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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:52PM
(14 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:52PM (#1013318)
Do you even realize how hard you just shifted the goalposts? Your original post was, "Just keep in mind, what most Americans refer to as left-wing or leftist is *centrist* (and boring as hell) in the civilized world." Without missing a breath you now happily transition to your views and behaviors instead of what you literally said "what most Americans refer to as left-wing or leftist".
When "most Americans" speak of a leftist, how often do you think they are referring to whatever you're describing? By contrast how often do you think they're referencing things such as this [youtube.com]. That is US Democratic Representative Maxine Walters encouraging people to form mobs and try to harass (if not worse) any representative from the opposite political party. How often do you think they're referencing the groups that will increasingly aggressively try to destroy the life of anybody who does something they politically disagree with? How often do you think they're referring to the brownshirtsblackshirts that appear in an effort to intimidate, assault, and disrupt any and everybody that disagrees with their ideology?
The problem you're facing is what happens when people choose not to actively reject these radicals that are perceived to be, at least compared to the alternative, ideologically aligned with them. Those radicals behavior becomes normalized and gradually trends towards becoming a part of the group as a whole. Here's a hint for you: you're likely simply not an *American* leftist anymore. You may be a leftist and liberal, but American leftism and liberalism is characterized by the democratic party. And that party has become deeply radicalized and going down a dark path that many other nations have gone in the past - invariably with nothing but regret to show for it.
An increasingly large number of the ideals and behaviors that characterize what most people mean they refer to a 'leftist American' would be unwelcome in nearly any other nation.
If you think the Democratic party machine is leftist, or indeed has been since about the early 70s, you're so delusional that nothing I say or do is going to reach you. Ever since Nixon kicked McGovern's ass all over the electoral map they've been, slowly at first and since about the mid-90s at almost supersonic speed, shifting rightward and authoritarian. Bill Clinton was a moderate Republican by the standards of merely 25 years before, Obama was barely any better than Reagan and substantially worse on civil rights (spying, dronebombing a US citizen), and the beat goes on.
Your characterization of anyone mobbing as leftist is worse than delusional: it's intentional gaslighting. Were all those neo-Nazi fucks flying the literal Nazi flag demanding the governor of Michigan reopen in any sense leftists? You don't know what words mean and until you do I will thank you to shut up. You're talking out your ass at great length and it smells like it, too.
-- I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2020, @06:51AM
(12 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday June 29 2020, @06:51AM (#1013992)
Once again, please look at your own words. You said, specifically: "what most Americans refer to as left-wing or leftist is *centrist*"
Now you're instead engaging in some sort of weird nonsequitur about whatever you personally happen to define as leftist, and then just throwing out politically charged words in a mostly incoherent fashion. Calm down and think rationally.
You intentionally snipped off the context of her post:
Just keep in mind, what most Americans refer to as left-wing or leftist is *centrist* (and boring as hell) in the civilized world. People like Sanders are boring, run of the mill centrists in places like Norway.
Your comment isn't rational. You're arguing in bad faith.
-- Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2020, @04:23PM
(5 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday June 29 2020, @04:23PM (#1014143)
She obviously knows what she said. I assumed nobody else was reading this. It's buried in the middle of a dead thread.
Read above since you seem to have skipped to the bottom or something. And no, the views most Americans are referring to when they speak of "leftists" would most certainly not be centrist in a place like Norway. These things like cancel culture, statue toppling, digital hate trying to get people fired for holding different opinions, taking offense at everything by actively working to interpret things in the worst possible way, etc, etc would generally be seen as deeply radicalized in nearly everywhere else in the world. The American left has become deeply and dangerously radicalized.
Sounds to me more like they've successfully adopted the tactics and strategies of the American "right," who are now collectively shitting their Depends.
-- I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:15AM
(3 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:15AM (#1014434)
I'm not sure I agree unless you go back some number of centuries, at which point the modern notions of liberal and conservative lose all meaning. I mean obviously the conservatives had their brand of ignorant and bigoted self righteous hypocrisy with the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, and so on. I can still remember people trying to ban Dungeons and Dragons because it was 'Satanic'.
But what we're seeing today is similar to the bigotry (and hypocrisy) of times *far* past. Digital mobs in particular are becoming increasingly reminiscent of lynch mobs. While that has a racial connotation today, people of all sorts were lynched for falling short of what the masses perceived as their social norms of the time. The largest lynching in the US was the Great Hanging at Gainsville. [wikipedia.org] 41 men were lynched for being 'suspected unionists.' The digital mobs of today are actively and purposefully doing all they can to try to destroy people's lives: getting them fired and even actively driving people to suicide. And the digital world is increasingly starting to blend with the real world where that 'digital violence' is becoming physical violence.
This is rather unprecedented at such scales. I mean can't try to step outside of this all and look back at how people are going to see all of this? For that matter, step outside of it and imagine how people in much of the rest of the world *already* see it! This is a serious problem, but people are just kind of shrugging it off, or creating incredibly spurious rationalizations for it. Mobs are stupid and dangerous. Self righteous mobs are the same only many magnitudes worse. Events of this sort are relatively new in modern times, but it's not a new story: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I've always been a shy sort myself, and all this stuff is telling me boils down to "hole up, hunker down, keep your nose clean, and wait for it blow over. Oh, and get across the Canadian border ASAP."
-- I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:13PM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:13PM (#1015024)
Wouldn't disagree, though I chose a bit further than Canada - whom I suspect this nonsense will also come to in relatively short order.
The one thing that confuses me about society at large is that I think if you ask people about the trajectory of the country most people can see the directionality/momentum of where things are headed. But they kind of just blank on what the destination is. It's kind of a fun thing about reading very old newspapers around the time of various historical events. They rarely if ever come from nothing. It's all just a gradual stairstepping towards the final show. So recurrent is this that on occasion get this sort of deja vu type feeling when reading of modern events. It just feels I'm just reading more of those old headlines leading up to a historic event you already know.
I'm poor, traumatized, and all alone in the world save for my SO. We have very very limited options. I plan if at all possible to end up in Halifax or thereabouts within 5 years or fewer and basically just disappear off the face of the earth waiting for all this shit to blow over. I know I won't live to see a positive resolution, and I know I'm about to witness geopolitical seismic shockwaves the likes of which have not been seen since world war II. I just don't want to be in the epicenter when the shaking starts.
-- I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:52PM (14 children)
Do you even realize how hard you just shifted the goalposts? Your original post was, "Just keep in mind, what most Americans refer to as left-wing or leftist is *centrist* (and boring as hell) in the civilized world." Without missing a breath you now happily transition to your views and behaviors instead of what you literally said "what most Americans refer to as left-wing or leftist".
When "most Americans" speak of a leftist, how often do you think they are referring to whatever you're describing? By contrast how often do you think they're referencing things such as this [youtube.com]. That is US Democratic Representative Maxine Walters encouraging people to form mobs and try to harass (if not worse) any representative from the opposite political party. How often do you think they're referencing the groups that will increasingly aggressively try to destroy the life of anybody who does something they politically disagree with? How often do you think they're referring to the
brownshirtsblackshirts that appear in an effort to intimidate, assault, and disrupt any and everybody that disagrees with their ideology?The problem you're facing is what happens when people choose not to actively reject these radicals that are perceived to be, at least compared to the alternative, ideologically aligned with them. Those radicals behavior becomes normalized and gradually trends towards becoming a part of the group as a whole. Here's a hint for you: you're likely simply not an *American* leftist anymore. You may be a leftist and liberal, but American leftism and liberalism is characterized by the democratic party. And that party has become deeply radicalized and going down a dark path that many other nations have gone in the past - invariably with nothing but regret to show for it.
An increasingly large number of the ideals and behaviors that characterize what most people mean they refer to a 'leftist American' would be unwelcome in nearly any other nation.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 27 2020, @09:35PM (13 children)
If you think the Democratic party machine is leftist, or indeed has been since about the early 70s, you're so delusional that nothing I say or do is going to reach you. Ever since Nixon kicked McGovern's ass all over the electoral map they've been, slowly at first and since about the mid-90s at almost supersonic speed, shifting rightward and authoritarian. Bill Clinton was a moderate Republican by the standards of merely 25 years before, Obama was barely any better than Reagan and substantially worse on civil rights (spying, dronebombing a US citizen), and the beat goes on.
Your characterization of anyone mobbing as leftist is worse than delusional: it's intentional gaslighting. Were all those neo-Nazi fucks flying the literal Nazi flag demanding the governor of Michigan reopen in any sense leftists? You don't know what words mean and until you do I will thank you to shut up. You're talking out your ass at great length and it smells like it, too.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2020, @06:51AM (12 children)
Once again, please look at your own words. You said, specifically: "what most Americans refer to as left-wing or leftist is *centrist*"
Now you're instead engaging in some sort of weird nonsequitur about whatever you personally happen to define as leftist, and then just throwing out politically charged words in a mostly incoherent fashion. Calm down and think rationally.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday June 29 2020, @02:24PM (11 children)
You intentionally snipped off the context of her post:
Your comment isn't rational. You're arguing in bad faith.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2020, @04:23PM (5 children)
She obviously knows what she said. I assumed nobody else was reading this. It's buried in the middle of a dead thread.
Read above since you seem to have skipped to the bottom or something. And no, the views most Americans are referring to when they speak of "leftists" would most certainly not be centrist in a place like Norway. These things like cancel culture, statue toppling, digital hate trying to get people fired for holding different opinions, taking offense at everything by actively working to interpret things in the worst possible way, etc, etc would generally be seen as deeply radicalized in nearly everywhere else in the world. The American left has become deeply and dangerously radicalized.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:53AM (4 children)
Sounds to me more like they've successfully adopted the tactics and strategies of the American "right," who are now collectively shitting their Depends.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @09:15AM (3 children)
I'm not sure I agree unless you go back some number of centuries, at which point the modern notions of liberal and conservative lose all meaning. I mean obviously the conservatives had their brand of ignorant and bigoted self righteous hypocrisy with the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, and so on. I can still remember people trying to ban Dungeons and Dragons because it was 'Satanic'.
But what we're seeing today is similar to the bigotry (and hypocrisy) of times *far* past. Digital mobs in particular are becoming increasingly reminiscent of lynch mobs. While that has a racial connotation today, people of all sorts were lynched for falling short of what the masses perceived as their social norms of the time. The largest lynching in the US was the Great Hanging at Gainsville. [wikipedia.org] 41 men were lynched for being 'suspected unionists.' The digital mobs of today are actively and purposefully doing all they can to try to destroy people's lives: getting them fired and even actively driving people to suicide. And the digital world is increasingly starting to blend with the real world where that 'digital violence' is becoming physical violence.
This is rather unprecedented at such scales. I mean can't try to step outside of this all and look back at how people are going to see all of this? For that matter, step outside of it and imagine how people in much of the rest of the world *already* see it! This is a serious problem, but people are just kind of shrugging it off, or creating incredibly spurious rationalizations for it. Mobs are stupid and dangerous. Self righteous mobs are the same only many magnitudes worse. Events of this sort are relatively new in modern times, but it's not a new story: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:04AM (2 children)
I've always been a shy sort myself, and all this stuff is telling me boils down to "hole up, hunker down, keep your nose clean, and wait for it blow over. Oh, and get across the Canadian border ASAP."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:13PM (1 child)
Wouldn't disagree, though I chose a bit further than Canada - whom I suspect this nonsense will also come to in relatively short order.
The one thing that confuses me about society at large is that I think if you ask people about the trajectory of the country most people can see the directionality/momentum of where things are headed. But they kind of just blank on what the destination is. It's kind of a fun thing about reading very old newspapers around the time of various historical events. They rarely if ever come from nothing. It's all just a gradual stairstepping towards the final show. So recurrent is this that on occasion get this sort of deja vu type feeling when reading of modern events. It just feels I'm just reading more of those old headlines leading up to a historic event you already know.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 02 2020, @10:54PM
I'm poor, traumatized, and all alone in the world save for my SO. We have very very limited options. I plan if at all possible to end up in Halifax or thereabouts within 5 years or fewer and basically just disappear off the face of the earth waiting for all this shit to blow over. I know I won't live to see a positive resolution, and I know I'm about to witness geopolitical seismic shockwaves the likes of which have not been seen since world war II. I just don't want to be in the epicenter when the shaking starts.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 29 2020, @09:58PM (4 children)
So is she by implying we're not part of the civilized world.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:51AM (3 children)
We're fucking close to not being part of it. Money, wealth, and technology alone do not make you civilized.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:57AM (2 children)
Unfortunately, you do not get to decide what civilized means.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:04AM (1 child)
Then neither do you :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 01 2020, @03:09AM
The difference being, I don't try. You're the one who thinks one little bit of the world gets to set the standard for the rest.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.