.


So, I really just can't work with those people. They are not allies. 

by guest blogger Alex .S.