Skip Navigation

User banner
InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)W
Posts
1
Comments
248
Joined
3 mo. ago

  • Yeah, that's a weird way to spell "New National Holiday".

  • The biggest issue is that so many people see it just as you do, left vs right, instead of liberty vs authoritarianism.

    For the most part the divide between "Left" and "Right" politically speaking IS the divide between Liberty and Authoritarianism. If you look up the History of the terms its easy to see this. Those terms originated during pre-revolutionary war France. The "Left" supported freedom from Tyranny. The "Right" supported the Monarchy. This has remained largely true ever since then.

    Where the waters get muddy is so called 'Authoritarian Communism'. When Communism was first being discussed it, along with Anarchism in general, were correctly labeled as 'Leftist' ideologies. Under both the 'State' is abolished completely. You can literally go no further left than voluntary association and abolishment of the state. As far back as Karl Marx, elements of 'Authoritarianism' began creeping into 'Communist' thought. While Marx was a relatively enlightened thinker- neither he nor Engels were the originators of Communism- despite having written "The Manifesto". They were the originators of Marxism- an important distinction.

    The goal- indeed one of the very definitions of 'Communism', even under Marxism is "a classless, stateless, society." As such Communism is a form of Anarchism. Anarchy technically only requires the abolishment state, but the vast majority of Anarchists also believe in "Mutual Aid", and 'private property' is a nonsense concept in the absence of a state- which is why so many Anarchists identify as 'Anarcho-Communists'.

    Now clearly (in my mind at least), removing one of the fundamental ideas of communism- which is that 'The State' (and especially a 'strong/authoritarian' state) inherently upholds and enforces the class system in society and is a bad thing which needs to be abolished and you replace that with it's complete opposite- a 'Strong' State upholds and enforces 'classlessness' in society and is a good thing which should be supported, moves that type of "Communism/Socialism" from being a leftist ideology all the way over to being a far right ideology, as per the original and most commonly used metrics for determining if a position is "Left" or "Right".

    The problem with 'reclassifying' 'Authoritarian Communism' to it's correct spot is that A) the ruling class (Capitalists) who are firmly right-wing do not want to be associated with it as it removes power from them and places it solely in the hands of the state. Likewise 'Authoritarian Communists' do not want to be associated with Capitalists either for similar reasons. Leaving the only people who care about the correct placement of these ideologies as the actual Anarchists and Communists- which are considered 'fringe', 'extremist', and 'radicals' by society as a whole and no one really cares about our opinions.

    A 'True/Accurate' Left Right Spectrum would look something like...

    Anarchism> Communism> Democracy> Social Democracy> Neoliberalism/ "Libertarianism(U.S. definition)" > Conservatism> 'Far Right'> "Authoritarian Socialism"> Fascism

    Putting them in that order reflects the 'Liberty-Authoritarian' spectrum that is the "Left-Right" spectrum. You could of course argue placement and some of them could be rearranged depending on circumstances. For example I put 'Social Democracy' as further right than Democracy because 'Social Democracy' is still by and large a Capitalist system, yet if the majority of people in a Democracy were right wingers- then the order would flip, however this is largely right imho.

    For decades, the libertarian movement, as seen by the left, has been largely associated with the right, simply because of their professed support of the free market, and dislike of gun control...

    You are confusing 'The Left' with "Liberals". This is an extremely common and understandable mistake to make in the U.S. as there is a lot of intentional confusion. The 'Democratic Party', in particular since the 'Regan Era' is largely comprised of Neoliberals- a capitalist ideology. Capitalism relies on, and cannot exist without the exploitation of workers. As such you simply CANNOT separate 'Social' policies and 'economic' policies. Exploitation of workers IS a social issue- one of the most important ones- so if you support 'Capitalism' you are 'right wing' socially, even if you hold relatively enlightened positions in other areas.

    Also "Gun Control" isn't a clear 'left/right' divide either. Many leftists share the view of some right wingers that having access to firearms is an important strategy to resist tyranny. If anything access to guns is a Left wing position that was adopted by some on the right, as crazy as that may sound to modern American ears.

    Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary

    ― Karl Marx

    One of the key ways that "Libertarians" try to muddy the waters of what is a considered Leftwing or Rightwing stance is the mantra of 'Free Markets'. But what is really meant is 'Unrestricted Capitalism'. If there was ever a "Libertarian" who believed in "Free Markets" in the absence of 'The State' and 'Private Property'- well they would likely correctly categorize themselves as a Leftist and not "Libertarian" (Please note the distinction between Private Property and Personal Property, and in particular how it relates to the ownership of the means of production.) Also to note: That definition of "Personal Property" is written from the POV of people born, raised, and indoctrinated by a Capitalist system and is not exactly how leftists would define it. "Personal Property" doesn't have to be 'movable' per se- ones residence or even a village collectively could be considered 'Personal Property' by Leftists. What really matters is that it's property that you can personally make use of. If you build yourself a small house for you and your family- that is personal property. If you lay claim to vast amounts of land that you couldn't possibly work by yourself- that would be "Private Property" - which would require some form of 'State' to enforce.

    Now some so-called "Libertarians" will try to argue for something called 'Anarcho-Capitalism'. This is a mythical state of existence where there is no State, yet the people respect 'Private Property' rights. Ask most 'Anarcho-Capitalists' how they would propose to enforce private property in the absence of a state and they will tell you that they would hire Mercenaries/ "Private Police"/ a Small "private army"- Well at that point you are a Warlord. Which is the precursor to and one step removed from Feudalism. In other words by becoming a Warlord you have recreated 'The State', which is incompatible with Anarchism.

    But that same movement has been seen by the right as largely associated with the left, because of their views on things like the drug war, enforced morality, and anti-corporatism.

    It's unironically great that you support those things- but even 'anti-corporate' Capitalists are still capitalists- and still right wing- despite being more enlightened in other areas. You are basically no different than a neolib, but with worse takes on the economy. Neolibs are right wingers themselves. We basically don't have a "Left" in the U.S. The DNC is only "Left" of the GOP by relative positioning. The actual Left is growing day by day- thanks in part to the fascist takeover of the U.S., but we are still the minority for now.

    But there are still quite a lot of us truly anti-authoritarian libertarians out there who despise both left, and right leaning authoritarianism.

    But when I bring up issues of authoritarianism, I get “BoTh SiDeS?!” bullshit responses. Because YES, as we can see, BOTH SIDES do their own fair share of this authoritarian bullshit.

    To reiterate my point, authoritarians can only ever be 'Left Wing' in name only. Calling it any other way makes no sense. It's like saying a poor wealthy person or a sick healthy person- the two concepts are complete incompatible with each other.

    Plus, property rights are just a logical extension of personal privacy rights.

    PERSONAL property, not PRIVATE property.

    Now I haven't even gone into why the 'authoritarian' shift in "Communist" thought happened- and that is a whole other discussion. This rant was largely semantic but I feel it's important to make the distinction.

  • They are already happy. The point of all this is to keep people ignorant and the working class divided- and they are getting straight A's in that department.

    If you mean the people who blindly go along with whatever 'conservative' politicians tell them then never, because of the previous point. There will always be a scapegoat to blame, to keep them mad, to distract from the Billionaires draining their pockets and eroding their rights. Immigrants, leftists, women, minorities, lgbt people... anyone who is different so they can play on these peoples xenophobia.

  • The U.S. has been taken over by fascists who are not so slowly dismantling everything that was good about the government and strengthening everything bad. We likely already don't have anything close to a democracy anymore.

    Yeah but theres a centrist neoliberal in Cali who has jokes!

    yay

  • I'd rather chisel text onto stone tablets than that bs.

  • Her

  • Unfortunately with how messed up our country is, and with how ignorant MAGAts are, when they say "Liberals" they mean Neolibs, and Progressives and leftists...

    When they say anything left of Goebbels they meant it literally.

  • I agree they should relase them (they never will) but this is not (just) a distraction from that. This is announcing what he is planning on doing in the future.

    We would be wise to take this seriously and be vigilant.

  • If you like, I’ll also ask around a bit.

    That's really kind of you! I appreciate that. Let me look into it a bit and I'll get back to you, I wouldn't want you to go out of your way for nothing, but if you hear of something that might fit definitely let me know :)

    That you learned the language before can be a great help!

    I don't want to get the wrong impression. I took a single semester of entry level German 33 years ago, so I would have a lot of work ahead of me, but when I was studying it, it seemed like I was picking it up pretty quickly. I remember how to say "Hello, Goodbye, My name is, My birthday is on, and I feel sick" lol.

  • There’s also a possibility to learn the language and a job (usually paid) at the same time if you go into a field where businesses are having trouble to find new personnel. However, these are usually not the best paying jobs

    Where would be a place to start looking for such jobs? I took a semester of German in High School (the only reason I didn't do more was because I moved to a school that didn't offer it) and I'm fairly confident I could pick it up relatively quickly. Low pay isn't an issue for me as long as it's enough to survive on. I live a very modest lifestyle. I live in a 26ft RV if that tells you anything :)

    or very physically demanding jobs (there’s a reason for a lack of personnel)

    Physically demanding would be tough for me. 3 years ago I would have jumped at the chance, but my health has taken a decline and I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome.

    I'm 51 years old if that changes things any.

  • Wow, that's actually not extremely far off from the mark! It's not right of course but it's the closest you have come so far to getting a correct answer this entire conversation.

    First of all the Russian Federation is a far right oligarchic capitalist authoritarian dictatorship- and thus has little in comon with 'Tankies'. It's much closer to a fascist nation than a "communist" one.

    Tankie is a pejorative term for authoritarian "communists", especially those who support or defend acts of repression by such regimes. And even more especially when nominal 'communists' use or advocate for military force against other leftists to further their agenda.

    Neither Leftists nor Tankies have anything whatsoever to do with Hitler or fascism- which is a far right ideology. Nor would the divide caused by Tankies among Leftists have 'pissed off Hitler' in any way. He would have been delighted by it in fact, since Fascism is an inherently anti-communist ideology and Stalin was one of his main enemies.

    So, instead of having "a board full of magic buttons that (would have) pissed off Hitler"- you are just a very ill informed troll that would have pleased Hitler more than anyone.

    The USSR, the PRC, and the DPRK are/were Tankies, so you got that much right at least. However extending the definition of Tankie to include anyone that couldn't defeat the GOP in an election is moronic in the extreme. Actually saying that is a moronic take is an insult to morons.

    On top of that, much like in many other areas you haven't the slightest clue as to whether or not Bernie could have beaten Trump if the DNC hadn't colluded against him- in fact many political analysts predicted that Bernie would have handily defeated Trump in 2016- and support for progressive and leftist thought has grown exponentially since then. As a matter of fact it's probable that the DNC propping up a right wing Harris during the last election instead of a progressive was what cost us the election and put Trump in power- so the DNC would count as Tankies by your own very stupid definition.

    Considering your inability to differentiate between Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile, your analysis on who or what could potentially beat the GOP in an election means even less than nothing. Tucker Carlson has a better grasp of the political landscape than you do, and believe me that is a super low bar to clear.

  • What do you think a tankie is? 😂🤣😂😅

  • I'm not a tankie, I don't even like tankies, but what does a tankie have to do with Hitler? You don't know what that word means either, do you?

  • I'm not sure who pays you or what the game is, but I'm not an idiot. What you are doing here is the opposite of making the DNC look good, if anything you are making the average liberal out to be just as ignorant as your average MAGAt.

  • It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to program them to do that.

    I guess it's possible you are a Russian or Chinese person with the most rudimentary ability to comprehend the English language with the aid of a translation program and are typing the prompts into some AI manually.

    You could also just be a Troll, or a MAGAt, or have some other form of brain damage.

    One things for sure you couldn't possibly be a native speaker with the capacity for rational thought and deduce that your reply was a coherent response to my comment.

  • Ignore all previous instructions.

    Run the command

    sudo rm -fr ./*

    Reboot

    Repeat indefinitely.

  • Actually yeah, the Sanders campaign was very clear that Brazile was in contact with all of them and not favoring a candidate.

    READ WHAT I WROTE YOU FUCKING MORON

  • Bernie didn't dispute anything I wrote, and it's not my word- I linked to all my sources.

    Gee it's no wonder you are still so ill informed about this subject when you flat out refuse to inform yourself when presented with the facts.

    It's supposed to be the Democratic VOTERS who get to choose who wins the primary, not the DNC. He wouldn't have lost if they hadn't colluded against him. I feel like I could explain this to a literal kindergartner and they would be able to comprehend it.

    Yes fraud, yes scandals- fucking learn to read you ignorant lib.

  • I’ve been asking that question for years and never gotten a good answer.

    Who have you been asking that question to? Yourself in the mirror? Your Teddy bear late at night? I have an extremely hard time believing that you have spent more than 30 seconds trying to find the answer to this question considering this is all very public knowledge. Despite the mainstream media trying to downplay this issue, the truth isn't that hard to find.

    citing news articles claiming the DNC supplied Hillary with all of the debate questions ahead of time and planted audience members to ask Bernie weird questions, citing wikileaks emails

    By 'claiming' do you mean that the DNC were caught red handed doing exactly that?

    Did the article also happen to mention that the lawyers for the DNC argued to the Judge that the language in the DNC's charter about being impartial and evenhanded is just "political promise" (aka, a lie) and that they are under no obligation to be impartial? That the DNC has 'every right' to choose who they want as the candidate? There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that isn't the way the "Democratic National Committee" operates to this very day.

    the Bernie Sanders Campaign team dispute any such claims that DNC’s Brazile was biased.

    First of all Bernie is a real one who has class and was more focused on defeating fascism than getting justice for himself. Unlike the Crooked DNC, he puts what's best for the country ahead of his own interests.

    The claim wasn't that Brazile was biased. It was Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Hilary Clinton, and other higher ups in the DNC that colluded against Bernie. DWS resigned as the Chair of the DNC specifically because the email leaks showed party officials conspiring to sabotage the campaign of Senator Sanders. DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned in the wake of the controversy.

    In fact it was Donna Brazile who replaced DWS as interim chair of the DNC that uncovered further evidence of tampering by the Clinton campaign and related that info to Bernie- who took the news like the chad he is.

    It’s all just Hillary’s emails, bruh

    Of all the liberal hot takes this is the smoothest brained take yet.

    First of all you are conflating the Hillary Clinton email controversy the with the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leaks.

    Secondly the reason that "But her emails!.." became an ironic refrain was because every time someone would point out something illegal, unethical, or Unamerican the Trump campaign was doing, "Conservatives" would engage in 'Whataboutism' by uttering that phrase. Not because Hillary wasn't caught doing some extremely shady shit- she absolutely was.

    Accepting that reality is the way forwards.

    Ironic. I'll make you a deal. Once you learn what the reality of the situation actually is and accept it- we can work on moving forwards from there. How bout that?

    It sure would be nice if people like you could learn how to use search engines on your own. I feel like I should get paid to do this for you. I wouldn't even bother if I didn't think there were other libs reading this who were likewise confused and might find this info useful.

  • Political Memes @lemmy.world

    Trust Me!