Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain’t dead. Remember, don’t downvote for disagreements.
You can be Jewish and even support the idea of a Jewish homeland while also being fervently appalled by the actions of the state of Israel (Netanyahu, West Bank settlements, unarmed Palestinians shot/killed, houses being bulldozed, mass displacements).
I believe that the vast majority of people are inherently good, and that tribalism and political divisiveness are some of the biggest issues we have to face.
Political differences arise mostly from different values, fears, education (or lack thereof), etc, but most people if you get to know them believe what they do because they believe it is genuinely good. But increasingly politics is focused on vilifying others, instead of trying to understand each other.
How do we tackle those problems you mentioned?
The reason I ask is I support your view here, but recently I’ve been downvoted a lot for having the opinion that I don’t blame people still using Twitter as I believe, like you, that most people are good people and can be reasoned out of what we believe are the wrong beliefs and that staying in those places to converse with them is better than Twitter becoming a right wing place and us chilling here in left wing ideology but at the end of that nobody learns anything they didn’t already know.
The hardest challenge in changing someone’s beliefs is that people don’t want to admit they were wrong or lied to or used or whatever and this makes it challenging if we can’t take our ego out of the equation.
Anecdotal proof that people can change is a YouTuber called JimmyTheGiant and he has mentioned several times how he went down the alt right pipeline but started to question things and now makes left leaning content.
Genuine question, why do you need to change peoples beliefs? Idk I find that 95% of people are pleasant to talk to and share your views with if you just speak with them nicely and try to understand their POV. And that applies to people who I vehemently disagree with.
What’s your political creed?
I would describe myself as fairly left, but I’m not the most educated on accurate political terminology
Freedom of speech for absolutely everyone, especially people I disagree with and that disagree with me
I’m surprised you’re not getting downvoted and harassed.
Honestly what I’m saying shouldn’t be a hot take. Freedom of speech has long been a classical liberal position.
Yep. Lemme isn’t really a fan if free speech and they usually say it leads to nazi things. But I’m all for free speech even if bad guys use it too.
Also the freedom to punch each other in the sternum
Insane take. We don’t have the right to physical violence just for a difference of opinion.
Abortion is not a moral hazard at all. Most people who might exist don’t. The whole “everyone agrees abortion is awful…” shit is obnoxious. I legitimately do not care. I am far more concerned about the lives of actual children. Once we seriously tackle that issue, we can move upstream, and this should be viewed as both incentive and a purity test for those who pretend to care about the “unborn.”
Agreed.
Couldn’t care less about fetuses. I do care about the people carrying fetuses and their quality of life, however.
I am unsure about when it stops being moral to terminate a foetus/baby. I think it’s somewhere between 6 and 14 months, but that’s just my gut feeling. Some people are astonished that I would even consider that it could be after birth, but it’s not like any sudden development occurs at the moment of birth.
It’s not about the development of the fetus, it’s about the woman’s autonomy. So long as it’s still inside her, her right to choose takes priority over its right to live, full stop.
Why do you assert this? Based on what moral framework? Is it morally okay to abandon a baby to the elements after birth, in favour of the autonomy of those who would raise it?
Bodily autonomy is different than “freedom to go about your life as you see fit”. Carrying a baby and giving birth come with risks and responsibilities and it changes your body. All of this risk is for the baby at the expense of the mother.
Analogy: let’s say someone needs a kidney transplant or they will die. Turns out, you’re the only match. Donating a kidney is not risk free and your body will be changed for the rest of your life. Should you donate? Yeah, probably. Should you be legally forced to? Absolutely not.
To me, this analogy completely solves the issue. I can say that life begins at conception and still say that bodily autonomy is a right. It doesn’t matter if the fetus/baby is a person yet, as long as the mother’s body is being used to sustain them, then it’s the mother’s choice.
I think we need to figure out how to make leftism more appealing to centrists, and particularly to the cis/straight/white/male demographic.
That is a controversial opinion here.
(And I agree with it. I don’t know what the way is, but I hope it can be found)
When you’re coming from a position of extreme privilege and you’re either a bit stupid or lack empathy or general social awareness being treated equally with “lesser people” (like women, brown people or people from particular religious backgrounds) can seem an awful lot like you’re being discriminated against.
I think you’re missing the point a bit. Liberal/centrist values are already to treat everyone equally, but not equitably. So when leftism comes in with suggestions for change, it looks to centrists like inequality. If you listen to centrists objections to leftism, this is what they say repeatedly, so I’m inclined to believe that is how they legitimately feel. This is why I think we need slightly different messaging/branding/whatever, or to talk about these issues in a different way, so that centrists actually understand what we’re getting at. It’s also not hard to find instances of leftists who, when angry, lash out at the majority – which while relatable to me, doesn’t help make leftism look appealing.
(By “majority” I mean the average joe, not billionaires.)
That Trump is neither conservative (in any way) nor cares at all about any traditional Republican values
Trump and MAGA are regressive. They are hell-bent on taking this country back to the first half of the 20th century, in all the worst possible ways.
I am very very very left wing, BUT I can get really annoyed with a lot of those “on my side” advocating for the most idealist of all idealism, as if it’s a contest. Feels like a competition of “who’s the bestest and mostest leftist of all”. You scare people away and - not justifying it - but I get why some people get upset with “the left” because of this…
I am very very very left wing, but
Everytime I see someone say this I know without a shadow of a doubt that they’re a centrist liberal.
wrong, I support the green party (multi-party system, you should try it)
Lol, thanks for proving my point
no, we have another party for that in Belgium (Vooruit). Groen has a leftist program
Groen are center left liberals.
The animals we create are morally entitled to the exact same unconditional love and protection as our own children. Leftists practice tolerance but they’re not really willing to go as far as actual compassion, empathy, and mercy. A lot of the things they tolerate, they should not.
People should be free to vote outside the two party system secure in the knowledge that their vote will still be counted if their preference didn’t win.
Videos on Electoral Reform
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems we can try out.
Strongly agree, though is this really an unpopular take?
It definitely was unpopular before the election. I was banned in some places for saying it
That progressive people should prioritize economic equality ahead of social issues.
The left has become so focused on illegal immigrants and identity politics that they have abandoned working class economic issues and rural white voters and it has cost them elections.
Are these elections in the room with us right now? Mind naming a single “election” that the left was “lost” over illegal immigrants?
If the left you’re talking about is the dems, no the fuck they aren’t. Dems aren’t the ones constantly putting forth bills about Trans people. The most any dem has done is post some milqtoast “trans rights” sticker or something.
But I agree I think the dems shouldn’t have justified the fear mongering about immigrants when the right started screeching about it. But that’s also on news orgs justifying it.
Yeah it seems it’s conservatives who are the ones who like to obsess and make it the topic of discussion to make their followers think it is the left’s primary platform of focus.
And then they also fixate on entertainment like games or movies to further play up how everything is woke as though it’s the left politicians making all that.
And it’s because that’s really the only compelling thing they have to play up to their followers who too make it their entire identity of conflict, since their other policies aren’t working class friendly.
That the dense city movement, of building up, instead of out, is ultimately ceding a huge proportion of our lives (our dwelling sizes and layouts, their materiality and designs, how the public space between them looks and feels, their maintenance and upkeep, etc. etc.) to soulless corporations trying to extract every dollar possible from us.
When we build out, people tend to have more say in the design and build of their own home, often being able to fully build it however they want because at a fundamental level a single person or couple can afford the materials it takes to build a home, and after it’s built they can afford to pay a local contractor who lives nearby to make modifications to it.
What they don’t have, is the up front resources to build a 20 story condo building. So instead they can buy a portion of a building that someone else has already built, which leaves them with no say in what is actually built in the first place. Ongoing possible changes and customizations are very limited by the constraints of the building itself, and the maintenance and repairs have to be farmed out to a nother corporation with the specialty knowledge and service staff to keep building systems running 24/7.
Yes, this is more efficient from an operating standpoint, but it’s also more brittle, with less personal ownership, less room for individuality and beautification, and more inherent dependence on larger organizing bodies which always end up being private companies (which usually means people are being exploited).
In addition, when you expand outwards, all the space between the homes is controlled by the municipalities and your elected government, and you end up with pleasant streets and sidewalks, but when you build up with condos, you just have the tiniest dingiest never ending hallways with no soul.
And condos are the instance where you actually at least kind of own your home. In the case of many cities that densify, you end up tearing down or converting relatively dense single family homes into multi apartment units where you again put a landlord in charge, sucking as many resources out of the residents as possible. In the case of larger apartment buildings, you’ve effectively fully ceded a huge portion of the ‘last mile’ of municipal responsibilities to private corporations.
Yes, I understand all the grander environmental reasons about why we should densify, and places like Habitat 67 prove that density does not inherently have to be miserable and soulless, however, the act of densifying without changing our home ownership and development systems to be coop or publicly owned, is a huge pressure increasing the corporatization of housing.
In general, I disagree with you. I think the two things you fixated on (souless architecture and rentals) are bad approaches to density, but you will notice that for the most part, this is the form of “density” that places who are notoriously bad at density do. Its what happens when we deliberately regulate ourselves into not allowing other options.
There is a pretty crazy amount of “density” in well bit, low rise structures - though actually I dont personally hate on towers as a concept.
Also, i would like to highlight that a very small portion of people are living in newly built homes, and only a small portion are really able to make meaningful design impact. Most just buy the builder-grade suburban model home. The idea that suburban single family homes are some design panacae is just wrong.
grander environmental reasons
No. Humans are not separate from “nature”.
Know the terrible intentions of “environmentalists” who would put you in battery cages.
Edit: Apparently, this touched a nerve. Let me say this: my experience with actually existing urbanism was a repulsive, mind numbing waste of several years that probably took even more years off of my life due to air/noise/light pollution. I have no problem with the concept of living near other humans- but I see few examples of such in my country that I could tolerate.
Condos and townhouses also spawned HOAs which are yet another layer of an even pettier form of nosey neighbor government you get to live under.
Get a home outside city limits if you can, then it’s just county, state, and federal… Though depending on the city, municipal government isn’t as bad as HOA typically.
The concept of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”
There’s no nuance from the left. The left polices itself like the radical right thinks they (the party of law and order) do.
Had a podcaster get dropped by their long time partner because there were lewd text messages sent.
I’m tired of the reactionary bullshit, currently Dawkins and Gaiman are being dropped, and I understand not wanting to associate/support Dawkins’ current views, the guy wrote very persuasive works that shouldn’t lose value because he lost his empathy.
I still read and enjoy enders game despite knowing what a tool Card turned into, how is it so difficult to separate art from the artist?
There’s no nuance from the left.
I would say there are many, many thick volumes of nuance, with reams of footnotes to evidence supporting it.
But progressive liberals are not going to engage with any of it.
Meanwhile the far-right floats on clouds of self-contradictory nonsense.
This whole comic is comedic gold, but this tiny part is especially funny to me somehow
I’m generally leaning towards progressive or left-wing ideas, but with a few exceptions.
- While I support the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, I believe that DEI initiatives are highly susceptible to exploitation because of the widespread and largely uncritical public support of the concept (or even just the abbreviation) with little regard to the implementation; and by tokenizing ethnicity, gender, and identity, it is at risk of doing what it was meant to prevent.
- I believe that law enforcement is a deeply flawed system to say the least, but ultimately necessary because the alternatives are lawlessness or ineffectual systems. This is of course colored by my European perspective where guns and driver’s licenses aren’t handed out like candy.
- The “tolerance is a social contract” mentality is hurting society. A person who experiences rejection and exclusion from progressive communities for voicing “intolerant” opinions will not be interested in reconciliation, and will inevitably fall in with a more radical group where they experience acceptance and belonging, where they will never be exposed to different ideas and their views will never be challenged. Integration should be sought whenever reasonable.
The last point is especially important to me. I grew up in a fairly conservative environment, and it took me a lot of conscious effort to un-learn my prejudices and learn acceptance. But whenever I get downvoted and shouted down for voicing an opinion that aligns with conservatives, or simply isn’t “leftist” enough, it makes me want to distance myself from “leftist” ideology and adds to my disillusionment.
The first point is a fairly common opinion among communists, who understand “DEI” to be a liberal cooption of liberationist language and thought that tokenizes identities and reworks the concepts in favor of exploiters (and was doomed to be shed the moment it was less profitable for exploiters).
It may be beneficial to consider the second point with some nuance that is often neglected in order to agitate. Again with communists, you will find many that hate their country’s cops but acknowledge the necessity in a post-revolutionary framework, either in their own visions for their own revolution or in defending the actions taken by their comrades that rapidly discover the need for some form of organized enforcement. One way to think about this is that the police are an arm of the state, and who that state serves via its structures and nature changes how they operate. In OECD countries, cops primarily serve capital. They protect profits based on shop owner complaints, shut down capital-inconvenient demonstrations, etc, and spend little time helping average people. In many capitalist countries, cops are underpaid and openly corrupt, so they do the same things while being more obvious bribes. In countries run by socialists, cops of course still do many cop things, but you will find them spending more of their time on other tasks, there are fewer per capita, and the job of being a cop in capitalist counties has been split into many different jobs that don’t involve having a gun or otherwise carrying out the worst actions taken by cops. So, in short, it is entirely coherent to hate your local cops as an arm of capital that will beat you for protesting while not condemning the mere existence of cops in other countries while also understanding that we want to create a society free of them.
For the third point, it really depends on what you mean by accepting. Socialists need to educate people where they are, warts and all, but you also cannot be taillist and morph your work into accepting reactionary positions. That defeats the entire point of rejecting reactionary positions. Patience in explaining is valuable, tacit agreement with racism/xenophobia/sexism/homophobia/transphobia/etc is counterproductive. In addition, getting dunked on can and does create results. Despite growing up conservative and getting dunked on by those to your left, you now think of yourself as non-conservative. Are you sure none of those dunks ever led you to question your positions?
I think on the Left we have a “virtuous” cycle/feedback loop that results in increasingly outlandish positions.
Essentially, for most people there’s a serotonin feedback when people upvote, applaud, reteeet etc. People, responding to incentives like anyone else shift their online discourse to match.
Similarly, even beyond the positive feedback, on thr Left no one wants to be a white cis male contradicting the feelings, emotions or arguments of a POC or LGBTQ+ person.
The Right doesn’t really have this problem as the Far right opinions are generally understood to be reprehensible to most people so those movements have evolved to work on dog whistles etc.
It’s a structural issue but one that puts us out of touch with the mainstream (consider defund the police, transgender athletes or immigration until we were getting murdered in the polls and it was too late to do anything.)
on the Left we
Where on “the Left”?
no one wants to be a white cis male contradicting the feelings, emotions or arguments of a POC or LGBTQ+ person
Maybe liberals don’t. And I wouldn’t consider them to be on the left.
Why would you want to police emotions or feelings of others?
Arguments on the other hand should be based on logic. And as long as you’re respectful, one can disagree.
Your attempt at making all these different scenarios look the same, makes me question your position and honesty in this conversation
The Right doesn’t really have this problem as the Far right opinions are generally understood to be reprehensible to most people
This is just purely false and inaccurate. There are plenty of people who agree with far right talking points
Edit: why was I not surprised to see that you are one of those “leftist” (read liberal) who is fine with the Palestinian genocide as long as it’s your team that carries out the genocide?
THAT is why we have to be careful. Precisely because of fake allies like you, who say they are on your side while condoning a genocide behind your back.
But sure, talk again of “virtuosity tests” and the “Left”…
Ahahaha, “As long as you’re respectful one can disagree.” And a paragraph later “hey, this guy pointed out trump would be worse for Palestineans that means he is down with genoicde!!!”
Could you prove my point much harder?
this guy pointed out trump would be worse for Palestineans
You realize Trump has already pushed Israel to accept a ceasefire/prisoner exchange, right? That’s an actual, material improvement in the situation in Gaza compared to Biden. Democrats who are still trotting out “Trump will somehow do an even worse genocide” are giving away they game that they don’t even care enough to keep up on the news.
I say this as someone who think Trump should be in prison, too.
You don’t even realize you are further proving my point and you’re coming across as even more fake.
I started respectfully, just as at first, you appeared to be “just another leftist with some different opinion”. If you knew how to read, you’d have noticed that my change in tone came in the “edit” of my reply.
In reality, you’re just another liberal apologists that is fine with genocide… And I am absolutely NOT going to be respectful to Zionists once your true colors are evident.
Your “point” was moot to begin with because you’re not leftist. But you are a fake ally, ready to backstab minorities and allow genocides to happen
I have no idea what point you’re trying to make other than, I dunno, some crazy shit like everyone who disagrees with you is a Zionist or something?
But I stand by that post, if you voted for a third party, you helped trump. If you’re trying to wrap your stupidity around the plight of the Palestineans you either aren’t following the news or never really cared about them in the first place.
I get that this is probably the first humanitarian crisis you’ve seen on social media and pretended to care about but as you grow up, hopefully you’ll realize there are sometimes unfortunate restrictions around your choices. While I would have loved a better option than the Dems, the choice was them or trump. If you voted third party, you helped put an administration that is absolutely hostile to them and worse than what would’ve been the case otherwise.
Sorry if reality sucks but whining about it like a petulant child isn’t going to change it or rally others to your cause.
the anti-work movement has been a blight on communism
Do you see it as a waste of time or a distraction? I see it as a gateway drug.
