Remote View

2w ago

Both sides are the same

225 comments

That's not far left IMO, that's just left. This is a recurring problem we have in France too, where medias call "far left" parties that are just left. This is a slippery slope, the one on which Overton window slips towards the (far) right...
- Far left is: "We're going to destroy the very concept of private ownership and wealth accumulation"
  
  "... to meet everyone's basic needs"
  
  typical
  We're talking about the ultra wealthy sharing the stockpiles of resources they have stolen and enslaved to gather, and the first spin is that they "aren't allowed to have private things" and "we aren't allowed to accumulate wealth"
  eat shit
- It is the far left of the current Overton window, not an objective scale.
- Yeah. Somehow, every morally just ideology that liberals/democrats ever had suddenly became the sole property of the far left when they decided to label everything even slightly right of Stalin as “bLuEMaGa”.
  Each and every one of them now sit at the dead center of a their own little circle, where they try very hard to entertain themselves, and one another- by attempting to smugly out enrage everyone with edgy memes.
  It’s pretty fucking entertaining if you ask me.
  
  Who are "they"? Your comment has more pronouns than a Tumblr thread

Centralists
- Don’t ban abortion but support families with children more If you really want less abortion and more children..
  
  Sex education
  freely dispersed contraceptives
  No kid wants to be pregnant.

You vote left because you want the best for the general good of society, you vote right because you want what's best for yourself, in particular.
- The sad thing is, that's not even true.
  Most poor world be better off under left wing ideals, yet they vote right wing anyway because they're scared that brown people will steal their crumbs.
  
  (But actually that guy in the middle doesn't just have this plate full of cookies. He owns a huge vessel full of cookies)
  
  But rich white men stealing their crumbs is fine because they aren't brown
  Better than than Jose over there, a hard working fine gentleman, getting his needs met
  
  It is true for the general disposition. Do you vote in your own interests vs do you vote in the general best interest. Your motivations may be malicious or incompetent, a two party system doesn't discern.
- Plenty of people also vote right based on hate and fear. They'll vote against there own best interests because of hate and fear.
- You vote right because you want the people you don't like to suffer.
  
  I don't believe this. People may have multiple agendas. They may hate foreigners or cultures, but people's allegiances are always first and foremost to their own, to keep living in the most comfortable way they can with the lowest possible eftort. It's kind of game theoretical in some sense.
  Game theory occupies itself with the adversary roles of generosity (a moral principle) and calculation (a purely rational one), and in some way you could say that in a system which only allows one of two outcomes, a lot of assumptions are subsumed under those two separate outcomes.
  What if Candidate A is for lower taxes, higher immigration and Candidate B is for higher taxes and lower immigration?
  What if both candidates agree on lower taxes and lower immigration, but one of them also proposes reinstating slavery, and the other one wants none of it but instead mandatory abortions?
  In a two party state you don't get enough fine grained resolution to deal with problems that require any complexity beyond perfectly white and perfectly black.
- They vote right because cable news told them it's best for themselves. It's not.
- And then never realise that you voted against what is best for you because you just believe propaganda rather than think logically…
- You also vote far right if you’re willing to sacrifice something yourself to make sure no one ever gets it without having to make heavy sacrifices to do so. Life is pain, princess. Anyone who says differently is selling something! /s

It's because we lefties say completely justified mean things about so-called 'centrists', and criticizing the literal record of centrism is tantamount to insulting a centrist's identity.
The centrists made up the term so they wouldn't have to face the fact that they're conservatives.
- That's right, the centrists are conservatives and the so-called "conservatives" are really regressives at best, plenty of them fascists.
  
  We don't just call everyone we don't like fascists. But uh, them folks are fascists.
  
  Many of the greatest political advancements in the history of humanity were achieved by people you'd call "centrists".

From Disco Elysium:

Your “far-left” is the centric, your “centric” are fascist accepting far-right, and your “far-right” is right extreme fascists…
- Thank you for the fix.
- holy cap gng 💔🥀😭

They’re just people who are too weak and dumb to have real opinions and they just want to be in the in crowd
- It must take such bravery to not be in the center, sir. How can I become this brave.
  
  It’s called executive disfunction

Even the left normalized the false narrative of “far left”. America does not have any “far left” party
- American has a small group that considers itself far-left that actually helps the right and far-right.
- America doesn't even have a slightly left party.
- Only right-wingers use the term far Left.

Can we be better than twitter with these bullshit fallacy arguments.

Fishhook theory > horseshoe theory

I mean to be fair... groups that consider themselves far left also exterminate groups.
The trick is to not go too far. You wanna end up at Scandinavian liberal socialism, but not overshoot it to let's create a famine for kicks and kill all people wearing glasses.
- consider themselves
  Is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that statement.
  
  I think it's necissary when talking about "left governments" to have that caveat. I wouldn't personally consider the Khmer Rouge, USSR, or CCP, left wing but they did.
  They are just different shades of authoritarianism.
  
  Honestly, if the total number of Tankies claiming to be Progressives exceeds the number of Progressives then which one really owns the word? Similar issue with the word Socialist being poisoned.
- I mean to be fair... groups that consider themselves far left also exterminate groups
  [Citation needed]
  The trick is to not go too far
  Yeah, you wouldn't want society to become TOO egalitarian and fair! 🙄
  You wanna end up at Scandinavian liberal socialism
  Speaking as an actual Scandinavian leftie: nope. Not good enough.
  Social Democratic Liberalism (which is what it actually is. Socialism is a very different thing) is still capitalist and thus exploitative at its core.
  It's better than most, but it's far from the utopian ideal that people from the American Left tend to think it is.
  but not overshoot it to let's create a famine for kicks and kill all people wearing glasses
  You're thinking along the wrong axis there. There's a HUGE difference between ultra authoritarian leftism like that of the USSR and Pol Pot's Cambodia, and libertarian (original meaning, not bastardized American definition) leftism.
  
  I'd argue that there is no such thing as authoritarian left, that the political compass makes more sense as a triangle, or perhaps that an authoritarian left would just be some unachievable meritocracy. All those Commie Bastards were just fucking Red Fascists.
  
  If I could point toward actual socialist governments not based on exploitation (rather than Scandinavia) I would. But it really is just a hypothetical idea at this point.
  I've never been optimistic enough to believe the libertarian/anarchic theories work on any scale above small communities. Anytime I discuss egalitarian and anarchic societies I can't get beyond the point of humans are intrinsically greedy andviolent which that collapses the system.
- So anything thats acturally left wing is bad? Because left wing means genuene real socialism, as in not capitalism socialism. As in the type of socialism that doesn't require oppressing the global south (which shouldn't even be a question).
  LIBERALISM = REACTIONARY
  SOCIALISM = REVOLUTIONARY
- You wanna end up at Scandinavian liberal socialism
  Finland keeps putting hundreds of thousands into poverty thanks to its "liberal socialism" constantly pushing austerity policy as the rest of Europe. And even when things were better in Finland, that's because the entirety of the western world is supported on the exploitation of Africa, South America and Asia.
  I don't wanna end up at Scandinavian liberal socialism because it's currently electing fascists into government, and because it perpetuates the exploitation of the global south.
  
  Oh wow I'm shocked that this guy, of all people, doesn't like Finland. CRAZY.
- Or better yet, it's just fine having a plethora of different views on different individual topics and not subscribing to any particular ideology.
  
  Everything is an ideology my guy. Even apathy/indifference

Too bad the left has never had power in the US
Neoliberals don't want or allow things to improve

far ming: we're gonna need a couple cows

Libertarians: ME!!!

Swap far left and centrists. Don’t @me

Did the Putin Bots finally invade Lemmy?
- What does any of this have to do with Putin? You live in the west, with its own fascist leaders either in power (Trump, Italy, Finland) or getting into power (Germany, likely France, likely Spain), and you think all of the evil in the world comes from the evil barbarians of the east?

Issue is, we have more than one far-left and right, and often "radicalism" is conflated with "stupidity", thus some annoying liberals are getting called "far-left", such as Brianna Wu (watch Dead Domain's video on Brianna Wu, if you're not up to date on everything: the Israel bit is just the tip of the iceberg).

Let’s not confuse centrists with idgit voters.

The Far Left also commit hard to 2

I do believe these "" have fallen from around the word centrists

"guns are necessary and pronouns are confusing so I'm pretty sure you're both heading in the wrong direction"

Stalin was just trying to make sure everyone had enough. Everyone left alive at least.
- I known you're joking, but the USSR in Stalin's times (not Stalin personally) saved a hundred million lives in Europe by eliminating Nazism, which wanted to exterminate essentially every non-German between Berlin and the Urals. Life expectancy also doubled from 28 years of age to 55ish at the time of Stalin's death (it kept rapidly climbing after).
  Many excesses were made during the times of Stalin, and some 700k people died in the Gulags, but this needs the context that the Nazi invasion murdered 25 million Soviet citizens.

Everyone but me are stupid
- Somehow I seriously doubt that

far left: we're gonna exterminate entire social groups because they're impure
far right we're gonna exterminate entire social groups because they're impure
centrists: i literally cannot tell you two apart
- you fixed it
- The dumbest lemmy take I've read all day (that said, the day has just begun)
  The far left wants to exterminate a particular social group - capitalists - because it directly oppresses everyone else through violence. Depending on the flavor of leftism, extermination of a group doesn't have to mean extermination of individuals, rather it means the destruction of their social status and the redistribution of their wealth. The goal is self-defence: stop the literal physical violence through which the masses are kept poor & under control, through violence if necessary.
  The far right wants to exterminate all minorities. And in that case it does literally mean hanging black people in trees and setting gay couples on fire, physical destruction of marginalized individuals. The goal is to install an religious ethnostate.
  If you can't tell the two apart, you're literally the centrist from the OP meme

Well, far left happen to want exterminate groups as well pretty often. NGL, their ends are far much better than of far rights (if we assume communism is achievable and stuff), but they still don't justify the means.

They both lie and fail to achieve what they promise. Niether actually wants to do what they promise, they just want to use the promise and some symbolic actions to gain influence, money, and power. So yeah, in a lot of ways, they are the same. Neither is helping the people they are supposed to be serving.

- Just FYI, not everyone sees "having everyone basic needs met" as bullshit.
  
  Its not the premise of having everyones basic need met theyre calling bulshit on, its the politicians' claim that that is an objective they will actually try to enact.
- I know what you mean though. Some of the worthless dumbfucks who pass themselves off as being far left are just identity politics dipshits who think feminist media criticism is activism.
  In that sense, if someone were looking between far left (“Xeno pronouns are valid!”) and far right (“Build that wall!”) then it wouldn’t be ridiculous to say fuck both sides. That’s kind of the dilemma we’re in now.
  
  One person: "I have these views on gender and equality"
  Another person: "I want to put all immigrants into extermination camps"
  You: "damn bruh why are feminists SO ANNOYING!!!!"

These bullshit Twitter takes are getting old. This is a more realistic interpretation.
Far left: We're going to exterminate entire groups for the sake of "equality"
Far right: We're going to exterminate entire groups for the sake of "purity"
End result = A bunch of people get murdered
Centrists: These both look pretty bad, we just want people's needs to be met
End result = pragmatic governance
If you're someone who hates centrists because they're not as extreme as you then YOU are a part of the problem.
- TBH, I'm not seeing where the American far Left is advocating exterminating entire groups of people.
  
  The far left always claims to be the ideology of peace, but somehow far left regimes around the globe guided by far left ideologies hold THE highest death tolls in human history.

I was actually thinking about this yesterday. I'm something of a centrist.
Fascists want to exterminate their enemies, and the problem is that they are pretty good at it once they get into power.
Communists want to feed everyone, and the problem is that they're pretty bad at it once they get into power.
Both have caused plenty of deaths and misery, and both are in that way horrible, but I'd say that it's always better that your intention are good even if your ideas practically suck -- just as long as your intentions don't include fascist-adjacent harrowing shit like "let's kill all rich people and generally anyone who disagrees with us". There's at least a distinct possibility that at some point something can be improved in the way communism is implemented.
But obviously for fascists, there's no potential good ever. The only way fascism improves is when it becomes less fascist.
edit Damn, lots of either angry fascists or oblivious communists in here.

Hate to burst your bubble but far left sound and act like violent facists and helped pave the way for the far right. They do sound the same. It's the moderates that actually want everybody's needs met.
- People are so forcefed bullshit from their echo chamber watering holes that they really do believe it's just a right vs left war meanwhile billionaires are sipping their gold infused dom perignon on their yachts a few yards out to sea watching it all burn down.
- What are we considering far left in this scenario? I’m asking genuinely, because I think we can all acknowledge there are a handful of loonies on the far left, but I think you’re talking about me because I sometimes like to joke about being a dictator and executing right wingers.
  
  There is also a group of people who cannot take a joke but I mean the people who would scream/yell, shame you, criticize you or call you a Nazi just for having an opinion you don't agree with or so much as catching a whiff that you can't yet empathize with their problems. Threats and acts of violence.
  You know it's the youth that's tipping the voter's scales by in large because they're not able to rationalize other people's emotional damage including those of wing influencers and left wing doomers and blow hards.
  You agree? Do the work, or your the problem. Disagree? You're a Nazi. Wanna just live your life? Complicit Nazi.
  There's a thing in criminology called labelling theory. It transcends the idea of criminality. Combine this with a strong thrust of financial hardship and you start sinking ships
- Western countries: mass media and social media are all literally owned either by the pro-capitalist government or directly by capitalist companies, the latter being the wealthiest and most powerful institutions
  This lemmitor: "ItS tHe FeMiNiStS fAuLt ThAt ThE Far RiGhT wOn"
  
  You're putting words in my mouth when you know darn well it isn't the mass media or even the billionaires that are posting the influential content. They are complicit in the destruction they sew. I also said nothing about feminists. Check your own damage before you help make this worse

Is this referring to authoritarians on the left & right?
- ... what.
  Edit: Wait, why are you spamming the same broken markdown? Is it seriously just because you think you're trolling people by pretending to be AI? That's... really dumb.
  
  Horseshoe theory: far left & right look similar if far means authoritarian. Is OOP referring to that or a different kind of far?
  If your client is broken, that's on you: it renders fine as <details> & <summary> elements on standard web browsers with the standard theme. Follow the fediverse link in a web browser & weep at your broken client.

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