this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 89 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

NPR did a segment on how people from different sides of the spectrum tend to see each other in a negative light. I TRY NOT TO man, but someone yesterday told me to my face, "Those mother fuckers should burn", because his neighbor made a sound complaint about his chickens.

Our city is NEXT TO LA. I'm a farmer, and so is he. I don't understand his worldview at all. He's an immigrant, and he's anti-immigration. His business struggles to compete with larger businesses, but he fears socialism. He brags about freedom of speech and the pursuit of happiness, but he thinks he should be able to control women's bodies. Also, he said a bunch of people should die in a fire. My sister has cerebral paulsy, and if you don't know, a lot of people who died in the fire couldn't run for the same reason. I wanted to spit in his face. I'm a bald, white, male farmer, so people open up to me, thinking they're in good company. I look like a redneck, and technically, I have one. The shit people say is wild. It tends to darken my world view. I try not to focus on them, though, except in ways I can be kind and slowly sway them, hopefully.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I used to be baffled by people's behavior in the same way, but recently I've come to understand that a lot of people see the world through the lens of power instead of morals, and they want to see themselves as the most powerful. Socialism means they didn't "earn" their business, and surely they can become the next mogul without it. He doesn't care about other immigrants because he sees himself as above them.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've come to understand that a lot of people see the world through the lens of power instead of morals, and they want to see themselves as the most powerful.

That's one of the most concise ways I've seen it written out. People think reactionaries are stupid; when they say that, they don't understand that conservative morality is wholly based on putting themselves higher in the hierarchy than the people they hate.

It's why they make exceptions for themselves and their loved ones: it's entirely morally consistent that they deserve the exceptions because of who they are.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

There's always a bigger fish

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Left pushes reading and education right pushes illiteracy and blind faith in the leader but m'authoritatianism

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There are many examples of the left pushing blind faith in the leader (see Mao, Kim Il Sung, Stalin)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There are many cases of authoritarians claiming labels that so not reflect their actions or goals, yes.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (4 children)

No true Scotsman fallacy

I'm progressive, but we should not deny the failure modes of progressivism

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Adopting the names of left leaning styles of government does nothing to change their actual oligarch and kleptocratic styles is leadership, so that does not apply.

Unless we're to believe that Nazi Germany was somehow just a bunch of misguided socialists...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Well, Elon and German far-right politician Alice Weidel claimed in a recent talk that Hitler was a communist...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

(a) love your name... though I do prefer farro/emmer when given the choice ;)

(b) of course those nazis did... always co-opting existing names and symbols for evil

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Soviet Russia wasn't exactly a model of progressivism though— it was a rigidly hierarchical society with extreme wealth disparity.

Same for the other examples.

The NTS fallacy is about redefining terms to cherry-pick data. Those regimes don't match any version of 'progressive' I've ever seen.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

There was literally a ~~slip~~ split in the first international. You can't blame those aligning with the lesser influential side for the things the authoritarians did. "The Left" is a far too broad concept to apply the No True Scotsman fallacy to.

Edit: typo

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Where can I get that upside-down blue flag shirt? That's going to go hard while the police are beating me for having a sign on a sidewalk.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've had people on this platform tell me they were excited for, "the fall of empire." Knowing full well there would be a human cost. So yes, oppression is bad, but if your answer is violence then it's time to parse which violence is acceptable to you because obviously you've already distinguished.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wow, author doesn't know what centrism OR horseshoe theory are, lol.

Hint: Neither of them are accurately described as "both sides are equally bad".

I'm reminded of a Christian fundamentalist depicting an atheist being gotcha'd by being asked where his morality comes from if there's no God, and literally having a "checkmate atheists" moment over it. Equally smugly dumb.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The part where they are similar is that both the far left and far right are willing to use authoritarian violence to achieve their goals. And the representation of the left as just "oppression is bad" is overly simplistic. They too believe in oppression of particular groups (see oppression of academics/scientists/bourgeoise/etc in almost all communist take-overs). Centrists can also have very differing views as well but the reason they are located where they are on the horseshoe is because they would rather problems be solved with slow beauraucracy/well-defined protocols and not revolution or political violence.

This is not an admonishment or support for any of these things from me personally. I personally think a little revolution is needed once in a while. Just pointing out in more detail the idea behind horseshoe theory.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I just think if we long term want to build a stable system that works for everybody we can't just keep rerolling dice hoping a revolution would magically fix it all. I like my politics boring if it gets the job done and keeps improving and iterating on a better system

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (5 children)

That US politics has screwed up definitions of left and right, making the cartoon meaningless when applied to it.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oppression is bad...

...Unless that oppression is done by the vanguard to protect the revolution. Then the oppression is ok.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Yeah, the people saying that the guillotine crowd just want to stop oppression are either the stupidest, most ignorant people imaginable or they're just lying.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Why can't you just get along with the nazis like we on the enlightened center do

[–] adub 7 points 2 months ago

I'd argue it's not that horseshoe works in rhetoric but voting patterns. Both "extremes" of "the horseshoe" end up being moralistic and favor dismantling the system.

They may say oppression is bad from the far-left but at the same time when voting that oppression might just mean globally to them and not to the domestic matters.

The blame can be shared and probably where the horseshoe fails.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don't consider myself a centrist, but I do consider myself between the two parties currently.

I don't like the "both sides are wrong" mentality often associated with centrists. I don't think I am inherently better than either side. I think I am disillusioned by both sides.

I was a Leftist/Democrat for the majority of my life. Then at some point ~8-9 years ago saw the pipeline that leads to radicalized righty thinking and said "fuck that" but when I turned around and looked back on my old party critically I also didn't want to walk back through that door either.

Basically I think both "sides" need to shut up and stop slinging poop at each other. Occasionally you need to listen to the other side. Neither one is always right or always wrong. Some of the moderates from either side can admit this and they hang out in the middle ish with me. But most people just sprint farther to either side when their ideas are challenged.

But since everyone has this "us vs them" mentality over every little thing I don't see communication or collaboration getting any better going forward.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (19 children)

When has the right been correct about things? Lmao

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Rightwingers believe they can and should wield their power to crush their political and business opponents. And if they do this enough times, they'll accrue immense amounts of wealth and power. They should never surrender, never compromise, and always fight to the bitter end, because a long and painful enough campaign will see liberals surrender and conservatives triumph.

In this, they are proven absolutely correct.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They called the affordability crisis. Notably Hitler was right that the American loans would hurt Germany. Broken clocks are right twice a day and fascist ones make the most of them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

However they do nothing particularly responsible about the indicated fiscal problems. GOP administrations have a track record of spending even more than the democratic administrations, while pulling in less revenue.

So they jump up and down at a credible issue, but have no credibility as they have zero track record of fixing it, just making things even worse.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yup, fact is a majority of people in thd US agree on many of the most important issue, yet the governing structure seeks to "otherize" people from each other as much as possible in order to prevent meaningful discourse and foster division.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Can't have the population working together to take out the elites. They need us good and pissed off at each other so we are too busy to see them taking everything and giving us scraps constantly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah... you're a centrist.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Horseshoe theory is truly one of my worst enemies, a thought terminating cliche that is zesty enough to feel like a revelation so every midwit loves to trot it out to feel superior. "Opposite things have similarities, therefore, opposite things tend toward the same"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Far left is mostly also authoritarian. They say they want everyone to have the same rights but get angry or try to silence people that don't agree with their radical ways. I'm not talking about the left in general but the far left. As such they see it needed to achieve their goals, even if it official is equality for example.

Edit: Removed "Tankies definitely are authoritarian." They are kinda a weird case where they believe or say they believe in Marxist Leninist ideology but then support countries that dress as communist even if they are ruled by a small elite or are actually mostly capitalist. I believe they are kinda gullible far left with mostly a "US bad" sentiment so China and Russia must be good. They are not solely representative of far left authoritarianism

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tankies aren't the only option over there. Authoritarianism is just Authoritarianism, no matter what dressing they throw on it.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

tankies are right wingers who use leftist vocabulary

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