The only thing I'm proud of when looking at gen Z is that they are completely unwilling to go to war for the military complex and giving their life fighting a battle where they have nothing to gain but everything to lose. That's way smarter than my generation or the baby boomers ever were.
They're not even good allies. They're busy shooting American citizens and selling US military technology to hostile powers. But I guess the end times needs Israel to begin so 50% of our politicians will mindlessly bootlick Israel and 40% of the rest are spineless cretins who think bipartisanship means 'compromise, always'.
I love the smell of minority&meek soap in the morning. Then I remember I'm a right wing catholic white man with privileges and I use them by shooting some jets of fire with my pocket flamethrower from the fully open window of my monster truck while on the way to the usual grill with the boys, as my god intended ;)
Right?! When I posted it, I was making a statement about enlightened centrism and not even thinking about the Gaza situation. Instead of genocide you can insert any morally abhorrent thing that should not be tolerated. But I get why people think it's related, it's on everyone's mind. Thank you for noticing though.
Are you 'murican? I don't think the rest of the world agrees on any of the US's "definitions" of left, right and liberal. From a European POV, the US democrats are really, really far to the right. Sanders might be leaning toward the center. The republicans are a strange mixture of libertarian regarding economical matters and very very right-wing/intrusive on personal matters. Whenever someone even mentions/comments other people's sexual orientation and identity I automitcally assume they are creep that wants to sniff other people's bedsheets. How can you be partly libertarian and also creepily nazi-intrusive? US-republican invention I can't wrap my head around, that is.
that has nothing to do with the ideology of centrism itself and would be ridiculous to even pretend so.
it has to do with the complexity of the situation, and more specifically for everyone supporting Israel, having to do with maintaining country relations moreso than the edit: humanist ideals unfortunately.
Well, back when Steinmeier was our foreign minister and toured poor countries to advertise Germany as the land of opportunity and wealth because corporations wanted slaves they don't have to pay properly, I was called a Nazi by many for saying that they won't find any opportunity or wealth in Germany. Our government never had the well-being of immigrants in mind, they just stuffed them into dilapidated "refugee camps", told them their education is insufficient and left them to rot. I am not surprised.
there's no agreed definition of echo chamber though.
It is an echo chamber to say "murder is bad" "CSAM is bad" "rape is bad" - as 99.99% of people, when pushed, will agree those things are bad, echoing each other verbatim.
How often do you see these views in daily media? Cause I see right-wing rhetoric that's pretty fucked up on TV and in newspaper and on the streets. but I only see tankies in the most forgotten corners of the internet.
If social "media" falls under daily media, then I see it all the time. Go on X. Or Reddit. Or Instagram.
or TikTok. It's not hard to find some pretty radical leftist opinions in popular spaces nowadays, and like most spaces centered around radical ideology, you'll get some genocide deniers in the mix.
I never really got the whole "leftists voices not being heard" schtick. There are tons of leftist flavored crazies online, and they tend to be very vocal, just like the right wing crazies.
I don't see tankies/red-browns are leftists. Ultimately they overwhelmingly support authoritarian dictatorships, and that just doesn't feel very lefty for me
Well left/right isn't authoritarian/libertarian, it's collectivist economics/individualist economics.
Authoritarians with collectivist ideals are authoritarian leftists, i.e tankies,
Libertarians with collectivist ideals are libertarian leftists i.e anarchocommunists,
Authoritarians with individualist ideals are authoritarian right, i.e monarchism,
Libertarians with individualist ideals are libertarian right, i.e anarchocapitalism.
Of course there are more examples of ideologies for each quadrant with varying levels of "auth-lib" or "left-right," but just to give you some idea of the differences. There's also auth-lib centers, like National Socialists on the auth side and agorists or anarchoprimativists on the lib side.
Of course judge all of the above groups to your own accord, but it isn't as simple as "left means libertarian" unless you think anarchocapitalism is a leftist ideal, which it by definition isn't.
It would be a mistake to characterize this as a left/right issue. That's a classic pattern for drawing up support for inhumane policies, telling "the right" that "the left" wants something and that therefore they should oppose it. This is a basic issue of lives vs. deaths, human rights vs. an oppressive fascist regime, don't allow it to be reframed in these other ways that distort it.
The Great Compromiser is an example that comes to mind, a guy who's crowning achievement is negotiating still preserving and even expanding slavery to avoid a war that ended up happening anyways just a few decades later.
All he actually achieved was preventing the Union from having an even larger lead against the secessionists given that the cotton gin industrial complex hadn't come fully online to give the south the capital it later put towards betraying their fellow citizens in the name of continuing to own people.
Americans are split on whether Israel’s response has been excessive (50% agree, 50% disagree), Democrats are more likely to agree (62%) than Republicans (30%)
That is to say that 70% of Republicans believe that a bombing campaign that has killed 12,000 of innocent civilians including thousands of children is not excessive. The parody isn't far from truth.
Americans are split on whether Israel’s response has been excessive (50% agree, 50% disagree), Democrats are more likely to agree (62%) than Republicans (30%) and 76% say that Israel is doing what any country would do in response to a terror attack and taking of civilians hostages – a majority of Democrats (77%) and Republicans (83%) agree here. However, two in three (68%) of respondents also agree with the statement that "Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate."
TBH, even 30% of Republicans saying it's excessive is remarkable, considering the bullshit FOX has been serving up since Oct 7.
These polls record responses to specific questions. The response indicates their agreement with a specific question, and typically they cover a range of related questions so that you get a picture of sentiments on each one.
By the way, the link includes a PDF version of the non-summarized findings, which are more informative:
That many people not thinking what's going on is "excessive" is a disturbing statistic of course, but that's a second discussion. I reckon it's mostly the people who aren't seeing footage from on the ground.
Is that such a wrong position to have when the questions are as starkly "respect human rights or don't respect human rights" as most issues are in today's conversation? This isn't a discussion on the minutia of how much money should be allocated to transit subsidy, this is "should the queers be allowed to exist?" and "should women have rights?" and "do parents have the right to ruin their child's life just because they're the parent?"
If you really think there's a middle ground there, either you're a fucking idiot, or you actually don't and you're just trying to pretend you do because you know your actual answer is morally indefensible unless you ascribe to a world view that has no business being respected in a democratic rights respecting society.
The holocaust was a genocide, but there are still jews left in the world. Not for the lack of trying, but Hitler was stopped, so you can definitely do a partial genocide.
Genocide is the attempted destruction of a group of people. If you only kill one person, but it was part of some supervillain plot to kill everyone, it's still genocide, you just failed at it.
Lets be honest with ourselves, half of the left is in support of the genocide happening is gaza. have seen this in both US left. and just as much in German, UK, Dutch left parties. only the French left has somewhat of a push back against that, France seems to be the only western country to still have genuine left factions among its left parties.
The Spanish center-left is re-positioning itself denouncing Israel's actions after years of ambivalence, and the Spanish left is calling for sanctions.
Jesus Christ this has been disproven so many times. No just because the people that push politics that are often to the left of most European democracy's main left leaning party are old white farts too does not mean that they're a secret center right pretending to call themselves a left leaning party.
ALL the left parties in the back a ceasefire and The Green Party calls for an end to the occupation. Labour are more right wing than the Conservatives when David Cameron was elected. There are left MPs still in the Labour, many have been fired or have quit.
I can't call Labour a left party in all good faith. it has been taken over by the blairites. Corbyn brought hope to the left movement, but he was run over by the fifth column of his own party. just like the US the UK is stuck in a two party system controlled by billionaires, hedge funds and the military-industrial complex
I once asked the hexbear community why they are pro-genocide against their "opponents" and got called Hitler when I didn't think it was reasonable to commit genocide at all.
From my point of view it's the extremists on both left and right that is the biggest problem.
The leftists looks at right extremists and think to themselves that the entire right-wing is like that. Same goes for people on the right. They look at what the leftist extremists do and then argue that it's how people on the left think and act.
But just like all of life, politics is not black and white. Just because I agree with the left more than the right that does not mean I agree with the entire leftist politics.
I'll bite. Most of what I see here in this thread against Centrism or Independents is bad strawman arguments consisting of:
“There are three types of people: reasonable people who agree with me, crazy fascists, and lily-livered wimps who can’t pick a side (and are also fascists)!”
If someone says that they are “centrist” they are not telling you that they base all of their opinions on being dead center in the middle of any two positions. That would be stupid.
They are telling you that they agree with neither major party on everything, and find that both parties have views that they don’t agree with. It’s pretty easy to come to that conclusion because the US two-party system packs in an almost incoherent mishmash of beliefs into exactly two sides.
There is absolutely no contradiction in being for police reform, and against riots lasting for days. There is no contradiction in being for gun rights, while also wanting massive limits on them. There is no contradiction in wanting functional government services and universal healthcare, and thinking that free markets are effective to an extent. There is no contradiction in wanting a more balanced budget, and government services to be funded properly.
The idea that there are only two (or maybe 2.5 depending on where you live) sides in politics is a strange delusion created by your two party system.
The reason the meme creator is running into situations like this is because they don’t witness the Centrist also vehemently argue with right-wing policies frequently.
They only see them argue with them and therefore have a skewed view of Centrists / Independents and their politics. If you are left wing, and argue for left-wing policies in every case, that means you will also be argued with by somebody who believes political nuance and not just waving a party flag.
Remember, the right wing also shits on centrists because they think they are secretly left-wing since they argue with their stupider points as well.
So no, these people are not secretly right-wing and just don’t have the balls to say it. That is a horrendous take no matter where you fall on the political spectrum and only serves to limit conversation.
It seems to be Lemmy in general when dealing with Centrism or Independents.
Despite very little knowledge, they are very excited to tell you the things that you think.
here however, they just repeat the brain rot "Enlightened Centrist" meme with absolutely 0 arguments being made. very lame and simple minded "politics" being done over here!
That's not what centrism means. It's not an immediate compromise between the two. It's acknowledging that not every single stance held by a political party is the correct one.
I can support background checks and other limitations on firearm purchases, and also not want open borders. We should be doing something about the excess of gun violence, and we should be doing something about the thousands of immigrants jumping our border.
The word "centrism" does kind of imply a mix, or "center", between two positions. I would phrase it that the word is used for basically anyone whose thinking doesn't fit neatly into the "left" or "right" category, though - including people who are just lazily mixing positions, and also people who are really thinking outside the box but just happen to agree with a couple positions from those ideologies.
Interestingly do all the leftist who now chant "from the river to the sea..." support genocide of the jews because that is exactly what those words mean.
Unfortunately, centrists do not have a great long-term track record of opposing genocide. Wish they did. But when you've got a mass of anti-war marchers in the streets or protests outside embassies or pickets outside Presidential ranches or in front of party convention halls, the centrist response tends to be "That's not very civil! Tut-tut!" right before police wade in and start cracking heads.
I really want to know where you get the idea that the left wants genocide, especially over a difference of opinion. It's so antithetical to my values that it's downright funny.
Where do we put the *cides from left dictatorships?
Generally, the left wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism".
Left and Dictatorship do not have compatible definitions. This is like asking "where do we put all the pregnant virgins?"
I think the true centrist would be the least likely to genocide. Right and left both imply an attachment towards one arbitrary end of the spectrum. Center implies you're willing to entertain ideas from both sides, because realistically the truth almost always lies in the middle of the extremes.
The end state of these ideals is two sides who have nothing alike wanting the other gone, and the others going, "woah wait guys, you're both a little right, let's chat instead of murder." Centrism isn't just not being able to pick a side or take conviction, it's about wanting to synthesize all relevant information into a worldview that is a bit more aligned with reality.
Why does the left have an arbitrary attachment in your opinion? Why is it wrong just because it's "extreme"? I don't find that a very appealing argument. And why cannot an "extreme" position be aligned with reality?
What if the status quo is an "extreme" or absurd position? What if wealth inequality and private ownership, where people earn power just from owning things, is extreme?
Remember, democracy used to be a radical and extreme position. People thought that giving a vote to everyone was completely absurd. Do you think that's too extreme? What about letting women vote? What about abolishing slavery? What about saying that black people are not worse than white people? What about saying monarchism should have been abolished? What about abolishing feudalism and serfdom? What about labor laws and mandating that workers cannot be forced to work more than 8 hours a day?
All of these position were extreme once upon a time.
I didn't say that all views on one side or the other were extreme. Or that disengage from the status quo is extreme. I simply said that attaching yourself to a specific ideology (left, right, center, etc) and being unable to take in information from the other sides, tends to lead one towards extremism.
For the record, most of my personal views are haaaaaard left. I just HATE the rhetoric of "anyone entertaining a more-right idea than mine is at worst insane, and at best unable to pick a side."
Clever. No, that's a matter of hard science. Not much room for interpretation there. But anything that's a matter of subjective opinion, yeah, it's almost always somewhere towards the center of the extremes.
I think the true centrist would be the least likely to genocide.
Wtf are you talking about. On the Left, we hate killing. We're completely opposed to it. We don't entertain the idea. Centrists who might allow some killing are not the least likely to genocide. The Left wants no unnecessary deaths.
Huh, that's strange. There was a left-leaning fellow I responded to yesterday who said:
"So then you're saying that liberals and leftists CAN publicly call for the roundup, imprisonment, and execution of all Republicans who push fake news in online and broadcast media?"
Sounds like they were very much in favor of some killing.
Attachment to an ideology is breeding grounds for contempt. Look at all of the leftists on social media lately calling for genocide of either Palestinians or Israel. As soon as you get so mired in labels, ideologies, etc you run the risk of becoming radicalized and unable to see the "other" as people. The central view is "both of these sides have done some abhorrent shit, let's figure out how we can do better without an all out war." The extremes are "Palestine wrong" and "Israel wrong".
For the record, most of my personal beliefs lean pretty left of center. I still don't identify as left, right, or even really center, because labels will only get in the way of truly expressing your beliefs. I just hate the "centrists like riding the fence. Centrists are cowards" kind of rhetoric you see everywhere.
Yeah you really have no idea what you're talking about.
I'm ionaore what it is that makes so many lemmy users think that centrist (like me) are evil or dumb or just enabling right wing extremists. I think it's fair to say that such view are actually quite extremist in themselves.
Let me put it in a similar story as this apparently works for you?
Leftist: all right wings are Nazi's and they all want to commit genocide, we should kill them all before they kill us!
Centrist : well, let's not go so fast? Things aren't that simple nor that black and white. First off, a dead man can't learn, and a lot of actual neo Nazi types are just misinformed, disgruntled and would do well with the right people to look up to. Then, I'm quite sure that most right wing or conservatives aren't anywhere near liking neo nazi ideas, let alone genocide.
I think a lot of the more extreme ones have, like you, over simplified world views that cause these extreme views. I think if you simply keep talking you will find that nearly all of them are like you, have families and friends and a dog, they love people too, they simply have different experiences and ideas than you have. Talk to them.
Also, if you kill allmrifht wing and conservatives, isn't that genocide? I assume you're against genocide, so why are you in favor of killing "them"? That is king of a right wing thing, according to you, do you want to be that?
In short, it's not that simple, moet people really aren't that bad.
Leftist: WHAT? HOW DARE YOU, YOU NAZI! WE SHOULD KILL YOU FOR DISAGREEING!
Yeah except the left isn't calling to genocide or punish people for voting right-wing politicians in lmao. But the far right is supporting genocide and is propogating hatred & genocide of LGBT, poor people, minorities, leftists, etc. which you can clearly see by laws that are being passed right now in Europe and especially the US, like Florida trying to make wearing drag punishable by death & many parts of the country passing laws labelling public homosexuality/trans as a "sex crime", bans on books which have these subjects all around the country, a wide variety of laws being passed targetting minorities in many European countries spurred by anti-immigrant & anti-LGBT sentiment... Then of course you have the good old fashion wealth divide which is especially present in the US, which by not taking a stance against the people in power you are just causing to continue...
You are enabling right wing extremists. You are voting these people in and your argument for it is "b-but i made up something the left wants to do! i saw a few people on twitter say this so it's true!" Meanwhile we have real examples of the right wing supporting & causing genocide in real time extremely frequently and across the entire first world, yet that doesn't seem to bother you as much as fake people in your head.
There is no stance on the right that you can morally pick and choose from like centrists like to say they do, everything in the modern day's right-wing is meant to oppress certain groups and/or to consolidate power in other groups. The only things I could maybe give you a pass on for agreeing with the right are "i don't like high taxes" (which itself is a naïve position because it usually means "i don't like high taxes for the rich, but if you mean you don't like high taxes for the lower/middle class then that's understandable) or "we should regulate immigration".
The meme in the post is definitely an over-exaggeration for comedic effect. No centrist would actually say they support some genocide. But the point is you are the main group enabling these people to come to power and do these horrible things by not taking a hard stance against them, and a relevant thing is the "both sides" rhetoric which is tossed around all the time (and which i used to subscribe to as a former "center/right libertarian"). I hate tankies too, but that is not an excuse to enable fascism. I used to be hardcore conservative, I know right-wingers aren't born hateful people and they're just brainwashed, and most most of the left has the same rational opinion, partly because many or dare I say most of the left in the US and some of Europe was born and raised around the same right-wing extremist-religious hateful garbage that's so common. Doesn't mean you can "talk them out of it" though, it took me years to come to terms with that fact that modern right-wing beliefs are wrong. Especially fascists/neo-nazis as you bring up, they have the hate programmed into them by their environment practically, are usually surrounded by it all the time pulling them in like a black hole, and it takes a lot more than gentle words to get it out of them, with most examples taking over a decade of prison/gulag/CCP brainwashing/some other immoral and unreliable method to make them change their mind.
The OP post was talking about "the others" wanting genocide. Whenever I talk with the liked of you, you damn near always talk about how we should "kill all the nazis" preemptively. That is what I'm talking about. Maybe we should just not kill anybody and go back to talking with eachother? I know, crazy thought.
I'm on the left and I constantly fight to remind people that the vast majority of people siding with the actual fascists in government are just being manipulated by propaganda and are as you say. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind. When I discus this I'm almost always agreed with by other leftists. The "let's kill them all" are the ignorant, angry, vocal minority.
E: Every down vote without discussion just proves my point even more. You're all in a cult.
Nah, both sides suck for different reasons.
Most situations have more choices than the two you are often presented with. For example, who is in the right, Hamas or Israel? Neither of them. They're both trying to justify killing innocent people because the other side killed innocent people.
In the meme, a centrist would obviously agree with the Democrat. If it were flipped and the Democrat were saying some equally off the wall thing, they'd side with the Republican. They've both become extremist versions of what they once were and the other side points out the obvious insanity and gets to feel smug about their low hanging trophy. And dumbass people from both sides eat it up.
Why do you think people are clinging to the center despite all the weird hate against it? They don't want to be associated with either side. Both sides get some things right and some things wrong. Yet, we're expected to take them as a package deal, because politics have become cult like.
You missed the point, there is no compromise and even people who identify as centrists will have different thoughts.
Me personally?
Healthcare as a right is already a thing. You can get it even if you're unemployed right now. The real problem is in the insurance/medical/pharma industries with all of the insane price gouging. It needs to be more obtainable and more effective. Free? No, medical supplies and labor still have some cost even if we fix the issue of cost and that money needs to come from somewhere. Even if it were given out for "free", you really think our taxes won't go up to compensate?
That's one of the reasons I don't like the left, you guys expect everyone to be in lock step on every issue and you use a holier than thou approach to do it. However, I don't want to live in a Christo-Fascist Theocracy, so even though I don't love it.. I will still vote D for now. I'm literally on your side, but it's impossible to have a conversation with you guys. The right and left's chances of that are near zero and it's fucking sad. You call us centrists, but most of us never moved. You guys did. You move the line more and more every day.
The issue is that "centralist" has been co-opted by the American Right. The republican MAGA element has flopped so far to the extreme right that the old right now looks in the center. Because of this, and the idiotic behaviour of the MAGAs, a lot of republicans seem to use "centralist" to distance themselves. A lot of the original centralists have been forced into siding with the democrats.
From the outside, American politics is all right wing. The democrats are more in line with most countries right wing parties than their left. This has only gotten more extreme recent years. Right now, the democrats are far too close to the centralist joke in this meme. "A little bit of genocide is ok" at least when it's not Americans. You act like it's far fetched now, but we also joked about the MAGA idiots and Trump becoming president.
I have been trying on Lemmy for months. They purposefully and willfully misunderstand all centrists / independents and for some reason feel they are all secretly right wing.
It's the current state of US politics - the straw man they've built in their head that has all the wrong opinions has the same label that they've slapped on you, and labels are all that matters to them.
Most are not here to engage, think, and expand their worldview. They are here to push the "fuck you" button that gives them a dopamine hit by punishing you for having the wrong label.
But once in a while you'll talk to someone who treats you like a real person, and it's kind of wonderful.
I'll take the downvotes happily everytime. I know it's going to happen as I'm writing, but if it means it gives even one person something to think about it's worth it.
Not everyone is American. I'm German and it's way less distinct here imo. Yes, I hate the right with a passion (as everyone should), but the left really isn't any good either. It's just all a big bag of trash.
China is notionally both and what they're doing in Xinjang is at least genocide adjacent. Russia justifies their war on Ukraine as a struggle against genocidal fascists and again, it really seems like they want to destroy Ukraine as a separate culture and people by assimilation and extermination.
Both countries are frequently defended by left wingers
Are we threatening Jeff Bezos' livelihood by wanting him to pay taxes? Cause that's who we want to pay taxes, not working class but the billionaire class. Also, the working class is ALREADY paying taxes.
Ah yes genocide, where 14,500 people out of 2.048 Million have been killed in 45 days (0.7% of the population) in the war started by terrorists hiding behind the same civilians, and that number too given by the very same so trustworthy oh so poor terrorists I mean freedom fighters (who also include their own fighters killed in that number, as those poor freedom fighters have filmed themselves fighting in civilian clothes hence they are civilians), who kill their own civilians with their own crappy rockets yet blame it on the other party, and each one of the 14k killed hand counted and verified by the poor honest doctors who have never seen a gun bearing terrorist inside a hospital nor ever seen a tunnel or a hostage, being committed by the strongest military power in the region, which has the capacity to kill all those 2Million people in a single day!
What is your point? What other alternative does the left have? The US is a two party state, and that is how democracy works there. I've yet to see anyone present me with an answer to that question.
Build dual power institutions and provide the services of a functioning state within the dying husk of the current regime until such time that it collapses under its own contradictions when you leverage the organization and capacity you've built up to seize state power.