Haha, yeah - the deonthology hating child in my example came across as a little more reasonable than I perhaps wanted it to.

That said, I’m kind of a fan, even though I agree it’s morally bankrupt. Most of my moral thinking revolves around making up excuses for Kant.

Sounds like just about the kind of argument a filthy literate like yourself would make.

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.

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.

I mean… yeah, probably. John Locke is influential as fuck.

I have seen people argue that they will never vote for Harris, because she’s just part of the same rotten establishment etc etc. Mostly from the same people who use liberal as a slur. They seem to be very loud around here.

I might be ignorant though. Have anyone established/respected in the circles around Sanders/the Squad used the term “liberal” in a similar sense? Or is it mostly by faceless folks online?

So when self-proclaimed leftists use as a slur it’s not even in relation to support for private property rights?

I guess, if you’re a proper communist, you could use liberal as a category of leftists who don’t want to abolish property rights. As for the far right crowd, it could be a slur for anyone who doesn’t want to abolish all other rights.

If a self-proclaimed “part of the Democratic coalition” is dismissing whatever arguments you make by weirdly comparing you to John Locke as a slur, chances are they are they are not, in fact, part of the Democratic coalition. The fact that they are borrowing their slurs from the conventional fascists should be telling enough.

They might even share employer.

Genuinely useful. I keep getting called a liberal online as a slur whenever I discuss politics, mostly by the accounts of people who could very well have been on a Russian payroll but are probably just deranged.

I was wondering what the fuck they were on about.

Wouldn’t be the first time!

I’m gonna guess this is generational.

Maybe it’s an American study. Maybe Americans were more traditional 30-50 years ago than they are now.

40 years ago, maybe Americans of German origins would call their child Arnold or Frank, after their great grandparents or some jazz.

Today, they might go for Noah or Liam, because they’re popular and they think it sounds nice. Social media etc might play a role.

It could also be other factors, like people from a specific region of the country having name A instead of name B combined with other traits, or if the age span of the adults is wider than of the children making it possible to capture time trends in popular names.

If that’s the case, genetics are further removed from naming when these kids were born than when the adults were. In which case the findings make sense, completely without the self fulfilling prophesy part.

At least personally, of all the things that affect who I am as an adult, I’m pretty sure my name is pretty fucking low on the list.

I agree - I think they did something truly great. It was great fun, completely harmless, showcased France and its people, and pissed off a lot of people I don’t care for in the process. And it gave a lot of genuine talents a moment in the spotlight, without ever getting dull or overly traditional.

I can’t read the article beyond the headline, but that’s already hilarious.

Nothing short of legendary.

Yeah, the 1936 was a huge and famously pretty successful propaganda event for Nazi Germany. It might have served as an inspiration for certain other authoritarian regimes.

At least the Chinese and the Russians didn’t upset American sensitivities! Good for them. <3

It’s of course impossible to reach everyone, but the opening ceremony had many things going for it appealing to a lot of different people. I was talking to a death metal fan the other day who was over his head in excitement over Gojira’s performance and how it seemed they were given artistic liberty to do what they wanted with it, not sanitized by some outsider who doesn’t understand the art.

It seems to me the opening ceremony did a great job at representing a broad spectrum of France. What offends people is not that they themselves are not represented, but rather that other people and expressions are. As if they are crying over a loss of cultural hegemony. And what’s worse, they seem to be mostly white conservative Americans crying over a loss of cultural hegemony over a French event.

It’s absurd. And it seems the director of the ceremony anticipated the outrage and chose to lean into it rather than to shy away from it, which is personally why I think it might have been the best opening ceremony ever. Because, like so many other represented groups, I belong to a subculture: The subculture of hating these stuck up hypocritical conservative self-proclaimed guardians of public morality and taste with all my guts. And that subculture was very well represented! :)

I think this year’s opening ceremony did a wonderful job showcasing France and French culture in all its diversity. There’s some really clever juxtaposition of tradition and contemporary France. Aya Nakamura, who has been criticized for her unconventional use of French language, dancing with the guards of the Académie Française (the institution responsible for the French language) was amazing, and a great fuck you to the people out there who pretend to be traditionalist but are really just poorly camouflaged racists with their heads stuck up their asses.

The blue naked man everybody seem so upset by is a cultural treasure, and he did not disappoint.

The fact that Americans are having a meltdown over it of course makes everything better, but it’s just a bonus.

I dislike Apple more than most people, and they are indeed terrible with standards in general, but with web standards they’re doing the world a bit of a favour by pushing WebKit (based on KHTML) on all its users. WebKit is open source and used in for example GNOME Web.

Had it not been for Apple nobody would give a shit about creating websites that work outside of Chrome.

There are of course women on both sides, but generally speaking the prospect of being forced to carry a child they do not want is off-putting for most women.

Vote. Try to get others to do the same.

Maybe Democrats don’t stand a chance this round, but put up a fight. And if Trump loses you might get a chance to vote again in four years - a higher turnout to Democrats in this round might make it seem less hopeless at the next crossroads. :)

Ah, I wasn’t aware! If it’s there I guess people will randomly comment on it for sure.

I wonder if it displays it for users of other platforms (like Mastodon) as well. Could cause some fun interactions.