Obfuscating hate and intolerance by cloaking it under a "conservative" platform does not make it "conservative" - it is still hate and intolerance. People calling this out are well to do so. I don't see echo chambers, in those cases. I see people testing the bonds of the social contract.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Well said, although I fully support freedom of speech, I definitely don't support providing a platform for hate purely for the sake of "both sides". I sort of align with Dr. Jen Foell there. "If there are ten people at a table with a Nazi and none of them protest, there are eleven Nazis at the table."
Additionally, I've watched a few videos by Innuendo Studios on YouTube that echo very similar ideas to yours. They do point out a number of ways that some alt-right conservatives will specifically push limits and feign opinions on topics purely to anger people on the opposite end of the argument to push those limits and push others beyond those limits. The whole Alt-Right Playbook series was quite good. The are, of course, opinions of the author, but he does give a good list of sources beneath videos where he makes assertions.
is Conservative/Right Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?
Yes.
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As a self described leftist, I'm open to discussing almost anything in a respectful manner. I'm not going to shit on anyone just for have a different opinion, but I'm going to argue my viewpoint when I feel led to. And I'm certainly going to call someone out for being bigoted, disrespectful, or spreading misinformation. A lot of those things are not well received by those on the right and may make them feel unwelcome, but that's really not my problem.
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Hopefully.
Liberalism is also a right wing ideology.
Depends on what we call "right wing".
I keep asking, and have probably asked more than fifty times over the last 4 years, what right-wing Americans stand for other than the "culture war". Why would someone call themselves a conservative/Republican if they are opposed to the Republicans' stances on minorities, stances on LGBT+, stances on gestures broadly at Florida, etc. What's left of the ideology when you take those things out, especially considering that the right has pretty demonstrably dropped their support for "fiscal responsibility", "small government", "anti-judicial activism", and "opposing the influence of Russia".
Most of the time, that question just gets ghosted. Like, over 90% of the times I've asked it, it's just been a conversation-ender. The rest of the time, the answers boil down to "my bigotry is more fine-grained than that". They're good friends with Mexicans and Asians and African-Americans, but hate Muslims. Or they're fine with gay people, but feel transgender people shouldn't exist. Or they love gay people and minorities, as long as they're all Christian whether they want to be or not. These folks call themselves Republicans not because they hate everyone the Republican party hates, but because they hate one (or a few) groups that the Republicans hate.
Your comment is a pretty good attack on what the GOP has become. My criticism is that the GOP doesn't represent all of right-wing political ideology. I think most people, or at least people like me, aren't dogmatically locked into any party or ideological label. I have some views which conservatives would agree with and plenty that they wouldn't. Overall, I think that most conservative-oriented communities are narrow-minded at best, and openly racist and authoritarian at worst. But the left-leaning communities aren't great either. They (justifiably) want to insulate themselves from the hateful parts of the right. Unfortunately, this often devolves into an echo-chamber without real discussion. I'm hoping Lemmy as a whole doesn't devolve down either path.
That's fine, but then there is a burden to both understand why your adjacency to this evil force makes people uncomfortable, and to rhetorically separate yourself from it as needed. This is just the unfortunate reality of how deranged mainstream conservatism has become.
I consider myself pretty libertarian in the grand scheme of things, but I am fine with an echo chamber where basic human rights are respected. I believe that my vision of society has no place for bigots or theocrats and that such people should be treated legally the same as fraudsters or thieves. And I think it's absolutely insane that this would be considered controversial in a good faith conservative circle. The real conservatives I know would understand that an inclusive, well represented society is a productive and ideologically secure society.
Unfortunately, this often devolves into an echo-chamber without real discussion.
I haven't seen a discussion about the merits of different tax policies (and no, "cut all the taxes!" isn't a policy), or the role of local/state/federal government, or social service policy (and no, "stop all poor people spending!" is not a policy), or the appropriate division of power between executive/legislative/judicial, or anything like that, in decades. W was president the last time I saw any form of media having a real discussion about those things.
Before 2015 or so, there were a handful of people in my circle who identified as conservative that could have a real, nuanced, complex conversation about public policy with; people who I thought were incorrect, but who could articulate their points well enough that I could kind of see where they were coming from, and we could come out of a discussion with a better understanding of each other, and maybe one or the other of us might even have softened on a given position in the process. It was possible to find basic, fundamental points on which we agreed, and use those as a foundation for a broader discussion.
Since 2016, all of those people, to a man, have become Q-anon deep-state groomers-coming-for-our-kids frazzledrip climate-hoax hunter's-laptop gays-have-it-too-good morons. Not a single one of them still believes in any of the fundamental points of agreement we used to have, from which a productive discussion could be based. They have entirely left reality behind in favor of Jewish space lasers and (the latest talking point) "every father thinks about his daughter that way!".
I have not met someone who identifies as a conservative or a Republican who isn't on that same train for a very long time.
This has been exactly my experience as well, and why I am increasingly comfortable with skepticism of unqualified conservative voices as a default.
I have been having good faith debates over real policy with conservatives for three decades. Since Carter more or less. I know what that debate looks like. But since 2016, I know two types of former conservative - the reformed, who were awakened to the monstrosity that Trump created. And those who openly embraced fascism like a parasite embraces dog shit.
Every person. Every single one so far, who has been equivocal on this topic has turned out to be quietly the latter. The ones belonging to the former group are very open about feeling dumb and misled, even victimized. They express loudly and often the nature of their reform to anyone who will listen.
My personal line is crossed if that user has a hateful stance that actively harms other users. I joined this instance for the hardline rules against hate and I do not think it is unfair to say that conservatives havent done themselves any favours in that regard. The general impression is that conservatives want people like me to not exist so it will always make me cautious.
We all need less stupid, bigoted, selfish, aggressive, and violence-supporting people in our lives.
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Posts like this are why this server needs to bring back downvotes
I think a lot of the other posts covered my thoughts on the issue but I wanted to add something less about politics and more about lemmy itself:
unwelcome on Lemmy
There is no one Lemmy, it's a bunch of federated instances. You made this post on the beehaw instance. Some instances will have their own personality and rules, but if you don't like them, the beauty of the lemmy and the fediverse is that you can just create another instance. I haven't done a ton of searching yet, but I imagine that conservatives and right-wing personalities will carve out their own corner eventually.
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As long as it's not hate speech, doxing, etc, it's probably not off limits. But it's popularity will decide on the user base. I think it's sort of a techie crowd here and that sort of crowd tends liberal. But I'd say you can try and see what happens.
That depends on your definition of conservative and right wing. Casual observation the last few weeks Ive been here, but this instance leans left. You wont get banned for trying to preach fiscal conservatism or having a religion here. Certain stuff may not make you popular either depending on what conservative ideology you're preaching.
Ive noticed the mods and admins here dont play the usual troll game. So any dog whistles, trolling, and bad faith stuff gets shutdown.
Are* and god I hope so. Protections from nazis are precisely why I came to beehaw.
The waters have been muddied. I have huge disagreements with conservatives... But it has never amounted to much. However, the past decade has seen a switch from "conservatism" to "alt-right maga scum". My friends who were not swept up in the Trump cult of personality and far right tribalism are fucked.
Yes, they are completely unwelcome. Anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is immediately labeled a “fascist” as as justification to dunk on them. Doesn’t matter how civil or well-argued their opinions are. Don’t believe me? Just wait a few hours and then look at the responses to this comment.
If you care AT ALL about fairness and balance of opinions, then this is absolutely not the instance for you.
Hey man, you're not arguing in good faith, and I think you know it. We're building a different space here than the one we left. Please stop trying to ragebait by building straw man arguments that don't reflect the reality of the discourse here. Choose to be better.
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