… To be left or right is determined by someone’s view of the economy. Being on the left means believing that globalization should primarily serve humanity instead of the interests of global corporations, that corporate interests should be regulated to protect the environment because they wouldn’t do so if they are left alone, and that corporations should have social responsibility and should not be fixated on profits only. A leftist believes in economic regulation and in protecting the marginalized, even if it means interfering with the operations of the free market. Hence, leftists believe in minimum wages and price controls. They believe in taxing the rich more, and using taxes to finance social programs that would even include investing in the arts. While some leftists are socially authoritarian, most leftists are socially libertarian. They adhere to individual freedom, and would support divorce, same-sex marriages and abortion. They oppose the death penalty.
Being an activist for these causes, and questioning state authority, when done peacefully and under the ambit of laws, should not and cannot be considered as dangerous to the Republic. Under these rubrics, I am personally a leftist who is also a social libertarian. My score in the political compass test is a minus 6.88, with minus 10 being the score for being perfectly leftist, and a minus 7.23, with minus 10 being the score for being perfectly libertarian. I am not even a centrist by all accounts.
There has been too much confusion in the way popular and ordinary discourse has branded the left as essentially communist, and then further committing an egregious error of associating communism only with the armed left. Some even go to the extent of associating the left in general, and communism in particular, with authoritarian regimes. This is the ground from where red-tagging emerges as a pejorative, where liberal-progressives who espouse leftist and libertarian beliefs end up being lumped together with Marxist, Leninist and Maoist rebels, and worse, terrorists.
This corruption of political labels and categories has to end. Being leftist is different from being an armed rebel, in the same manner that being an activist does not necessarily mean that one has taken up arms to topple the government. Likewise, it is a fallacy to contrast communism with democracy, considering that there are communist and socialist parties that compete in democratic elections in countries like India.
The ideal response to red-tagging is to clarify that not all kinds of red should be tagged as enemies of the state. Environmental activists who propose green economies tend to be leftist in orientation, and so are feminists and gay activists. Organized labor unions tend to be leftist in orientation. The hatred being espoused by many diehard Duterte supporters and Marcos loyalists toward liberal activists, that even translate to their dislike of the US Democrats, is misplaced simply because they are premised on fallacious imaging and assumptions. There are many good people who are fighting for socially relevant causes that under these misinformed rubrics would fall in the category of enemies of the state. A cursorial look at history would reveal that practically all major social benefits that people now enjoy, from wage protection to social amelioration policies, are largely the result of leftist and progressive activism. These include giving ayuda (financial assistance) and educational assistance.
… The solution to political violence is not red-tagging but to make sure that the interests of the marginalized are served by legitimate institutions of the state. And the better response to red-tagging is to show that some types of red are, in fact, essential in achieving that end.