Just recently, on the front page of reddit, I've seen a headline saying to cut off a cop's dick because he tasered someone (I believe it said 'take his badge and his manhood'), ACAB types have been threatening to kill cops, Reddit has doxxed the wrong people for major crimes, etc.
It's particularly ironic because the original justification for the quarantine (which was then edited) was for threatening violence against cops, specifically due to wanting to protect some lawmakers who fled from a vote on cap & trade from arrest.
Looking back, that really seems inconsistent with the number of front page ACAB posts threatening violence I've seen on the front page this month. I mean, either it's okay to threaten violence or not, pick one.
Then again, maybe they did, because they edited that out of the quarantine reason for r/T_D.
That person replaced gun with manhood implying that the person's manhood is derived from them power-tripping with weapons.
Threatening violence IN RESPONSE to violence is a far cry from INSTIGATING violence against peace.
One is defending yourself against bullying by standing up to it with comparable force. The other is bullying.
Is there nothing people like you won't "both side"?
That’s quite the convenient stretch. Pretty impressive how some people are amazing at reading subtext where non exists as long as it plays into their narrative.
> Threatening violence IN RESPONSE to violence is a far cry from INSTIGATING violence against peace.
I mean... police going after law makers isn’t exactly peaceful. But again, whatever fits your narrative is true and everything else is fakenews(TM).
So by that logic it was wrong for Twitter to sensor the President’s tweet regarding using force to stop vandals destroying monuments.
Wait, wasn't this the whole theme of the song "We didn't start the fire"?
2) An exceedingly large proportion of those statues were erected during exceedingly specific historical political climates, which generally feature the following:
>Having been well after the events or the deaths of the figures commemorated >During periods of economic decline or uncertainty >Following periods agitation for civil rights, particularly by black Americans, and the subsequent spasm of anti-black violence or political jostling
In other words, those monuments tend to represent oblique commemoration of racist violence, and seem to threaten future violence by their presence. Taking them down is not instigation, it's a response.
I mean, even without this context, how can one argue that the dismantling of an extant object is instigation? Its original erection would be the first act, courting a response of either general respect (it stays up) or general disdain/shame (it's taken down) over the course of its existence.
They don’t have to be the same thing. It’s illegal activity and we shouldn’t have to wait for a person to be physically injured to stop a mob of maniacs.
> 2) An exceedingly large proportion of those statues were erected during exceedingly specific historical political climates, which generally feature the following:
It doesn’t matter if it’s a statue of Krusty the Clown. You can’t destroy public or private property just because you feel it shouldn’t exist.
This is why we have police. To enforce the rules that we as a society have agreed to live by.
The alternative is a bunch of vigilantes beating the rioters. I can assure you that nobody wants that.
> In other words, those monuments tend to represent oblique commemoration of racist violence, and seem to threaten future violence by their presence. Taking them down is not instigation, it's a response. I mean, even without this context, how can one argue that the dismantling of an extant object is instigation? Its original erection would be the first act, courting a response of either general respect (it stays up) or general disdain/shame (it's taken down) over the course of its existence.
Then get public opinion to agree with you and have the city, State, or Federal government to get rid of them. Your misguided feelings, no matter how strong, do not supersede all others just because they’re not yelling loudly.
It doesn't work.
Protests and destruction may work.
You are showing that you are more committed to order than to justice, because it benefits you.
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
A similar sentiment is commonly expressed by far left individuals and groups on Twitter, Facebook and other mediums.
"the only good Tory is a dead Tory" has been the popular refrain for decades.
It's depressing these sentiments are carelessly amplified and approved by so many.
Edit: Apparently this has caused a stir. I encourage others to not read into this comment anything but disdain for the kind of discourse where "the one good BLANK is a dead BLANK" is accepted.
Not only is "The only good Tory is a dead Tory" not a popular refrain at all [1], but a quick search for "The only good Republican is a dead Republican" returns a lot of hits for the "[...] dead Democrat" quote and almost none for the search phrase.
These attempts at false equivalence reliably appear in these situations, and there's reliably nothing to back them up.
The difference is the right is trying very hard to move the Overton Window and make "[...] dead Democrat" an acceptable mainstream sentiment suitable for national news.
[1] You certainly won't hear it from any left-leaning MPs or in Labour constituency meetings. And if that weren't true, recordings would be all over the media.
Relevant Google autocomplete for "the only good ...":
The only good cop is a dead one
The only good pig is a dead pig
The only good fascist is a very dead fascist
Nothing there referring to liberals/progressives/Democrats.
I also gave it "the only good c..." to see if it would give up "conservative" and it gave "christian" instead, so there's that.
About the dead cops and dead fascists... sure I’ll admit to that. However that is very much not the same. Fascism is an ideology that is a direct threat to a large number of people’s livelyhoods. To declare militant intentions against such an ideology of hate is a matter of self defense. The same applies to cops (albeit to a lesser extent).
Libertarians with philosophical disagreements with Christians are perfectly entitled to them. "Libertarians" who murder Christians are, by definition, not actually libertarians. See also non-aggression principle etc.
Also of note, libertarians are not "left" or "right" -- see that political compass thing they're always using -- because "left" is economic restraints with social freedom while "right" is economic freedom with social restraints and libertarian is both economic and social freedom.
Christianity is quite pro-social restraint, which is adverse to both the left and libertarians, but the libertarian position is something like "you can believe whatever you want but don't pass any laws forcing it on others." Which, of course, becomes a conflict if the Christians want to pass laws forcing it on others. But ask a Democrat what they think about a law prohibiting contraception.
> Fascism is an ideology that is a direct threat to a large number of people’s livelyhoods.
There is another thread in here about how there aren't that many real communists in the US and the people who get described as such aren't literally communists. You could easily say the same thing about fascists.
Opposing fascism is very different than opposing "fascism" while defining it as anything to the right of Bill Clinton.
Right libertarianism has an antitrust problem -- if the state establishes corporations and enforces property rights then corporations can become powerful enough to be de facto governments. Left libertarianism solves it by deleting property rights, which of course has its own drawbacks.
A middle ground that might work is to allow humans to own property but not corporations, because the largest accumulations of capital have always taken corporate form.
Obviously the non-purist can also solve it by having government-enforced antitrust laws.
I didn't/wouldn' claim we would hear it from left-leaning MPs.
This is muddled by one particular incident with a video Trump posted. Searching the "democrats" phrase in quotes gives 160,000 results. Searching it with -trump -president gives only 4,000 results, and even then some (maybe most) of those results still seem to be about the incident (but spelling his name as "Dump" for example).
In my experience edgy calls for violence are indeed more common from the right than from the left, but this is a bad way to try to measure it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-...
The anti-gun, peace-loving left may not be the most polite online, but they emphatically are not as violent. Not by a long shot.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is either uninformed or lying through their teeth to push an agenda.
What’s your evidence that left wing violence exceeds right wing?
By the by, a lot of the “left wing” violence recently was caused by right wing militia “boogaloo” people.
https://www.salon.com/2020/06/17/far-right-boogaloo-boy-kill...
Organizations change.
In the same way that just because the democratic party has a horribly racist history doesn’t make the current party horribly racist.
> By the by, a lot of the “left wing” violence recently was caused by right wing militia “boogaloo” people.
The “boogaloo” are a conspiracy theory.
Which is more believable:
1) A far-left wing group that has been around for decades and part of many violent protests across Europe and has branches in the US is involved in another set of left wing violent protests.
Or
2) A right wing group that nobody has heard of and doesn’t seem to be associated with any of the exisiting far-right movements has deeply infiltrated left wing protests and is causing trouble.
Since I’m partial to conspiracy theories (2) might be possible if it’s actually the feds.
I posted a link to a reputable news source. The right wing militias are well known, and the “boogaloo” has been well documented.
You have presented no evidence whatsoever.
Who is the far left wing group you speak of? These folks? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism
I’m on their side, 100%. You?
Were there riots along with the protests? Because there are now.
> I posted a link to a reputable news source. The right wing militias are well known, and the “boogaloo” has been well documented.
Can you show me a reputable news source with an exposé on them before 2019? I can for example with other far right groups like the proud boys.
> I’m on their side, 100%. You?
I’m not on Antifas side - I don’t condone political violence.
There is also no organic 'Boogaloo movement'. The general consensus inside right wing circles (chans & discord) is that the MSM here attempts to create a bogeyman out of thin air to explain away the intrinsic violence of the racial BLM movement and these revolutionary 'Antifa' types. exercising the cognitive dissonance of "violence is the language of the unheard" and "all violence is a right-wing militia 'false-flag' attack".
The overwhelming opinion (inside those right wing circles) is that it isn't necessary to do anything at all, for the Marxist Left is shooting their own knee by showing their true face through wanton violence, riots and the excesses of 'cancel-culture' witch-hunts, for which deplatforming is the 'dog-whistle'
The credo is:
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." — Napoleon Bonaparte
I haven't followed British politics much. The only thing I can find for your popular refrain is
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-47853588
Could you provide some sources?
- https://www.facebook.com/theonlygoodtoryisadeadtory/
- https://old.reddit.com/r/northernireland/comments/e9dlk8/a_g...
- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/04/my-husb...
- https://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/news/bath-news/bath-man-unde...
- https://twitter.com/killallt0ries
- http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=1190
I have to say, I'm saddened that bringing this up has caused such a fuss and has caused others to make assumptions on my position. That these sentiments are common is not a new development but it is depressing.
*US centric view only, don't know enough about European politics to have an informed opinion.
It wasn't a place that was about conservative views, or a political party or politician ... it was mostly just fear, hate, and lies.
And for a place with lots of defenders crying out over censorship, any wiff of a differing opinion in their sub was met with a ban...
From Reddit:
https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/acc...
> Marginalized or vulnerable groups include, but are not limited to, groups based on their actual and perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or disability. These include victims of a major violent event and their families.
> While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.
But you went through all of that and verified your email. Now you are reporting it is full of [insert trending bad words]. Are you part of that community? A reporter?
Were there any upvotes on comments you approved of?
Edit: it’s currently going direct to a login screen. That’s not normal.
I am mystified by how often I see the opinion that "T_D did nothing wrong". Speaking as someone who also finds the far-left spaces on Reddit frightening and repugnant, there is no question that T_D was among the worst of the lot and had the most mainstream reach, which makes it a fine target for responsible moderation efforts. If you want to question why Reddit doesn't follow their content policies to the letter in perfectly even-handed moderation across all users and subreddits, that's fine, but the claim that T_D didn't have a serious penchant for calling for and glorifying violence kind of makes it difficult to take that question seriously coming from you.
I am not surprised you a using a throwaway to defend this.
>Consequences may include social sanctions and violent reactions.
>exercise your right to free speech (which is your right)
Orwell wasn't describing an ideal or inevitable way of thinking, but the result of brainwashing.
Now. When people say that free speech only applies to government restrictions, they're talking strictly in the context of U.S. laws and the First Amendment. Surely we should never consider the possibility that freedom of expression is a concept that predates the United States by centuries and which could possibly live in a grander moral context.
This is a false assessment. The fundamental government-blind right to speech does not include a right to group inclusion. There's nothing contradictory about you having the right to speak while other people also have the right to sanction you for spreading hateful (or in this case sophistrous) bullshit. After all, social sanctions are also a form of speech.
This comes up in all kinds of ways. It's not contradictory to have moral rules against violence while also allowing self defense or group defense. It's not contradictory to have moral rules against stealing while also allowing recovery of stolen property or government redistribution of wealth as a requirement for participation in the benefits of society. And it's not contradictory to have moral rules in favor of speech and against hate while also allowing the community to punch a nazi in the face for being a nazi.
There it is again. Yes, it absolutely is contradictory to proclaim that you support freedom of expression while threatening to punch someone in the face when you disagree with their ideas!
> Less well known [than other paradoxes Popper discusses] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Emphasis mine, obviously. For the most part, political extremists in America don't seem to be at the "fists and pistols" point—at least, they generally are not actively committing violence—but they have certainly denounced rational argument by their conduct and the rhetorical strategies they employ. A liberal society needs an active and healthy immune system to prevent pockets of radical illiberalism from growing unchecked.
I'm not necessarily in favor of punching "Nazis" in the face yet, if they haven't started the violence first, but Nazism is toxic and so is the inclination to treat all opinions as equally valid. Such opinions should certainly not be allowed by e.g. any responsible operator of a social media platform.
.. but what stops me from calling you a Nazi if I personally don't like you? You can take a few steps away. Someone can say something, and a response can be, "the logic of this argument is Nazism." I've seen this argued (badly). Now are we in scope yet?
And if someone wears a red tie (or a MAGA hat), does that then bring them in that sphere? And if so, if that represents the views of, I don't know, 40% of the population, is it wise to censor that? I mean, is it even practical, morality aside?
Let's add them to the list. OK, we get the red hats. Now, someone says something that support police? OK, good, we found more Nazis. OK, now, someone criticizes feminism ... etc. etc.
The circle of verbal hygiene slowly expands, and it comes for you eventually.
For instance, after 2020 so far I'm definitely at the point where I have serious doubts about the judgment of any Trump supporter or even any Republican voter, but if they try to have a real conversation with me it's not like I'm going to start yelling and throwing punches. On the other hand, if they're driving around outside a hospital screaming at nurses and threatening them, I'd be more in favor of "sanctions" against that person because I think that sort of conduct goes beyond mere expression. The right seems to delight in conflating violence and threat with free expression.
Illiberalism seems to be winning, unfortunately. The purity spiral crap on the left is just as upsetting to me as the right's zeal for ignorance, even if I don't think it's doing nearly as much damage right now.
That's why I'm terrified and why I want to support freedom of expression. Because if we start classifying ideas as "problematic" and shutting people out, then what is remaining to iron out differences? You can say a chess match (that might be interesting), but the truth is it'll be a shoving match or a gunfight.
I see a rise of an illiberal mob from both right and left, and they share in common the idea that the other side is completely irreconcilable. But it's not. They also agree that somehow the other side's ideas are dangerous (the ideas themselves). It just feels that way because social media -- back on topic here since we are on a Silicon Valley news site -- exacerbates these differences.
This is to me the biggest reason that I support freedom of expression. Because "stamping out ideas" doesn't exist. It's a fiction. You don't "defeat racism" or "defeat Nazism" by shutting down media. Ideas are behind these things, and the ideas are held by humans. Humans continue to want to express those ideas. Those humans will go elsewhere, and they continue to exist.
Even worse. People are going to vote for whoever they want to vote for, and the ballot is secret, so they don't have to tell you. So why not just foster an environment where everyone can express their ideas and there are no Problematic ideas? First you get to see what a lot of people think, in their own words and not in the words of those that agree with you. Second, there's a chance, even if it's a low one, of challenging those ideas with your own ideas.
Spamming, doxxing and violent threats aren't considered freedom of expression by almost anyone, and are rarely defended on moral grounds. I'm talking purely about ideas.
An example from the left, this time: a year or two ago, an Asian woman (Amelie Wen Zhao is her name, IIRC) wrote a YA novel whose premise involved a) a completely imaginary society based more on an Asian cultural background than anything else, and b) human enslavement. She was attacked by a disgusting social media mob hailing from the YA "community", who used both covert (backchannels/"whispernet") and overt (calling her a racist on Twitter and whipping up a controversy, apparently without actually having read her book) means of attack, justified because (according to them) slavery as a topic/theme in literature is reserved for black authors. These attacks were so violent in their extremism that at the time I swore up and down they were mostly "Russian bots", and I still don't know.
Anyway, I'm not black, nor Asian^[1], but this just seems crazy to me. She did initially delay the publication of her book and could easily have canceled it entirely. This is what I mean by shouting down ideas. I (an amateur novelist) see a lot of forum posts from new writers asking what they can and cannot write about, worried about exactly what happened to Zhao—how many great stories have gone untold because of this insanity?
I think this effect manifests a bit differently on the conservative side—they simply refuse to acknowledge the truth or directly address arguments, and this codes as strength to people who share their ethic. I mean, I think extremists on the left do this too, but I feel like righties are more comfortable with this aspect of their nature, less concerned with virtue signaling and more with active expression of antisocial values (e.g. "rolling coal" on cyclists is funny, ha ha).
So, again, I do think we mostly agree. But how would you suggest we foster an environment where these illiberal mobs don't have power, without censoring/censuring them and their speech somehow? This seems really important, because by their nature these groups seem to be the most interested in gathering and holding on to power over the discourse.
^[1] I capitalize 'Asian' because it's derived from the name of a continent. I doubt I'll ever capitalize 'white', because why would I? and I'm not on board with 'Black' yet either, just from a linguistic point of view. I mean no disrespect by it, and I'd love to hear arguments as to why I should drop that capital B in there, because I'm sure this is going to get me in trouble more and more going forward. But so far (and yes, I've done some reading) I'm not convinced.
So try to throw them in the ocean. At least you're honest. But please, please don't say that you support freedom of expression. What you say, if you want to be honest, is, I support physically stopping these individuals. I want to stamp out these individuals. Not the ideas, the people. Be honest and say those things out loud. "I want to eliminate the evil people."
Of course, a rational person might respond and say, "Wait a second, who decides that this person said that <blank> are less than?" What if someone is interpreting it that way, only. The controversy is playing out at this very moment all over the place. We're accusing people who are saying ambiguous, or sometimes nuanced things. Sometimes you can go back and say, wait a second, I don't think this is what this person was trying to say at all. Other times you can say, I don't think, for example, JK Rowling was correct, but I don't think what she said was remotely hate speech at all.
>You absolutely do by shutting them down at every turn, because those ideas don't spawn en masse on their own. Those ideas are spread, and they only spread because people with libertarian "every voice is sacred" positions don't immediately stamp them out.
That's why, as a Left person who clings to classical Western ideals of liberty, I consider that your position is extreme and scary, and to be fought against in any way humanly possible. Sentences like that reek of a dangerous totalitarian impulse. "The end justifies the means."
> Let's see. So on one side you have people who are willing to get violent because they want within their lifetimes for everyone to have healthcare and a roof over their head and food to eat and equal pay and to not have to worry about nazis and they're angry that some people actively obstruct liberty, equality, and fraternity...and on the other side you have rampant ethnic, gender, or economic bigotry including real actual nazis...and your answer is "both sides". I mean...ok...that's one perspective.
I appreciate your honesty.
My only response is, I think you should read about Revolution and its excesses. I've just finished A Tale of Two Cities. It's about the Guillotine. There are many such tragic tales, and sane people don't want them repeated. No moral high ground is a justification for tyranny.
I feel your perspective is an invitation for tyranny.
I would eliminate people who publicly espouse the domination of me and/or people I care about for the crime of being black/jewish/queer/women/caring/etc, not because of anything about them intrinsically, not, say, for being white, though they mostly are, but for being the kind of person who espouses the domination of me and/or people I care about for our color/genitals/love. You trying to equalize the sides of that is extremely...telling.
You mean physical violence. Physical violence is not the only kind of violence. It seems common for people in the "nazis get to talk too" camp to forget or ignore that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse for starters.
https://www.who.int/violenceprevention/approach/definition/e... - "This typology distinguishes four modes in which violence may be inflicted: physical; sexual; and psychological attack; and deprivation."
It's nonstandard and confusing and shall always remain as such.
Threatening someone by punching them in the face or social ostracism (which can range from discomfort to job loss) is a restriction of freedom of expression. That today people can talk about that casually while in the same breath saying that they support freedom of expression is deeply disturbing. "You don't HAVE to hand over your money to me right now. But, hey, there might be consequences..." - no one would argue that this coercion and a robbery. But "If you say the wrong thing there might be consequences in your job or life" is somehow getting a free pass.
Yes it is, indeed. I'd be quite OK with banning subreddits because of repeated use of memes about punching nazis with reference to Trump supporters.
Which subreddits, specifically, did you have in mind? Can you provide links?
I don't consider myself required to provide an overview of all the subs on a platform if I'm talking about group's actions and why that would be undesirable in the context of an moderated platform.
More specific to reddit:
When it came to TD they spoke of it openly and clearly on their own sub for a time, it was no mystery, same goes for calls for violence, racism, and etc.
I certainly saw users from TD claim that anything they saw as voting going differently than they wanted as brigading... the plot line of them being perpetual victims on reddit and in life was consistent and applied to everything.
Back to my point, who wants to be exposed to that kind of behavior when you're looking for a community to interact with?
An individual can migrate a forum without any assistance. Not denying that The_Donald was a community, just saying that the migration of content is not evidence of the extent to which something is a community.
> And yet Reddit happily ignores vote brigading and other negative externalities from any subreddit that toes their party line, so it seems bizarre to single T_D out.
Except T_D literally was not singled out. CTH was also banned, along with approximately 2000 subreddits.
> "we're fishing for a made up reason that lets us boot you guys"
Reddit has listed "communities that promote hate" as a reason to ban subreddits for at least 5 years. Not sure how this is "fishing for a made up reason."
There's plenty of right-leaning subreddits. What set The_Donald apart was how close it sailed to being outright cultishly crazy.
But beyond that I've seen lefty subs banned as well, for the same reasons regarding violence and etc.
Edit (since I can't reply): r/politics is American liberalism, which is centrist.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Presiden...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia...
"Largest far-left frequently rule-breaking sub" is a more useful designation.
As op said: “ Edit (since I can't reply): r/politics is American liberalism, which is centrist.”
I don’t care about being that specific. Just don’t call it left wing.
Your bias is really showing in your second paragraph. So it’s not about rule breaking repeatedly like many subreddits including I bet /r/politics? There’s a certain frequency with which it has to occur? I Highly doubt that guideline has been followed consistently.
* equal rights for all people independent
of ethnic origin, skin color, gender or
religion
* public transit
* universal access to health care
* affordable higher education
* affordable housing
* or even wealth redistribution via taxes,
for example via welfare or a guaranteed
minimum income
* collectivization of the means of production
For example, many groups that advocate the dissolution of the nuclear family or sexual revolution have a communist origin. Why? Because it is an act of social engineering that aims to strengthen the power of the state by isolating individuals and creating a dependence on the state in various ways (the promotion of sexual license and various depravities also takes the old Augustinian[0] observation and turns it on its head, using such things to blind and enslave the populace). There is historical precedent for this as well in places like the Soviet Union. Pavlik Morozov comes to mind[1].
A great timely example is BLM. If you visit the BLM website and read their mission statement, it reads like something straight out of a Marxist handbook. This is no accident. The founders of BLM are indeed committed Marxists (they've been open about it) and routinely celebrate Marxist criminals like Assata Shakur who is wanted by the FBI. BLM is hardly the only organization that does this. It suffices to note the influence Saul Alinsky has had on many on the left including many prominent people on the left. The community organizing tactics outlined in books like "Rules for Radicals" are nothing more than revolutionary tactics that are used to transfer power to oneself.
(Incidentally, much of what we're seeing is class conflict masquerading as racial conflict.)
[0] “Thus, a good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but what is worse, as many masters as he has vices.”
There is some history to that and I think this criticism was directed at family structures in Germany and other countries around the start of the last century. People today probably could not imagine anymore, but children at the time would have never even thought about disagreeing with their parents. They had complete authority. My grandmother didn't talk much about the time, but as she grow older, she often described the situation of her growing up.
So the critique was very warranted at the time and certainly for quite a while after the war until the sexual revolution. These structures don't exist anymore today aside from a irrelevant periphery, but the talking points remained the same. A revolution won't come anymore since the goals were already reached.
Doesn't mean there cannot be additional empty promises.
A lot of critique of nuclear family is talking specifically about family where kids are raised by parents and how that is unfair to kids who weren't so lucky with good parents. In the early soviet union, some of more radical revolutionaries wanted to just put all kids into foster homes to ensure a fair start for everybody. And prevent non-state-mandated ideas from finding a way from parents to kids. Intra-generational legacy is a touchy topic as well.
By the way, I'm not American and my birth certificate says I was born in USSR.
Even if there are any (and there probably is, given the number of people in America), more importantly, they certainly hold zero political power and have no sway in any but tiny, niche political discussion.
These days, "Communist" is more likely to used by a conservative commentator in bad faith when trying to lazily vilify their opponent (communism has a bad rep in mainstream American politics since the cold war) than to actually refer to a bona fide communist. See also: "socialist".
The reason is that people view him as having ulteriour motives beyond his stated ones.
Everyone is for affordable housing, so being in favour of that has no political bearing. But there are different proposed solutions to that. Putting a wealth cap of $10 million is a very communist-like solution, and I don't think it's unfair to describe the subs were those views are predominant as socialist or communist leaning.
And his multiple criminal/civil findings of guilt for discrimination against black people and minorities in his real estate businesses?
I'm going to take a guess that _that_ may be why people call racist, not because he "advocates for bringing jobs back home" (while happily continuing to move / keep his own production in China and Asia).
I'm trying to say that the person I responded to is basically strawmaning. No one says that giving affordable housing is necessarily communist. But instead the particular solutions are.
Conservatives want affordable housing too--they just think that other solutions are better.
It's a common argumentative fallacy. If you don't support my solution, you must be against the problem.
If it's fair game to say that Trump's immigration policy has ulterior motives (basically he doesn't want brown people in the country) I think it's fair (maybe not true, but fair game) to say that people who want to tax wealth are communist or communist leaning.
This is actually a popular view in wider reddit.
Of course this is all anecdotal. Of course I can't give you any numbers, just gut feeling I got there.
This is my understanding at least.
The people throwing around "Communist" in public are conservatives rallying around a mythical memory of the TV version of America circa 1960, before "they" came and ruined everything.
The "they" may be: hippies, liberals, new dealers, big government advocates, black people, women, etc.
Remember the core demographic watching TV and listening to radio is old and getting older. "Communist" evoked "Soviet Union" (aka the main enemy), and that association sticks. The problem is that the demographic that gives a hoot about the Soviets is aging out, so now we're stuck with the next generation, who tends to be more explicitly focused on contemporary grievances.
Do you have evidence for this, or is it just your gut feeling?
Users of The_Donald regularly got away with behavior that got other communities wiped off of Reddit entirely.
FTFY.
So much of what the left says is perceived as hate by the right.
Remember this every now and again when you're correcting others, because you might be wrong.
I think he/she did. I think you just don't realize how transparent your attempt at emotional 'Framing'[1] was.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology)
This implies the Reddit ban is directed toward TD specifically, which it’s not. This is Reddit taking a long-term stance on what type of content they want on their platform. To sit here and downplay its importance is a predictable talking point and just as depressing.
It's hard to take that "long-term stance" seriously when they basically make policies up as they go along. Now they're telling us that they want to make the site free of hate against identifiable groups - except if that group is in the majority, then the policy doesn't apply and it's 100% okay to whip up hate against them! Yay nihilists and misanthropes, I guess? Isn't that a bit ludicrous?
Which subreddits do you think they should have banned, specifically? What is the "party line", exactly, that these subreddits "toed" to get themselves out of enforcement?
Look, I mean obviously Reddit's moderation isn't always going to be fair. Moderation never is. It can't be. Nonetheless T_D spent four years as a cesspool before they pulled the plug. I mean really, did you read it? If anything, they were protected by virtue of being a policical fan group of the POTUS.
To put it in perspective, spez is a right-wing libertarian who fought to keep r/Jailbait alive because it was the most visited subreddit at the time, despite it being a subreddit for posting suggestive pictures of minors.
The constantly see right wing people complaining about some massive number of left-wing subs that are breaking the rules but I've never ever seen any actual proof of that. Care to provide some links? Meanwhile I have seen T_D doing it consistently for years and the amount of leeway reddit has given them has been huge. The only left-wing sub that I can think of was chapotraphouse and that's gone now as well.
Bunch of hypocrites.
It was very clearly a real community, as you can see evidence from the fact that they migrated to thedonald.win when Reddit made it clear that they wouldn't be treated fairly.
> So you'd be in your other community and one day they all show up and down votes and the vitriol begins... it was no mystery that this happened, it was spoken of openly in The_Donald for a time.
> Who wants to deal with that?
And yet Reddit happily ignores vote brigading and other negative externalities from any subreddit that toes their party line, so it seems bizarre to single T_D out. And as far as I know that wasn't the reason Reddit gave, rather they said something about supporting violence which in my opinion was a pretty clear "we're fishing for a made up reason that lets us boot you guys"