It's really impossible to know what you mean here, because conservative should mean to keep doing what works: They should be social democrats (what worked to build the US e.g. Nixon lol). So we shouldn't use that word any more. True conservatism would be more left wing than democrats today.
The GOP has become a reactionary or "paleo-conservative" which is really a misnomer too. What they really are now is a theocratic fascist party. But really they have no values at all except power and hate and inequality.
There are no real centrists, there is no center here. They are really corporatists who are willing to play politics in order to please the big capitalists or plutocracy. They love trump because they can keep cutting of left wing politics and not have a platform. In foreign policy they are fascist as well (american exceptionalism, a belief in inequality based on identity).
We gotta stop callin them conservatives. These shits are trying to roll things back, not keep it as-is. They're the opposite of progressive: they're regressive.
I wanted to say how I have my basic needs met, isn't part of social group that is threatened and don't see left as waste of tax spending, but then I remembered about good Uncle Voencom that happily sends to die for Putin's yacth, so I don't count as not part of social group that is threatened.
Balance is required to see things clearly. Just because both sides suck equally in their own 'special' way doesn't change the fact they are their own worst enemy.
Maybe I’m the centrist in this scenario, but isn’t that just normal left? I’d expect far left to be like “we are going to exterminate all the rich then give their stuff to everyone else”
Haha yeah US is so backwards. And I'm surprised the world hasn't built a massive wall around us because we literally use God as part of our laws, how many weapons we have stockpiled, how many citizens die from unnecessary violence, how little we care about the homeless.
And any sort of empathy about any of those problems, even pointing it out, isnt even a discussion point in politics because itll go nowhere fast.
Depends on what you mean by "far." If you mean believing in a radical restructuring of society along Communist lines, this can be done peacefully. Pacifism is an extremist position as well. Conflating "radicalism" with "violence" is just centrism at work.
On the same hand, there are extremely violent centrists. Kissinger murdered millions of people as a liberal, for example, which is a center-right ideology. Centrism isn't about non-violence.
Only edgy teens on social media genuinely think this is a logical political goal you should advocate for in the first world on this day and age
then give their stuff to everyone else
If you change this to: "concentration of private property in few hands is a poisonous hydra that will forever feed inequality", then yes, that's a milquetoast far left take, which often comes from the desire of actually "getting everyone's needs met" and the idea that capitalism naturally organizes the economy in a way that disincentives letting a portion of the working class being comfortably capable of getting all their needs met.
And honestly, given the positions of most politicians on actually doing something to make housing affordable, I honestly think "getting everyone's needs met" is becoming a far left position.
Centrists think "We all want the same thing, why are you so biased against the fox's ideas about how to build the henhouse?" They don't believe the far right wants to exterminate, so the far left is evil for being willing to fight them.
I hope someday your feelings of law enforcement can be repaired by them. This is a tragic relationship between people and those that are supposed to protect them.
I hope law enforcement keeps correcting this, which they should have done themselves but instead it took enormous pressure and numerous occasions of crimes by law enforcement.
This. Republicans and Democrats have been moving steadily to the right for the last 40 years. So now, Democrats are where Republicans were in the 1980s: boring corporatists who are best friends of banks, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. We haven't had a real progressive president since Jimmy Carter and that was 50 years ago.
Meanwhile, the right has moved all the way into an insane asylum. Their best friends are Russian oligarchs, fascists, religious nutjobs and civil war re-enactors, who communicate on Twitter and "Truth Social" and call themselves "Republicans."
Nowadays the right-left-continuum is already broken inside a single political region, I am pretty sure getting the USSR into the boat doesn't make it easier.
And by the way, who was the "second opposition party" in the One-Party-System of the Soviet Union?
There was Yabloko, but I wouldn't call it living party. Same for CPRF, another dead party on federal level. LDPR only pretends to be opposition on TV, you already can guess they are not. New People is sock puppet like LDPR.
On municipal level and in some regions things are slightly different:
LDPR had some popularity until Furgal's arrest and subsequent idiot acting governor. Members of Habarovsk Krai's LDPR either moved to UR(incumbent's party) or remained in opposition and moved to CPRF. Furgal was arrested because he was more popular than Putin in Habarovsk.
CPRF: extensive regional network, comparable to what Navalny had. While in some regions they are puppets for UR, in most of regions they are opposition to UR, actively register observers(Putin hates observers, they ruin his falsifications), can register you as candidate from federal party and usually are supported by Smart Voting(Navalny and his supporters). Have string teams in many regions.
Navalny's HQ(Shtab)/Russia of the Future: had extensive regional network that existed until his poisoning. Now it doesn't.
Yabloko: sometimes registers observers, usually doesn't, but sometimes does register good candidates, has strong team in Moscow and SpB, had strong team in Pskov. Sometimes supported by SV.
LDPR: shit in Moscow, had a lot of seats in east regions. It seems like they disappeared.
New People: Sock Puppet Party, but can randomly register humanoid candidate and sometimes this candidate wins.
On municipal elections even sock puppets has sometimes good candidates, but most municipal elections are FPTP.
People who already have their needs accounted for always seem so convinced that things will turn out hunky dory if things escalate to violence, and yet so rarely pass thought on the folks who are already struggling enough without The Troubles Part II Red Cap Boogaloo coming to a car bombing near them.
"Candidate A has a plan that'll help 85% of people have affordable healthcare, and Candidate B will make it unaffordable for everyone else -- I guess I'm choosing neither since there isn't an option for 100%!" - Tankies
I used to think that the type of hatred displayed by the filth guy was a small backwards group ina larger whole, but I'm not seeing anyone else in the larger whole, who might be less ridiculous, saying anything about the fridges. It makes them all appear the same.
This is a basic example of issues caused by not policing extremist views within your own group, or a group being too big and not representing the majority of people's views.
Also leftists: nothing ever gets done. Both parties must be the same
Edit:
More info from Pew 2022 election polls:
Age and the 2022 election
Age continues to be strongly associated with voting preferences in U.S. elections. Nearly seven-in-ten voters under 30 (68%) supported Democratic candidates in 2022 – much higher than the shares of voters ages 30 to 49 (52%), 50 to 64 (44%) and 65 and older (42%) who did so. Compared with 2018, GOP candidates performed better among voters who turned out across age groups.
Also:
Older voters turned out more reliably in both elections – and continued to be largely loyal to Republican candidates.
Wow, you really are a centrist. Sorry for doubting you.
Assuming you’re serious, no; they’re talking about how the entire socioeconomic system is designed to give white people a leg up over everyone else. Even at the bottom of the ladder, a white person has more options than a person of color.
Polite counterpoint: segregation laws, housing zoning restrictions, and ugly laws.
Even though these have been repealed, even today their echoes are felt. And in many cases, they are still unofficially enforced (especially the housing).
If you want a more modern counterpoint, then look no further than the issues currently surrounding textured hair. Banning African Americans from having traditional hairstyles, forcing anyone who wants to learn how to do traditional braiding to go through months of expensive ‘official beauty courses’ and get a license, and even making them use products to force their hair to be more like the hair of caucasians.
Yes, it may be a ‘minor’ example compared to forcing people of color to use different entryways and drinking fountains, but that is how it goes for people of color: no longer is it one or two big laws, but a whole slew of subtle discrimination and tiny laws chipping away at them wherever they go and whatever they try to do. A death of a thousand cuts, so to speak. Add that on top of poverty, or chronic illness, or disability, and I’m sure you can see climbing up the ladder is much, much harder.
I know it is hard to walk a mile in the shoes of another, but you may want to take a moment to really, deeply look into what they have to put up with every day of their lives just for having skin that isn’t lily-white. Or for being disabled, or of a gender minority, or really anything else that isn’t straight, white, and male, for that matter.
It is—for regular hairdressers, since they have to work with dangerous chemicals and such. But for a woman who only wants to sell her services at braiding textured hair, they still force her to go through the full beautician school and licensing and fees. That’s just plain stupid (and discrimination).
It was put in place simply to dissuade women of color from offering services to other women of color, and seriously, fuck that. In fact, several courts have agreed and allowed the women who sued over it to simply pay for a regular business license.
But they still had to go to court for it. Yet another inconvenience, another roadblock they have to spend time and money clearing.
Okay… I guess I need to be simple, direct, and plain with you.
The bottom of the hole is much deeper for a PoC or a disabled person than for someone who is not. And climbing out of that hole is much harder for them than for someone who is not.
Not really true, it's just that your socioeconomic caste is the biggest deciding factor by far in your chances to climb up that ladder. Poor white people who then become "successful" economically do exist, and the fact that they exist is used as a massive propoganda point by conservatives, but it's exceedingly rare and it's not something a majority can achieve even if they're the hardest workers on the planet... but to poor non-white immigrants, the poor white guy's chance of succeeding seems extraordinarily high in comparison, because given the same opportunities the nonwhite immigrant just won't have access to most of them. Same goes for a black woman, or a trans person, or someone with an invisible or clearly visible disability.
Sure, "rock bottom" is a permanent state of being for many people that get there, but different peoples' "rock bottom" is worse than others (on average) regardless of that. As a white person who's disabilities are pretty invisible, I can often camoflauge myself as one of the "upper castes" and enjoy many of the same benefits and assumptions as a richer white person might, the same isn't as true for someone who is latino or very outwardly disabled presenting or something. The class divide, despite what a lot of people would try to convince you, is not the only problem, nor is it the root of all other socioeconomic inequality (though it does exacerbate it).
Not really true, it’s just that your socioeconomic caste is the biggest deciding factor by far in your chances to climb up that ladder.
I would say that both are true at the same time. The bottom of the ladder is on-the-streets homelessness, which is notoriously hard to break out of. Even just getting a bank account is hard enough because you don't have an address or often even ID
I'm driving but if I recall this video has a quote talking about how if you haven't had the experience of living a quote unquote regular American life then how are you going to even want it and I feel like I relate to that.
Absolutes are not problems by themselves, you must evaluate each case.
As an example, the only correct stance is being absolutely against the KKK, and not give a shit if the KKK objects to that. You're saying that's a problem, and that the KKK should be heard out. Fuck that.
Absolutely. But they are a problem. The KKK is not supported and exactly what I was considering an absolute. So I stand by what I said. There should be more diversity in the voting structure and not so many flashy carnival rides.
The KKK is an absolute, and you've advocated for taking the middle of the road approach for everything. Are you walking back your statement that absolutes are bad inherently, and taking the common-sense position that everything must be judged individually?
No. I'm saying that absolutes suck and they are an absolute. But you can keep trying to tell me what I am saying like I don't understand it. It didn't come from my mind or anything.
Or you are hell bent on proving an exception to centerists which is 80 percent of the country. At least it was a couple of years ago. And can't accept that all of us are in the same boat wanting more options.
Yes the KKK represents an absolute viewpoint. So does saying "You should never, ever support the KKK" which you claim to agree with.
Other guy is just trying to point out to you that your opening statement is logically inconsistent, since you DO support at least one absolute position. (That the KKK are unreasonable and not to be supported.)
Most likely, there are other absolute positions you also support - that one was picked because it was an easy one that for sure you would agree with. Uncovering others would take more discussion.
You also are not seeing the forrest for the trees. It's not a boolean loop. Saying an absolute is a fucking problem is a statement that is echoed by the centerists. You can diminish a point all you want. But then all we are going to discuss now nothing is nothing. There is no logic to saying that absolutes are a problem. It's a statement of fact.
Saying an absolute is a fucking problem is a statement that is echoed by the centerists.
Are you under the impression that I'm a centrist? Because I was under the impression you were.
Maybe I should just make this statement instead of trying to reply to this several layers deep context.
If a person says "Absolutes are a problem" but also says "except this Absolute, right here, this one is OK" - then that person doesn't actually think absolutes are a problem. That person thinks absolutes they disagree with are a problem.
Personally, I would not say absolutes are absolutely a problem. If we could agree on a few absolutes (such as "The KKK is bad" or "White supremacy should be rooted out and not tolerated" or "You can't call and threaten or beg people to take illegal action when you don't like the results of an election") I think maybe we'd have a bit more unity in the country.
At this point I guess I've lost the plot of whether I agree with you or not, but I think I don't, and my position is as outlined above. I also agree with the meme that is OP.
It's an nonsense response to a concept that should be considered reasonable.
Bringing up the KKK in the concept of general problem solving views is a distraction from consideration that reasonable people can solve problems. It exaggerates reasonable people with those who are not.
By claiming that absolutes are bad inherently, they are stating that taking an absolute stance against racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Is also bad. The KKK is a great example, they were defended by White Moderates during the Civil Rights Movement.
You don't feel like its not a reasonable example if we are talking modern day American politics in the same conversation with unions and minimum wage?
I do agree there are some absolutes that cannot be tolerated. But, it gets difficult to articulate that because some people have such strong opinions about a particular topic, they consider it an absolute. Like murdering a child should never be tolerated would be an example of an absolute I think all of mumanity would support, but it was done during China's one child policy. So some didn't subscribe to that.
I find political discussions with certain people hard because they believe their thing should be absolute, rather than up for negotiation, hopefully so both group kinda win instead of everyone loses.
Murdering children wasn't a part of the One Child Policy, but an unintended outcome from it. It was obviously a terrible policy because of its results, but it wasn't done to murder children. That's not a great example.
Second though, I don't know that I consider KKK supporters moderate. Maybe historically unfortunately, but not now. I've never met someone I thought was a middle ground or more center person who supports racism. Especially hard/blatant racism. I'd take ignorance, they might not understand cultural differences.
I disagree. Not a single person I consider center is even close to a racist.
I work with a bunch of conservative or American Republican voters. None support or are racist.
None of the barely Democrat voters I know are racist. Since there's assertion that even American Democrats are right, same applies.
Are there groups of shitty people who are, sure. I don't think they represent the whole of the country. I don't know why middle ground is interpreted as racism ok. That's not middle.
I work with a bunch of conservative or American Republican voters. None support or are racist.
Anyone who votes Republican supports their racist policies. Ergo, such a voter might be "one of the good ones" (yeah, I know what I said), but they are OK supporting and increasing the power of a party that is decidedly racist. (and sexist, and homophobic, and transphobic, and, and, and...)
Democrats aren't perfect by any means, but anyone finding them hard to distinguish from Republicans in those areas should probably feel a bit called out by OP.
Have you considered that you may not realize they are racist because you're at work, and/or are white as well? I've known many conservatives that I didn't think were racist until I found out later.
You truly don't know any conservative that posted #AllLivesMatter?
But that anti-KKK stance is not as extreme as it could be. I'll give you an example of a more extreme stance: Every member should be tortured and executed, everyone who they were friends with should be imprisoned, everyone who mentions the name "KKK" should be imprisoned.
That is an extreme stance and it is ridicolous too. And in most (all?) cases, extremism also means authoritatian. Do you have an example for an extreme stance is any good?
I do. I just don't buy the whole "that wasn't real communism, this time it'll be different, we totally won't trample all over human rights" crap. Especially not when those same people are praising the likes of Castro, Xi, Lenin, and assorted other dictators.
What people are advocating for is generally not communism and I would say communists are generally pretty rare on the left. Finding an actual Marxist who engages with the solution theory side of his work and not just his pointing at a social structure side is like finding a unicorn. Recognizing that there is an owner class is Marxist sure but it's also leaving 75 percent of his political theory on the table.
People will definitely joke about being communist but that is a dig at McCarthist witchhunt logic which flattened and branded anything left of enthusiastic neo libralism as a potential threat. There's also people who will respond to the virulent rejection of communism by arguing for it based on the fact that it never has been pulled off as written but that's a knee jerk reaction to being called a communist since breaking down why you aren't a communist at all requires more knowledge that a lot of people don't have at hand. When you brand everyone with nebulous left facing ideals a communist you functionally create "communists" who need to defend themselves. Results vary.
But break open the left at a philosophical level and you find much sharper distinctions... Many variations of which have represented stable democratic government systems with historical precedent of being resistant to power consolidation.
Communism or the Communist systems resulting from attempts to make the idea of Communism work, relies on a relocation of personal property with the state as an intermediary based on need for all citizens in the system. It is highly invasive in its management of distribution while solidifying a fairly rigid government control with autocratic power weilded through offices that are not elected positions ... Doing things like creating universal government services like Universal Health care or looking at affordable housing as a basic right aren't nessisarily Communist. Those things are still subject to democratic control of elected groups. It's a feature of multiple leftist structures.
Out of the systems frequently discussed seriously Socialism is the most common but the subheading is more of a spectrum that represents a wide band of different ideologies about how to manage resources to create specific reserves for the public good outside of capitalist profit driven structures leaving the domain of personal property allocation basically alone. Critically, under Socialism you still have rich and poor people there's just limita on how wide a band the top is from the bottom. Maybe the rich man doesn't evade being taxed and has regulated limits of how much they can benefit from mutually held public common like the environment and the poor man isn't dying on the street. At it's shallowist end Socialism is potentially as gentle as just having more protections to ensure people's labour is protected from exploitative practice.
What most modern leftist ideologies particularly depend on these days is a highly democratic framework. Making elections more representive, enforcement of term limits and peaceable changeovers of power and re-establishing the idea of community held property by empowering local government bodies meaning a very beaurcratic decentralized power. There are lots of countries running variations of this framework so no, the left in a general sense is not interested in bringing Communism back. When you equate the left as a whole to Communism you are basically falling for decades old propaganda that preys on the habit people have of oversimplifying something that is deep and difficult to understand into a flat, easily dismissable token. An oversimplification designed by detractors whose interest is in giving you tools so you stop thinking and exploring further than benefits them.
You can argue that this time we can make communism work guys and abolishing most private property would be considered far left. I don't think violence is implicit in the extreme left like it is with the far right its just the natural consequences of any authoritarian government regardless of orientation.
The other problem with comparing the two is that even though left and right—by American standards— are SOMEWHAT equally represented the far right is like 30% of the pop and the far left more like 1%. Electing the left caries no risk of the extreme folks running the show they barely have a voice. Electing the right implicitly means letting the extremists run the show they are the majority of the right.
I have been missing the nutty and nonsensical comments from Reddit. I’m so happy Lemmy has grown big enough that we now have our own weird bots to rewrite history for us. #Blessed 🥰
Edit: Oh, wow, getting downvoted by right wing bots; I’m home.
@FlyingSquid In my humble experience and understanding 'centrism' has been always an euphemism for 'far right' for the "politically correct" miserable cowards...
I would not mean those people because I would consider them to be on the right. I mean people to the left of them but not left enough to reject corporate influence and embrace ideas like socialized medicine and housing.
I guess I see neo-liberals (focusing on white liberalism as a political movement) as not seeing themselves on the right. They think of themselves as being on the left, but are effectively antagonistic towards leftist policies, a highlighted example of this being the tension between "mainstream" Democrats and the progressive caucus within the Democratic party. White liberalalist ideology is fundamentally Neo-liberal and anti-revolutionary. Bipartisanship, institutionalism, incrementalism, these are the hallmarks of white liberalism. They extend from the ideals of a class of people who benefit from the existing structures in society. They don't support racisim 'explcity' but they do benefit from it implicitly, and so support the institutions that build a racist society. In this way they can 'oppose' racism, but still benefit from it. They support 'change' but only want to pursue it in nickels and dimes, unwilling to commit to universal programs that benefit everyone (Obamacare is a perfect example of this). White-liberals have no problem making common cause with explicitly fascist or racist groups, because to them the politeness of society is more important than its outcomes. Not Nazis, but willing to caucus with them. See the recent border vote for an example of this.
Its easy and convenient to see right-wing fascist as the entirety of the problem, but those people would have no ability to drive their agenda forward if not for white liberals. White liberalism ineffectual approach to governing, disinterest in revolutionary or universal programs, and insistence on decorum and appearances is fundamental to why the right-wing has been so effective and capable in furthering their project and agenda. This is why everyone should be challenged by the blue-no-matter-who arguments. All you have to do is look at the previous 24 years of history to recognize that this is a fundamentally white-liberal argument (as in, a direct extension of white liberalism as a political philosophy). Its not working. It hasn't worked. It doesn't work. We shouldn't expect it to work in the future. IT results in the worst possible match ups to win elections. If you are a leftist, it leaves you strategically vulnerable at every possible turn and historically has generated only negative progress.
White-liberalism is the second partner in a dance with white-nationalism towards fashism. White nationalists simply would not have been able to progress their agenda this far without it. It wasn't just the Nazis that drove Germany into fascism. It was also the other parties who empowered, emboldened, and appeased the Nazis in their pursuit of power, which is precisely what we see 'moderate' Democrats doing today. If you want to deal with the rise of fascism in the US, you need to address white liberalisms control of the Democratic party first.
Good lord... the comments on here proves that lemmy.world is flooded with politically incompetent libs that couldn't tell the difference between left and right if their lives depended on it.
If you believe that there is such a thing as an actual "left" in formal political establishments, this means you.
I can't tell them apart in the way they both seed discord to keep people united behind them. I can't tell them apart in the way they tear apart families with propaganda. In that sense, I'm a centrist.
You can argue one of them does less material damage all day, but they both rely on each other to exist in their current form. They are both predatory institutions that I will not be a part of.
I can tell them apart, but the result of the two is the same because once you centralize power (to get more leftist stuff done faster), those with power realize that the far-right offers dictators more. See Russia, for starters. Look at lists of what countries have the smallest percentage of poor people - it's all social-ish democracies like Iceland, Japan, and France.
ALL Leftists according to rightists: "all I want is basic needs met, obviously anyone who doesn't grant a toddler universal basic income, and free on demand sex change surgery and accompanying hormones is obviously a nazi. Also, fuck white people, fuck men, fuck anyone in an incumbent demographic category. Simply by being male and white you should immediately pay reparations for daring to exist. Anyone who even asks about any of these subjects is committing a crime and should never be allowed to speak again. Also it's illegal to not be attracted to fat people"
ALL Rightists according to leftists: "Anyone who I'm too stupid to understand shouldn't exist. There is no middle ground or grey area on anything, it's my way or the highway. All minorities shouldn't exist at all, no one should exist who doesn't conform to my specific set of arbitrary values. Anyone who says otherwise is a communist and hates themselves. Literally everyone must die. The police never make mistakes and any form of authority must be taken as 100% true at face value"
Centrists: "you both seem extremely closed-minded and I'm struggling to come to any conclusion other than being extreme is bad, and that these are complex subjects. I will try to focus on not being extreme."
Yeah anyone can write literally anything you fucking idiots
Edit: how you know you were right - butthurt downvotes without accompanying replies
Why would I care about what so-called normal people think? Most of them are boring and care about football far more than about the direction their country is going in.
Centrist here. I don't think the point of horseshoe theory is that the far-left and far-right are the same. The point is simply that they have similarities. Like both wanting to use violence to achieve their aims.
well, it's grey, and it's about yea big, kinda roundy-squarish with some triangles thrown in, and it's empty except for all the stuff. you'd like it! I sure do.
I think the meme is referencing people that say both sides of the political spectrum(in the us) are equally as bad and not the actual political spectrum
The Republican Party of today does a massive disservice to any shred of the concept of a logical and realistic right-wing opinion.
And even then, the ideals depend heavily on the system functioning properly. Honestly a properly functioning right-wing state could be as good or better for individual freedom and security than a properly-functioning true socialist state.
However, I think it takes a hell of a lot of faith in the right-wing system to even get close to something fair and functional in the real world.
What's the function of banning books, removing women's rights to bodily autonomy, removing individual rights of transgender people, electing a fraud and rapist president, and pushing christian facism in a " properly functioning right-wing state"?
That’s the thing. Today’s Republican Party is not a right wing party. They christofascists that hijacked the Republican party’s platform, propaganda machines, and now, leadership.
It’s been a gentle decline since the 80s, then Sarah Pain got a platform right alongside McCain and the whole thing fell right into the deep end.
Who would’ve thought that the two people most detrimental to the fall of modern society would be Ralph Nader and Sarah Palin.
It’s a No True Scotsman kind of thing…but I wouldn’t consider anything the christofascists say or do to be aligned with right-wing principles (limited government, personal autonomy, “golden rule” type stuff).
Government banning anything, whether it be books or gay marriage or abortions, would not fly under a true right wing government, because banning anything requires enforcement (which requires a larger government) and a breach of personal autonomy.
When you get to "far", well by definition you have extremists. Things are distorted know because the far right has power and the far left essentially doesn't exist in our political system. So it's hard to ignore the extremism.
Also, though we like a spectrum, it doesn't cut in one dimension. One flavor of "right wing" says government stays out of stuff, especially religious stuff, but another flavor wants a theocracy. The latter flavor is at the wheel in the Republican party now, which is dangerous.
In terms of a realistic theoretical right position I'd say favoring reducing spend over raising taxes is a defensible position. Now problem again being the Republicans tossed this and spend at least as much as the Democrats, but are less responsible about tax revenue as they do it.
I'm wary of the dangers of partisan driven politics (your "team" becomes your ultimate loyalty), but in the current climate I side with the Democrats because the Republicans have just been getting more and more nuts. I still want to watch the nuance and vote for candidates rather than blindly for a party, because complacency can be a dangerous position.
Thinking logically and realistically, without checking if left or right, inevitably leads to a leftist slant. There's nothing logical or realistic about right wing thought, that's why they usually suppress the scientific community and educational systems.
and when did i say i dont check either side. i think of all sides and directions and possible outcomes and resources and stuff. all thought process sides have good opinions hut sticking to one train of thought will never lead to positivity since life changes.
Everyone does this, it's not unusual, but the consequences of doing so is naturally a leftist outcome. Leftism isn't a random direction, with unrelated and disparate views, nor is rightism. Leftism is a selection of coherent and synchronous solutions to sets of problems using the same logical framework of analysis.
Leftism isn't about "sticking to one train of thought," and that's a very myopic view of political ideologies in general.
Is that really 'far' left, though? Far left is, "let a handful of governors control everything, on behalf of communal ownership, and they will make sure everyone's needs are met fairly."
That's not the far left, that's Capitalism. The Far Left is for democratic control of Production and working towards a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society via Worker Ownership, whether that be through a state or via Anarchism.
I don't think far left implies statelessness. I know communist governments are not taken as an ideal picture of far left, but I thought far left politics still has state governorship over public ownership?
You say Worker Ownership, but I thought the thing about 'left' versus 'right' is a collective ownership (requiring presumably some manner of management) versus individual ownership (that permits capitalism if people have full freedom to trade).
The left isn't necessarily opposed to ownership or freedom to trade. Nor is capitalism just freedom to trade. Capitalism is a set of exploitative property relations based on a fake contract (the employer-employee contract). In this contract, the legal responsibility for the entire result of production is assigned to the employer despite the workers' joint de facto responsibility for that result. This violates the basic tenet that legal and de facto responsibility match
I think by this stage we're hitting the problem that there are various views and ideologies being lumped or un-lumped into terms and spectrums. Is the 'Left' the pattern of wanting public ownership, state control and/or the redistribution of wealth/ownership from employers/landowners to employees/tenants? Or is it the shared views of a particular set of people?
I didn't mean to say capitalism is freedom to trade, rather that individual ownership plus freedom to trade enables capitalism: where I'm hoping 'capitalism' is vague enough to fit most people's definition, but myself really I'm thinking of capitalism as the philosophy whereby wealth is considered fungible, and one strives to use the wealth one has, to gain more. (E.g. I have a horse, which I could trade with you for two sheep, then gather the sheep's milk, and trade the sheep plus their milk back with you for the horse plus a hamster.)
property relations based on a fake contract
I... that's more interesting each time I re-read over your comment. I still don't think it's a fake contract, and maybe your comment's not true either. If I'm employed to fit tyres onto car wheels and deliberately misalign them so they burst, doesn't some legal responsibility come back on my head?
But if my employer says to the customer, "I have set quality checkers over all the production, so I can guarantee the fitness of the product even if individual workers make a mistake, and I will take responsibility and refund you if there is a problem," is that not valid?
I agree it easily becomes abusive. Especially when the only option for many people is to rent land, find employment at a company, rather than having the option to own and produce themselves.
By entire result, I meant the liabilities for used-up inputs together with the property rights to produced outputs. If workers step outside the employment contract or the law, the law recognizes their responsibility for the results of their actions. That isn't the problem. The problem is the law doesn't recognize their responsibility for the results of their actions in normal production where workers don't jointly get the entire result of production.
So, I believe it's a thing in rail, that workers are explicitly not blamed for things that go wrong. Called a 'no fault' system. Presumably deliberate malice still falls back on them, but for a mistake, it's considered that The System is deficient: that appropriate training/oversight/checks weren't in place. This encourages employees to speak up when something goes wrong and be honest and detailed about what happened to cause it.
I certainly don't think that model should be used everywhere, and perhaps taken to its fullest shouldn't be anywhere. (But, conversely, some of that thinking should be in most places!) But I think it's an example of a legitimate separation of workers and responsibility.
I don't know if you're meaning responsibility in the sense of when there's bad effects (e.g. a worker participates in making a baby milk formula with potential heavy metal contamination) or in the sense of deserving to reap the benefits (i.e. the full profit). Either way I think I still agree there's an imbalance, but not a true separation in the way you mean: where workers receive part (of result and responsibility) and irrelevant non-workers receive part.
Managers, consultants, lenders, advertisers, are all part of the process of making a product and making it useful to people. (Okay, some are superfluous, and some are bad; but so are some physical workers.) Even the person who inspires everyone else to get together and work, is a (valuable) part of the process. And the person who helps them not squabble and not abandon each other. If this were not true, then in a land where workers have legal and physical freedom to work together, communal working groups would be more common, would they not?
The imbalance comes down to greed, a lack of wisdom, and greed. ("You said, 'greed,' twice!" "That's because...") A big tower of greed and unwise choices, of which the largest part appears to me that the people with power/wealth are able to make the decisions so that more of the wealth comes to them. If I 'own' a company, that's a legitimate work I did facilitating a place and entity where workers can come together and produce; but now I can control that I get a larger portion of the collective profits. And I can twist every decision into that favour, by an ever-growing tower of means invented by the rich and powerful, and my ever-growing leverage from my ever-growing wealth.
Once again, you've given me interesting cues to think on. Apologies if my response is over-wordy; I blame it on recovering from 'flu.
Communism is a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society. You're thinking of Socialist states that tried to work towards eventually achieving Communism. Far left politics is about collective ownership, not necessarily state ownership.
Worker ownership and collective ownership are basically the same thing. Worker Ownership of a factory would look like all of the workers sharing equal ownership of said factory.
Okay, I can see that make sense as a definition of Communism. Communism as worker/collective ownership, and Socialist State as a governed effort to implement or progress toward that.
When your only idea to solve problems is violence you don't care for having people's needs met, you just want to dominate others and still claim to be the good guy. I see that on the side of "the left" and you can distance yourself from that without becoming right wing or conservative.
Far right: give me absolute power so I can make the country strong!
Far left: give me absolute power so I can make everyone in the country equal!
Centrist: Both of these groups are made up of grifters and the rubes that fall for the scam that is ideology. We know from history the problems with ideologies, and only those ignorant of history (whether deliberately or not) fall for bullshit "ideologies" whether they be "left" or "right".
In fact the "political spectrum" is just a construct that's only useful as a shorthand to quickly distinguish between moderate political parties. The complexities of functioning society can't be reduced to a one dimensional line FFS. People who are tricked into thinking this way are ill-equipped to govern a functioning society. History has shown that the one dimensional political thinkers have failed at governing every time they've been given the opportunity to do so.
Thanks for providing an example of one dimensional political thinking. Something you disagree with has to be from the opposite end of a made up political spectrum in you mind.
When in actual fact I want higher taxes on the wealthy, I want trust busting on corporate oligopolies, Keynesian economic policy, more regulation on the private sector, especially in regards to the environment. I come to these preferred policies by actually thinking of the issues, and I have read a history book and know that a violent overthrow of the government is only going to result in some asshole (whether "far left" or "far right") gaining authoritarian power.
Only angsty youths think there's "one simple trick" that'll solve all problems. Feeds into that need to have angst I suppose.
Hard to say. I think there are many people I probably agree with politically, I find a lot of their rhetoric quite insufferable and toxic because they stifle conversation. That's why even though I vehemently disagree with republicans, sometimes I wonder if I'd much rather go to a potluck in the deep south then hang out with the most progressive blue haired idiots in Portland. I have republican people in my family and oddly enough we can have conversations while disagreeing. Meanwhile, some people on the left just drive me bonkers in the way they move rhetorically.
Far left: we're going to dress in all black and burn buildings down to protest racism of which many of the shops will be locally owned by people of color.
Far right: we're going to ravage the civil liberties of every group of people that aren't white religious old rich people and convince poor white people it's the patriotic thing to do.
Centrists: You're both fucked but one of you is less fucked I guess.
That's because those "moderates" are actually right-wingers masquerading as moderates. If somebody tells you "I support X, Y, and Z", but don't take any positions that support X, Y, or Z, then they are lying to you.
I think it's worse than that. I think moderates are lying to themselves and since so few people are calling them out for it they remain in blissful ignorance of the damage they're causing.
Based on the overwhelmingly negative response to the left being criticized I understand why many Centrists stay center. Going either direction just feels morally compromising. I'll still vote blue because I'm not insane but still, I'd never call myself Democrat.
Regardless that's the choice in front of every moderate. Either they can join us in telling Biden to vow to veto any attempts to block a strike in his next term and stop shipping weapons to Israel or they can lose to fascists. We compromised and helped get Biden elected in the 2020 general. If they want our help again it's time for the moderates to compromise.
Supporting a president who is turning a blind eye to genocide feels morally compromising. Supporting Democrats, none of which who will even use the word genocide to call out Israel, feels morally compromising. Supporting "peaceful protestors" wearing anti-facist gear and smash/loot small businesses feels morally compromising. Supporting people who refuse to acknowledge body dysmorphia is a mental illness and instead want to feed into it in all forms feels morally compromising.
You're fucking delusional if you think your side is immune to critique. The left is 'better' but stop huffing your own shit fumes.
Supporting “peaceful protestors” wearing anti-facist gear and smash/loot small businesses feels morally compromising.
Are you equivocating this with a vote for Bernie or Warren in the primaries?
Furthermore, moderates like you got the candidate you wanted in the primaries and lots of progressives and leftists begrudgingly showed up to vote for him in the 2020 general. Biden hasn't compromised with them at all. If you want him to win the next election you'll need our help again. We've provided some ideas like "stop sending weapons to Israel" and "don't block strikes". Are you trying to tell me supporting either of those ideas feels morally compromising to you? And if not have you done anything to try to tell Biden to wake the fuck up unless he wants to lose to the far right?
You're acting like there's only two extreme choices when that doesn't reflect reality. Biden won the primaries. You got your centerist president. Now help us nudge him left and we'll help make sure he gets elected again.
What would those means be? Because I don't remember the far left trying to stage a coup so that they could begin their genocidal dictatorship. And they're still planning that genocidal dictatorship.
And Tankies embrace both types of regimes. They love the autocratic Kim regime in North Korea and the PRC and their excuse is that both countries call themselves communist.
“There are sheltered teenagers on the internet with dumb political views, which is indistinguishable from actual attempted sedition by current members of government”
Couldn’t hit you over the head with it any harder.
It is my understanding, and please someone correct me if I'm wrong, that after Nepal ended its monarchy in the 1990s, a democratically elected Marxist-Leninist party took control.
And then they lost the elections eventually and a socialist party took control.
Well, far left is anarchism. I haven't heard how they're going to make my basic needs met. But then I haven't ever heard how they're going to get their basic needs met. Or any needs met, for that matter.
That's not really true, you can get to anarchy from the left or the right. In fact, anarcho-capitalism is pretty much what American libertarians have been pushing for decades. There is an anarcho-communism, which involves abolishing all hierarchies and monetary systems are relying entirely on mutual aid, but I think most of the, "far-left," in America is just marxist, usually socialist but sometimes communist.
I think it's similar to communism in the sense that they fantasize about perfect citizens who would always think about the group before themselves without any other incitation (such as having to earn money to live).
Heck I would be happy with even so much as “left of center” which we don’t really have in the United States. Biden is right of center. Bernie sanders for example is only slightly left of center.
Nah man. Left of center is not that at all. United States citizens are pretty left wing when it comes to policy when you take away language of dems and cons.
Left of center basically means any candidate where the democrats are saying, yea but if you vote for the other guy it will be ten times worse. So, Biden and every democrat candidate for 40 years
The center would be a 50/50 mix of Worker owned industry and Capitalist owned industry, like a form of extremely socialized Social Democracy. To the left of that, you have a majority Socialist economy, to the right of that you have a majority Capitalist economy.
You should apologize for not being able to take criticism(wether good or bad faith), as someone is criticizing your message for a left wing cost, and your super mature response is "Hurr, durr no you're right wing".
You're on Lemmy where most of the users are leaning left and the commentar might be as well, but that's not good enough for you.
Well but why the holier than thou attitude in this thread against everything non far left? I live in moderately right wing country in EU, and every basic need is met. Not everybody lives in the US
I can agree to that. The USA is in shambles right now and I agree that pure capitalism greed is ruining it.
Nontheless, like in Reddit, everything in here seems to be about the US, even when this is supposed to be an international community. Not my fault that I live in a civilized country
I can answer your question. Having a disability is frustrating because meaningful discussion of disability issues is, in part, hampered by people who use disability as a joke. Often these jokes come from people who are ostensibly progressive (or at the very least, attacking those who aren't progressive).
So yeah, I rather would like you to make more efforts to accept disabled people like me on social media, starting with not making jokes like these.
You know... I didn't particularly like what the person above said to me... but I also live with a disability and what you said is far more insulting even though it wasn't directed at me personally.
I would also suggest that mocking disability is a right-wing position. Accepting people for who they can't help but be is what is ethical.
You can change your political beliefs. That's on you. You can't regrow a leg or make seizures that medication won't help with magically disappear.
Sorry you feel that way. I live with chronic pain myself and it's not a lot of fun. That being said...
I don't know why insinuating that a person might be disabled and wanting of more consideration is offensive. I didn't suggest he's missing an arm or a leg or give some ableist writeoff, I said instead that maybe acceptance is what he is looking for and that would not come from the far right.
Sure, it's mincing words and it's a hedge, but I don't think I'm going to apologize for pushing people's buttons: they go low we go high is BS because the only people who benefit from that arrangement are the bystanders. They go low, I'm gonna be waiting to kick in the teeth. Everyone playing the disgust and downvote is on the team watching out for people already. Thank you. I am going to walk in shit to piss people off: you're not going to change someones mind by giving downvotes and "being best" (lol yeah right).
I said a dick thing, I accept it, and I hope it pissed that dude off. Then when he goes to try to refute me, he has to read, learn, and consider the situation. One of three things comes of that. He ignores me, and who cares. He thinks and gets mad and doubles down, also who cares, being nice wasnt helping anyway. Or maybe it causes a moment of thinking and clarity that starts discussion.
I'm not going to be nice so the anonymous internet left gives me a cookie, it's not their minds that need changed or nuts that need kicked. You be the good guy who posts and is fediverse famous and I'll be the unknown guy who goes wrestle pigs in the shit and thumps the pigeon playing chess (to borrow some expressions).
Naw, you just look like an asshole and it damages your overall argument to other people who aren't assholes.
You can be a gadfly without being a piece of shit or a pedant, or a triple downing douchebag. Again this is all a reflection on you, not on the people your bad insults aren't landing on.
Well seeing as how it seems like you're an asshole too, I could kinda give a shit about what you think. Apparently you have to be heard in every thread on this post though and I wouldn't deny you replies. Go outside lol.
Being gross for the sake of being gross huh! I'm telling you to delete it cause it's a super shitty thing to imply about disabled people either way. Empathy not your strong suite tho, understood!
No I'm not being a wuss for the sake of pleasing an internet commentator. Sorry about your delicate sensibilities. If you delete your posts that's your business, I don't.
You have understood literally nothing, both about what he has said and about what you have said, and you really ought to be ashamed of yourself, and no doubt already are. Figure out how to grow up and you will feel better. Your comment is the disgusting one, not his, flying in here with your pet agenda and trying to insert it into a different conversation... cheap internet bully shit from a trauma victim. Get your act together man, you don't need to be this guy.
The centrists has their basic needs met and isn't part of a social group that is threatened so they see both as a waste of tax spending.
"If we just improve the education system, racism will go away." - My centrist friend
Bro, no. Also, who the fuck do you think is trying to fund education? Assuming we even accept your premise.
Education does help, or the right wouldn't be trying to gut it so hard. But it's not all we need
Education system is broad enough term for your friend to be correct
Your friend is sort of correct. Improving education across the board would do leaps and bounds to help solve the problem.
As if whole branches of science hadn't been proved to be racist both bottom up and top down
Implied by this: centrists see all this mainly as a financial matter.
Centrists are unwilling to accept change or inconvenience. This differs from conservatives who think things should go back to some sort of old way.
It's really impossible to know what you mean here, because conservative should mean to keep doing what works: They should be social democrats (what worked to build the US e.g. Nixon lol). So we shouldn't use that word any more. True conservatism would be more left wing than democrats today.
The GOP has become a reactionary or "paleo-conservative" which is really a misnomer too. What they really are now is a theocratic fascist party. But really they have no values at all except power and hate and inequality.
There are no real centrists, there is no center here. They are really corporatists who are willing to play politics in order to please the big capitalists or plutocracy. They love trump because they can keep cutting of left wing politics and not have a platform. In foreign policy they are fascist as well (american exceptionalism, a belief in inequality based on identity).
The gop are not the reactionary part, the DNC is. They are also centrists between the gop and a ghost of policies to the left.
I think we're speaking different languages.
We gotta stop callin them conservatives. These shits are trying to roll things back, not keep it as-is. They're the opposite of progressive: they're regressive.
That would be reactioners, not conservatives. You guys also have problem of reactioners taking name of conservatives.
American Centrist are reactionaries, American conservatives are not reactionaries. That is my point.
"If this were a real problem then Bill Gates would have fixed it but now."
You're right, of course, but a key trait of sociopaths is viewing people through the lens of what they can do for them.
Are you saying centrists are sociopaths?
I'm saying anyone who views other people this way has sociopathic tendencies. They just mentioned centrists.
I wanted to say how I have my basic needs met, isn't part of social group that is threatened and don't see left as waste of tax spending, but then I remembered about good Uncle Voencom that happily sends to die for Putin's yacth, so I don't count as not part of social group that is threatened.
Balance is required to see things clearly. Just because both sides suck equally in their own 'special' way doesn't change the fact they are their own worst enemy.
Maybe I’m the centrist in this scenario, but isn’t that just normal left? I’d expect far left to be like “we are going to exterminate all the rich then give their stuff to everyone else”
In the US at least, the entire country is so far right that the position above is actually far left in our political sphere.
Haha yeah US is so backwards. And I'm surprised the world hasn't built a massive wall around us because we literally use God as part of our laws, how many weapons we have stockpiled, how many citizens die from unnecessary violence, how little we care about the homeless.
And any sort of empathy about any of those problems, even pointing it out, isnt even a discussion point in politics because itll go nowhere fast.
yeah but we have money and lots of it
Really? I thought USSA at least claimed to be secular state.
The ruling that just banned IVF in Alabama mentioned God over 20 times.
That just insane
And the justice is apparently a q-anon shill. Appeared on a talk.
Claimed being the operative word...
And our Constitution says so too. Unfortunately, judges don't seem to give a shit.
In my country's political sphere it is right or center-right.
The 'far left' described in that tweet is the 'center right' in Norway. USA politics feels weird and alien to Europeans.
I mean it feels weird and alien to us too.
All of it makes a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of who has money and who wants that money.
Aha! I'm not alone! In Russia center-right too.
Norway is not ex-republic, so I guess it is same in entire Europe then.
Depends on what you mean by "far." If you mean believing in a radical restructuring of society along Communist lines, this can be done peacefully. Pacifism is an extremist position as well. Conflating "radicalism" with "violence" is just centrism at work.
On the same hand, there are extremely violent centrists. Kissinger murdered millions of people as a liberal, for example, which is a center-right ideology. Centrism isn't about non-violence.
Centrism is fear of change in the now vs conservatives which is a reaction against change before.
Only edgy teens on social media genuinely think this is a logical political goal you should advocate for in the first world on this day and age
If you change this to: "concentration of private property in few hands is a poisonous hydra that will forever feed inequality", then yes, that's a milquetoast far left take, which often comes from the desire of actually "getting everyone's needs met" and the idea that capitalism naturally organizes the economy in a way that disincentives letting a portion of the working class being comfortably capable of getting all their needs met.
And honestly, given the positions of most politicians on actually doing something to make housing affordable, I honestly think "getting everyone's needs met" is becoming a far left position.
Nah, I'm not a teen. Chippity choppity! LFG!
You mean chippity choppity to their wealth, right? Right...?
Centrists think "We all want the same thing, why are you so biased against the fox's ideas about how to build the henhouse?" They don't believe the far right wants to exterminate, so the far left is evil for being willing to fight them.
It's possible to be far left without being a psychopathic murderer.
This is so last century. we are going to exterminate all the rich by giving their stuff to everyone else.
Yes, this is just lazy circle jerk stuff.
I also believe I am center... To me it's more like
Right: let's go exterminate races. Left: ACAB, all cops are pieces of shit and deserve life sentences.
I mean, they aren't totally equal, but there are better examples.
All cops are bastards though.
Until you need one.
I'm more likely to be assaulted by a cop than helped by one. Or randomly killed while they do triple the speed limit with no siren.
I hope someday your feelings of law enforcement can be repaired by them. This is a tragic relationship between people and those that are supposed to protect them.
I hope law enforcement keeps correcting this, which they should have done themselves but instead it took enormous pressure and numerous occasions of crimes by law enforcement.
Maybe one day, you won't have to fell that way.
USA: we don't have a left. Democrats are at best center.
USA has a left. They almost never win at the ballot box, though. You have to find them in the streets.
You don't have a right either though, at least not a right on the democratic spectrum.
All you've got are "unacceptable" and "fascism".
This. Republicans and Democrats have been moving steadily to the right for the last 40 years. So now, Democrats are where Republicans were in the 1980s: boring corporatists who are best friends of banks, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. We haven't had a real progressive president since Jimmy Carter and that was 50 years ago.
Meanwhile, the right has moved all the way into an insane asylum. Their best friends are Russian oligarchs, fascists, religious nutjobs and civil war re-enactors, who communicate on Twitter and "Truth Social" and call themselves "Republicans."
They are more right than russian right-wing politicians. Even in USSR second opposition party was right-wing Liberal-Democratic Party of Soviet Union.
Nowadays the right-left-continuum is already broken inside a single political region, I am pretty sure getting the USSR into the boat doesn't make it easier.
And by the way, who was the "second opposition party" in the One-Party-System of the Soviet Union?
I already mentioned LDPSU. Fist one was Democratic Union, right wing, but no longer exists. One-party-system was abolished in 1990
Does Russia have a living opposition party?
Putin: "Who are you going to vote for, me or the corpse?"
Also Putin: "The answer is me. Or else."
It's the SP party. It stands for sock puppet and are just for show to give everything a veneer of democracy
There was Yabloko, but I wouldn't call it living party. Same for CPRF, another dead party on federal level. LDPR only pretends to be opposition on TV, you already can guess they are not. New People is sock puppet like LDPR.
On municipal level and in some regions things are slightly different:
LDPR had some popularity until Furgal's arrest and subsequent idiot acting governor. Members of Habarovsk Krai's LDPR either moved to UR(incumbent's party) or remained in opposition and moved to CPRF. Furgal was arrested because he was more popular than Putin in Habarovsk.
CPRF: extensive regional network, comparable to what Navalny had. While in some regions they are puppets for UR, in most of regions they are opposition to UR, actively register observers(Putin hates observers, they ruin his falsifications), can register you as candidate from federal party and usually are supported by Smart Voting(Navalny and his supporters). Have string teams in many regions.
Navalny's HQ(Shtab)/Russia of the Future: had extensive regional network that existed until his poisoning. Now it doesn't.
Yabloko: sometimes registers observers, usually doesn't, but sometimes does register good candidates, has strong team in Moscow and SpB, had strong team in Pskov. Sometimes supported by SV.
LDPR: shit in Moscow, had a lot of seats in east regions. It seems like they disappeared.
New People: Sock Puppet Party, but can randomly register humanoid candidate and sometimes this candidate wins.
On municipal elections even sock puppets has sometimes good candidates, but most municipal elections are FPTP.
The answer is always in the middle. Let's do a little basic needs but only for the rich and a little genocide but only in the middle east
It says something, that securing people's basic needs is considered "far" left.
Tankies on Hexbear: Both fascists, you really shouldn't vote
People who already have their needs accounted for always seem so convinced that things will turn out hunky dory if things escalate to violence, and yet so rarely pass thought on the folks who are already struggling enough without The Troubles Part II Red Cap Boogaloo coming to a car bombing near them.
"Well I don't think we can meet everybody's needs so I'm unfortunately gonna have to side with the other movement, sorry!"
Unfortunately too many groups suffer from if I can't get 100% of X, fuck it all. And it goes across all spectrums.
"Candidate A has a plan that'll help 85% of people have affordable healthcare, and Candidate B will make it unaffordable for everyone else -- I guess I'm choosing neither since there isn't an option for 100%!" - Tankies
my team: perfect angels
your team: evil monsters
it literally does not matter what two groups you are comparing, if you sound like this then a lot of people are not going to engage
why do people say these thing when they know its not true
Conservatives:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nazis-mingle-openly-cpac-spreading-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-fin-rcna140335
https://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/news/senator-calls-lgbtq-oklahomans-filth-says-constituents-dont-want-them/article_c8979398-d260-11ee-9823-973bf20c3730.html
Liberals: "no nazis or bigots. We want fair pay and basic human rights"
Wow, it's so hard to see the difference.
How does that change anything? In the past they were willing to eject these people, but not this time.
It doesn’t. I just found it funny they expected a comment. The news not calling this fascism is why it’s going to get worse.
I doubt they actually expected a comment. Reaching out for a comment is just part of what you do as a journalist.
I used to think that the type of hatred displayed by the filth guy was a small backwards group ina larger whole, but I'm not seeing anyone else in the larger whole, who might be less ridiculous, saying anything about the fridges. It makes them all appear the same.
This is a basic example of issues caused by not policing extremist views within your own group, or a group being too big and not representing the majority of people's views.
Liberalism is solidly right of center, its Social Democracy that is slightly right of center. Conservativism is just fascism.
I'd say slightly center from right
Far centre: Would you guys just fuck already.
Leftists: never show up to vote
Also leftists: nothing ever gets done. Both parties must be the same
Edit:
More info from Pew 2022 election polls:
Also:
It's funny to see people that have swallowed anti communist peograganda hook line and sinker flounder in here trying to discredit the far left.
centrists are usually right wing wanting the votes/approval from left
"I'm fiscally Republican and socially a Liberal" is another great line to hide behind.
As someone that's called a centrist a lot...
I think it's more "I'm tired just let me die."
The difference is that you have a choice and many groups are having that choice made for them.
You can be on the fence about anything, but remember the devil owns the fence.
Are you talking about voting when you say choice?
Wow, you really are a centrist. Sorry for doubting you.
Assuming you’re serious, no; they’re talking about how the entire socioeconomic system is designed to give white people a leg up over everyone else. Even at the bottom of the ladder, a white person has more options than a person of color.
The bottom of the ladder is the bottom of the ladder. Once you're there, there are basically no ways up.
Polite counterpoint: segregation laws, housing zoning restrictions, and ugly laws.
Even though these have been repealed, even today their echoes are felt. And in many cases, they are still unofficially enforced (especially the housing).
If you want a more modern counterpoint, then look no further than the issues currently surrounding textured hair. Banning African Americans from having traditional hairstyles, forcing anyone who wants to learn how to do traditional braiding to go through months of expensive ‘official beauty courses’ and get a license, and even making them use products to force their hair to be more like the hair of caucasians.
Yes, it may be a ‘minor’ example compared to forcing people of color to use different entryways and drinking fountains, but that is how it goes for people of color: no longer is it one or two big laws, but a whole slew of subtle discrimination and tiny laws chipping away at them wherever they go and whatever they try to do. A death of a thousand cuts, so to speak. Add that on top of poverty, or chronic illness, or disability, and I’m sure you can see climbing up the ladder is much, much harder.
I know it is hard to walk a mile in the shoes of another, but you may want to take a moment to really, deeply look into what they have to put up with every day of their lives just for having skin that isn’t lily-white. Or for being disabled, or of a gender minority, or really anything else that isn’t straight, white, and male, for that matter.
Is this your field? I figured making people do some form of certification was more for the purposes of hygiene and preventing diseases.
It is—for regular hairdressers, since they have to work with dangerous chemicals and such. But for a woman who only wants to sell her services at braiding textured hair, they still force her to go through the full beautician school and licensing and fees. That’s just plain stupid (and discrimination).
It was put in place simply to dissuade women of color from offering services to other women of color, and seriously, fuck that. In fact, several courts have agreed and allowed the women who sued over it to simply pay for a regular business license.
But they still had to go to court for it. Yet another inconvenience, another roadblock they have to spend time and money clearing.
Why you say counterpoint when you agree and say same stuff?
Okay… I guess I need to be simple, direct, and plain with you.
The bottom of the hole is much deeper for a PoC or a disabled person than for someone who is not. And climbing out of that hole is much harder for them than for someone who is not.
Not really true, it's just that your socioeconomic caste is the biggest deciding factor by far in your chances to climb up that ladder. Poor white people who then become "successful" economically do exist, and the fact that they exist is used as a massive propoganda point by conservatives, but it's exceedingly rare and it's not something a majority can achieve even if they're the hardest workers on the planet... but to poor non-white immigrants, the poor white guy's chance of succeeding seems extraordinarily high in comparison, because given the same opportunities the nonwhite immigrant just won't have access to most of them. Same goes for a black woman, or a trans person, or someone with an invisible or clearly visible disability.
Sure, "rock bottom" is a permanent state of being for many people that get there, but different peoples' "rock bottom" is worse than others (on average) regardless of that. As a white person who's disabilities are pretty invisible, I can often camoflauge myself as one of the "upper castes" and enjoy many of the same benefits and assumptions as a richer white person might, the same isn't as true for someone who is latino or very outwardly disabled presenting or something. The class divide, despite what a lot of people would try to convince you, is not the only problem, nor is it the root of all other socioeconomic inequality (though it does exacerbate it).
I would say that both are true at the same time. The bottom of the ladder is on-the-streets homelessness, which is notoriously hard to break out of. Even just getting a bank account is hard enough because you don't have an address or often even ID
Good catch. Edited.
I'm driving but if I recall this video has a quote talking about how if you haven't had the experience of living a quote unquote regular American life then how are you going to even want it and I feel like I relate to that.
https://youtu.be/ThUIOvCH204
No. Centrists: "We think absolutes turn into fucking problems. We should have a choice and not a choice between two things we ALL don't like."
Absolutes are not problems by themselves, you must evaluate each case.
As an example, the only correct stance is being absolutely against the KKK, and not give a shit if the KKK objects to that. You're saying that's a problem, and that the KKK should be heard out. Fuck that.
Absolutely. But they are a problem. The KKK is not supported and exactly what I was considering an absolute. So I stand by what I said. There should be more diversity in the voting structure and not so many flashy carnival rides.
The KKK is an absolute, and you've advocated for taking the middle of the road approach for everything. Are you walking back your statement that absolutes are bad inherently, and taking the common-sense position that everything must be judged individually?
No. I'm saying that absolutes suck and they are an absolute. But you can keep trying to tell me what I am saying like I don't understand it. It didn't come from my mind or anything.
Or you are hell bent on proving an exception to centerists which is 80 percent of the country. At least it was a couple of years ago. And can't accept that all of us are in the same boat wanting more options.
Yes the KKK represents an absolute viewpoint. So does saying "You should never, ever support the KKK" which you claim to agree with.
Other guy is just trying to point out to you that your opening statement is logically inconsistent, since you DO support at least one absolute position. (That the KKK are unreasonable and not to be supported.)
Most likely, there are other absolute positions you also support - that one was picked because it was an easy one that for sure you would agree with. Uncovering others would take more discussion.
You also are not seeing the forrest for the trees. It's not a boolean loop. Saying an absolute is a fucking problem is a statement that is echoed by the centerists. You can diminish a point all you want. But then all we are going to discuss now nothing is nothing. There is no logic to saying that absolutes are a problem. It's a statement of fact.
Are you under the impression that I'm a centrist? Because I was under the impression you were.
Maybe I should just make this statement instead of trying to reply to this several layers deep context.
If a person says "Absolutes are a problem" but also says "except this Absolute, right here, this one is OK" - then that person doesn't actually think absolutes are a problem. That person thinks absolutes they disagree with are a problem.
Personally, I would not say absolutes are absolutely a problem. If we could agree on a few absolutes (such as "The KKK is bad" or "White supremacy should be rooted out and not tolerated" or "You can't call and threaten or beg people to take illegal action when you don't like the results of an election") I think maybe we'd have a bit more unity in the country.
At this point I guess I've lost the plot of whether I agree with you or not, but I think I don't, and my position is as outlined above. I also agree with the meme that is OP.
It's not a strawman. The KKK is an absolutist stance, and to stand against the KKK is absolutist.
80% of America is right wing, more than that I'd say. Centrists are the Social Democrats, which rallied around Bernie.
This is a total strawman.
It's an nonsense response to a concept that should be considered reasonable.
Bringing up the KKK in the concept of general problem solving views is a distraction from consideration that reasonable people can solve problems. It exaggerates reasonable people with those who are not.
Nobody but KKK considers them reasonable.
It's not a Strawman.
By claiming that absolutes are bad inherently, they are stating that taking an absolute stance against racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Is also bad. The KKK is a great example, they were defended by White Moderates during the Civil Rights Movement.
You don't feel like its not a reasonable example if we are talking modern day American politics in the same conversation with unions and minimum wage?
I do agree there are some absolutes that cannot be tolerated. But, it gets difficult to articulate that because some people have such strong opinions about a particular topic, they consider it an absolute. Like murdering a child should never be tolerated would be an example of an absolute I think all of mumanity would support, but it was done during China's one child policy. So some didn't subscribe to that.
I find political discussions with certain people hard because they believe their thing should be absolute, rather than up for negotiation, hopefully so both group kinda win instead of everyone loses.
Murdering children wasn't a part of the One Child Policy, but an unintended outcome from it. It was obviously a terrible policy because of its results, but it wasn't done to murder children. That's not a great example.
I was not suggesting it was policy. I was suggesting it was an absolute viewpoint or a personal value.
Second though, I don't know that I consider KKK supporters moderate. Maybe historically unfortunately, but not now. I've never met someone I thought was a middle ground or more center person who supports racism. Especially hard/blatant racism. I'd take ignorance, they might not understand cultural differences.
Center ground in America is definitely pro-racism, considering how far-right America is in general.
I disagree. Not a single person I consider center is even close to a racist.
I work with a bunch of conservative or American Republican voters. None support or are racist.
None of the barely Democrat voters I know are racist. Since there's assertion that even American Democrats are right, same applies.
Are there groups of shitty people who are, sure. I don't think they represent the whole of the country. I don't know why middle ground is interpreted as racism ok. That's not middle.
Anyone who votes Republican supports their racist policies. Ergo, such a voter might be "one of the good ones" (yeah, I know what I said), but they are OK supporting and increasing the power of a party that is decidedly racist. (and sexist, and homophobic, and transphobic, and, and, and...)
Democrats aren't perfect by any means, but anyone finding them hard to distinguish from Republicans in those areas should probably feel a bit called out by OP.
Have you considered that you may not realize they are racist because you're at work, and/or are white as well? I've known many conservatives that I didn't think were racist until I found out later.
You truly don't know any conservative that posted #AllLivesMatter?
But that anti-KKK stance is not as extreme as it could be. I'll give you an example of a more extreme stance: Every member should be tortured and executed, everyone who they were friends with should be imprisoned, everyone who mentions the name "KKK" should be imprisoned.
That is an extreme stance and it is ridicolous too. And in most (all?) cases, extremism also means authoritatian. Do you have an example for an extreme stance is any good?
That's not a more extreme stance, that's just a more violent stance. Extremism doesn't mean violence.
But why do you not like meeting everyone's basic needs?
I do. I just don't buy the whole "that wasn't real communism, this time it'll be different, we totally won't trample all over human rights" crap. Especially not when those same people are praising the likes of Castro, Xi, Lenin, and assorted other dictators.
What people are advocating for is generally not communism and I would say communists are generally pretty rare on the left. Finding an actual Marxist who engages with the solution theory side of his work and not just his pointing at a social structure side is like finding a unicorn. Recognizing that there is an owner class is Marxist sure but it's also leaving 75 percent of his political theory on the table.
People will definitely joke about being communist but that is a dig at McCarthist witchhunt logic which flattened and branded anything left of enthusiastic neo libralism as a potential threat. There's also people who will respond to the virulent rejection of communism by arguing for it based on the fact that it never has been pulled off as written but that's a knee jerk reaction to being called a communist since breaking down why you aren't a communist at all requires more knowledge that a lot of people don't have at hand. When you brand everyone with nebulous left facing ideals a communist you functionally create "communists" who need to defend themselves. Results vary.
But break open the left at a philosophical level and you find much sharper distinctions... Many variations of which have represented stable democratic government systems with historical precedent of being resistant to power consolidation.
Communism or the Communist systems resulting from attempts to make the idea of Communism work, relies on a relocation of personal property with the state as an intermediary based on need for all citizens in the system. It is highly invasive in its management of distribution while solidifying a fairly rigid government control with autocratic power weilded through offices that are not elected positions ... Doing things like creating universal government services like Universal Health care or looking at affordable housing as a basic right aren't nessisarily Communist. Those things are still subject to democratic control of elected groups. It's a feature of multiple leftist structures.
Out of the systems frequently discussed seriously Socialism is the most common but the subheading is more of a spectrum that represents a wide band of different ideologies about how to manage resources to create specific reserves for the public good outside of capitalist profit driven structures leaving the domain of personal property allocation basically alone. Critically, under Socialism you still have rich and poor people there's just limita on how wide a band the top is from the bottom. Maybe the rich man doesn't evade being taxed and has regulated limits of how much they can benefit from mutually held public common like the environment and the poor man isn't dying on the street. At it's shallowist end Socialism is potentially as gentle as just having more protections to ensure people's labour is protected from exploitative practice.
What most modern leftist ideologies particularly depend on these days is a highly democratic framework. Making elections more representive, enforcement of term limits and peaceable changeovers of power and re-establishing the idea of community held property by empowering local government bodies meaning a very beaurcratic decentralized power. There are lots of countries running variations of this framework so no, the left in a general sense is not interested in bringing Communism back. When you equate the left as a whole to Communism you are basically falling for decades old propaganda that preys on the habit people have of oversimplifying something that is deep and difficult to understand into a flat, easily dismissable token. An oversimplification designed by detractors whose interest is in giving you tools so you stop thinking and exploring further than benefits them.
Because they are babies with no political literacy.
But isn't being forced to pay taxes a form of extermination?!
Extermination of inequalities
Fucking what? Far left is "putting people down"?
You can argue that this time we can make communism work guys and abolishing most private property would be considered far left. I don't think violence is implicit in the extreme left like it is with the far right its just the natural consequences of any authoritarian government regardless of orientation.
The other problem with comparing the two is that even though left and right—by American standards— are SOMEWHAT equally represented the far right is like 30% of the pop and the far left more like 1%. Electing the left caries no risk of the extreme folks running the show they barely have a voice. Electing the right implicitly means letting the extremists run the show they are the majority of the right.
I have been missing the nutty and nonsensical comments from Reddit. I’m so happy Lemmy has grown big enough that we now have our own weird bots to rewrite history for us. #Blessed 🥰
Edit: Oh, wow, getting downvoted by right wing bots; I’m home.
FAR LEFT IN SOUTH AMERICA : let's do deals with dictators and narco generals.
@FlyingSquid In my humble experience and understanding 'centrism' has been always an euphemism for 'far right' for the "politically correct" miserable cowards...
Undecided voters are the stupidest people on the face of the Earth.
Humans are emotional and tribal creatures. Hopefully we'll merge soon.
If by centrists, you mean neo-liberal Democrats, you got it.
I would not mean those people because I would consider them to be on the right. I mean people to the left of them but not left enough to reject corporate influence and embrace ideas like socialized medicine and housing.
I guess I see neo-liberals (focusing on white liberalism as a political movement) as not seeing themselves on the right. They think of themselves as being on the left, but are effectively antagonistic towards leftist policies, a highlighted example of this being the tension between "mainstream" Democrats and the progressive caucus within the Democratic party. White liberalalist ideology is fundamentally Neo-liberal and anti-revolutionary. Bipartisanship, institutionalism, incrementalism, these are the hallmarks of white liberalism. They extend from the ideals of a class of people who benefit from the existing structures in society. They don't support racisim 'explcity' but they do benefit from it implicitly, and so support the institutions that build a racist society. In this way they can 'oppose' racism, but still benefit from it. They support 'change' but only want to pursue it in nickels and dimes, unwilling to commit to universal programs that benefit everyone (Obamacare is a perfect example of this). White-liberals have no problem making common cause with explicitly fascist or racist groups, because to them the politeness of society is more important than its outcomes. Not Nazis, but willing to caucus with them. See the recent border vote for an example of this.
Its easy and convenient to see right-wing fascist as the entirety of the problem, but those people would have no ability to drive their agenda forward if not for white liberals. White liberalism ineffectual approach to governing, disinterest in revolutionary or universal programs, and insistence on decorum and appearances is fundamental to why the right-wing has been so effective and capable in furthering their project and agenda. This is why everyone should be challenged by the blue-no-matter-who arguments. All you have to do is look at the previous 24 years of history to recognize that this is a fundamentally white-liberal argument (as in, a direct extension of white liberalism as a political philosophy). Its not working. It hasn't worked. It doesn't work. We shouldn't expect it to work in the future. IT results in the worst possible match ups to win elections. If you are a leftist, it leaves you strategically vulnerable at every possible turn and historically has generated only negative progress.
White-liberalism is the second partner in a dance with white-nationalism towards fashism. White nationalists simply would not have been able to progress their agenda this far without it. It wasn't just the Nazis that drove Germany into fascism. It was also the other parties who empowered, emboldened, and appeased the Nazis in their pursuit of power, which is precisely what we see 'moderate' Democrats doing today. If you want to deal with the rise of fascism in the US, you need to address white liberalisms control of the Democratic party first.
MLK knew.
yeah well, people here don't.
nobody denies that it's hard, being incredibly stupid.
But if it stays hard, call a doctor.
Good lord... the comments on here proves that lemmy.world is flooded with politically incompetent libs that couldn't tell the difference between left and right if their lives depended on it.
If you believe that there is such a thing as an actual "left" in formal political establishments, this means you.
In an American point of view if I may
I can't tell them apart in the way they both seed discord to keep people united behind them. I can't tell them apart in the way they tear apart families with propaganda. In that sense, I'm a centrist.
You can argue one of them does less material damage all day, but they both rely on each other to exist in their current form. They are both predatory institutions that I will not be a part of.
This forum is exactly like its reddit counterpart: hot garbage
Centrists get it from both ends.
Double penetration
That's not why we are centrists...it might have more to due with our two choices of geriatric patients who are in a steep mental decline.
The left: we're gonna spy on everyone to make sure you're fine and doing well!
The right: dude nobody's looking who cares
Centrists: are either of you sure and aware of your statements?
I can tell them apart, but the result of the two is the same because once you centralize power (to get more leftist stuff done faster), those with power realize that the far-right offers dictators more. See Russia, for starters. Look at lists of what countries have the smallest percentage of poor people - it's all social-ish democracies like Iceland, Japan, and France.
ALL Leftists according to rightists: "all I want is basic needs met, obviously anyone who doesn't grant a toddler universal basic income, and free on demand sex change surgery and accompanying hormones is obviously a nazi. Also, fuck white people, fuck men, fuck anyone in an incumbent demographic category. Simply by being male and white you should immediately pay reparations for daring to exist. Anyone who even asks about any of these subjects is committing a crime and should never be allowed to speak again. Also it's illegal to not be attracted to fat people"
ALL Rightists according to leftists: "Anyone who I'm too stupid to understand shouldn't exist. There is no middle ground or grey area on anything, it's my way or the highway. All minorities shouldn't exist at all, no one should exist who doesn't conform to my specific set of arbitrary values. Anyone who says otherwise is a communist and hates themselves. Literally everyone must die. The police never make mistakes and any form of authority must be taken as 100% true at face value"
Centrists: "you both seem extremely closed-minded and I'm struggling to come to any conclusion other than being extreme is bad, and that these are complex subjects. I will try to focus on not being extreme."
Yeah anyone can write literally anything you fucking idiots
Edit: how you know you were right - butthurt downvotes without accompanying replies
Imagine thinking this is how normal people think 🤣
Why would I care about what so-called normal people think? Most of them are boring and care about football far more than about the direction their country is going in.
👌👍 you are posting a meme about them
Definitely don't care.
No, I'm posting a meme about politically-aware people, not "normal" people, whatever you think those are.
I am guessing what you consider "normal" is white, Christian, heterosexual and cisgender as well.
👌👍 I guess the center is small
So small as to not exist. Because "the center" is actually on the right. The Overton Window has moved very far.
Blah blah blah blah blah moving goal posts 🙄
Whatever your want to believe the center just isn't as progressive as you like. They aren't equating Nazis to your softened view is the extreme left.
Please name some progressive centrist policies.
The left:
The right:
The left:
Centrist here. I don't think the point of horseshoe theory is that the far-left and far-right are the same. The point is simply that they have similarities. Like both wanting to use violence to achieve their aims.
I really wish people in a meme community would take me seriously. It's why I post here.
And then there are people like vivian, who are dumb enough to actually believe this bullshit.
You're dealing in an absolute by saying that.
100%
Yes, I know. However, Obi-wan was dealing in an absolute, there.
Part of the theme of Star Wars is that the Jedi brought on their own destruction due to their outdated and foolish aspects of their ideology.
Please describe the grey area here lol
well, it's grey, and it's about yea big, kinda roundy-squarish with some triangles thrown in, and it's empty except for all the stuff. you'd like it! I sure do.
For some points there isn't even a discussion to be made like with the extermination of homosexual and trans people
I think the meme is referencing people that say both sides of the political spectrum(in the us) are equally as bad and not the actual political spectrum
How do you define "actual leaders"?
I'm glad you didn't bring any of that I individual thinking or discussion with you when asked, so not Sith or Jedi, maybe like like remedial gungan?
Jar Jar was a Sith Lord.
Any how…. What are talking about again?
So you're Sith then and your grey area argument is actually shit? Idk what are we talking about?
Look, all I'm saying is...
Jar Jar is a Sith
Sorry man I agree he's a sith lord, but I thought you were the original dingus in the thread not a newcomer lol. Too many threads going on
At this point I'm ok with exterminating the label people. Keep your labels to yourself and try really hard to solve a problem without them.
Can you give us a logical and realistic right-wing opinion?
The Republican Party of today does a massive disservice to any shred of the concept of a logical and realistic right-wing opinion.
And even then, the ideals depend heavily on the system functioning properly. Honestly a properly functioning right-wing state could be as good or better for individual freedom and security than a properly-functioning true socialist state.
However, I think it takes a hell of a lot of faith in the right-wing system to even get close to something fair and functional in the real world.
What's the function of banning books, removing women's rights to bodily autonomy, removing individual rights of transgender people, electing a fraud and rapist president, and pushing christian facism in a " properly functioning right-wing state"?
What if those aren't examples of a properly functioning right-wing state?
They sound more theocracy based. From your examples in order:
That’s the thing. Today’s Republican Party is not a right wing party. They christofascists that hijacked the Republican party’s platform, propaganda machines, and now, leadership.
It’s been a gentle decline since the 80s, then Sarah Pain got a platform right alongside McCain and the whole thing fell right into the deep end.
Who would’ve thought that the two people most detrimental to the fall of modern society would be Ralph Nader and Sarah Palin.
Everything you described is right wing. Christofascism is right wing.
It’s a No True Scotsman kind of thing…but I wouldn’t consider anything the christofascists say or do to be aligned with right-wing principles (limited government, personal autonomy, “golden rule” type stuff).
Government banning anything, whether it be books or gay marriage or abortions, would not fly under a true right wing government, because banning anything requires enforcement (which requires a larger government) and a breach of personal autonomy.
That's not what right-wing means. Right-wing is Capitalist, and associated with entrenching and upholding hierarchy.
Limited government cannot exist in a right wing environment, Capitalism requires a state. That's why all Anarchism is leftist.
Right wing or far right?
When you get to "far", well by definition you have extremists. Things are distorted know because the far right has power and the far left essentially doesn't exist in our political system. So it's hard to ignore the extremism.
Also, though we like a spectrum, it doesn't cut in one dimension. One flavor of "right wing" says government stays out of stuff, especially religious stuff, but another flavor wants a theocracy. The latter flavor is at the wheel in the Republican party now, which is dangerous.
In terms of a realistic theoretical right position I'd say favoring reducing spend over raising taxes is a defensible position. Now problem again being the Republicans tossed this and spend at least as much as the Democrats, but are less responsible about tax revenue as they do it.
I'm wary of the dangers of partisan driven politics (your "team" becomes your ultimate loyalty), but in the current climate I side with the Democrats because the Republicans have just been getting more and more nuts. I still want to watch the nuance and vote for candidates rather than blindly for a party, because complacency can be a dangerous position.
"private property is necessary for a functioning society."
or is that liberals? I get them confused all the time
Thinking logically and realistically, without checking if left or right, inevitably leads to a leftist slant. There's nothing logical or realistic about right wing thought, that's why they usually suppress the scientific community and educational systems.
and when did i say i dont check either side. i think of all sides and directions and possible outcomes and resources and stuff. all thought process sides have good opinions hut sticking to one train of thought will never lead to positivity since life changes.
Everyone does this, it's not unusual, but the consequences of doing so is naturally a leftist outcome. Leftism isn't a random direction, with unrelated and disparate views, nor is rightism. Leftism is a selection of coherent and synchronous solutions to sets of problems using the same logical framework of analysis.
Leftism isn't about "sticking to one train of thought," and that's a very myopic view of political ideologies in general.
politics are scary and exhausting. imma dip outnof this.
Brilliant example of a logical fallacy called false dichotomy.
Is that really 'far' left, though? Far left is, "let a handful of governors control everything, on behalf of communal ownership, and they will make sure everyone's needs are met fairly."
That's not the far left, that's Capitalism. The Far Left is for democratic control of Production and working towards a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society via Worker Ownership, whether that be through a state or via Anarchism.
I don't think far left implies statelessness. I know communist governments are not taken as an ideal picture of far left, but I thought far left politics still has state governorship over public ownership?
You say Worker Ownership, but I thought the thing about 'left' versus 'right' is a collective ownership (requiring presumably some manner of management) versus individual ownership (that permits capitalism if people have full freedom to trade).
The left isn't necessarily opposed to ownership or freedom to trade. Nor is capitalism just freedom to trade. Capitalism is a set of exploitative property relations based on a fake contract (the employer-employee contract). In this contract, the legal responsibility for the entire result of production is assigned to the employer despite the workers' joint de facto responsibility for that result. This violates the basic tenet that legal and de facto responsibility match
I think by this stage we're hitting the problem that there are various views and ideologies being lumped or un-lumped into terms and spectrums. Is the 'Left' the pattern of wanting public ownership, state control and/or the redistribution of wealth/ownership from employers/landowners to employees/tenants? Or is it the shared views of a particular set of people?
I didn't mean to say capitalism is freedom to trade, rather that individual ownership plus freedom to trade enables capitalism: where I'm hoping 'capitalism' is vague enough to fit most people's definition, but myself really I'm thinking of capitalism as the philosophy whereby wealth is considered fungible, and one strives to use the wealth one has, to gain more. (E.g. I have a horse, which I could trade with you for two sheep, then gather the sheep's milk, and trade the sheep plus their milk back with you for the horse plus a hamster.)
I... that's more interesting each time I re-read over your comment. I still don't think it's a fake contract, and maybe your comment's not true either. If I'm employed to fit tyres onto car wheels and deliberately misalign them so they burst, doesn't some legal responsibility come back on my head?
But if my employer says to the customer, "I have set quality checkers over all the production, so I can guarantee the fitness of the product even if individual workers make a mistake, and I will take responsibility and refund you if there is a problem," is that not valid?
I agree it easily becomes abusive. Especially when the only option for many people is to rent land, find employment at a company, rather than having the option to own and produce themselves.
By entire result, I meant the liabilities for used-up inputs together with the property rights to produced outputs. If workers step outside the employment contract or the law, the law recognizes their responsibility for the results of their actions. That isn't the problem. The problem is the law doesn't recognize their responsibility for the results of their actions in normal production where workers don't jointly get the entire result of production.
A warranty doesn't involve misimputation
So, I believe it's a thing in rail, that workers are explicitly not blamed for things that go wrong. Called a 'no fault' system. Presumably deliberate malice still falls back on them, but for a mistake, it's considered that The System is deficient: that appropriate training/oversight/checks weren't in place. This encourages employees to speak up when something goes wrong and be honest and detailed about what happened to cause it.
I certainly don't think that model should be used everywhere, and perhaps taken to its fullest shouldn't be anywhere. (But, conversely, some of that thinking should be in most places!) But I think it's an example of a legitimate separation of workers and responsibility.
I don't know if you're meaning responsibility in the sense of when there's bad effects (e.g. a worker participates in making a baby milk formula with potential heavy metal contamination) or in the sense of deserving to reap the benefits (i.e. the full profit). Either way I think I still agree there's an imbalance, but not a true separation in the way you mean: where workers receive part (of result and responsibility) and irrelevant non-workers receive part.
Managers, consultants, lenders, advertisers, are all part of the process of making a product and making it useful to people. (Okay, some are superfluous, and some are bad; but so are some physical workers.) Even the person who inspires everyone else to get together and work, is a (valuable) part of the process. And the person who helps them not squabble and not abandon each other. If this were not true, then in a land where workers have legal and physical freedom to work together, communal working groups would be more common, would they not?
The imbalance comes down to greed, a lack of wisdom, and greed. ("You said, 'greed,' twice!" "That's because...") A big tower of greed and unwise choices, of which the largest part appears to me that the people with power/wealth are able to make the decisions so that more of the wealth comes to them. If I 'own' a company, that's a legitimate work I did facilitating a place and entity where workers can come together and produce; but now I can control that I get a larger portion of the collective profits. And I can twist every decision into that favour, by an ever-growing tower of means invented by the rich and powerful, and my ever-growing leverage from my ever-growing wealth.
Once again, you've given me interesting cues to think on. Apologies if my response is over-wordy; I blame it on recovering from 'flu.
Communism is a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society. You're thinking of Socialist states that tried to work towards eventually achieving Communism. Far left politics is about collective ownership, not necessarily state ownership.
Worker ownership and collective ownership are basically the same thing. Worker Ownership of a factory would look like all of the workers sharing equal ownership of said factory.
Okay, I can see that make sense as a definition of Communism. Communism as worker/collective ownership, and Socialist State as a governed effort to implement or progress toward that.
I think the use of "far left" in this meme is based on the labels that right wing media is pushing on the 'normal' left.
When your only idea to solve problems is violence you don't care for having people's needs met, you just want to dominate others and still claim to be the good guy. I see that on the side of "the left" and you can distance yourself from that without becoming right wing or conservative.
Also far left: "we're gonna vote a clear centrist into office because surely that will create progress and not backfire"
Far right: give me absolute power so I can make the country strong!
Far left: give me absolute power so I can make everyone in the country equal!
Centrist: Both of these groups are made up of grifters and the rubes that fall for the scam that is ideology. We know from history the problems with ideologies, and only those ignorant of history (whether deliberately or not) fall for bullshit "ideologies" whether they be "left" or "right".
In fact the "political spectrum" is just a construct that's only useful as a shorthand to quickly distinguish between moderate political parties. The complexities of functioning society can't be reduced to a one dimensional line FFS. People who are tricked into thinking this way are ill-equipped to govern a functioning society. History has shown that the one dimensional political thinkers have failed at governing every time they've been given the opportunity to do so.
Oh god. Could you be more edgelord 14 yr old Ayn Rand pls. Goddam this is peak cringe
Thanks for providing an example of one dimensional political thinking. Something you disagree with has to be from the opposite end of a made up political spectrum in you mind.
When in actual fact I want higher taxes on the wealthy, I want trust busting on corporate oligopolies, Keynesian economic policy, more regulation on the private sector, especially in regards to the environment. I come to these preferred policies by actually thinking of the issues, and I have read a history book and know that a violent overthrow of the government is only going to result in some asshole (whether "far left" or "far right") gaining authoritarian power.
Only angsty youths think there's "one simple trick" that'll solve all problems. Feeds into that need to have angst I suppose.
ChatGPT: "Give me edgelord deep politics vibes but also a touch of I like the smell of my own farts".
While this is hilarious and I in no way agree with them, why are you attacking them instead of their logic?
Hard to say. I think there are many people I probably agree with politically, I find a lot of their rhetoric quite insufferable and toxic because they stifle conversation. That's why even though I vehemently disagree with republicans, sometimes I wonder if I'd much rather go to a potluck in the deep south then hang out with the most progressive blue haired idiots in Portland. I have republican people in my family and oddly enough we can have conversations while disagreeing. Meanwhile, some people on the left just drive me bonkers in the way they move rhetorically.
Far left: we're going to dress in all black and burn buildings down to protest racism of which many of the shops will be locally owned by people of color.
Far right: we're going to ravage the civil liberties of every group of people that aren't white religious old rich people and convince poor white people it's the patriotic thing to do.
Centrists: You're both fucked but one of you is less fucked I guess.
Which one is that? Because moderates are outright refusing to compromise with leftists and progressives. Seems like they prefer fascists.
That's because those "moderates" are actually right-wingers masquerading as moderates. If somebody tells you "I support X, Y, and Z", but don't take any positions that support X, Y, or Z, then they are lying to you.
I think it's worse than that. I think moderates are lying to themselves and since so few people are calling them out for it they remain in blissful ignorance of the damage they're causing.
Left is in a pretty clear lead but you won't find me handing out fliers to spread the word. I'm just watching in paralyzed horror.
Maybe if you told moderates they need to start compromising with leftists and progressives a few might listen.
Based on the overwhelmingly negative response to the left being criticized I understand why many Centrists stay center. Going either direction just feels morally compromising. I'll still vote blue because I'm not insane but still, I'd never call myself Democrat.
Supporting unions feels morally compromising? Refusing to send weapons to Israel feels morally compromising? Raising minimum wage feels morally compromising?
Get real.
Another excellent example of strawman.
Regardless that's the choice in front of every moderate. Either they can join us in telling Biden to vow to veto any attempts to block a strike in his next term and stop shipping weapons to Israel or they can lose to fascists. We compromised and helped get Biden elected in the 2020 general. If they want our help again it's time for the moderates to compromise.
Supporting a president who is turning a blind eye to genocide feels morally compromising. Supporting Democrats, none of which who will even use the word genocide to call out Israel, feels morally compromising. Supporting "peaceful protestors" wearing anti-facist gear and smash/loot small businesses feels morally compromising. Supporting people who refuse to acknowledge body dysmorphia is a mental illness and instead want to feed into it in all forms feels morally compromising.
You're fucking delusional if you think your side is immune to critique. The left is 'better' but stop huffing your own shit fumes.
Are you equivocating this with a vote for Bernie or Warren in the primaries?
Furthermore, moderates like you got the candidate you wanted in the primaries and lots of progressives and leftists begrudgingly showed up to vote for him in the 2020 general. Biden hasn't compromised with them at all. If you want him to win the next election you'll need our help again. We've provided some ideas like "stop sending weapons to Israel" and "don't block strikes". Are you trying to tell me supporting either of those ideas feels morally compromising to you? And if not have you done anything to try to tell Biden to wake the fuck up unless he wants to lose to the far right?
You're acting like there's only two extreme choices when that doesn't reflect reality. Biden won the primaries. You got your centerist president. Now help us nudge him left and we'll help make sure he gets elected again.
Plot twist: first two are far right in some(probably most) European countries. Also first one can be French.
Left and right, the status quo is fucked, the evidence is everywhere
Centrist, yes but I had plans this afternoon, nothing can happen that makes me feel inconvenienced or bad.
It's the means of how they do so that the centrists see as the same
What would those means be? Because I don't remember the far left trying to stage a coup so that they could begin their genocidal dictatorship. And they're still planning that genocidal dictatorship.
Oh so you like to pretend that "the far left" exists in any quantity in the United States and the US is what you're talking about? Lol.
Have you seriously not heard of Tankies?
I'm not sure what quantity has to do with anything.
And Tankies are not far left because they embrace authoritarianism, which is an inherently conservative idea.
Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.
And Tankies embrace both types of regimes. They love the autocratic Kim regime in North Korea and the PRC and their excuse is that both countries call themselves communist.
“There are sheltered teenagers on the internet with dumb political views, which is indistinguishable from actual attempted sedition by current members of government”
Couldn’t hit you over the head with it any harder.
>only the usa exists!
Show me one case of far left political organisation taking control of any country worldwide in the last 60 years.
I can only think of one example.
It is my understanding, and please someone correct me if I'm wrong, that after Nepal ended its monarchy in the 1990s, a democratically elected Marxist-Leninist party took control.
And then they lost the elections eventually and a socialist party took control.
But that's all I can come up with.
Exactly, democratically elected.
You gotta add more context bc without any context this comment looks stupid AF. Hence the downvote storm.
Edit: and referencing tankies doesn't make any sense either so let's dial it in.
And they're wrong for that.
Well, far left is anarchism. I haven't heard how they're going to make my basic needs met. But then I haven't ever heard how they're going to get their basic needs met. Or any needs met, for that matter.
Anarchism isn't the only leftist philosophy, it's just the most utopian.
They also talk quite a fuckin lot about how to meet everyone's needs.
That's not really true, you can get to anarchy from the left or the right. In fact, anarcho-capitalism is pretty much what American libertarians have been pushing for decades. There is an anarcho-communism, which involves abolishing all hierarchies and monetary systems are relying entirely on mutual aid, but I think most of the, "far-left," in America is just marxist, usually socialist but sometimes communist.
I think it's similar to communism in the sense that they fantasize about perfect citizens who would always think about the group before themselves without any other incitation (such as having to earn money to live).
Ah, the weekly "far left is the best and everyone else is wrong" post.
Heck I would be happy with even so much as “left of center” which we don’t really have in the United States. Biden is right of center. Bernie sanders for example is only slightly left of center.
I'd argue Bernie is slightly right of center, even. He isn't advocating for Socialization of the economy, just an expansion of the safety nets.
Nah man. Left of center is not that at all. United States citizens are pretty left wing when it comes to policy when you take away language of dems and cons.
Left of center basically means any candidate where the democrats are saying, yea but if you vote for the other guy it will be ten times worse. So, Biden and every democrat candidate for 40 years
I edited to say left not right lol
What policy is left wing? Left of center is Socialism.
You believe slightly left of center is socialism? How does it feel to be so damn clueless?
The center would be a 50/50 mix of Worker owned industry and Capitalist owned industry, like a form of extremely socialized Social Democracy. To the left of that, you have a majority Socialist economy, to the right of that you have a majority Capitalist economy.
Simple as.
Oversimplifying a bit
I apologize for not being right wing enough for you.
You should apologize for not being able to take criticism(wether good or bad faith), as someone is criticizing your message for a left wing cost, and your super mature response is "Hurr, durr no you're right wing". You're on Lemmy where most of the users are leaning left and the commentar might be as well, but that's not good enough for you.
You're right. What is most needed in a memes community is sober, serious, mature discussion.
Oh, not at all. I am not right wing neither, I just don't have a superiority complex
Ah yes, a centrist
Maybe, definitely not a leftist though!
ftfy
It's correct, so it makes sense.
Well I don't think so...
Then you'd be incorrect.
Lol
Have you ever seen far left in your life? What you call far left barely gets center-right in sane countries, usually it's called just right there.
OMG, with this being the millionth your version of left/right isn't mine, can we pick a new scale?
There has got to be a better way to frame ideology that's more consistent or universal.
Agreed. When it was monarchism/anti-monarchism it made sense. Now not so much.
Well but why the holier than thou attitude in this thread against everything non far left? I live in moderately right wing country in EU, and every basic need is met. Not everybody lives in the US
Ah. Ok. What is moderately right wing in Europe in USA is called far left.
I can agree to that. The USA is in shambles right now and I agree that pure capitalism greed is ruining it. Nontheless, like in Reddit, everything in here seems to be about the US, even when this is supposed to be an international community. Not my fault that I live in a civilized country
How in fuck's name is wanting to get everyone's basic needs met supposed to be far left..!?
Are basic human decency and common sense far left now too..?
I agree with you. The post itself implies that the far left is the only one that cares about that.
The problem is that commies think immediately I am a right wing supporter from the US, and won't consider anything else.
If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...
I can answer your question. Having a disability is frustrating because meaningful discussion of disability issues is, in part, hampered by people who use disability as a joke. Often these jokes come from people who are ostensibly progressive (or at the very least, attacking those who aren't progressive).
So yeah, I rather would like you to make more efforts to accept disabled people like me on social media, starting with not making jokes like these.
Sorry about ya mate. Can't win them all.
You know... I didn't particularly like what the person above said to me... but I also live with a disability and what you said is far more insulting even though it wasn't directed at me personally.
I would also suggest that mocking disability is a right-wing position. Accepting people for who they can't help but be is what is ethical.
You can change your political beliefs. That's on you. You can't regrow a leg or make seizures that medication won't help with magically disappear.
Sorry you feel that way. I live with chronic pain myself and it's not a lot of fun. That being said...
I don't know why insinuating that a person might be disabled and wanting of more consideration is offensive. I didn't suggest he's missing an arm or a leg or give some ableist writeoff, I said instead that maybe acceptance is what he is looking for and that would not come from the far right.
Sure, it's mincing words and it's a hedge, but I don't think I'm going to apologize for pushing people's buttons: they go low we go high is BS because the only people who benefit from that arrangement are the bystanders. They go low, I'm gonna be waiting to kick in the teeth. Everyone playing the disgust and downvote is on the team watching out for people already. Thank you. I am going to walk in shit to piss people off: you're not going to change someones mind by giving downvotes and "being best" (lol yeah right).
I said a dick thing, I accept it, and I hope it pissed that dude off. Then when he goes to try to refute me, he has to read, learn, and consider the situation. One of three things comes of that. He ignores me, and who cares. He thinks and gets mad and doubles down, also who cares, being nice wasnt helping anyway. Or maybe it causes a moment of thinking and clarity that starts discussion.
I'm not going to be nice so the anonymous internet left gives me a cookie, it's not their minds that need changed or nuts that need kicked. You be the good guy who posts and is fediverse famous and I'll be the unknown guy who goes wrestle pigs in the shit and thumps the pigeon playing chess (to borrow some expressions).
Naw, you just look like an asshole and it damages your overall argument to other people who aren't assholes.
You can be a gadfly without being a piece of shit or a pedant, or a triple downing douchebag. Again this is all a reflection on you, not on the people your bad insults aren't landing on.
Well seeing as how it seems like you're an asshole too, I could kinda give a shit about what you think. Apparently you have to be heard in every thread on this post though and I wouldn't deny you replies. Go outside lol.
No, I won't be a wuss an go outside. You see how silly that sounds?
Can't take silly seriously obviously. Can you at least entertain me and any brave readers if we are gonna keep going? I'm not going anywhere.
Are you saying disabled people are naturally anti leftist, are you making fun of this person by accusing them of having a disability.
This is a legit disgusting comment and you should delete it.
No.
I'm not deleting something I post unless it breaks the rules. I'll take the downvotes and if you think it's disgusting there's your method.
Being gross for the sake of being gross huh! I'm telling you to delete it cause it's a super shitty thing to imply about disabled people either way. Empathy not your strong suite tho, understood!
No I'm not being a wuss for the sake of pleasing an internet commentator. Sorry about your delicate sensibilities. If you delete your posts that's your business, I don't.
If you can't deal with the fallout for commenting, don't comment. I can handle one blowhard and a handful of downvotes.
Wow, you take this Internet stuff super seriously! Keep going you soldier, gotta stay hard!
You have understood literally nothing, both about what he has said and about what you have said, and you really ought to be ashamed of yourself, and no doubt already are. Figure out how to grow up and you will feel better. Your comment is the disgusting one, not his, flying in here with your pet agenda and trying to insert it into a different conversation... cheap internet bully shit from a trauma victim. Get your act together man, you don't need to be this guy.
Did chat gpt write this?
Omfg I love when people harping about bullying also hella bully!
Good one, mate
Man I do what I can. Patrolling Lemmy is a thankless job. Even more thankless than reddit. But, hey, it's gotta be done.