What's the most deranged political hot take you've ever seen?
Like the kind that made you stop and think for a second about how stupid the person advocating it is. For me, it's the classic "The biggest mistake in recent history was the Allies not pushing into Russia after the fall of Berlin."
There's just a level of imperialist arrogance and blood thirst in there that makes my skin crawl. The worst thing in human history was that the US didn't immediately betray the Soviets and wipe them out until they were sure communism was done for.
I just used the "social democracy is the left wing of fascism line" and the response was "well ackshually communism is the left wing of fascism and all the damn populists are spoiling our perfect social democracy" Completely braindead.
I'm sure I've heard a lot but one that stuck with me is "gunboat diplomacy and imperialism is good actually." From the same mouth a minute later: "the only reason the KMT lost [the fucking Chinese civil war] was because the US stopped giving them weapons. Communists are fundamentally incapable of accomplishing anything on their own."
Rather sure a large part of the problem was that KMT leadership enjoyed engaging in prostitution and booze. Not even Nazi support could save the incompetent fools. Any KMT cadre worth their salt wound up joining the CPC.
hmmm, the nuclear genocidal bloodthirst by Europeans and Americans? There's so many average people that think the only way of dealing with Russians, Chinese, Koreans is by nuking them to extinction. Ironically they don't see themselves as the problem.
I was discussing with a hardcore neo-liberal, almost to the degree of ancap about government and he pointed out, that when centralizing power thr rights of minorities are often overlooked, he said: "Suddenly 3% of the popultation just becomes a meaningless number that can just be sent to their death".
The next day, we were discussing about covid restrictions, where my point was simply, that individual freedoms don't count anymore, when there is harm to other. He simply responded with. "oh the 3% that are actually in danger when getting covid, can just stay inside, as if it was worth it restricting myself for them."
This is a subtle point throughout Hayek's writings. He's always expressing concern for minorities and at first it's like, I thought this guy was supposed to be a neoliberal? Then it slowly dawns on you: the only minority he cares about is the rich.
Don't tell people to read theory, you have to explain things in simple terms.
Marxist-Leninist ideas of revolution won't work with today's technology and economy.
How to tell someone you haven't even tried to read theory, and then criticise theory based on what you think the theory is, and encourage everyone around you to adopt the same choice of ignorance.
"Read Theory" is "Google It" for Communists. It's annoying and a little arrogant. Of course reading theory is good. But they're here for the social aspect. If you were sitting down with a friend for lunch, or talking to a coworker at work, and they asked a question about socialism, you wouldn't tell them to go to the library and rent a book, would you?
It is far better, I think, to be specific on the work of history or theory you're advocating for than to tell others to read a book/learn history/etc. Many such works are integral to destroying the braincage of, for instance, Amerikan exceptionalism.
In a hypothetical conversation wherein I am trying to dissuade someone from engaging in Amerika apologia, I would recommend Rogue State and Killing Hope by William Blum before anything else, while giving them my own thoughts and opinions regarding Amerika's crimes.
Were the issue, say, unconditionally defending the traditional family structure, I would cite Engels' The Origin of the Family. The necessity of the state and the banality of most "anarchism"? On Authority and Anarchism or Socialism? by comrade Ioseb. I would also direct that someone to read these works.
And other works, depending on specificity of issue and political learnedness of the individual being engaged with. If there is a point to my rambling, it's that literally saying "read theory", while potentially a funny (and fair) meme to throw at trolls and bad faith actors, doesn't do much for educating anyone. What theory? I think that's important.
We should be able to understand that theory and history well enough to put it into digestible reality for the working class, of course. But directing others to that theory only strengthens communism's presence in political thought. Those who become educated in said theory will tell others who will tell others. This is good.
And I guess, for honesty's sake and for anyone reading who potentially does the same, I have told others, in the past, to "read theory" without diving into specifics because I did not heed my own advice and thusly could not actually give them specifics. I was being hypocritcal in my posturing, at the time.
It's definitely important to read and understand. It's also incredibly important to treat others with empathy and as fully cognizant beings capable of rational thought, who when guided towards genuine education and not hit with directionless platitudes may actually change their understandings of the world. For the most part, anyway.
It's worth noting that no one expects you, the reader of this, to know everything, nor do you have to. We strive to learn as much as we can, and that is a worthwhile endeavor. Just as worthwhile is putting that knowledge into action.
Idk if this counts as a hot take but one of my coworkers got drunk as shit at the airbnb our group was staying at and he started ranting about how Jews and Spaniards mixed with Central Africans to create "high yellows" or some shit then complained about his elementary school having too many black people even though it was still majority white in a ritzy part of Atlanta. He also talked about how women are only good for fucking while being married and crying about his cheating wife. Dude clearly drove his first wife away right into the arms of a black guy
Oh yeah in a better society he would've been shot long ago. Unfortunately the Iraqis that blew a 50 cal barreta that split him open and his war buddy's head that he couldn't stop crying about didn't do it.
So my state, Washington, is expected to grow by 2 million people by the 2030s and our airport (SeaTac) is expected to grow too crowded to have as many one way destinations as it has right now.
A major Republican just put out an op ed saying that we need to build another airport, but nobody wants to live next to it. So to solve this, we need to plan a new 250k+ city and give it an airport. The level of NIMBYism we are entertaining is a planned economy to keep the landed folks rich.
Someone on the world of warships forums once advocated for the nuclear destruction of Northern China because he was malding about taiwan computer chips or something. Absolutely deranged.
Off the top of my head, the craziest thing I ever heard was a liberal on Twitter saying the US should call Russia’s bluff on the nukes and join in militarily with Ukraine. They were saying it’s better to not have an Eastern Europe or possibly world if it means Putin and Xi will be controlling it. It got a lot of attention and not as much hate as it deserved (obv people were calling them idiots but far fewer than any sane person would hope for)
I was at a prison abolition talk, and a kid I organize with was super argumentative with the speakers and just way out of line. He went so far as to use the term (likely in some kind of Freudian slip) "you people" to a panel of mostly black women. Just super weird and off putting.
So I talked to him after the panel event and I was telling him about what the abolition movement is and what it isn't. Like he gets cops are bad, how the state uses prisons for slave labor, all that. I was encouraging him to actually engage with the topic and consider these big concepts, but his take at the end was "prisons will be here to stay until every banker is behind bars".
Right like tons of other mechanisms that keep our capitalist global economy running (however janky) aren't centralized and facilitated by the state. I think AnCap types see the state as oppositional to them because they think it exists in spite of capital, not because of and exclusively for capital lol.
The guy I was talking about isn't a capitalist by any means but I think he definitely has a screw loose.
I think a multitude of hot takes fit, but I really dislike when liberals go after socialists for completely unrelated perceived flaws. Y'know, "Che was a homophobe", "literally every 19th century European Stalin was anti-semitic", "Gaddafi was misogynistic". Even if those accusations were completely true and not based on astroturfed rumours or ridiculously over-blown or taken out of context, what does that have to do with their views on capitalism? If it turned out that Karl Marx really fucking hated the Irish for no reason, would that make all his writing useless all of a sudden?
Cheating a bit, but I also had an acquaintance describe their near "Westminster MP" level salary for a remote job as "barely making it into the middle class", and that has been haunting me for months.
It is a simple one really: that imperialism brought civilization, technology, and relative prosperity to the natives (some youtube channel that "debunked" communism said this)
Sounds more or less like modernization theory, which is indeed absurd. Yet the empire's court economists and political scientists continue to write about it in an effort to make it seem serious and believable.
Britain EVEN WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE UNITED STATES would have been able to execute Operation Unthinkable and win due to Bomber Command and the British Navy alone. They also thought that they would save quote “10’s of millions of democratically aligned people, and German soldiers from dying in Russian Siberian Death Camps like Vorkuta, because seeing how awful it was inside a Gulag from CALL OF DUTY BLACK OPS 1 made them hate Russia.
This is a person who is an ex-friend of mine attending Princeton while studying foreign policy.
Had a guy (I guess a nazbol?) try and explain me that Ernesto Guevara was a national socialist. Like, openly so, just a nazi. I just started mocking him at that point.
I once had a coworker fucking uno reverso card me when he started talking some weird white Islamo-nationalist shit and then went onto some really racist tirade against black folk.
He kept talking about the need to defend ones' own people, so I brought up the Black Panthers and what they stood for, what they did in service to not only black people but for the people entirely. I told him they protected their own and that our state killed them for it.
He brought up Hitler. He said "just like Hitler, he was protecting his own"!
I don't even remember what I said after that, I was flabbergasted and almost certain we were both wasted.
Yeah, iirc he made mention of Farrakhan having some good ideas and having been inspired to read the Quran after getting out of prison. I made mention of Malcolm X and he said he'd look into him. Every time the question of fully blown segregation came up he 'Ahuhuah, I'm not like, totally racist or anything but you gotta admit that black people racist nonsense racist nonsense racist nonsense."
Something something black people for black people white people for white people, with extremely little interaction between them and like, 'peaceful coexistence' as separate ethnostates?
I think I remember pressing him quite a bit on shit, but he changed the subject when it became too critical or intense, and put up walls at certain points, "we've gotta defend our people" ??? who are our people? whites? Muslims? American whites only? Fuck, this shit is so incoherent. Defending 'our people' was a non-negotiable starting point.
Like I said, wasted, so I let it be and went on talking about our favorite cigarette brands or whatever. But I won't ever forget it, and I won't be so utterly stumped the next time I encounter political ideals in such eclectic and fucked up forms. That interaction inspired me to read the (an anglicized version of the) Quran, and as is common with religious texts -- especially the high quality poetry as seen in the Quran -- I found the meaning I wanted out of it, and that meaning was mostly quite lovely.
He, from my perspective, was projecting his fear and hatred onto Islam and the Quran and abusing them to solidify and justify his prejudices. He sought affirmation of his hate and he found it.
i do not know if this counts, but i have seen wild hottakes related to communism mentioned by you all, so might as well.
one time, an in-law talked with my dad, as i have mentioned to them that i have studied a bit of marxism and feminism in literature theory class.
the reactions were funny.
they said "oh my god are you brainwashed? marxism is satanic! i forgot why and i can't show a video about it, but it's satanic and evil" (they like jordan peterson which explains it all.) while my dad said "karl marx is german so he made nazism".
my dad's claim is especially funny as he lived during the communist era of my country.
i hear a ton of stupid stuff from my relatives, but this is my favorite
i remember in school, i was taught that gays should be put into concentration camps and Jewish people should he forcibly converted to Christianity. and there's still people that parrot that, every time i have the misfortune to use social media. :)
This sub conveniently forgetting about 200 years of Russian imperialism & going to bat for Russia in Ukraine. Like I know u guys don't like Western powers but countries shouldn't be able to conduct "special military operations" just because they're bigger than their neighbor.