7 ms·

Curious if you include right-wing personalities who try and get "progressives" or "liberals" fired from their jobs in the great group of Cancellers, you may be

by TT3351 6y ago

Curious if you include right-wing personalities who try and get "progressives" or "liberals" fired from their jobs in the great group of Cancellers, you may be interested in the doctrine of the preferred first speaker.

mellosouls 6y ago
Oh, there are undoubtedly bad actors on both sides, but I don't think there is reasonable doubt about where the vast majority of contemporary behaviour we are talking about - the pressure to obey the diktats of self-elected social arbiters at risk of career etc - comes from.
- zzzeek 6y ago
  Anytime one starts to type the words "bad actors on both sides" it's time to step back and try to be more honest with oneself. One of the "sides" here has been trying to "cancel" the votes of 80 million Americans to install a permanent autocratic government. If Rosanne losing her tv show is equally concerning to you as that, again, time to step back and think a little more.
  - cultus 6y ago
    Great comment. There's a pervasive lack of self-awareness among the right, manifesting as a pathological inability to empathize with individuals in other groups. Introspection can be painful at times, but it's necessary to be a morally full and content person.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Ironic username
    - throwaway9980 6y ago
      Yes and what’s described in the comment is what I wanted after the 2016 election! I thought the electoral college should have selected someone else, I thought Trump should not have been sworn in to office, and I wanted him removed on the first day. I honestly believed it might happen because it seemed like the only sensible thing. This election fraud nonsense is payback. It’s awful that the right can’t see that this is terrible for everyone. It’s terrible that the left can’t admit that the same passions existed on their side after the 2016 election. I don’t want to argue about which side is worse. I’m not trying to highlight hypocrisy. I’m simply saying that the eye for an eye mentality has us all stuck. I’m hopeful that Biden does understand all of this. His demeanor throughout all of this inspires some hope. We need more people on both sides to follow his lead.
  - konjin 6y ago
    Taking that to it's logical conclusion, who would you think the good actors were on the Eastern Front. The Nazis who had just started a genocide of millions or the Soviets, who had just finished their third genocide of millions? >Side? I am on nobody's side, because nobody is on my side, little orc.
    - TT3351 6y ago
      That kind of throwing up your hands and exclaiming "they're all corrupt" is a necessary step in the escalation of political violence and the ascendency of authoritarian regimes.
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        No. Not unless you absolutely need one authoritarian to fight another authoritarian, as we needed Stalin to fight Hitler. If you're not in that situation, though... darn right I oppose both Stalin and Hitler.
        TT3351 6y ago
        I don't think we needed Stalin to fight Hitler, in many ways the fact that they decided to (euphemistically) 'share a border' helped contribute to the start of WWII. The street combat that led to the NSDAP's seizure of power was closely tied to fear of foreign communist influences. I really don't know how you would argue humanity needed either of them... even one in opposition to the other (with the added caveat, I know, that the Eastern Front was where the substantial proportion of German casualties occurred -- how much is Stalin? Impossible to say, futile to guess in my view).
        AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        We didn't need Stalin to fight Hitler in 1936. Maybe not even in 1938. By 1941, we sure did. (If we had stood up to Hitler in 1936, the world would have been a lot better off.) Back to the larger argument. Declaring "they're both corrupt" is appropriate if, in fact, they are both corrupt. Are they both corrupt? As both mellosouls and throwaway9980 pointed out, the Democrats did their absolute best to cancel the results of the 2016 election. Can we say that both of those are bad? If not, why not? And if you say that the Republicans are worse because, first, it's now, and second, because they're using more extreme methods, I would agree with you on both grounds. But are you against trying to overturn elections? Or are you against Republicans? Which is it?
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    it's time to step back and try to be more honest with oneself I'm a leftist fwiw, so please don't condescend to me about being honest with myself - today's problem is from my wing of the political spectrum. It's shameful. One of the "sides" here has been trying to "cancel" the votes of 80 million Americans to install a permanent autocratic government. And the other side has spent 4 years trying to cancel a President they don't like elected by people they don't like. See how we can both do that? I think that's a red herring attempt to drag the topic away from the original point of social and cultural persecution. It's extraordinary the way some people will do everything they can to deny the obvious - that the worst representatives of the left today are doing exactly the same as the right wing McCarthyites of yore. It's long past time for those of us on the left who genuinely claim liberal values to own it.
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    So we’re told Trump was trying to take over the Supreme Court yet oddly all his appointments dismissed the fraud case. Odd how these monsters seem to have acted completely sanely. It’s almost like they’re judges and liberals are liable to catastrophizing like any human.
    - CyberDildonics 6y ago
      He was very clear in what he was trying to do. Just because it didn't work doesn't mean he didn't try.
    - TT3351 6y ago
      So, if someone says they want to be a tyrant and are unsuccessful, no one should talk about how the wannabe tried in the first place? I don't understand, because to me, the fact that we can speak out in the first place and make noise about it is one of the main reasons tyranny is not likely EDIT: it is as if the miner strikes the canary dead for chirping
      - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
        I mean Obama invoked the WWI espionage act more than every president combined before him against journalists. That’s tyranny too but liberals didn’t make as much noise as they do about Orange Hitler who’s led a pretty typical Republican presidency and managed to continuously piss off the war industry. The same industry that’s kept us in a constant state of war for near 20 years because of their enormous sway over “respectable” presidents the liberal managerial class fawns over.
        zzzeek 6y ago
        Trump sold $8bn of weapons to Saudi Arabia, in the face of huge opposition even from congress. Combine that with killing the Iran nuclear deal so the region is vastly less stable, war industry is doing just great. Trump also allowed the Saudis to murder and dismember a US journalist with zero consequences.
konjin 6y ago
And if the communists of the 50s ever got in positions of power they would have opened gulags and murdered millions. The point is that we aught to trust our institutions to keep that from happening without acting like the people who we are supposedly saving society from.

by TT3351 6y ago

mellosouls 6y ago

Oh, there are undoubtedly bad actors on both sides, but I don't think there is reasonable doubt about where the vast majority of contemporary behaviour we are talking about - the pressure to obey the diktats of self-elected social arbiters at risk of career etc - comes from.

zzzeek 6y ago
Anytime one starts to type the words "bad actors on both sides" it's time to step back and try to be more honest with oneself. One of the "sides" here has been trying to "cancel" the votes of 80 million Americans to install a permanent autocratic government. If Rosanne losing her tv show is equally concerning to you as that, again, time to step back and think a little more.
- cultus 6y ago
  Great comment. There's a pervasive lack of self-awareness among the right, manifesting as a pathological inability to empathize with individuals in other groups. Introspection can be painful at times, but it's necessary to be a morally full and content person.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    Ironic username
  - throwaway9980 6y ago
    Yes and what’s described in the comment is what I wanted after the 2016 election! I thought the electoral college should have selected someone else, I thought Trump should not have been sworn in to office, and I wanted him removed on the first day. I honestly believed it might happen because it seemed like the only sensible thing. This election fraud nonsense is payback. It’s awful that the right can’t see that this is terrible for everyone. It’s terrible that the left can’t admit that the same passions existed on their side after the 2016 election. I don’t want to argue about which side is worse. I’m not trying to highlight hypocrisy. I’m simply saying that the eye for an eye mentality has us all stuck. I’m hopeful that Biden does understand all of this. His demeanor throughout all of this inspires some hope. We need more people on both sides to follow his lead.
- konjin 6y ago
  Taking that to it's logical conclusion, who would you think the good actors were on the Eastern Front. The Nazis who had just started a genocide of millions or the Soviets, who had just finished their third genocide of millions? >Side? I am on nobody's side, because nobody is on my side, little orc.
  - TT3351 6y ago
    That kind of throwing up your hands and exclaiming "they're all corrupt" is a necessary step in the escalation of political violence and the ascendency of authoritarian regimes.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      No. Not unless you absolutely need one authoritarian to fight another authoritarian, as we needed Stalin to fight Hitler. If you're not in that situation, though... darn right I oppose both Stalin and Hitler.
      - TT3351 6y ago
        I don't think we needed Stalin to fight Hitler, in many ways the fact that they decided to (euphemistically) 'share a border' helped contribute to the start of WWII. The street combat that led to the NSDAP's seizure of power was closely tied to fear of foreign communist influences. I really don't know how you would argue humanity needed either of them... even one in opposition to the other (with the added caveat, I know, that the Eastern Front was where the substantial proportion of German casualties occurred -- how much is Stalin? Impossible to say, futile to guess in my view).
        AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        We didn't need Stalin to fight Hitler in 1936. Maybe not even in 1938. By 1941, we sure did. (If we had stood up to Hitler in 1936, the world would have been a lot better off.) Back to the larger argument. Declaring "they're both corrupt" is appropriate if, in fact, they are both corrupt. Are they both corrupt? As both mellosouls and throwaway9980 pointed out, the Democrats did their absolute best to cancel the results of the 2016 election. Can we say that both of those are bad? If not, why not? And if you say that the Republicans are worse because, first, it's now, and second, because they're using more extreme methods, I would agree with you on both grounds. But are you against trying to overturn elections? Or are you against Republicans? Which is it?
- mellosouls 6y ago
  it's time to step back and try to be more honest with oneself I'm a leftist fwiw, so please don't condescend to me about being honest with myself - today's problem is from my wing of the political spectrum. It's shameful. One of the "sides" here has been trying to "cancel" the votes of 80 million Americans to install a permanent autocratic government. And the other side has spent 4 years trying to cancel a President they don't like elected by people they don't like. See how we can both do that? I think that's a red herring attempt to drag the topic away from the original point of social and cultural persecution. It's extraordinary the way some people will do everything they can to deny the obvious - that the worst representatives of the left today are doing exactly the same as the right wing McCarthyites of yore. It's long past time for those of us on the left who genuinely claim liberal values to own it.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  So we’re told Trump was trying to take over the Supreme Court yet oddly all his appointments dismissed the fraud case. Odd how these monsters seem to have acted completely sanely. It’s almost like they’re judges and liberals are liable to catastrophizing like any human.
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    He was very clear in what he was trying to do. Just because it didn't work doesn't mean he didn't try.
  - TT3351 6y ago
    So, if someone says they want to be a tyrant and are unsuccessful, no one should talk about how the wannabe tried in the first place? I don't understand, because to me, the fact that we can speak out in the first place and make noise about it is one of the main reasons tyranny is not likely EDIT: it is as if the miner strikes the canary dead for chirping
    - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
      I mean Obama invoked the WWI espionage act more than every president combined before him against journalists. That’s tyranny too but liberals didn’t make as much noise as they do about Orange Hitler who’s led a pretty typical Republican presidency and managed to continuously piss off the war industry. The same industry that’s kept us in a constant state of war for near 20 years because of their enormous sway over “respectable” presidents the liberal managerial class fawns over.
      - zzzeek 6y ago
        Trump sold $8bn of weapons to Saudi Arabia, in the face of huge opposition even from congress. Combine that with killing the Iran nuclear deal so the region is vastly less stable, war industry is doing just great. Trump also allowed the Saudis to murder and dismember a US journalist with zero consequences.

konjin 6y ago

And if the communists of the 50s ever got in positions of power they would have opened gulags and murdered millions. The point is that we aught to trust our institutions to keep that from happening without acting like the people who we are supposedly saving society from.