Comic Strips

Because the technical definition of 'liberal' is somebody who has buy in to the idealogy of liberalism^1^. According to the original left vs. right wing of the French National Assembly "liberals" were left wing and "conservatives", aka monarchists, were right wing.

That was nearly 250 years ago.

In the modern era where monarchies are mostly extinct the way that an individual achieves the modern equivalent of the "divine right of kings" is via the "right to private property". So both it and conservatism are fighting to fill the niche that once held the monarchists, the fight is whether it should be wealthy corporations or a religious monarchy that fills it. It should go without saying that these are both extremely far right positions.

^1^ also worth reading a bit about the technical definition/understandings of neoliberalism

Liberal is sort of two separate things - a brand adopted by usually a party that markets itself as socially progressive and a philosophy of property forward law that creates a punch out of individual rights to citizens (and to a much lesser extent subgroups) to things like freedom of movement, freedom from unlawful seizure of property, freedom of expression and "style of life".

If you have existed on the outside of the left wing you might only be familiar with the brand aspect. The criticism of the wider left in general of these "Liberal" branded parties is that they are often performative in their progressive nature. The brand is just marketing.

The hotbutton discussion however inside the wider left in regards to the political philosophy of Libralism is that both the Republicans and Democrats are by technical definition Liberals and that base philosophy has within it the political prerogative of constantly upholding protections on keeping the absurd aggregation of wealth in private firms (something Libralism at it's core is designed to do). A large number of different leftist philosophies see this as a core problem. Therefore in leftist spaces self identifying Liberals are usually flagged as dupes of a branded center-right party - not as progressives who support social causes of wider acceptance.

Libralism as a philosophy is kind of the air we breathe. It's not left nor right. It creates a body of individual rights but Capitalism is used as a measure of what constitutes personal autonomy. Someone dying from a lack of success is acceptable because at it's core Liberalism is designed to coerce (most) people to perform perpetual labour in return for protection inside the system. The system creates classes of people who are citizens who are protected and by doing so it creates exceptions to citizenhood (like prisoners, refugees, immigrants or indigenous peoples) who can be exploited.

Most Democracies are philosophically a sort of blended patchwork of Liberalism and Socialism with some other stuff mixed in. The two are either compatible or opposing depending on which school of Socialism you are talking about.

I don't know the specific context you're looking at but when liberal is used on Lemmy as a derogatory it's generally directed at those affiliated with, say, the Democratic party (of America). ITT some comments are drily pointing out that this isn't a good "gotcha" comic because it is objectively obvious what the right's agenda has been this whole time, to the point that calling it out is essentially an empty gesture.

Are you European? Liberal means something else in most of our countries

The way I interpret it, it's like when Homophobes call each other f***ts. Homphobes hate being called gay slurs. So essentially the same people don't like being called gay slurs or Liberal.