Yes, but the originally free/libre licensed source code is still out there.

makes improvements and put’s those under a proprietary license

You could also make improvements and release them under a GPL license.

Sadly, you should feel alienated. When you choose to use proprietary software, you further the injustice that it creates over society. Windows is so shamefully harmful, even outside of just being proprietary that choosing it in 2024 is choosing the side of unjust power, and you should be rightfully alienated for making that decision.

Maybe political repression and the mass killing of protestors and the internment of ethnic minorities has very little to do with a countries mode of production. Maybe you guys can advocate for an alternative mode of production without defending genocide and using the military to crack down on protests? And maybe liberals can do the same when Western Capitalist Countries do it?

please… :(

If nuclear waste DID pollute water, it would still help combat climate change, specifically the warming of the earth. It doesn’t pollute water, and nuclear waste can be stored deep underground or reused. But we are out of time to find a “perfect solution” nuclear power is the ONLY option to provide renewable and carbon neutral base load power that other forms of “green electricity” will NEVER be able to compete with.

It’s coal or nukes. You better figure out which one you want fast.

Leaving health insurance expansion to the states was because of the Supreme Court, not the Democrats. Specifically medicaid expansion with the ACA I assume you are talking about?

The Dems are more like 4 political parties pretending to be just one. The dems would be split up in any other country.

have ignored doing anything to put abortion rights into law. But also Democrats have enshrined abortion rights into law at the state level. We are a rather large country.

Sorry I deleted my post, I don’t mean to leave it like that where it looks like your talking to yourself. I don’t think dems are uniquely of the left, I just think there are rising left wing factions in the Democratic party and I don’t think the situation is as hopeless as people think it is as a binary choice between center-right and the right wing. And I really don’t think Europe is really much better off in this regard.

We have it worse because we are a hegemon. Most countries don’t have to take a stance on imperalism because they lack the resources to actually engage in it and outsource it to us.

Overall, my point is to show that the Democrats are not a monolith and have internal factions, and on a number of issues, we are more left than other issues on the planet. If the main thing you care about is foreign affairs, you are always going to be disappointed, hell, I am. The Deep State is in charge of that and it’s basically outside of the political system.

It seems to me that Europe is largely dominated by a largely center right consensus.

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Well I would be happy to hear your alternative. I’m ideology shopping right now actually. But personally, I think the interests of capital should be represented in any system and that doesn’t make it not democratic for me.

I would say it’s a bit of both depending on the context.

Please explain your alternative to liberal democracy that “pushes the hole-drillers overboard”. I’m happy to hear how it’s different from fascism. This is the price we pay for living for living in a liberal democracy that allows dissent.

All modern political parties in liberal democracies are fine with state violence on college protestors. It’s kind of the nature of having a state that exercises police power. There is no one arguing against that.

Modern discourse in the US about democrats and being “liberal” is usually as a pejorative using the term to describe yourself is usually as a reclamation from the political right in the US and less about being an actual “liberal” as in liberal theory.

You should vote in political primaries where there are many more candidates to choose from.

US democrats are the largest and most successful left party in the world. Our large two party system obfuscates the underlying factionalism within the political parties (progressive cacucus, justice democrats, blue dogs, New Democrat Caucus) kind of reveals this inherent disagreement within our political parties, where members of the progressive caucus and justice democrats can be pretty clearly seen as on the political left.

In the US, social liberalism and political freedom is generally much more popular, as compared to Europe, and seen as being associated with the political left. There is no major socialist political group in the United States, and usually people who claim that there is “no left wing party in the US” want an actual Socialist party, but there are very few examples of successful socialist parties in Western Democracies and tend to be consigned to either being permanent opposition, or forcing themselves to liberalize to the point of not being socialist anymore (think SPD in Germany and Labour in the UK).

I am thankful that the US democrats focus so strongly on issues of social liberalism, think, immigration, abortion, LGBTQ rights, where in Europe these issues are much more controversial especially on issues of abortion and immigration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Europe#Abortion_laws_by_jurisdiction

In the war of rhetoric, people like to use terms to try and bias you to their side.

liberal actually just means “free” and so there are many types of liberalism: social liberalism economic liberalism (as in free market economics) political liberalism etc…

In the USA liberals tend to be highly socially liberal and highly political liberal. Social liberalism tends to be associated with the political left, and when using liberal as a pejorative, it’s usually meant to claim that the opponent is “too socially liberal.”

US liberals also tend to be associated with the creation and maintaing of a welfare state which is commonly seen as being a left wing concept.

In the US, there is also a large history of debate between what the size and scope of government should be, and how the government should be run. This debate can somewhat be characterized as “liberal democracy vs populism”, i.e good governance based on institutions rules and ideas versus well, populism, a decent example is Donald Trumps rhetoric about “draining the swamp.” US liberals tend to be associated with institutionalism and supposed “good governance”, and populism is commonly seen more as a right wing ideal, so in this area US liberals are considered on the political left as well.

Except that he remains 3rd in line to the presidency, has massive power over how the house is run and so would just backstab democrats after any “deal?”

There is two paths, we can either have a compromise speaker who isn’t Mike Johnson, or Jeffries, without massive concessions (not just floor time, actual policy concessions) it makes no sense for democrats to save Johnson from his own party.

No democrat should ever vote to leave this bigot in the succession line to the presidency.

Some fun things Mike Johnson has done:

Called us a “depraved culture” for having high LGBTQ identification:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/mike-johnson-america-depraved-high-school-students

Made his daughter pledge her virginity to him at a “purity ball”:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/speaker-mike-johnson-daughter-profiled-attending-purity-ball/story?id=105785626

And just read what he has to say about gay marriage:

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-kfile/134019997/