I just noticed that one of the news communities here discourage the use of least biased/centrist news sources and I saw some people who put that they hate centrists in their bios.
All is that is kind of weird to me and does not make sense, as I thought that all sides should encourage ideas from centrists and least biased sources.
Is there is something that I miss here?
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TL;DR because I get the feeling that investing any more energy here is a waste of time:
and
(E: one of the main things OP seems to be missing is that capitalism is just as much a system of oppression as racism, sexism, and the rest are)
Yep, even MLK was saying it decades ago:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
For some reason I don’t think OP will ever read that letter tho…
They are reading the replies, but from their replies they just don’t care about their own question. They’re just a debate me chud.
Account is 3 days old, and of course OP couldn’t resist implying this is a new account after their old one was deleted/banned in that little blurb no one fills out
They’re not here for genuine discussion
Yup, I saw their one reply, which is why I edited mine lol
Politics is not as simple as black and white.
You could support the left wing on good ideas and support the good right wing ideas when they make sense and still fight injustices.
Exactly which “good right wing ideas” are you referring to? Criminalizing LGBTQ? Ending elections? Killing the immigration system? Shoveling money at the rich?
- Stopping illegal immigration?
- Reduce government spending?
- Lower government control that harm the competition for small companies?
In reality:
- Persecuting brown people, and breaking the system to make legal immigration impossible
- Only applicable to things that help the poors, not applicable to billion-dollar military boondoggles or handouts for corpos
- Legalize union busting and selling sawdust as food
not applicable to billion-dollar military boondoggles or handouts for corpos
You asked what good ideas to which he responded limiting government spending. Then you rebuke the notion that limiting wasteful spending is a fundamental good idea by criticizing politicians for not doing it in military boondoggles or with corporate welfare. Those are critiques of politicians not the ideas, as those negative examples are when the idea isn’t applied.
I agree that we should curtail wasteful military spending and corporate welfare. But in advocating for those you yourself advocate for the idea of limiting government spending.
My point is that the right doesn’t care about actually reducing the deficit, they make noises about it when a Democrat is in office but the second they get power it magically disappears. It’s just an excuse to be awful.
Remember Trump’s big tax bill? 10 TRILLION in extra debt, mostly to cut taxes for the rich. What did he cut? A few million worth of stuff that actually helps people.By your logic someone can say they’re voting for trump.to.make America great again, and you’d expect people to take that on face value and pretend it’s an honest position.
Like, I don’t know how to break this to you, but fascists lie about a lot shit, most of what they say are lies.
So demanding people pretend they’re not lying, won’t get you honest discussion, because that’s not what you’re doing.
If you don’t think there’s trump stans out there who believe trump will do just that you need to touch grass.
What is the lie there? That they actually picking a candidate who they want to make the country worse? The blunt truth is that to them the policies you don’t like are good ones.
Insisting otherwise simply fuels polarization which furthers radicalization.
Right-wing extremists nearly always identify as “centrist.”
And call people who want healthcare like every other 1st country “communists”
Check my other comments in this post and call me a right-wing…
Hey pickle, I get the feeling that the conversation happening here is about a specific scenario that you aren’t personally involved in. No need to take offense.
I’m not taking an offense. I see that the discussion is going towards US political landscape but I think the issue is more global. We as the people are slowly losing the ability to compromise and fall into 1-or-0 narration.
It’s hard to compromise when one side wants more than anyone to roll back basic human rights.
I don’t agree. As I said in other comment I consider myself as a centrist. And my view on the world is a reasonable one (in my opinion). I’m pro same sex marriage, abortion, women rights, same salary for the same work for both genders, public health care and education. But I’m also against unchecked illegal immigration, pretending to be woman so you can win in sports and social handouts. Why does it make me a target for right wingers and not left wingers?
Yep, conservative pretending to be centrist. See the left actually has empathy for people, which you clearly lack.
Please, explain like I’m 5 how do I lack empathy for the people.
Left-wingers identify nearly everyone who doesn’t agree with them or doesn’t share their delusions as “right-wing extremists”.
So on the right, you have people who don’t want an entire subset of the population to exist. On the left, you have those people who are fighting for the right to exist. Tell me where a centrist falls in this situation. How can you meet in the middle?
You could be fine with the people existing but differ in how to correct past or systemic injustices.
Or let’s say you think the prices of some things should be set by supply and demand, but you’re against gouging in emergencies and think some basic necessities (food, water, medicine) should have price controls.
There’s plenty of middle ground, and the people who say you’re with us or you’re for the Nazis may have forgotten what the Soviet victory meant for Eastern Europe.
Great, but as to the point about wanting huge swaths of the population to cease to exist? You know, the actual question the OP asked.
Who is the OP here? Because I can’t see from the post itself or this comment thread who is arguing that.
So on the right, you have people who don’t want an entire subset of the population to exist. On the left, you have those people who are fighting for the right to exist. Tell me where a centrist falls in this situation. How can you meet in the middle?
Here’s what I wrote in response:
You could be fine with the people existing but differ in how to correct past or systemic injustices.
Someone might be viewed as centrist if they were in favor of civil rights but have some reservations about affirmative action.
If your argument is simply that anyone who thinks gays have the right to exist is left and not a centrist, I think your definition is not aligning. People say Democrats in the US are center-right. Many Democrats support gay rights. So therefore they are left?
Get out of here with nuance and reason only blind hate allowed. /S
Libertarian Minarchist
What are these left-wing “delusions” lmao
Here’s a delusion: Maduro is right to suppress free speech and association because he needs to keep the right from retaking power in Venezuela.
I don’t think this is at all something leftists in general think and I see a lot of them calling out what’s going on in Venezuela right now as large human rights violations. This is pretty much only something I see said by tankies (which is a small fraction of leftists).
Very good point. People online like to read one comment from someone and put them in a group then prescribe the values of that individual to the entire group.
Like they read a disingenuous comment from a far-right person claiming to be a centrist, and then they hate on all centrists? I could see that.
So any left-wing delusion I post can be dismissed as “not all leftists?”
“Centrist” is a phony identity. It’s a put on, like journalists who pretend to be “objective”.
The whole thing is a reification of the concept of political “spectrum”.
Self identified centrists are usually people who’ve only been recently engaged in politics. They imagine themselves as neutral arbiters; the consumer that chooses the best ideology. They represent themselves as above politics, when in reality they’re operating on an elementary understanding.
Politics is values. The left values equality while the right values hierarchy. No human being has ever valued the midpoint between hierarchy and equality.
There is no political center between the current left and right parties in the United States. For example, one is pro-choice the other is pro-life. There is no middle on that issue. This is the post-truth world and we are now in different realities. You can’t believe half of the Q stuff and then believe half of the Bernie stuff. If you don’t follow politics enough to have an opinion you wouldn’t call yourself a centerist.
Describing yourself as a “centerist” in today’s conditions usually means you support Trump but are too embarrassed to say it out loud/you know you’ll receive backlash for saying it.
But you could take ideas from both sides.
For example: Support abortion rights but be againest Universal Basic Income.
You get my idea, you could pick and choose till you get the centrist view.
Also about news bias, it should be the default to be least biased in my opinion. The news should be boring and should just tell you what happened without telling you how you should feel about it.
I wouldn’t call that centerist because you’re not claiming to be in the middle on any issues. Too many of these “ideas from both sides” are at complete contradiction to each other. One of the parties is overtly racist and says diversity is bad. Being a racist pro-choicer doesn’t make you a centerist.
Also about news bias, it should be the default to be least biased in my opinion. The news should be boring and should just tell you what happened without telling you how you should feel about it.
Yeah would be great. That sort of reporting died a long time ago.
For example: Support abortion rights but be againest Universal Basic Income.
And that’s mainstream tho…
Like, that’s what the Dem party is doing…
Republican party is as “conservative” as it’s most extreme voters, Dem party is as “centrist” as it’s most conservative voters.
You don’t half ass fighting fascism, which is why people on the actual.left do t like the people who want half ass the fight against fascism
You are not arguing against my comment or supporting it, which make me ask the following question: what is the relvance of the info you put here to the discussion?
What are you arguing for here?
The people who would be “centrist” in other civilized countries are called left wing extremists, even by their own party…
Do you not understand why those people would then not be happy with the most viable “left” option in American politics and not be upset with the “centrists” who would be called conservative in other societies?
It’s incredible basic, but your question was so basic the answer obviously was going to be too.
Nothing the right stands for or wants brings any real value. Why should I respect anyone picking stuff from that side?
You understand what a centrist is, however the meta perception in online America is that a centrist is a right-winger in disguise.
News has determined decades ago that they get more attention by being entertaining. Dry factual news and clearly delineated opinion pieces don’t get the views/clicks, and by extension money, so it is unsustainable. It still exists, but it isn’t prevalent.
For example, one is pro-choice the other is pro-life. There is no middle on that issue.
Individuals should have full autonomy over their bodies, including to abort. However, the practice itself is a very sad decision for individuals to make and should be discouraged where possible.
Maybe that’s just slightly left of center
Nobody is eager to have an abortion. Jesus fucking Christ. There sheer ignorance of the right in that regard.
That’s just normal left.
I’ve heard different reasonings.
One is that the baddies don’t call themselves the baddies. Apparently, there’s some right-wingers who refer to themselves as “centrists”, because they pretend that their position is entirely normal.
The other reasoning is that the leftists perceive right-wing rhethoric as so objectively bad that someone saying they have a political opinion and that opinion is in the middle, because both sides are valid, to them just means that person is being ridiculous.
Mind that the meanings of “left” and “right” and even “center” varies a lot between countries, so it depends a lot on the context.
Mind that the meanings of “left” and “right” and even “center” varies a lot between countries, so it depends a lot on the context.
This is what always confuses me from my UK perspective - the idea that the Dems are on the ‘objective’ (for want of a better term) left seems pretty problematic, so I would tend to think of them as being towards the centre ground, or even slightly to the right of it.
It doesn’t appear that the US has any politically influential or significantly consequential left wing party at all, unfortunately (and the UK is only marginally better to be fair).
As a result when it comes to determining which American party gets to sneeze for the next 4 years, the Dems are the only palatable or at least sane option I can see, if the rest of us are to avoid a really nasty cold. If nothing else, they seem like functioning adults.
I can see why many people would want to throw up their hands and reject both major parties, but I can’t really see it as a ‘centrist’ position, only as one to take if you are either further to the left or right of the Dems/GOP respectively.
Not really sure where I’m going with this tbh, just a brain dump.
I certainly agree with those in this thread who are giving examples of clear binary moral choices like civil rights, abortion rights and so on. There isn’t really any middle ground to take on them and anyone claiming to do so just seems disingenuous to me.
That said, I do still think compromise is an worthy aim in some areas - but only on issues which are not so clearly divided.
Anyway, please don’t elect Trump again. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I want you to imagine two political parties: The Petting Dogs Party and the Kicking Dogs Party (for the sake of conversation, I have not assigned them to any real world party). Obviously, the PDP would consider anyone who joins, or even supports, the KDP as being horrifically evil. Like, if you wanted to show a character is evil in TV, you have them do what the KDP do all the time. It’s literally cartoonishly evil.
Now, in the political context of America, there are only two parties. The only way the KDP don’t gain power is if the PDP gain power instead. So anyone who doesn’t help the PDP gain power is either supporting or allowing the KDP to gain power.
In this context, a centrist will usually fall into one of the following categories:
- They refuse to vote for either side, allowing the dog kickers to kick dogs.
- They lied about being centrist because they don’t want to admit they kick dogs.
- They lied about being centrist and are trying to convince more people to kick dogs.
- They openly kick dogs, but insist it’s normal to kick dogs, so the KDP is the centre.
As you can see with those categories, it’s a sliding scale of evil. The only non-evil option is to not kick dogs at all, which requires voting for the PDP.
Of course, if you have a Looking At Dogs Party, it gets messier. You’ll often see people vote for the LADP where they would have voted for the PDP just so the KDP doesn’t get in. But in America, the LADP does not exist.
This made me think of Kristi Noem.
But it’s a good mental model for breaking down why centrists suck.
I was trying to be absurdist instead of realistic, and I had no idea who Kristi Noem was before you commented that. Why is reality so absurd?
You missed a golden opportunity for a subtle and unnecessary joke by making it Kicking Dogs Party and Supporting Dogs Party
Or… IDK… Kissing Dogs Party and Ned’s Stabbing Dogs Always Party. With Supporting Dogs Party as the middle.
…
Just me?
Your example fail to account for the huge amount of issues both sides disagree about.
As I said in earlier comment you could support abortion and not support Universal Basic Income, which is supposed to land you in centrist postion, not a dog kicker.
You could simply vote for the good party that align with what make sense for you.
So, all of that does not make a person evil.
As for right wing( Dog kickers in your context) people who lie, I had never met or saw them, so I can’t have an opinion about it.
The Dog Kicking party could have a phenomenal economic plan, but they still kick dogs. And anyone who votes for that economic plan is still voting to kick dogs.
Until someone convinces them to throw out the idea of kicking dogs altogether, it doesn’t matter what other policies they have. They’re still dog kickers.
If you knew someone was a serial rapist & murderer, but they volunteered at homeless shelters, donated to charity and fostered rescue animals, would that “balance it out” enough that they aren’t evil anymore?
What about an otherwise good guy who helps cover up his friends sexual assault of a minor? He didn’t touch the kid, but he’s still helping someone else continue to do it, and I say that’s enough to make him a horrible person.
Evil taints everything it touches. If there’s one Nazi sitting at the table, then EVERYONE at the table is a Nazi.
If you knew someone was a serial rapist & murderer, but they volunteered at homeless shelters, donated to charity and fostered rescue animals, would that “balance it out” enough that they aren’t evil anymore?
The problem here is that this view is binary. There is no middle ground here. In the real world you could be pro some left-wing ideas and pro some right-wing ideas. This is the problem with bipartisan “democracies”. As a centrist you are always the enemy.
The problem here is that this view is binary. There is no middle ground here.
Yes. It IS binary, but that’s not the problem. There should never be middle ground in good vs evil.
If you vote for a party that does not support Universal Basic income, that does not make you evil. But if that party also supports killing black people, and you vote for it soley because of Universal Basic income even though it comes with the side-effect of killing black people, you are absolutely evil.
Do you see UBI being so bad that it would prevent you supporting abortion rights?
First of all, while I am strongly left-wing, I phrased it in a way that either side could be seen as the dog kickers. You assigned the parties to each side. You assigned the right wing to be the dog kickers.
Second of all, you definitely have met the people who lie about being centrist. You just didn’t realise it, because they lied and said they were centrist.
Third of all, and perhaps most important… Imagine a scene in a movie where a man is kicking a dog. Then another man walks by, looks the dog in the eyes, and keeps walking. That second man didn’t kick the dog, but they are just as cruel as the man kicking.
I don’t give a shit what the tax policy surrounding the dog kicking is; it’s still evil. And if you don’t do what you can to protect that dog, no matter how little that may be or what it might cost you, you’re evil too.
What many comments miss is the fact that the “left-right-spectrum” is way to simple to describe the modern political landscape. If you want to place a range of opinion into whatever direction, you will end up with contradictions.
That’s just my personal opinion, but centrists are often enablers of right-wing extremists/fascists. Since they don’t really have their own opinion and political stance, they just kinda take the average of the left and the right-wing. This starts to become a big problem, when the right suddenly radicalizes, and the centrists now also move further to the right.
Since they don’t really have their own opinion and political stance, they just kinda take the average of the left and the right-wing.
I don’t agree. As I said in other comment I consider myself as a centrist. And my view on the world is a reasonable one (in my opinion). I’m pro same sex marriage, abortion, women rights, same salary for the same work for both genders, public health care and education. But I’m also against unchecked illegal immigration, pretending to be woman so you can win in sports and social handouts. Why does it make me a target for right wingers and not left wingers?
I don’t like the left-right political spectrum. It’s not particularly good for explaining a more complicated political stance (e.g. like yours or mine). I see centrists as those who don’t really have any opinion, not people who agree with some left-wing and some right-wing ideas. I would definitely describe myself as a leftist, because I agree with almost all basic leftist concepts, but there are other ones that I strongly disagree with. But I’m definitely nowhere near the political right wing, as even though I might agree with a few right-wing concepts, I absolutely despise of their fundamental ideas. But unfortunately I see various centrist parties in different countries that shift further and further to the right, because right-wing populists are gaining momentum and coming up with dumber and dumber, radical ideas.
I don’t like the left-right political spectrum.
Couldn’t agree more.
I think we have similar views on the problem. The difference is how we define “centrist”. I agree that parties painting themself as centrist tend to lean right. But I was talking about my views and opinions. I’m far from turning into right-wing nut.
Removed by mod
Why not supporting illegal immigration, social handouts and calling a guy in a dress a man doesn’t make me a target for left-wing nutters?
Wow with a response like that it’s almost like you are maybe being intellectually dishonest with your arguments huh.
Why? Is it because I did the same thing you did but my response did not meet your standards?
You’re the one that made the statement. You said your opinions make you a target for left wing people, which is unsubstantiated, and not a target for right-wing people. If you can’t back that up then why did you make the statement? When I asked you about it you deflected. So excuse me if I am somewhat suspicious as to the honesty of your arguments.
Could you quote (with a context) what I wrote that made me dishonest? I have a feeling that you are nitpicking few words from my whole comment and try to make me look bad.
To me, it seems the right have been getting ever more extreme in the ugliest ways imaginable. The left, then, has to decide whether to become more inclusive of those who lean somewhat right but are feeling alienated at this point. Do they take in the refugees, or do they stick to their principles and leave a void in the middle? In short, it’s an identity crisis and people are taking sides.
As a Canadian, I look at US politics and see only a centrist and right party. In some ways, the Democratic Party is further right than our Conservative Party, though the latter would certainly want to change that if we let them. There are some Democrats who are uncompromisingly left like say Bernie Sanders, but they are in the minority.
Also of note, “centrist” does not mean “unbiased” in America. On a world scale, yes we have a center-ish party and a right party. This means anyone calling themself a centrist is pretty far right. So anyone with a centrist position from a global perspective is actually considered a “leftist” in America.
I’ll see people say “I’m not on either side but” and then spew nothing but Republican talking points, or some shit about how both sides do bad things as if they’re equally bad.
Lemmy is mostly various flavors of left, and they recognize the nuance of “centrism” enough to decry it.
The fact that you feel Bernie Sanders is “uncompromisingly left”, speaks volumes. About what? Clean drinking water, education so your dumb ass kids can read, not wanting to sell bombs used to kill other kids, a livable wage?
Especially in the US, where both parties are globally “right” in both political and financial aspects, a lot of time claiming to be a centrist means that you like capitalism and bombing other countries but you support LGBT causes and are pro-choice. I think, online and especially on lemmy, that the vocal left-wing voices (correctly) see this still as aiding the right but being too cowardly to admit it.
This also ties back to the MLK quote about the ‘white centrist’ being the biggest obstacle to his movement, because they may say the right things and appear to be helpful but take no action for the movement. By staying centrist and trying to meet in the middle, would lend credibility to the voices on the other side.
The quote in question, since OP could definitely do with reading it (not to mention the entire letter it comes from):
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Thank you! I should’ve linked to it. The actual text does a much better job of answering OP than my attempt to summarize it.
Np, it was a good quote to mention.
Centrists have no spine to position themselves clearly. They constantly love to say both the right and left are equally bad, which is an insanely amount of false balancing to say wanting equality for all and deporting people and/or punishing people for their gender are things that are in any way comparable.
Depends on how you define “centrist”. Most lemmy users would call me a centrist. Most Americans would call me a radical leftist.
I vote democrat and believe in sustainable immigration, progressive tax rates, single payer system, abortion, and a lot of other democrat policies. I have been called a fascist because I also have a deep understanding of history and have spent a significant amount of my studies and spare time reading about Western European/American history from 1600-1950.
Any general survey will help you grasp why capitalism (not mercantilism, feudalism, or cronyism) is the most ideal system for general overall personal freedom. But that makes me a fascist.
Also, people get upset when I say things like if you are against British occupation of India, then you are against women’s rights and the rights of the working class. And while colonialism was tragic for some (mainly upper class men in the countries being colonized) it helped end slavery in Africa, which was started and perpetrated mainly by Africans and middle eastern Muslims. You cannot deny that evangelical Christianity ended slavery in western democracies and most of Africa/Middle East.
Also, ask yourself things like is Hong Kong better under Chinese rule, or colonial rule by the British. Ironically, the British empire was more an accidental empire that they stumbled ass backwards into. They actually didn’t want to manage the colonies and preferred to just “find the ruler… trade with ruler… the end” but because of their advanced tech were often asked by those rulers to help take enemy tribes if they wanted To continue trade.
Don’t shape your world views or perception of reality on what you read on Lemmy.
Centrists tend to advocate a middle view, hard to have a middle view for eradicating trans people, for one obvious example.
Three things are happening:
- It is easier to dismiss someone’s argument outright if you can put them in a box without needing to engage with anything they’re saying
- Historically and particularly in the 1990s, Democrats were sort of corporate dogshit, so a lot of the left got used to opposing them (often bringing up MLK’s “white moderates” speech)
- There are a lot of shills on Lemmy who really want Trump to get elected, and do it by attacking the Democrats “from the left” with various dishonest talking points, and if you point out that any of what they’re saying is objectively false, they will call you a centrist as a way of dismissing you (see point #1)
The center isn’t automatically right (often in the American political spectrum it works out as the average of killing all the immgrants and free school lunch, which is not a happy central point to reach). But also, simply applying a label to someone and dismissing them doesn’t automatically mean you’re right either, no matter how popular it may be.
- Agreed. People do put others into boxes, and dismiss them.
- Not historically and especially in the 90’s, but also currently. The dems are absolutely still corporate dogshit.
- Speaking of putting people in boxes, everyone criticizing from the left is a secret trump supporter, and lying about their values.
The dems are absolutely still corporate dogshit.
Most of them, yes. Hey, quick question, what’s happened to corporate taxes, and working-class wages adjusted for inflation, over the last 4 years? How has the NLRB’s role in economic life changed, and what have the results been?
Speaking of putting people in boxes, everyone criticizing from the left is a secret trump supporter, and lying about their values.
Not everyone, no. The people raising objectively false criticism of the Democrats and occasionally accidentally saying “Democrat Party” or saying they make $400k a year and as a good communist, their big concern about the Democrats is that they’re raising taxes and all you other communists should definitely feel the same way and stop supporting them – those guys are secret Trump supporters, yes.
If you want to invest the time, read the whole thread and then come back and tell me that that person isn’t (1) clearly lying, in a particularly hamfisted fashion, about why they don’t want you to support the Democrats (2) not from the US or even familiar enough with it to be aware of how common or uncommon a $400k/yr salary is.
