1511
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
1511 points (97.0% liked)
News
22470 readers
4620 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
It's not a broad generalization at all. It's a widespread pattern of hypocritical and contradictory conservative outrage, statements, and laws.
... and that's just off the top of my head. If you're a conservative, wake up, your party is a mess.
Spoiler: he'll completely ignore this comment and just continue to go on saying that all criticisms of conservatives are baseless and unproductive
I'll be honest, the point was less for him and more for lurkers, that might not pay as much attention and might benefit from an outline. I gave up on changing the mind of the person I'm replying to on the internet a long time ago (if it happens great!) ... but I want to challenge and cut through the "noise" for the casual observer.
That's the only single reason I debunk conservatives with some of their tactics thrown back at them. In a forum, I'm pretty much am blocked by nearly every conservatives there.
He didn't say that, he criticized generalizing conservatives. I know conservatives who don't care to block books from school libraries, or block trans students from going to bathrooms in their identified gender- or most of the other "culture war" arguments.
If they feel that way, then why do they vote politicians into power who do those things?
You don't get to vote evil people into power and then say "oh no, I don't support the evil stuff, I just care about the lower taxes"
Because they at least agree with some of their messaging rather than agree with none of it.
Yeah and my response to that would be the last sentence of my comment.
Why don't you? Can't you say: I support the ACA but not drone bombing schools?
Yes but until they start actively opposing those policies and demanding their politicians do the same, they are still complicit with these policies as their votes are what enable them. Whether or not they personally believe these things is entirely irrelevant. All that matters are the actions and policies, and every conservative voter is this complicit.
Unfortunately people have different priorities than you or I, I guarantee a politician you have voted for has done something you oppose, and you may have still supported them. That's because you care more about their other policies.
False equivalency.
"We should focus more on corporate taxes rather than individual taxes" is an opinion; "gay people shouldn't have rights" isn't an opinion, it's hate.
Don't try to pretend these are on the same level. Supporting American conservatism requires a level of moral bankruptcy.
Both are opinion, something being abhorrent doesn't make it not an opinion. Opinions can be hateful.
Yes but I don't have to respect those opinions enough to validate them by acknowledging them. If those are your "opinions" then you're a monster and you can fuck off. Don't expect any respect from me; we need less kid gloves and more people calling out assholes in the world.
Being very wrong doesn't make someone evil. If someone genuinely believes something like that and isn't just saying it be edgy, I'd try to convince them out of it. Just like a flat earther, they believe something that I believe is very wrong.
I never signed up to be the social caretaker of the world. If they're adults, I assume they've had plenty of opportunity to learn. I've devoted way to much of my life already to trying to educate the vile sort of people that vote conservative, I'm fucking done with it. They can go get the kid gloves treatment from their imaginary "tolerant left," this fucking leftist is done with them.
And before you say "but how will things ever change if we don't educate them?":
First, again that's not my job. But more importantly, education is only *one" weapon of change, not the only in our arsenal. We've forgotten how powerful rightly-applied shame can be.
I fricking hate how we’re expected to gently explain in soothing voices and educate and be understanding of people who damn well want us dead and who wouldn’t even extend someone on the left the courtesy of even pissing on them if they were on fire. We’re supposed to extend them every grace and courtesy while they’re not expected to do the same to us.
You don't have to do what I do. But that doesn't make their wrong opinions not opinions.
Hey dude, your opinion is wrong.
Yeah, "wrong" when judging someone's opinion is inherently opinionated so it's redundant for me to say "in my opinion your opinion is wrong"
Don't put words in my mouth or accuse my of something you made up in your mind.
I don't need to put any words into your mouth, your reply to the comment was to ignore all the real, objectively true examples and just claim that despite the fact that they're the actions of real conservative policy makers, that they somehow have nothing to do with real conservative policy
You ignore the faults of real world conservatism, holding up this idealistic version of conservatism you have in your head as "real" conservatism. Ill bet you also hold that conservatism has nothing to do with anti-LGBT+, despite their policy makers constantly making anti-LGBT+ policy decisions
You're completely ignorant of who I am and you're reinforcing my initial point that we should be careful about creating an echochamber.
And you're reinforcing mine by continuing to not actually address any of the actual points.
Pointing out actual, provable examples of selective enforcement by conservatives isn't an "echo chamber" it's discussing real world politics
Ultimately it looks from my perspective like you're falling into the classic trap of just assuming that when a lot of people disagree with you, that they're just mindlessly repeating talking points - rather than ever considering that your own view might be skewed. Further reinforced by the fact that you steadfastly refuse to actually talk about the issue, and instead just keep deflecting and crying "ECHO CHAMBER".
And no, I have no idea who you are, why should I care though? This is a discussion about conservative politics, not you or your feelings.
You're trying to say "there are many examples of selective enforcement in conservative laws" and I'm saying "yeah, no shit, I agree with you"
Meanwhile I'm being attacked for saying it's important to be reasonable, demonstrating the echo chamber I'm talking about.
So if you agree that what's being said is factual, then what exactly is the concern here regarding "echo chambers"?
A echo chamber is dangerous when people are spreading misinformation, a group of people acknowledging a very real negative aspect of a major political party is in no way "echo chamber" type behavior.
Now if we were saying "all conservative voters and politicians are Nazis", id agree with you that caution should be given about echo chambers, but cautioning about echo chambers when objective facts are being discussed comes across much more as you trying to deflect away from facts you don't like being discussed.
Would it help you if we also talked some trash about democrats?
Biden is too old for office
Most elected democrats are hypocrites, at least to some extent
Virtually every politician, including the left leaning ones, in the US are corrupt to som extent, and usually to a severe degree
There? Are you satisfied that we're not an echo chamber?
Not denying that Biden is very old and that any vote for him carries a material probability that it also elects the VP for president, the vast majority of politicians are very old in the USA
The concern is that you said "conservatives", not "what's popular amongst conservative politicians", or "what's popular amongst conservative media", or even "most". You just said conservatives, that is villifying all people by nature of a describing themselves by a very broad term(or even someone else ascribing it to them). Their initial complaint was generalization and you attacked them with evidence of it being true for some conservatives.
Who elects conservative politicians?
Who consumes conservative media?
Every person who votes conservative is guilty of the behavior I describe because - As pointed out above - they vote in the politicians who do these things
You can't vote a politician into power and then not take responsibility for their actions
Then essentially every American who votes is guilty of drone bombing civilians because presidents from Republicans and Democrats did it.
Except that I that example, as you say - they have no actual choice in the matter because as you say it doesn't matter who they vote for. That being said, I think we all do bear some small share of the responsibility for the atrocities our country has committed, if only because we benefit from them - but that's a whole other debate.
My point is that every conservative has a very easy choice each election - support the conservative party, or oppose them. If they choose the former, that's their right, but theyre responsible for having made that decision, and don't get to pretend that all the terrible shit the GOP is doing, all the way up to it's ongoing attempts to subvert the election process and undermine the justice system, is somehow not their responsibility, despite voting for it.
And in the interest of fairness, the same goes for the Dems. I bare some sense of responsibility for Biden's union busting of the railworkers strike last year for having voted for him. That's how it works. But I think any rational person looking at the two parties from a utilitarian standpoint of ethics can see pretty easily that the evils of the GOP vastly outweighs that of the Democratic party
No you can vote for the non-evil, like I do. But I understand that it is a mature decision to vote who you see as the lesser evil with a chance.
No, not at all? If I am one of two plumbers in a town and someone randomly kills the other plumber I profit from that, but I have 0 responsibility for the murder.
There is some responsibility, but not exactly the same as if you were a perpetrator yourself.
Most people are not utilitarian, or at least I hope they aren't.
Idk if I'm having a stroke, or you are - but this sentence makes no sense to me - though I think I can guess at your point from context, and I broadly agree - at least up until the point that you claim that voting for the "lesser evil" exonerates you of any responsibility for the actions of the party you voted for.
Except in that example, you didn't help give power to the murderer, whereas for the actions of our government, we do.
Not exactly the same, no - I agree. I the same way that if you came across an ongoing hate crime on the street and cheered on the perpetrator you wouldn't bear the same responsibility as the actual perpetrator, but it still makes you evil in my opinion.
I disagree, I think most people's natural approach to ethics (when they bother with it at all) is to compare the net harm vs the net good of the action their trying to weigh. That's literally how we teach children the difference between right and wrong - we ask them to consider the consequences of their actions, and whether those consequences are good or bad).
Either way - I think it's clear you're not changing your mind on this, and I'm just repeating myself, so unless you have some novel point to raise I'm done arguing about it. Feel free to continue to distance your decisions with their consequences for others if you prefer (lord knows most people do, unless those consequences are bad for themselves)
You are a machine!
Excellent summary. Maybe add:“That slut next door should not have an abortion, she should have kept her legs closed. My daughter‘s abortion? That‘s totally different, it would have ruined her career“
You definitely win the internet with this comment.
Yeah... I agree. None of that makes selective enforcement the core of conservative laws.
I'd argue it does, conservative lawmaking has consistently operated with a distinct understanding (and execution) that shows "this applies to them not us." I'd love for conservative law makers to do what they say and say what they mean. However, they won't and thus can't build a coalition that gets them elected by being honest about their policy goals.
Conservative law making in the US has become at its core "outrage politics" (and that depends on selectively enforcing ideals, policies, and laws/antagonizing part of the population). I don't make generalizations lightly, but this is the core and fundamental piece holding the Republican party together, and it's an awful state of affairs.
This can be further demonstrated by Vivek Ramaswamy climbing in the polls despite, as Chris Christie put it, "sounding like ChatGPT."
I'm done with this conversation, you lot are ignorant, loud, and preventing actual progress and critical discourse.
You want to talk about outrage politics? You morons are outrage politics. Fuck off.
K. When you figure out what discourse you want to have come back without an empty argument.
You've just proven everyone else's point that wrote you off. You've made no supportive arguments for your position and resorted to an opaque moral high ground where everyone else is an idiot.
Bruh, you are the literal embodiment of the issue plaguing the USA in this historical period: you say you are ready to have a discussion and then, once somebody engages you with actual facts in his hands, you attack your interlocutor with the most vapid point without replying to his considerations.
Furthermore I've been taught that there are two possible sides when tackling a problem: you can either be part of the problem or part of its solution.
As far as I see nowadays republicans are ALL part of a problem called "political extremism". If you vote for the party which is presenting an autocrat and a crybaby as it's frontrunner for the past and upcoming elections you don't get to be offended when someone calls you out for that. If you are not voting democrat you are actively choosing to be ruled by a tiny minority which sees it's religion as the only viable solution to all the (made up) problems they see in the modern world. Should you vote democrat, on the other hand, the worst which may happen is that you'll loose some purchasing power when the world has been facing a pandemic and a regional war at the gates of Europe.
If your choice is to actively vote for the first option I've news from you: you are an enemy of the people and of democracy, don't be surprised when people will treat you as such in your future interactions with tem
Why vote democrat though? Supposedly the US does have or allow other political parties to be formed. If they can organize themselves, diversifying the local state political pool should not be a problem at least.
Because due to the system in place at the moment and due to the culture surrounding American politics USA can only operate in the two parties system. Organising, raising and keeping a third party is not a viable option at this time as many different candidates and elections have shown us. The easier way to improve American politics is to get involved in the democratic party and to change it from within as many of the newly elected representatives are trying to do, with quite positive outcomes I might add.