I don’t have much of a problem either way as I don’t think I’ll be engaging in political discussion on this website past this post but it seems like any sort of non-left wing opinions or posts are immediately trashed on here. That’s fine. There’s clearly a more liberal audience here and that’s okay. I just don’t want Lemmy to become a echo chamber for any side and it seems to be that way when it comes to politics already.
Mostly making this post just to drum up discussion as I’m new here.
Edit: Thanks for the rational replies. I was expecting to get lit up for even mentioning this topic lol.
If your “conservative / right wing opinion” is that austerity measures are a good thing, then the most generous interpretation of that is that you’re just a moron. As it turns out, though, today’s “conservative / right wing opinions” are way worse than that. Things like “trans people aren’t people”. Or “we should do a treason”. Or “bribing supreme court justices is totally fine”. If you hold any of those opinions, the most generous interpretation of that is that you’re evil. And probably also stupid. That is the MOST generous interpretation, mind.
Saying that austerity is always bad is pretty dumb too. Economic policy is hard. It’s not a simple as shoving one lever in one direction as far as possible forever.
For example, “austerity” could mean ending corporate subsidies, taxing the wealthy, auditing the wealthy, reducing the military budget, canceling freeway expansions, etc. Too much public debt can absolutely be a bad thing and needs to be controlled.
I concede that you’ve got a point that austerity isn’t an all or nothing proposition. But your examples are laughable. No country that has implemented “austerity measures” has ever interpreted that as “ending corporate subsidies”, or “taxing the wealthy”, or in any way fucking with the wealthy or military’s purse. It just doesn’t happen. I agree, that would be an amazing thing. But it just doesn’t exist in human history. What ends up happening instead is that they cut the educational budget. Or they cut social programs, like housing subsidies or food subsidies. Because governments aren’t run by the lowest common denominator, who actually benefits from those programs. They’re run by the wealthy. So no government is going to fuck over its supporters by cutting their benefits.
I think we need to have better conservative content. All of what your describing sounds like negative characterizations of conservatives made by far left individuals.
Yes, there are some absolute morons in the world. Probably a lot of them. But not all conservatives are morons, despite what many left leaning people would like to believe due to the polarization brought about by social media echo chambers.
The issue is the party overwealming supports these ideas, we are not debating what color school busses should be or how we should ensure we have clean water into the future, we are instead debating should X group be allowed to live. An option that involves taking rights from others based on misinformation isn’t an opinion.
I have yet to see a modern conservative position that is more backed by real world evidence than whatever more progressive position it opposes.
Climate change? Denying overwhelming scientific consensus. Gun control? “It doesn’t work”, even though it works in every other western country. Healthcare? “But the death panels will decide if you get to live”, they don’t exist, and are used as pretense to ignore all those people who die because they can’t afford treatment. Car infrastructure? It’s literally better for drivers if more people are using transit or cycling. Student loans? I don’t even know what the argument is here except “I had to pay them so everyone else should too”. The money certainly isn’t going towards the teachers.
Some of these are US specific, but the sentiment is the same everywhere. The list goes on and on. If someone refuses to listen to any reason or evidence and instead bases their worldview on only their own, limited lived experience, why shouldn’t they be characterized as a moron? And if they understand that their view isn’t based in reality and they hold it anyways, why not call that actively malicious?
I’ve always loved the irony of the argument that if the government pays for healthcare, there will be “death panels” that decide who gets treatment and who doesn’t. Because those already exist under and directly because of a system of private healthcare funding where if you don’t have enough money, you’re refused treatment. Meanwhile under a system of public healthcare funding, people get treatment based on who’s most in need of the resources available, and that’s only if the system is already over capacity.
Lmao fucking seriously.
Routinely my primary fucking care physician will approve a prescription just for my fucking insurance to say you know what, we will BLOCK that medication from being released to you at the pharm cuz we don’t wanna pay for it yet. Try again next week!!
god fucking damnit like let me just pay for it out of pocket!! They won’t let me.
Private insurance death panels are alive and well lol
due to the polarization brought about by social media echo chambers.
Due to the actions of recent right wing political parties whe gaining any power.
That’s a bit like saying
"How dare you call us all arsehole. Because we keep voting for arseholes to lead our parties. "
Unless you and others are prepared to form a right wing that opposes these ideas. Then that is the reputation the right deserves.
For the record, I would not consider myself right wing. But I do oppose many leftist ideologies. Grievance studies (Critical race theory, queer theory, and other ideologies based in post modern belief systems), for instance, are eroding many useful and productive enlightenment ideas. Color blindness is a legitimate way to reduce racism. Instead, leftists believe they should elevate group identity at all costs, thereby expanding and heightening racism. Queer theory denies human physiology, elevating the idea that everything is socially constructed. This framework is a grave distortion of the reality.
I agree that conservatives need to do a better job with their policies. Trump was a stain, and the few (okay maybe more than a few) loud idiots in the party make conservatism look bad. But if left wingers only get their information about right wingers from hyper left sources, we are going to have a lot of distorted views.
On social media, people are served more and more radical content. Much of that content includes great distortions of the “other side,” which pushes people further into an untenable and undesirable belief system.
We need more debate and we also need people to stop simply calling the other side morons.
To be absolutely clear to anyone who runs across this, this person has been banned from our instance, you don’t need to report it again. The only reason this reply is still up, is for others to see all the ways in which this person is wrong and the whole they dug themselves when they did reply to someone and were rightfully reported and ejected from our instance.
Grievance studies (Critical race theory, queer theory, and other ideologies based in post modern belief systems), for instance, are eroding many useful and productive enlightenment ideas.
Have you studied any of these yourself? Or are you relying on characterizations of them you heard in media?
Color blindness is a legitimate way to reduce racism.
In theory, sure. But in practice it often gets used as a rug to sweep racism under.
Instead, leftists believe they should elevate group identity at all costs, thereby expanding and heightening racism.
Keep on mind this is a society where certain groups have been marginalized and terrorized for decades or even centuries. “Elevating” them is only a reaction to that long-entrenched bigotry. But (what’s that quote?..) when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Attempting to bring historically marginalized groups into equal footing with mainstream groups probably will look like they’re being “elevated” to the people who enjoy the privilege of being accepted broadly by default.
Yes, I have a Ph.D., you will encounter grievance studies and post modern ideologies when you pursue this path. I have indeed studied the philosophical foundations of these ideologies. I don’t agree with post modern ideologies, nor do I agree that you can state that something is purely constructed by a culture. An individual is defined both by their physiology and their societal structure. It’s physiology and culture. Post modernism denies objective truth. I believe in objective truth. I also believe in intentionality, which post modernism denies. We could go on. Stop using the “have you actually studied this” argument and actually engage in productive debate. An appeal to academic authority is really not useful here.
It seems some forget, for instance, that the native population of America benefitted greatly from their encounters with colonial people from France and Britain. They sold and traded items. They learned knew technologies. Hell, many native tribes fought alongside the Americans during the American revolution. They also fought alongside France. The whole situation of the American colonies is really messy. Anyway, colonialism is not a black and white issue.
It seems some forget, for instance, that the native population of America benefitted greatly from their encounters with colonial people from France and Britain.
ah, yes, the minimum of 30 million people killed just in the Americas really benefited. get out of here with this settler colonialist apologia, my dude. you are a textbook case of why nobody is interested in hearing out conservative “thought”, which appears to be impossibly tied to being pro-genocide.
Either you’re the stupidest person who has ever received a PhD in the world, or you’re a fucking liar. There’s absolutely no god damned way that you can hold this many imbecilic, counter-to-reality views while having had to engage with primary sources for the multiple years it took to achieve a PhD. Stop lying, seriously. Nobody buys your bullshit anyway.
Queer theory denies human physiology, elevating the idea that everything is socially constructed
You’re already getting pushback on your other points, so I thought I would weigh in here. Biologically speaking, sex is multifaceted, variable, and somewhat malleable. Even anatomically or physiologically scientists say that gender and sex are not as simple or clean cut as you are making it out to be. Additionally, gender diverse people can be found across all cultures and throughout history - transgender people are not an invention of the post-modern era.
I don’t think that acknowledging the reality that human experience is complex and multi-faceted is a left wing value. It is evident to anyone who honestly engages with scientific consensus and with the lived experiences of LGBTQ folks that those people exist. They’re not going anywhere, and I don’t think it’s especially “left wing” to say we ought to make space for them in society to just live their lives as they are.
Colour blindness is not a way of combatting racism.
If you have a real world system, and you bias it heavily to be unequal, then you try and correct it by biasing it to be equal, the average output is still vastly unequal, and the absolute best case scenario you can hope for is that it will trend towards equality over time without ever reaching it.
There’s a reason that people who actually study and think about the topic come out as antiracist and people who don’t think it about it except when it inconveniences them just wish everyone would stop talking about it and we could pretend like it didn’t exist.
Yes, it is. There are a lot of academics that have fallen prey to post modern ideologies like anti racism. But there are also academics that haven’t, like myself and John McWhorter.
‘nuh uh I don’t believe that’ isn’t an argument.
I’ve explained how balanced system + inequality + balanced system = inequality, and you’ve just said “nuh uh that’s not convenient for me”.
Wow, what a shocking comment. Explains your original I suppose.
You can’t just lay judgement on something because you don’t like it. You need to actually understand it, hopefully your read the other responses you got with an open mind, lest ye drift deeper into bigotry via ignorance (chosen ignorance, at that)
The conservatives you’re describing are becoming more uncommon by the day. So much of conservative politics now is driven by misinformation and fear, I legitimately can’t remember the last time I had a constructive conversation with a conservative. They live in a different world, which makes constructive discussion almost impossible.
I would agree with you, but at least in the US majority of conservatives fully embraced those moronic ideas.
The people that call themselves conservatives no longer are conservatives, their only goal is how to hurt “liberals”.
At this point true conservatives that still care about the country started voting for democrats or not vote at all, but they are now labeled as RINOS.
I know it is a loaded term, and many will quickly dismiss it, (but it is correct given the definition), but the party was taken over by fascists and real conservatives aren’t doing anything to take their party back.
At this point true conservatives that still care about the country started voting for democrats
Compared to most countries, Democrats are conservatives. And Republicans are extreme right wing.
The US doesn’t have a left wing party. Nor even a truly centrist one.
You are essentially using a “no true Scotsman” defense here, which is wild given the public stances of America’s Conservative Party, the GOP.
You act like they are talking about outliers but the whole GOP is in lockstep with those awful stances and decisions. You say we need better conservative content? I say you need better conservative leadership because the majority of conservatives follow what they are fed of fox, oann, and whatever other sources of disinfo
Come back to us when the official party line isn’t supporting the big lie, or attacking climate change or attacking science and vaccines and masking, or that trans people shouldn’t exist, or that students should not be given the forgiveness that those with money get (PPP vs student loan forgiveness), or that Russia and Putin are not our allies nor role models, I could go on and on and on.
You want a better conservative image? You need better conservatives first. Talk about putting the cart before the horse
You say what we mention is mischaracterizations made by the left. Please, point out which are untrue
I think we need to have better conservative content.
Haven’t seen a lot of examples of that for many decades.
Yes, this is true, many conservative people are smart - they worked out that in order to get money and power they can exploit conservative talking points easily because they don’t have to be truthful, thoughtful, or in any way care about other people
True. Many of them are just plain evil. But I would argue that the vast majority are some combination of evil and stupid.
I just don’t understand what politics conservatives do other then push for laws that oppress people they don’t feel comfortable sharing a space with? I think the real political discussions are just happening within the left. Conservative party kinda needs to just go away, and the left split into socialists, democrats, and maybe independents. American politics and media have driven it’s two party system so opposed to each other, there is no mutual agreement anymore, you either take the blue side or the red side to any and all issues, and I’m sorry the red side is just so cartoonishly evil they just stand in the way of progress, or push to go backwards in history.
I hope you’re enjoying the discussion, and I hope you are understanding a lot of the excellent points made here, because I have not seen you engaging with anyone so far, at least not in the Hot replies. I was hoping to see that engagement. I don’t have much to add that has not already been added. It’s hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays. Even so-called mainstream conservative ideas like “tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy will create more money and prosperity for everyone” rings pretty hollow after over 40 years of that sort of ideology having been very thoroughly put into practice with very little benefit one could name. It’s hard to engage when you can just sort of gesture to the current state of things and the lives of people who have grown up in the last 4 decades as being self-evident of the failure of that idea.
Basically, I ask, what does conservatism have to offer, really? I am completely open-minded and would listen, but you would have to do better than just repeating the same tired things I have heard my whole life, having grown up in a conservative catholic household and over 43 years slowly but surely drifting to the socialist atheist person I am now. Better believe I’ve heard a lot and am well-read. And there are a lot of people out there just like me.
It’s hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays.
This is the trouble I have with conservative thinking now. Even here in the UK, where our Conservatives aren’t as bad as the Republicans in the US (yet), I’m at a place where I can no longer offer the benefit of the doubt to rightwing policies, because now they only seem to exist to make life hard for marginalised people. I can’t point at a single member of our government who supports what they’re doing because it’s what they genuinely believe to be the right thing to do. They’re all interested in how it can enrich them, and they’ll worry about the morality later.
I mean, say what you like about Margaret Thatcher (and believe me, I do), at least she seemed to actually believe in the policies she pushed through. She had an ideology, and was given room to try it out. And it worked. For her and her rich buddies.
But these days it just seems to be hatred and fear for the sake of riling up the proles because it keeps them in power. The power is the goal, not the governance.
People forget that Thatcher was a greengrocer’s daughter too rather than a product of the Eton to Oxbridge to Parliament pipeline of privilege. In my opinion Thatcherism was like a doctor giving a near-lethal dose of chemotherapy to a patient with a broken leg but at least it was done with the intention of helping the patient, I feel the present incarnation of Tories have known since Brexit that they’re bound for a decade out of power and just want to behave as much like Russian kleptocrats as they can get away with before the election next year.
I don’t mean the Russian kleptocrat line ironically either, Boris Johnson literally put the son of one into the House of Lords as the Baron of fucking Siberia. You can’t make this up.
Modern conservative politics and “polite discussion” are like oil and water.
I think you’re seeing backlash against being involuntarily exposed to (and often pushed to see) unbridled and deranged hatred and fear on traditional socmedia.
A conservative opinion like “I’m not sure communism is practical” is something that can be engaged with pretty cordially, “I think that education should focus on marketable skills” is an opinion I think is pretty misinformed but it’s not something that exhausts me.
Unfortunately a lot of online conservatism is stuff like “I think there’s a conspiracy by $minority to mind control us with vaccines” or “Should we be trying to make queer people afraid?” which aren’t positions you can engage with.
Conservative ideology of maybe twenty years ago would likely have a lot better chance at meaningful discussion as opposed to right now. At this time, the political right in the US have thrown full-throated support for policies that many people (rightfully) feel are abhorrent.
For less repugnant topics, say, fiscal responsibility, that one is also a tough one to talk about seeing as the right is trying to gut every social program they can think of while doing all they can to cut taxes for the rich.
I know there are sane conservatives out there, but until that party steers their ship away from bigotry, hatred, and destroying the middle and lower class, you’ll probably not find a lot of discussion. Which is a shame because I think we do need two strong parties with differing viewpoints, but when the other viewpoint is rampant discrimination and further enriching the wealthy.
20 years ago they were panicing over video games and gay marriage try again
I feel like there is an idealization of far right conservatism that makes people believe that if we can just move past Trump and trumpism that things will go back to normal. That said republicans used to be more subtle and attempted to keep an air of respectability and civility about them, but a lot of the problem beliefs we had.
Tough on crime but not for white collar big crime politics, tax cuts for the wealthy, anti union stuff, racial dog whistling, gutting social programs, evangelical faux christian nonsense, election fraud, appointing judges, and etc were all present 20 years ago.
And regarding LGBT stuff both sides sucked 20 years ago, but conservatives were way worse.
Going back to at least reagan it’s been a shitshow it’s just decades of Reagan era neocon strategies coming up against impotent neolibs has brought us to where we are today. The current strategy is also far more transparent and aggressive and angry so things feel less civil, but sometimes I wonder if maybe thats not a bad thing. It’s easier to rally against trump than it is to rally against a guy you feel like you’d like to have a beer with.
If by “conservative/right wing opinions” you mean the current extremist fascist opinionated MAGA-‘my way or the highway’ brand of Republicanism, then I sure as hell hope it’s unwelcome on Lemmy instances.
If you wish to bring back reason and logic into conservative/right-wing opinions (such as limited government, which means NOT legislating their brand of morality), then I’m all for those viewpoints (not that I would agree with them wholesale, but it’s a discussion I’d be willing to take part in).
The real problem with this discourse is that current climate of conservatism is completely closed to reason and logic, completely embraces lies and conspiracy theories as factual, and basically wishes to see all liberals either dead or suffering in some way.
So yeah, keep that shit off Lemmy instances.
I’m not sure why “I don’t want to see a space become an echo chamber” is always what gets said. Everywhere else IS a right wing echo chamber for the most part? Conservatives aren’t the ones chased from reddit and twitter?
What probably isnt welcome is questioning people’s right to exist, right to live unmolested because of someone else’s beliefs (and real molested, not "i saw a minority existed), and the right to make your own medical choices for yourself and your kids. Considering means testing has been proven a waste and the right opposes taxing fair share, i wouldn’t even argue that actual financial conservation is even a point the party makes.
So it’s really hard to see what need this space has for those talking points. Unless it’s actually about being open to real discussion, which frankly facts aren’t often on the side of the right, what good to this community do these ideas offer?
What should be asked is what place does the Right/Conservative philosophy as a whole have in the Lemmy ethos? Is it in and of itself could be argued to be an antithesis to the whole structure and philosophy. Can authoritarian ideals thrive where they cannot take power?
Tumblr i the only other real leftist space I think. You could maybe put baseline social media is somewhat leftist, tik tok, instagram, snapchat, most of those have a leftist lean, primarily because they trend younger. Your general use social media is going to have a left/right lean based on age demographics. That’s just the lean those general social medias are going to have.
Oh yeah tumblr. They pride themselves on being extreme i think in some of the spheres, where as i think nost people in this space are sharing deeply held beliefs. Most of the extreme stuff i see from there seems to be teens/outrage bait.
I forget the ages but i think beehaw/lemmy skews a tad older?
It basically has to skew older, probably 25 to 30+ The vast majority of those younger are going to be on tiktok, sc, insta, or something like discord. Lemmy will be considered more “left” overall than even reddit was. There will be of course bad instances, but i think pressure to defederate from them overall will be strong, especially when the “free speech” instances start having difficult legal questions thrown at them when their users inevitably start saying the quiet part out loud.
God i hate discords and what they have done with gaming documentation. I am completely turned off by any indie dev who requires you join their discord.
But im here, clearly i like forums. The fact that discord is basically backwards adding in forums with their threads thing is proof forums are still useful!
There’s probably a sizable group of younger individuals, talking like 14-18 that are your kinda weird kids who don’t have strong interpersonal social groups and instead compensate with the internet. The ones who find community in various instances are going to probably trend heavily left over time as they’re exposed, inadvertently, to things they wouldn’t normally be if they had more socionormative relationships.
No well adjusted 16 year old with a gaggle of friends is hanging out on sunday night in the summer on lemmy unless they have a very atypical social circle, autism, or both. And I don’t say autism in a derogatory way.
I was that kid back in 2004-2005 who had no social friend group and found connection with people through 4chan when I was 14. The exact same type of people who were attracted to chans way back when are the type of people that are going to be attracted to lemmy and federation. The only difference is this time the chans are already cemented and those who fall into the alt-right pipeline already have their destination mapped out for them. Those that aren’t sucked into the hateful rhetoric will likely find there way here as content seeps into the rest of the internet by osmosis.
Discord is extremely popular among well adjusted teen groups and social outcasts in equal order, it has strongly become “the third location” fpr a lot of people. Instead of hanging out at a skate park, or the mall, or in AIM chats, they’re hanging out in VC on Discord.
My experience hasnt been like yours at all and i am sorry you think you’re weird or something?
I mean i was a loner because geographically a lot of kids didn’t live near me. I took the time to learn about people and everyone who works with me likes me, but i also kept myself safe and i enjoy being weird.
My experience with discord is it’s a place like highschool where people get shut out if they arent as loud.
Im not sure why you’re anti thoughtful young people, i think people enjoy a lot of different activities and informing yourself of the world around you is exactly what makes well adjusted people, not late jight drunken hang outs.
It’s been weird. Have a good one and work on thinking better about tech and those hobbies. No one “well adjusted” really throws that stuff away as inherently maladaptive. I think in person peer pressure not to grow because you live around ignorant people wont have a lot of appeal to a good person.
Wouldn’t that depend on the historic understanding of GOP politics in the United States? There was a time when the Democrats were the problematic group and the GOP were not…the tables have flipped. For me, personally, I am invested in Beehaw’s ‘Northern Star’ or guiding principle -> be(e) nice.
Conservatives I can deal with, but modern right wingers have lost their goddamn minds.
And the entire issue is that a lot of people who view themselves as moderate conservatives are enabling this ideological brain rot by not vocally disassociating it with more reasonable conservative positions. Because of that, I am way more comfortable saying that conservative voices should be viewed with suspicion than I used to be.
My brother is conservative. Small C. He recognises that the Tories are a shower of pricks and wants them to actually do conservative things, rather than focus on race baiting and hatred. I can talk politics with him, and enjoy doing so even though I’m getting more and more commie as every year passes.
He’s not a right wing shithead.
Honestly, my big thing with right-wingers is that they come with no proof, and get mad when you start asking for facts and figures. Right now, I can see the effects of 40 years of trickle-down economic theory: it means that you need a degree to get just about any decent job in this country, and also unions should not exist because reasons. It really kind of biases me against right-wing talking points, to the point that I need to see proof. Treat it like a math problem and show your work or gtfo.
my big thing with right-wingers is that that they come with no proof, abd get mad when you start asking for facts and figures.
This post itself is a classic example of that… OP came with a “waaah there’s no place for right-wing discussion when lemmygrad gets a free pass”, disregarding the fact Beehaw has defederated with lemmygrad already. Then when many wonderful users come in to open the dialogue, saying “hey, there’s a place for you, here’s what we can discuss on this instance and here’s what you should take elsewhere”, there’s no interest in continuing discussion from OP (maybe they will reply later in the coming days).
Certain comments, like that from user @nicholas are full-on ragebait, leaving no room for discussion, and intending to antagonize each other by suggesting “everyone right of Bernie Sanders gets shit on here, just you watch the people that will reply to me”. The vibe I want in an online community is like a nice discussion at a coffee shop, the last thing I want is a direct escalation to a shouting match so I try to avoid goading people into that.
Right wing opinions should be less welcome everywhere.
Differing opinions and perspectives, when able to be discussed rationally and with sufficient emotional awareness of others.
Arguments like, “my book says what you’re doing is murder”, “being who you are is a sin” leave no room for sensible discussion, and in many contexts amount to hateful conduct which is not welcome here. Remember that be(e)ing nice holds paramount, which puts a threshold on how heated arguments should get on Beehaw.
I’ve conversed and debated with conservatives a lot. While we might think the other is misguided in their opinion, we often have a productive discussion. Speaking in broad generalities, conservatives tend to believe in a universal, immovable moral structure, whereas liberals tend to believe in more nuances morality that works dynamically based on context and varies from person to person. It’s not an easy barrier to overcome, but with some efforts from both you and your debate opponent it is possible.
Two things are important to me when I debate. First, I try to reiterate their argument so that I am not misunderstanding it before I say may own. Second, I highlight and clarify where specifically our beliefs differ and where they overlap. The reason I do this, is that I debate others not to just be a shouting match where the loudest opinion wins, but find mutual understanding even in disagreement.
If by conservative you mean “you and your friends don’t deserve human rights because I don’t like you” then hopefully you’re not welcome.
I think we have to be mindful of the fact that ‘conservative’ means different things in different countries politically and there’s also a continuum on which conservatives (like left folk) are. I’m in the UK and personally loathe the Tories, but even within the Tory party there are more moderate conservatives as well as the batshit ones. Similarly, our Labour party is divided between the more socialist side of things and the centre ground side of the party. Also you can have fiscally conservative values but also be liberal/left leaning on other policy areas.
There’s nuance to be had and I don’t think talking in absolutes helps anyone. We can’t gain a greater understanding of how our world works if we shield ourselves from opposing perspectives.
That said, those on the transphobic, homophobic, racist side of the spectrum should 100% not be welcomed. No tolerance for intolerance.
It would be a shame if this community was just focused on the US, but at the same time maybe the community is a bit broad? At some point it might make sense to segment the community and define it more so one country doesn’t dominate discussion
I agree with this.
