I keep seeing this issue crop up here on SaidIt. I think there ought to be a big thread discussing it that people can refer to whenever it comes up.

I feel like a lot of people here align themselves with "the left", while they are actually classical liberals, 90s/00s liberals, or libertarian left socialists who care mostly about economic policies rather than culture war issues. I'll call this Group A

Then you have refugees from reddit's admittedly-leftist propaganda culture and censorship policies. Some of these are conservatives, others are anti-SJW, and still others are just frustrated moderates. I'll call this Group B

The pattern is that Group B criticizes "the left" on some issue. Group A then gets (somewhat understandably) offended, and chimes in that a lot of the left isn't like that. Group B then gets (somewhat understandably) miffed, and responds that it definitely is prominent mainstream leftists who are responsible for the issue (which is true). Both are technically correct, they just have very different perspectives of what "the left" is.

The thing is that Group A and Group B don't even disagree that much. Both groups seems very live-and-let-live, "I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone" types. But this one perceptual difference has led to a lot of disagreements on here.