politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I don't like echo chambers. Reinforcing populism is to the detriment of us all. I'm a free speech absolutist. When you can constructively support your point of view, allow it to be challenged, and then respond with something that really taps into the basis for why your philosophy is solid ground to you, I find that compelling.
"We all want clean water", and on the same token I think a more core freedom is the freedom of expression or access to health and well being. Here we're squabbling over philosophy when there are core tenets we universally agree on, and remembering that common ground for our common humanity should be more valuable than "I told a (insert perjorative here) off". Is communism right for the west? Idk, maybe never, but I look at the countries whom spend the least on healthcare but have higher standards of living and I can't help but think these fictitious dreams of free market and eternal growth have collapsed long ago.
I mean, how about a fucking place to live? I'm amazed that anyone wants to argue capitalist vs communist when we have bizarre issues that are fucking ruining the lives of hundreds of millions of people in just the US and someone wants to get hung up on hating on tankies.
I liked you until the "free speech absolutist" remark. Nazis should have been rounded up and put through re-education a long time ago. Call it rehabilitation if that appeals more to lib sensibilities.
Liberal lack of action on this has taken it past the point of no return and now the only possible outcome is a violent one. It was possible to contain it, had sources of radicalisation been suppressed and the affected fixed, but now it's impossible, there are simply too many fascists.
I find the idea that you think marginalised people like myself should just exchange ideas with the people that want to exterminate us repulsive.
We don't universally agree on this. The capitalists do NOT believe that access to water is a right, nor food for that matter. They believe fundamentally in the ideology of "if you don't do work that enriches me, you do not deserve to have these things that you need to survive".
Yes they don't believe in that either. These aren't "bizarre issues", you're missing the fact that they fundamentally don't believe you should have these things unless it involves enriching them in the process. And that they fundamentally believe people should die if they don't want to do that. This is the core of their ideology.
I can completely understand the apprehension, but the way we tear down the walls of hate and xenophobia is by talking. You're courage to hold fast to your core tenets will eventually command respect and persuasion far more so than sequestering yourself to an echo chamber where you're popular but convincing no one. Having the temerity to stand there against the childish backlash but maintain your position is far more respectable.
As for the remarks about clean water and a place to live, I think many of us are just tricked. In the west we glorify the founding fathers, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the slavery they encouraged. John Adams was a big proponent of a concentrated federal government, and even favored a monarchy before George Washington abdicated the Presidency. Another funny thing about US history was the way we went to the French to throw off our own monarchy, only to ignore our French allies when they overthrew their own monarchy. The US turned a blind eye when they asked us for help and support.
As to the relevance of this as it relates to the ideals of capitalists, you're right in many regards. The billionaire class wants our tribute, and it's not about them wanting us dead if we don't give it, rather they just want their enrichment with the national welfare as of being just no consequence to them. It's our own apathy, and the seductive promises of capitalist monetary structure. "You'll never become a billionaire in a communist country" and the people just eat it up, knowing full well they won't become a billionaire in any country regardless.
I think you and much of humanity are actually all on the same page, if we (we as in, brainwashed pro-capitalist and free market people, not necessarily us in this discussion) can just cut the bullshit of false ideologies and just listen to what another has to say.
Getting people to listen over here in Europe is relatively easy. Getting americans to listen is incredibly difficult. After multiple red scares and a cultural legacy of immense amounts of propaganda they are far more resistant to hearing basic facts, their brains are filled with false shit, and they performatively do things to show how good and moral they are (like the tankie shit), actively helping capitalists prevent people from hearing leftist thought. There are good books that do a lot of deprogramming, Blackshirts and Reds takes like 2 hours to read and deprograms people from all that shit immediately. The problem there is also that americans don't read, and 21% of americans are illiterate making it impossible to reach a lot of them through this method. I suspect this is also responsible for much of the reading-comprehension errors I see everyday from them on social media. Video works, but is a medium that requires a far greater amount of skill than writing books so we have far fewer people doing it. The boys at /r/thedeprogram podcast being probably the best at the moment, hakim, JT/secondthought and yugopnik.