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There are no centrists when one side is fascism.
The problem is you think anyone to the right of Stalin is a Nazi.
Edit: I’m glad my manic commenting this morning sparked such wonderful debate.
Many major gov’ts currently have major parties courting fascists or are just outright Fascist. Like, have you not been paying attention?
And? Did I say that wasn’t happening? Believe it or not, refusing to engage in diplomacy doesn’t make the problem go away. And they say centrists bury their heads in the sand.
“Centrists to fascists aren’t centrists”
“You just label anyone as Fascist”
“There’s a huge amount of fascists right now”
“Irrelevant!”
… what? I’m sorry, I can’t tell if you’re making a point or if you’re just reacting to comments as they come in. Cause that response made no sense in the greater context. I can’t even tell what point you’re trying to make at this point.
Then let me spell it out for you.
We, as leftists, tend to ignore authoritarians that attach themselves to our movement. I’m talking Marxists, Maoists, etc. These are people who aplogize for mass murderers. When they show up to rallies, they are welcomed. Democrat leaders cozy up to them. I see it happen regularly.
We then turn around and accuse the right of courting facism. This is the right thing to do, but we also need to take a look in our own camp. I don’t want authoritarians of any flavor.
I’m at a dead loss as to how your previous two comments relate to this at all. Maybe it’s my neurospiciness showing, but I can’t connect this thesis with your previous comments in any way.
Also, don’t say “let me spell it out for you”, it just comes across as condescending. It’s like you’re saying it’s so obvious that this was the point you were making when I just stated my confusion on your point. My confusion is an opportunity for you to clarify, not be a dick about it.
Apparently their argument is that left-wingers in general love tankies, which in my experience isn’t true at all.
Well it’s probably my own spiciness showing. I was trying to wrap too many arguments in too few comments. I tried to stave off some of the more common arguments that distract from the topic at hand by making some logical leaps. I thought it would be obvious, but I was wrong. I might have also rolled several replies into one.
The important part is this: the idea that centrists can’t exist because the other side consists of “Nazis” is flawed. The entire spectrum of right leaning and conservative voters are not facists. In fact, most despise them as much as anyone else. The same goes for centrists, from what I have seen.
As to your question, yes I realize that facists are being entertained the world over. I can see what Israel and Russia are doing, and I know it much more widespread than that. I just don’t think the right move is to simply alienate anyone who isn’t already on your side and wait for the fash to take over.
And thanks for not returning my dickish energy, I was heated if you couldn’t tell.
According to this comment, YOU should be downvoting yourself for your previous two comments.
You straight out suggested we should be diplomatic with the Far Right.
We, as leftists, tend to ignore authoritarians that attach themselves to our movement. I’m talking Marxists,
Oh. Now I see why you are downvoted to Putin’s bunker.
Is that the reason? It seems more like they’re being aggressive and not explaining their positions is the reason they’re downvoted.
“First they came for the socialists…”
The moment someone courts Nazism or Fascism, diplomacy goes out the window for anyone worth being considered. There’s a reason the US doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, and that reason stands for fascists and other intolerant authoritarians or hate groups.
For what it’s worth, I feel the same way about tankies. Anyone who would see me dead or censored by force does not get the right to compromise. The Republicans lost that right the moment the first innocent woman got locked in a cage post-Dobbs, if not pre-Roe in the first place.
And how did that policy work out for us? We lost the Afghanistan war. I’m not flat out saying that your argument has no merit, I just think there is room for compromise with those who are not yet seduced by facism.
This argument also relies on the assumption that only facists can be bigots.
Also, I’m not saying we should compromise on all issues equally or that we can’t have our lines on the sand. But I do think there are some issues we can give a little on.
And how did that policy work out for us? We lost the Afghanistan war.
I’m not sure what the Afghanistan war has to do with compromising with fascists. Could you expand your point?
This argument also relies on the assumption that only facists can be bigots.
No. I’ll add anyone trying to enforce government-led bigotry to the list.
But I do think there are some issues we can give a little on.
Look where that gets us. You open with a compromise and they say “no”. You give them 90% of what they want and they say “no”. You finally give in 100% of what they want and they STILL say “no” because it makes them look good. Then they blame you when what they get what they wanted. Just look at Obamacare (not an issue of fascism but an issue with a neofascist party). A conservative president pitching a Heritage Foundation plan got HOW MANY votes from the opposition party after making a bunch of concessions beyond Heritage Foundation? if you’re not keeping count, Republicans provided ZERO total votes for the Republican-castrated ACA. And between blaming Obamacare for everything, half the Republicans took credit for the ACA as if it weren’t the same thing they voted against.
Fuck compromising with people who deal in bad faith.
Then where does that leave us? What options do we have besides completely stun locking the government? I’d honestly like to hear because that’s my major sticking point.
The way I see it, traditional Republicans have no platform. Their platform is simply anti-democrat. This as the reason facists have taken over the party. They, on the surface, represent a solution to the GOPs lack of direction. That’s how they’re convincing moderates to vote for them, imo.
When I say “compromise,” maybe I’m not being precise enough,that’s my fault. I don’t nessisarily mean on actual policy. I do think we need to compromise there as necessary, but I agree with you that we’ve given too much in exchange for too little. What I’m talking about is compromise in regards to how we engage in discourse.
Yea, we need to hold GOP voters accountable if they vote for neofacists. But most arguments we are far too aggressive (much like my own earlier comments). It helps nobody and only give ammunition to the opposition. They are not courting facists, facists are courting them. I believe that this is an important distinction. It means they can still be saved from joining the cult.
Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I think that anyone (includong you and me) can be convinced to do horrible things if they presented in a way that exploits their existing beliefs.
The problem appears to be that you think anyone left of Obama is Pol Pot
I voted for Obama. And Biden. I’d vote for Sanders, too.
All liberals.
Right of…Stalin? Yes. Of course he does. Was this a joke?
Stalin was authoritarian? Not too far off from a Nazi with the atrocities he committed as well. Not a really apt comparison.
No, he was totalitarian. Example of authorutarian is Putin. I would reccomend you to watch Shulman’s lectures about totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, but you will not understand it unless you know russian. Or unless there is lecture in english.
TLDR: “I will kill you for the Idea” is totalitarism, libertarianism is autocracy.
Totalitarianism is a case of authoritarianism.
On that note, “I will kill you for the idea” is fanaticism.
No. Authoritarism implies depoliticization of society and promises like “we won’t touch you, you won’t touch us”, while totalitarism implies very politicized society. Both are dictatorships, but they work differently.
Not saying that one dictator is better than the other.
This is not the first time a Russian fails to comprehend Russian language.
The claim you’re making is a description of “informational autocracy”, which Shulman claims modern Russia were.
No idea what she claims now, when Russia has clearly moved past using just information to control its population since February 2022.
The only thing Stalin had in common with the Nazis was that he was a socialist. But like many oppressive figures, he only liked the idea of socialism because it traps your underlings into dependency which makes them easier to control under a tyrannical rule.
“He committed atrocities” is not the definition of being a Nazi. If that’s your definition, that’s non-standard and people will misunderstand your points.
Nazis weren’t socialist. They picked the title to muddy the water on their actual position. They killed socialists and communists first.
Check the 25-point program of the NSDAP. They definitely had socialist points like
We demand nationalization of all businesses which have been up to the present formed into companies (trusts).
and
We demand that the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.
But yeah, once they gained their dictatorship they were more focused on nationalism and killing those they didn’t like.
https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller/
How do so many people get this wrong?
They abused socialist ideas to rise to power, as I have written in my initial post. How did I exactly “get that wrong”?
Look up Gregor Strasser, Hitler’s right hand until sometime in the early 1930s and then tell me that guy was not a socialist. Which is probably why he got killed during the Night of Long Knives.
Also look at the poem. Stalin was a communist, so he would have been killed even before the socialists. Saying Stalin was “not too far off from a Nazi” is still something that is in need to be explained lol
oh wow my first “nazis were socialists” post on lemmy. [bender taking photo “neat”] Place is getting big. I mean that’s how you know you made it to the big leagues.
Just like North Korea is democratic. “It’s right there in the name! The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea!” /s, for the stupid.
Read the sentence right after the first. Context is important.
I enjoyed the Futurama reference tho.
“He committed atrocities” is not the definition of being a Nazi. If that’s your definition, that’s non-standard and people will misunderstand your points.
That’s the nicest “stop making shit up motherfucker” I’ve seen
He was a fascist authoritarian dictator who committed countless atrocities under the guise of “socialism”. He is very much like Hitler, historically. But no, he wasn’t a “Nazi”.
Stalin wasn’t fascist, though. Authoritarian, yes; dictator, yes. Fascism is specifically a far-right ideology, though. It’s not synonymous with authoritarianism or totalitarianism, though those terms overlap.
This is what I wanted to express. Thank you for making the effort to understand my post.
makes something up to cry over
The whole “if you say you’re centrist you’re actually a fascist” argument is literally making something up to cry over.
Anyone not expressly against fascism is perpetuating it whether they realize it or not.
You’re either anti-fascist, fascist, or helping the fascists by not caring.
Just because someone is against assholes like you doesn’t mean they’re not against fascism. In fact, I’d imagine that a lot of them are against you for the same reasons why they’re against fascism.
Unthinking status quoists make for the best nazis.
Go back to where you came from redditor. No one wants you here and your smooth brained “le epic trolling XD” is just kind of sad and brings down the mood.
Block me, then.
Good idea.
I have a buddy who is right leaning in several areas. He’s not a Nazi. Not fash.
Like, ok, he’s not super comfortable about trans people which is disappointing but we talked about how outlawing treatment is fucked and he is agrees.
He is all for socialized healthcare. Less into socializing other stuff. And he is pro-2A like me, who is a lefty as in pro-labor, anti-bigotry, social democrat, ACAB, etc.
We talk about politics all the time. And we can see each other’s point of view. Because we talk in person. And we respect each other.
Online with all the trolls and shit especially in this kind of brief social media format, political discourse usually shits the bed and rolls around in it too.
Anyway the folks I consider fascists are the ones who think in social hierarchy instead of equality and think certain identities are below them and want to “put those folks back in their place,” by law or force. T
hey are the ones who favor authoritarianism over democracy and a return to some fake ideal before the civil rights era, before sexual revolution, feminism, women’s suffrage, or in some cases emancipation. They’re people who still praise Trump and DeSantis for the ways they hurt people not like them.
Some of us know what fascism actually means.
Does he still vote in conservatives?
This is the major point that many seem to miss
If they still vote for the GOP they’re endorsing facism, racism and a few other -ism’s and -phobias.
That can’t be reconciled with a good person. If they vote for the GOP I can’t see them as a good person, because they are actively voting against the rights of people like myself.
Yeah I know way too many right leaning people who I wouldn’t consider fascist based purely on their political views, but they support right wing politicians who are currently getting way too comfy with fascists
Yeah, my neighbor is pro choice, not religious, and still voted for trump twice. Didn’t find out until she refused to get vaccinated while in the Navy.
the folks I consider fascists are the ones who think in social hierarchy instead of equality and think certain identities are below them and want to “put those folks back in their place,” by law or force.
So like, the people who aren’t “super comfortable” with trans people?
But fascism isn’t about what individual people decide to “consider” it to be. It’s a real thing. It has a definition. Idk when we got to this point where reality is debatable, but it may be the only thing that we could stand to go backwards on as a society.
Centralization of power is bad in any economic system. That is one way in which both sides are the same. Which style of dictator would you prefer?
Nobody tell them about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
I remember when I thought the USSR was communist - simpler times… simpler me - then I picked up a dictionary.
The problem is you think anyone to the right of Stalin is a Nazi.
Another problem might be thinking that Stalin and Hitler were so very far from each other. They were not.
I do listen to “both” sides! That’s exactly why I’m a leftist!
I don’t get why centrists think that you have to be “centrist” to listen to both sides, or why doing so makes you a centrist.
I have family members who refer to me as Cassandra because I regularly spout “inane nonsense” about the future which then inevitably becomes true.
I don’t have a gift or a crystal ball. I have two eyes and (sadly) a working brain and the werewithal to study history and put one and one together.
We aren’t geniuses by any stretch of imagination. It’s just extremely sad and painful to see almost everyone else keep going with the (just) bearable lies vs the distinctively unbearable truth.
Cassandra… in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.
For those who were also wondering
Oh, that’s why that wall street dude uses that name on Xitter!
Xitter rhymes whit shitter he he he hehehe
I’d also suggest Mythos by Stephen Fry. Good book for someone who would like to read about Greek mythology.
Theres no way her family are both smart enough to both dub her Cassandra (given that reference), but also not able to comprehend the reasons behind what she says…
I don’t know quite a lot of conservatives are smart in terms of education they’re just not very good at critical thinking skills.
No, no, she’s the last human in the universe. A bitchy trampoline.
I’m like this, but I’m just a pessimist. I naturally expect a terrible outcome from everything, and get disappointed every time I’m right.
My roomie got called in on an all-staff meeting on a weekend back in spring. They’re truckers, so some work weekends, it’s normal. All-staff meetings were not however. No one divulged any information, and so I was all “oh you’re all getting laid off.” My friend was all “that’s impossible, they’re actively hiring!”
Day came. Gathering started. Atmosphere was great. My friend sent me a text going all “we’re all having a great time, drinking coffee and eating cinnamon buns, talking about work.” Half an hour later “so we just all got laid off.”
The company was struggling as a whole, so they decided to shut down operations in this region in an attempt to downsize and keep the company afloat long enough to remedy the situation. The management didn’t know until right before the meeting, hence why no one knew what the meeting was for.
I’m in the same boat and have to admit that while I had very low expectations people call me nuts for, the past decade especially has had me go “this is even worse!” quite a few times.
Reality somehow one ups my worst expectations on a regular basis still.
I realise this isn’t the most enlightened response but I entirely misread “Cassandra” as “Canada” and it made the entire reply SO much more entertaining.
“Surely we can find some common ground between the Final Solution and the status quo?” —centrists
- * Boasts about listening to both sides of the argument *
- * Doesn’t even bother to read and understand the Xweet they are replying to *
Everyone who claims to be a centralist is like that. They’re not a centralist they’re just a ostrich sticking its head in the sand.
There’s no sensible debate to be had about whether the climate crisis is happening. The Right don’t have anything to offer the conversation because they deliberately refuse to debate sensibly on it.
I love how you all have just generalize nearly 200m. It’s insane to me you folks talk like this, and then are shocked that Trump and the insane GOP is popular. Propaganda is effective. It’s reductionist and a fundamental misunderstanding of a diverse group of idiots.
No one is shocked
Xweet
Fuck this.
It’s tweet.
Xcrement.
It’s called Elon.
“TweeX”?
Maybe a Xhit?
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Centrists are people who think being on the fence about every issue is a shortcut to being intelligent.
But the centrist character on TV said a line that made the other characters shut up! He has to be smart!
goddammit I hate how accurate this is
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There’s the other kind of moron, that thinks both sides are equally wrong. We call those South Park writers.
“Look at those idiots who care and, like, make an effort.”
Or admitting they’re too dumb to make an informed decision. I’m proudly in that camp on several issues. Not going to spout rhetoric I don’t understand.
This thread taught me that Americans don’t even know what centrism is
Centralism doesn’t exist in Europe either. You’ve got the left wing party’s the right wing party’s the ultra nationalist right-wing party’s - if you’re lucky the right-wing party and the ultra national is right-wing party a different parties, sometimes they’re not though.
On that scale centre is right wing. We need some actual communists to balance the political seesaw.
The extremists pretty much all over the world have shifted the conversation so far to the right that there’s no room for a centralist party anymore because if they existed they would be opposed to pretty much everything right-wing party’s would be doing, and then they may as well just be the left-wing party.
That is complete bs, my country - Austria - has a center-left and a center-right party and that’s exactly what they are. And we do have an actual communist party, btw.
Of course there’s centralism in Europe
What are you talking about lol
That’s my point, we don’t.
Look at Turkey, you’ve either got a borderline dictatorship, or you’ve got a party that want a democracy, there isn’t someone in the middle going oh well we should have the best of both worlds.
The right wing have basically pushed their agenda so much that there’s no room for anyone in the middle anymore they’ve stretched the political spectrum so why the middle essentially doesn’t exist. There’s no shades of grey anymore.
If your first argument is Turkey…
That’s like saying the US public transport available by pointing out that Manhattan exists.
How about this… centrist, left, right… all subjective, even more-so regionally.
Most people commenting in political threads don’t know anything about anything.
They remember a subreddit called “Enlightened Centrism” and don’t get the joke.
Or European lol Because yeah we actually have more than 2 party
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Lemmy quite skewed towards American leftists (real left, not democrats)
Same applies when you hear an American person say they’re a social-liberal but fiscal-conservative. They think it makes them sound like an enlightened centrist, but as soon as I hear it I think “oh, this person’s a Trumper who doesn’t have the balls to just say it.”
Fiscal conservatives quietly became Republicans, but not “conservatives”. There’s a weird thing going on with that here… Your not wrong, though. They have been greedy cowards of they took this stance in the last few decades.
Fiscally conservative should mean voting for Democrats because Republicans are fucking awful with money.
But the Republicans still hold onto this myth that they’re somehow more financially responsible.
We need a reverse version of that “always has been” meme for “never were”
No one exists with views like this. I’ve done my research. I know! LOL
When faced with a different view point they can’t fathom it’s easier to say it is not possible than to have a rational discussion. It’s easier to hate on people than to try to understand them. I find both sides to be extremely lazy in their thinking.
no one on earth is 50/50 on Trump
This is not being a “centrist”, thats a fifty-fifty-est
I’d absolutely vote for GOP 15 years ago depending on who is running. Today not so much.
If the GOP ever puts forward another Romney I think you’ll find that plenty of centrists exist.
This comment is embarrassing. Kudos for your inability to view politics outside of the lens of American party lines.
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How is this thread clearly about America? Typical Americans thinking everything is about them. The post is about leftism Vs. Centrism more generally.
Remember that when the media starts flapping about centrists and swing voters. they dont actually exist.
That’s about the worst sentence I have seen on lemmy so far.
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Swing voters most assuredly exist and if you think they don’t you’re ignorant about the US political process
- Not talking about grammar and you know it.
- It’s wrong because it’s simply too stupid to assume a whole caucus of voters don’t exist because you haven’t been outside US
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Most people who label themselves leftists think it is socialism when the government does things and thus consider themselves socialists.
It’s not a new thing that people support political ideologies, or identifying with certain ideologies, because they’re dumb.
I’m a leftist precisely because I started paying more attention and listening to both sides.
I was a centrist before I started doing that.
I was a leftist because my parents weren’t and I was a rebel.
I eventually grew up and thought ‘this is fucking awesome’ and kept going.
If you are paying attention and you have a drop of empathy then you’re almost guaranteed to be one.
I thought I was a centrist, because it was clear to me that both sides are terrible, and going to kill us all.
Turns out I was just a leftist all along
I’m the opposite. Being a hardcore leftist is a right of passage as a younger person, as I’ve aged I’ve discovered nuance and pragmatism.
Good luck to you then. The more I learn about the world, and the more different people I meet, the more repulsive conservatism becomes.
“Leftist” means very different things to different people. It’s not a very well-defined term, and really never has been.
Some people will insist that leftist means socialist, and that Nordic-style Social Democrats are actually right wing because Social Democracy is capitalist and anything that involves private ownership of the means of production is right wing.
Others will insist that somehow CNN is the “Communist News Network”, and that anyone left of Trump is a leftist.
So the better question is really what they mean. Did they go from being a college communist to a Social Democrat, or from a Joe Manchin supporter to wanting Charlie Baker to run?
More college communist to social democrat/left leaning liberal. But nobody has actually asked me what my views are which just goes to show how actually interested in discourse people are if you don’t just agree with the hive mind. You’re possibly the most level headed person on this thread.
Conservatism means different things to different people. Just not being radical and accepting that some things don’t require extreme solutions gets you labelled a conservative these days, despite the fact I’ve never voted for a right wing party ever.
That’s a vague response that I can’t really make any reply to.
If you aren’t voting for right-wing parties, that’s a good thing. You might be a pretty middle-of-the-road liberal, at least statistically speaking that’s not unlikely. Which in the grand scheme of things, is still fairly conservative, supportive of the maintenance of the status quo.
So if that describes you, I can see why people would say that’s conservative.
How is being middle of the road,conservative in the grand scheme of things unless you’re massively overestimating the appeal of the far left? By definition it’s not.
This reminds me of when Reddit thought Bernie was a legitimate presidential candidate. Terminally online people have a warped perspective on the political spectrum.
How is being middle of the road,conservative in the grand scheme of things
I literally explained it in the comment. You should try reading it again.
Maintaining the status quo, opposing change, is still quite conservative. Hell the right-wing party in some countries are the “Liberals”. And note that I said lower-case-c “conservative”. Just because the self-described capital-c “Conservatives” are running further rightward and flirting with fascism, doesn’t make the middle position not conservative.
ntg but the general kind of surface level spectrum might look more like conservatives, not definitionally, or, in the sense of the origin of the word, conservatives want to regress society back to some previous state. centrists yadda yadda status quo. and then liberals want to progress society, and that’s kind of equivalent to progressivism or leftism. Which is partially because americans are not politically literate, or actually literate, and don’t understand the differences between different words, but also because america as a whole is so far to the right (so is much of the world), and so stuck in the past, that actual leftism is incredibly fucking radical, and advocating for liberalism, or at least, the identitarian implications of liberalism, rather than fucked up plutocracy and bigotry, is still thought of as a leftist position.
You said in the grand scheme of things it’s conservative, which is pretty vague and meaningless and screams of “everyone who is to the right of me is a conservative QED”.
There is a reason the left are terrible at building election winning coalitions and shit like this is exactly why.
Just not being radical and accepting that some things don’t require extreme solutions gets you labelled a conservative these days
no it doesn’t.
Yes it absolutely does.
jesus you freaks have such a victim fetish
I didn’t realise being a left leaning liberal rather than a raging communist makes one a freak. Good to know. Thanks for actually trying to understand what I believe (/s)!
College communists will absolutely label the entire democratic party right wing, and will call liberalism a fundamentally conservative philosophy. If you’re surrounded by literal communists, accepting that maybe a literal revolution isn’t the best idea will absolutely get you called a conservative.
That’s not really a new phenomenon, though. The German communist party literally labeled the social democrat party fascists, and thought they were just as bad as the nazis. Turns out they were kinda wrong about that.
College communists will absolutely label the entire democratic party right wing, and will call liberalism a fundamentally conservative philosophy.
I mean. I’m no college communist. But neither of those assertions are particularly out there?
When compared with parties in other democracies, the Democrats are pretty right-wing on many issues. And it’s not strange to refer to liberalism as a conservative philosophy, it tends to place emphasis on private property, free-market economics, and capitalism. There are places where the conservative party are “The Liberals”.
Liberalism, as in the philosophy, isn’t inherently pro-capitalism. There have been liberals that are opposed to capitalism.
Ah yeah, the non nuanced view of leftists
You can literally predict what most college age leftists think about on any given news article before they even open their mouths.
They’ve descended into sloganeering identity politics and away from policy largely.
Lots of leftists genuinely believe society could just remove property, the police, money and all sorts of crazy shit and that we’d emerge out of the other side with no issues. They think problems are easily solved with just taxes on the rich and everybody just acting like them as though that’s a realistic proposal.
Don’t even get me started on the modern Monetary theorists who think there is no downside to endlessly printing money.
You can literally predict what most college age leftists think about on any given news article before they even open their mouths
go ask some conservatives their opinion on trans people and see the incredible variance in their answers.
Yes, the far right are awfully shit too. But because the left is comparing themselves to people who can’t separate their arses from their elbows they are blind to their own biases and fallacies.
they are blind to their own biases and fallacies
conservatives learn what hypocrisy is challenge
I’m not even a conservative, I’m a liberal/social democrat but nice try 👍
This whole comment is a straw man that feels like it was written by a walking Fox News segment.
They’ve descended into sloganeering identity politics and away from policy largely.
Completely nonsense. Just because there are some slogans like ACAB or BLM doesn’t mean that there aren’t policy proposals, it just means that “modern policing is a corrupt institution with bad systems that lead to bad outcomes and we should end qualified immunity and force police unions to pay when cops drastically abuse their power” doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.
Lots of leftists genuinely believe society could just remove property, the police, money and all sorts of crazy shit
More complete nonsense. This is lemmy.ml, so they over represent here, but the vast majority of American leftists are mostly along the lines of “we should improve society somewhat.”
They think problems are easily solved with just taxes on the rich and everybody just acting like them as though that’s a realistic proposal.
This one I won’t disagree with. Quite a lot of things could be solved simply by taxing the rich, who are currently experiencing some of the lowest taxes in the history of the US, and during the US’s real heyday from 40-70 or so, were taxed at a significantly higher rate. They were also paid significantly less, with CEO to worker pay usually being around a 10-20x multiplier, instead of a 100s of times. This is simply empirically true, like the fact that other countries exist that do tax the wealthy more, have more social programs, and generally have better outcomes (lower crime, lower rates of poverty, lower rates of maternal mortality, lower overall average mortality, etc.) Even still, the calls for taxing the rich aren’t really even pushing for tax rates of the 50’s, they’re pushing for tax rates of like 2003, or even 2015 before they were given yet another tax break with no plan for paying for it. So yeah, pretty realistic given that we’ve done it in this country, and many countries are still doing it even more than we did.
Don’t even get me started on the modern Monetary theorists who think there is no downside to endlessly printing money.
Please don’t. This would be another argument against a straw man, unless you’re arguing for a gold standard or something which would just highlight a lack of knowledge about modern economic theory.
I’ve never watched Fox News in my life.
I don’t want to respond to people who just assume I’m American as is the case here. It makes it very difficult to even have a proper discussion.
I have no qualms with the people who just want to improve society in sensible ways, but you know the cohort I am referring to. These people arent your allies and are just as blind as the far right. They are over represented on Lemmy as you astutely observed.
Please open your eyes to how the right has driven the left to mimic them.
I think I agree with you. Since the left is more “popular” it now brings in more people with dumber takes. I do think though that some of the problem is were going to need some extreme solutions in the near future for increasingly pressing issues, and determining which of those are reactionary and lazy, and which are needed is difficult
as I’ve aged I’ve discovered nuance and pragmatism.
well, you definitely didn’t move right then.
Another example of how people think tugging a lever to have the most extreme leftist positions is the way to properly analyse politics. It’s low effort and requires no thought and makes you feel like a good person despite achieving nothing in terms of political change.
remind me again how going apeshit every time you see a trans person requires thought and achieves something?
I don’t go apeshit when I see a trans person.
But thanks for assuming that because I disagree vehemently with typical leftist economics and their general tactics that I must be a raging transphobe.
Another example of the lack of nuance I referred to.
Why do you disagree vehemently with leftist economics?
I don’t go apeshit when see a trans person.
and i didn’t pull a lever to get the most extreme far left positions
but thanks for assuming that because i disagree with you
another example of the hypocrisy i referred to
You attacked what you thought my politics was.
What Lemmy wanted me to say was “yeah I’m way more leftist now, more left is good. Left left left.” Updoots for everyone. It’s fucking sad as fuck.
Past week, been seeing a lot of anti liberal stuff on lemmy. So, you’ve got people from the outside trying to destabilize the u.s. saying, both sides are the same, democrats are just as bad as Republicans. This creates a scenario that created Trump becoming president in the 1st place. It’s done on purpose.
Now, I understand that democrats, liberals aren’t perfect. But we have one side trying to set up detention camps, threatening to kill political rivals, consumed with hate. Other side trying at least to be better people.
I’m asking honestly, I would like to learn. Why is the both sides mindset becoming so prevalent?
Literally arguing for a middle ground between correct and incorrect because they reflexively have to make themselves look like the reasonable center whenever the left/right dynamic comes up on the internet.
No thought into the response it’s just Pavlovian centrist drooling.
Yeah, imagine that those guys praise themselves for agreeing only to half of a genocide instead of a full one, that’s how their “middle ground” works.
As for listening to both the arguments, if done only for the middle ground instead of truth seeking and actual critical thinking, you get this kind of shit. I listen to both arguments and they still get me to the left side just because the right side ones cancel themselves out as lies, deception or just dumbthinking and emotional response.
The “others” think they are correct too. It’s simple tribal politics.
I think the point is that if one side is correct and the other side is incorrect (regardless of which side that is) then someone with that point of view cannot possibly be centralist.
To be centralist you would have to conceive the both sides have a point. Centralists like to claim that they listen to both sides and then make an opinion on who to support, but they don’t, they just stick around in the middle. They never actually commit to one side or the other, because if they did that they wouldn’t be centralist anymore and they wouldn’t be able to be on their high horse.
Except life isn’t black and white and rarely is one side “wrong” and the other side “right”.
Committing to “the truth” is simplifying a grey universe which contains millions of those truths. You can’t be certain which is right and which is wrong.
“Climate change is an existential threat to humanity” this is the truth, anything that goes against that would be false, yet every right wing group will try and tell you otherwise.
Okay, sure. But at what level does it stop being a threat? Do we need to revert to a pre-industrial society? Do we need to ban trade shipping? Do we need to get rid of every plane? What alternative sources of energy do we go for? Do they have drawbacks that are acceptable?
There is nuance to everything. You can’t just shout slogans and say “this is the objective truth!”
You seem to have missed my point. What other truth is there than climate change being an existential threat to humanity? I’m not arguing solutions, I’m talking about just acknowledging the existence of a problem. There is no centrist stance here because it either is, or isn’t. Which opinion do you hold? Congrats on finding out your fence sitting has a level of impotence not seen since Henry VIII
You’re avoiding directly addressing their point because you can’t figure out how to answer it without taking a real stance.
The stated “Climate change is an existential threat”. The right says no it isn’t. The left says yes it is. By nature of the statement it either is or it isn’t, so of course you choose address it in an indirect way that allows you to avoid having an opinion.
This is a real issue so stop being a fence sitter and take a real stance for once in your life. Or if you choose to never have a real opinion on anything recognize that people aren’t going to take what you have to say seriously.
Okay, sure. But at what level does it stop being a threat?
First, the Right Wing would have to admit that Climate Change even exists. Hell, here in Canada our Conservative party voted to not admit it exists.
Committing to “the truth” is simplifying a grey universe which contains millions of those truths. You can’t be certain which is right and which is wrong.
There are a lot of grey areas, but racism and fashism is just wrong, there is nothing grey about it. Trump either won the election or he didn’t, one is a truth and the other is a lie, there cannot be two truths. You are either pregnant or not. You are alive or dead. Just because there are grey areas does not mean that every area is grey. If you have to construct grey areas to avoid committing to the truth, then you are on the side of the lie.
And if you know exactly where the truth is, and you still vote for the lie, then you are in bed with the liar and getting his flies.
Sure, nobody can be certain, but we make the best decisions we can based on the available data. Predicating your political identity on the idea that the truth always lies in the middle of the Overton Window is what people ridicule about self-identifying centrists. Because the right’s discourse is essentially a fabric of lies, and centrists are always convinced that they must have some good points. That they invariably have the gall to claim to be the adults in the room is just the icing on the stupid cake.
Again, lots of words to say “right bad left gud centrist wrong” in a very grey world. It’s not how it works. Every decision has its consequences, even ones you might think are “obviously best” at the moment.
No shit. Having political opinions doesn’t mean “I don’t think about things, I just do what my team says.” Claiming to be politically unaligned doesn’t mean you’re considering things more seriously or carefully than anyone else. Rather the opposite.
And yet a lot of the people are simply talking about “right” vs “left” and “false” versus “true”. Sounds an awful lot like “I don’t think about things, I just do what my team says” to me.
No it doesn’t it means you don’t bother actually considering anything you are literally claiming to be superior by being uninformed. You are claiming ignorance as a virtue.
Sometime the ‘others’ are Russian trolls/bots infiltrating these posts on Lemmy and other sites where leftists hang. Oligarchs hate it when you talk about taxing their excessive lifestyles.
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Theory: they know. They know we’re in trouble, that we need to take action, that we can fix the problems. They know that they’re wrong and that they’re making things worse, but they don’t care about being right or making the word better, they only care about winning. To change is to admit defeat and, therefore, lose, so the only way to win is to make sure that your opponents lose too.
Looking through all the comments in this topic, it’s sad to see that at this point we’re arguing about defining labels, instead of solving problems.
I love an opportunity to bag on ‘centrism’. It is often used as a cover for political ignorance. After all, would a non-illiterate claim both sides are the same? It only takes a few minutes to find some of the million ways they are not the same.
I once talked with an enlightened “pacifistic” centrist.
At some point I used the low hanging fruit - colonialism! do you think both sides were right? I felt kind of silly for not using a more sophisticated argument but- he said “yes, they should’ve just talked and came to some compromise :)”. It didn’t matter to him that one side was clearly an aggressor, because since the native people tried defending themselves that was enough for him to think both sides were bad.
clearly that fruit was a bit too high still, so I went with the good old - what about Jews and hitler? he replied that still, they should’ve tried to come to some sort of compromise- at that point I was very done talking to that guy. How on earth did he see a possible middle ground between “i’d like to live please thanks” and “i want your whole ethnicity eradicated” is beyond me
the lesson is - start with arguments you find simple and straightforward, ones with obvious answers, because some people can and will trip over even the lowest hurdles, and it’ll save you a lot of time lol
The playground metaphor is a great one. And I love this quote:
Paolo Freire said, “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”
It’s not enough to remain neutral in a conflict, be it racism, fascism, colonialism, or otherwise. You have to be actively against it to hold a decent opinion, otherwise you’re assisting the racists, fascists, and colonizers.
I don’t believe you.
Some people claim “both sides are the same” because they’re politically ignorant.
Other people claim “both sides are the same” because they’re so far left that the distance between the right-wing party and the ultra-right-wing party is insignificant when it comes to the issues they care about. (Note: the ultra-right-wing party has been doing its damnedest to create distance by sprinting even further right, but at least until the recent fascism my argument was pretty valid.)
You can be on the fence about anything, but remember the devil owns the fence.
Now you listen here, bucko. The devil didn’t do all that work for you to associate him with centrists.
Some things are the same and some things are different never ashamed to be blunt about it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGArqoF0TpQ One of my favorite skits for this issue
Hey leftists how about you stick your head in the sand and live in blissful ignorance like us centrists do. Meanwhile our asses are sticking up and we get ass raped by capitalism. But because we “listen” to “both” sides and make up our own mind we decided to actually enjoy it.
“Why don’t you listen to both sides of the argument and make your own opinions and arguments based on that?”
Bitch, why do you think I’m a fucking leftist???
The enlightened centrist here comes across as a Republican too embarrassed to admit it – it seems to be a core thought in conservatism that anyone who isn’t conservative just hasn’t formed an independent opinion, and if they did that, they’d be conservative.
Both sidesism is so stupid.
“Oh let me hear the fascist nazi’s side that’s trying to kill trans people as a scapegoat! I am so enlightened and balanced to be hearing this side too!”
