That’s not far left IMO, that’s just left. This is a recurring problem we have in France too, where medias call “far left” parties that are just left. This is a slippery slope, the one on which Overton window slips towards the (far) right…
It is the far left of the current Overton window, not an objective scale.
Yeah. Somehow, every morally just ideology that liberals/democrats ever had suddenly became the sole property of the far left when they decided to label everything even slightly right of Stalin as “bLuEMaGa”.
Each and every one of them now sit at the dead center of a their own little circle, where they try very hard to entertain themselves, and one another- by attempting to smugly out enrage everyone with edgy memes.
It’s pretty fucking entertaining if you ask me.
Who are “they”? Your comment has more pronouns than a Tumblr thread
You vote left because you want the best for the general good of society, you vote right because you want what’s best for yourself, in particular.
The sad thing is, that’s not even true.
Most poor world be better off under left wing ideals, yet they vote right wing anyway because they’re scared that brown people will steal their crumbs.
(But actually that guy in the middle doesn’t just have this plate full of cookies. He owns a huge vessel full of cookies)
There’s a twisted sort of logic to this. Let’s put ourselves in the position of that worker with one cookie for a second.
Two things are true in America:
- the rich don’t pay taxes
- benefits cost money
If the worker feels caught between those two things, he has to ask which he can change more easily. And clearly, denying benefits to the poor is easier than taxing the rich. In today’s climate, there is a “deny benefits to the poor” party that is very well mobilized and has delivered numerous victories. And where is the “tax the rich” option? Nowhere.
If this had a next image it would be the old rich guy stealing that last cookie while the other two fight.
But rich white men stealing their crumbs is fine because they aren’t brown
Better than Jose over there, a hard working fine gentleman, getting his needs met
The funny bit is that sometimes José too is a conservative, which is how you see plenty of immigrants doing the whole “pull the ladder up once you’re in” and voting rightwing.
But rich white men stealing their crumbs is fine because they don’t realize it’s happening
ftfy
Good bars man
It is true for the general disposition. Do you vote in your own interests vs do you vote in the general best interest. Your motivations may be malicious or incompetent, a two party system doesn’t discern.
You vote right because you want the people you don’t like to suffer.
I don’t believe this. People may have multiple agendas. They may hate foreigners or cultures, but people’s allegiances are always first and foremost to their own, to keep living in the most comfortable way they can with the lowest possible eftort. It’s kind of game theoretical in some sense.
Game theory occupies itself with the adversary roles of generosity (a moral principle) and calculation (a purely rational one), and in some way you could say that in a system which only allows one of two outcomes, a lot of assumptions are subsumed under those two separate outcomes.
What if Candidate A is for lower taxes, higher immigration and Candidate B is for higher taxes and lower immigration?
What if both candidates agree on lower taxes and lower immigration, but one of them also proposes reinstating slavery, and the other one wants none of it but instead mandatory abortions?
In a two party state you don’t get enough fine grained resolution to deal with problems that require any complexity beyond perfectly white and perfectly black.
I guess you missed the “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting” thing the other year.
They’re not nice people. They will vote for the leopard and act surprised when it comes for them.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe they just dumb.
they are systemically undereducated and inundated with propaganda telling them that their problems stem not from the class war but from the culture war, which has long been a dogwhistle for the race war
They vote right because cable news told them it’s best for themselves. It’s not.
You also vote far right if you’re willing to sacrifice something yourself to make sure no one ever gets it without having to make heavy sacrifices to do so. Life is pain, princess. Anyone who says differently is selling something! /s
It’s because we lefties say completely justified mean things about so-called ‘centrists’, and criticizing the literal record of centrism is tantamount to insulting a centrist’s identity.
The centrists made up the term so they wouldn’t have to face the fact that they’re conservatives.
That’s right, the centrists are conservatives and the so-called “conservatives” are really regressives at best, plenty of them fascists.
Many of the greatest political advancements in the history of humanity were achieved by people you’d call “centrists”.
Such as?
The post-WW2 transition to liberal democracy in Germany, Italy (Adenauer and De Gasperi), and in general European integration; ending apartheid in South Africa; 1991 economic reforms in India; Deng Xiaoping’s socialist market economy in China which lifted millions from destitution; Chile’s transition to democracy; the labor-capital compromise in Scandinavia which allows them to have very free markets and very strong welfare systems at the same time.
I could go on.
HA! Sure, buddy, sure, we’ll let you call that centrism. Do you need help finding your way back to the children’s table?
Point out which of these don’t have elements of “centrism” plz
Point out where they do.
deleted by creator
Not really, I provided some examples to some other user where they were clearly “centrists”. There were people who leaned more on both sides and the advancement was achieved by someone who was more moderate.
deleted by creator
The “left” wanted very different things in most of these cases. For instance, in post-war Italy, it wanted a revolution and to join the Warsaw pact.
Plz explain to me how the examples I brought up aren’t “centrist” examples but examples of left victories.
deleted by creator
None of those advances were made with a minority of support in society. Is the argument that the populace has since become more conservative?
I think what’s more likely is that people you’d consider “centrist” backed those changes. You’re dead set on characterizing this “centrist” entity that you have only vaguely defined to create an enemy that doesn’t exist.
deleted by creator
Don’t be dishonest, you did more than that. The enemy you’re creating is the “evil centrist”. Your own example does not support that simplistic view.
Achievements like Civil Rights didn’t come about because just a small part of the “left” pushed for it. It came about because the majority of the left stood for it. So no, you don’t get to take all the credit and YES, you’re splitting the party for no discernable reason.
deleted by creator
I mean to be fair… groups that consider themselves far left also exterminate groups.
The trick is to not go too far. You wanna end up at Scandinavian liberal socialism, but not overshoot it to let’s create a famine for kicks and kill all people wearing glasses.
consider themselves
Is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that statement.
I think it’s necissary when talking about “left governments” to have that caveat. I wouldn’t personally consider the Khmer Rouge, USSR, or CCP, left wing but they did.
They are just different shades of authoritarianism.
deleted by creator
I mean to be fair… groups that consider themselves far left also exterminate groups
[Citation needed]
The trick is to not go too far
Yeah, you wouldn’t want society to become TOO egalitarian and fair! 🙄
You wanna end up at Scandinavian liberal socialism
Speaking as an actual Scandinavian leftie: nope. Not good enough.
Social Democratic Liberalism (which is what it actually is. Socialism is a very different thing) is still capitalist and thus exploitative at its core.
It’s better than most, but it’s far from the utopian ideal that people from the American Left tend to think it is.
but not overshoot it to let’s create a famine for kicks and kill all people wearing glasses
You’re thinking along the wrong axis there. There’s a HUGE difference between ultra authoritarian leftism like that of the USSR and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and libertarian (original meaning, not bastardized American definition) leftism.
deleted by creator
This take is too anarchy-pilled. I don’t love the idea of a vanguard party but it’s hard to honestly argue something of the sort isn’t necessary to push things along until broad cultural norms shift far enough Left to be self-sustaining.
deleted by creator
It’s actually a “The end justifies the means” situation - Marxism-Leninism tries to achieve Communism (the Perfect Equality utopia) via the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat stage, a form of Autocracy, and all tries so far in the so-called “Communist” countries got stuck in that stage.
So whilst the end objective is not authoritarian, it’s used to justify means to supposedly get there which are most definitelly authoritarian though they’re are supposed to be used only temporarily
Whilst I’m pretty sure in the very beginning of the Communist Revolutions most people in it were guided by leftwing principles and trully saw the authoritarianism as merelly a distasteful temporary need, nowadays in those countries the genuinelly leftwing grand objective seems to be just an excuse to be used in justifing the continued use of authocratic power by those who hold it, rather than something those in power genuine want and expect to one day reach.
If I could point toward actual socialist governments not based on exploitation (rather than Scandinavia) I would. But it really is just a hypothetical idea at this point.
I’ve never been optimistic enough to believe the libertarian/anarchic theories work on any scale above small communities. Anytime I discuss egalitarian and anarchic societies I can’t get beyond the point of humans are intrinsically greedy andviolent which that collapses the system.
So anything thats acturally left wing is bad? Because left wing means genuene real socialism, as in not capitalism socialism. As in the type of socialism that doesn’t require oppressing the global south (which shouldn’t even be a question).
LIBERALISM = REACTIONARY
SOCIALISM = REVOLUTIONARY
Can we be better than twitter with these bullshit fallacy arguments.
They’re just people who are too weak and dumb to have real opinions and they just want to be in the in crowd
It must take such bravery to not be in the center, sir. How can I become this brave.
It’s called executive disfunction
Even the left normalized the false narrative of “far left”. America does not have any “far left” party
The Far Left also commit hard to 2
Too bad the left has never had power in the US
Neoliberals don’t want or allow things to improve
Just FYI, not everyone sees “having everyone basic needs met” as bullshit.
Its not the premise of having everyones basic need met theyre calling bulshit on, its the politicians’ claim that that is an objective they will actually try to enact.
I feel like you made that up.
I know what you mean though. Some of the worthless dumbfucks who pass themselves off as being far left are just identity politics dipshits who think feminist media criticism is activism.
In that sense, if someone were looking between far left (“Xeno pronouns are valid!”) and far right (“Build that wall!”) then it wouldn’t be ridiculous to say fuck both sides. That’s kind of the dilemma we’re in now.
Did the Putin Bots finally invade Lemmy?
Hate to burst your bubble but far left sound and act like violent facists and helped pave the way for the far right. They do sound the same. It’s the moderates that actually want everybody’s needs met.
People are so forcefed bullshit from their echo chamber watering holes that they really do believe it’s just a right vs left war meanwhile billionaires are sipping their gold infused dom perignon on their yachts a few yards out to sea watching it all burn down.
What are we considering far left in this scenario? I’m asking genuinely, because I think we can all acknowledge there are a handful of loonies on the far left, but I think you’re talking about me because I sometimes like to joke about being a dictator and executing right wingers.
There is also a group of people who cannot take a joke but I mean the people who would scream/yell, shame you, criticize you or call you a Nazi just for having an opinion you don’t agree with or so much as catching a whiff that you can’t yet empathize with their problems. Threats and acts of violence.
You know it’s the youth that’s tipping the voter’s scales by in large because they’re not able to rationalize other people’s emotional damage including those of wing influencers and left wing doomers and blow hards.
You agree? Do the work, or your the problem. Disagree? You’re a Nazi. Wanna just live your life? Complicit Nazi.
There’s a thing in criminology called labelling theory. It transcends the idea of criminality. Combine this with a strong thrust of financial hardship and you start sinking ships
This is actually pretty true. I think the reason lots of decent folks balk at this is because there are so many right wing traitor lunatics who say “you just don’t like opinions that are different from yours,” when in fact we’re talking about them saying things like, “Deport them all, I don’t care if it costs $1 trillion.” Then I’ll tell you that you deserve the death penalty.
deleted by creator
The Neoliberals are the ones literally on Russian paychecks.
Neoliberalism is not a left wing ideology.
deleted by creator
Well, far left happen to want exterminate groups as well pretty often. NGL, their ends are far much better than of far rights (if we assume communism is achievable and stuff), but they still don’t justify the means.
Stalin was just trying to make sure everyone had enough. Everyone left alive at least.
