To be fair “centrist” in the USA is “extremely rightwing” everywhere else, the USA is super consumed by rightwing retoric
Thanks McCarthy and the red scare! You did a real long-lasting number on rhetoric here in the states.
I wonder how he/they would feel if they could see the right NOW…
I think you mean McCarthy’s assistant, Roy Cohn.
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When genocide and no genocide are both too extreme, maybe a little genocide? Or a genocide far away? Or maybe killing a group that doesn’t qualify the definition of genocide?
Or maybe killing a group that doesn’t qualify the definition of genocide?
yeah let’s kill a group of people that is not a group of people
Killing the rich wouldn’t be genocide.
But it would be pretty based.
that’s only because they aren’t a sufficiently large enough group of people
The number of people is irrelevant, it’s because being rich isn’t a protected class.
To use another example, it used to be legal way back when to sell cocaine and put it in soft drinks. “Cocaine sellers” were a group of people, but not a protected one. Criminalizing that group of people and explicitly trying to make that group not exist anymore isn’t a genocide, because “cocaine sellers” can’t reasonably be considered a protected class.
Likewise, Antebellum culture in the southern US was heavily influenced by slavery, and slaveowners were eliminated as a group of people, but that’s not genocide, because slaveowners are not a protected class.
Just kill 50% at random. Perfectly balanced
I understood that reference.
Which niche, obscure, underappreciated work of art is that comment referring to?
Half Baked
In a strict reading, killing LGBTQ wouldn’t be genocide because they aren’t all related. On the other hand, they do form a (sub) culture. You can argue both ways but they technically don’t tick all the boxes. So it’s as bad but not jurisprudentially genocide so maybe a compromise we can convince our centrist friend of?
it depends how pedantic you are about the exact definition but I think (or hope) most people agree that would be genocide
It’s contrieved. Genocide is about ending procreation. Is somebody LGBTQ when they procreate?
Lmafo queer people procreate all the time. Are you being serious right now?
no
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Lesbians can have children on their own if they have sperm from a bank. I met a couple doing that last year and I’ve known lesbian couples who have raised really beautiful families this way.
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Gay men use surrogates or they adopt. Not very different from how Musk uses surrogates with his baby mamas. Also, it’s not uncommon for gay men to marry women and have children.
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Bisexual people can be attracted to any type of human. Bisexuals are often in straight looking couples. You probably know a lot of bisexuals without knowing it. Bisexuals often marry each other, too in M/F pairing. Unless bisexuals are sterile they have no issues having children. They very often do. But they can also use all other fertility methods.
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Trans people can have children. This includes trans men (biological women who transition can still get pregnant). And trans women (men who transition can still get others pregnant). Both can be in relationships with people that can either get them pregnant or get their partner pregnant. I actually knew a trans man who got pregnant multiple times by their non-trans husband.
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Queer is a huge group and it includes Asexual people. Asexual people can still have sex, get pregnant, and get others pregnant.
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Adoption and surrogates are open to all people. Including normal straight couples. Anyone can have children if they want children. In America, parenthood is a fundamental right.
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They do procreate but not necessarily LGBTQ people
Well you see that’s why the case must be made they are slightly less human.
Just shoot madly into a crowd with a low rate of fire. Totally ethical since it’s absolutely random.
congrats you have invented terrorism
We’ll kill everyone born at 1pm
yeah fuck those guys
And to define that this group of people I hate is not a group of people, we asked this judge to weight on the matter.
No we didn’t bribe them. Trust me bro.
also, I would like to kill any ANTIFA terrorists that show up, and report any law breakers to the relevant authorities during my playthrough. why doesn’t the game let me do this? do they just hate centrists? wow, way to make me sympathize with the right.
Its the RADICAL LEFTISTS fault why I hate minorities, why won’t they just be submissive to white power. Clearly the CORPORATE MEDIA has corrupted the minds of minorities since the civil rights act but our lord and savier Orange Jesus will make video games that allow me to enact all my fantasies.
I know, god these people all just hate centrists. their hatred for our centrist values (and totally just that) instills in me an irrestistable compulsion to sell everything I own, move to Fiume and design an occult ritual based on the most completely-missing-the-point ‘fullmetal alchemist’ fanfics I can find to resurrect composite mussolini-hitler.
Bro wants to play Undertale or any other game that lets you do pacifist runs
bro then proceeds to do a genocide run and conplains that it’s boring.
The genocide run in undertale is so fucked that I refused to do it.
I don’t know how it could be boring when the payoff to such a run is this song. Even so, that path is fucking dark.
toby fox knew what he was doing
Bullshit
I’m a centrist
The Israeli government and Hamas leadership should both be put in front of a wall and shot
Trump is a lying narcissistic sack of shit, just like Elmo Musk
None of that should be on any political side, those are obviously human choices
They forget that centrists don’t mean being in the middle of each extreme. If one side is calling for genocide and the other is calling for the prosecution of those advocating for genocide, a centrist perspective isn’t about endorsing a little bit of genocide or putting a few people in prison.
Instead, it involves investigating how we reached a situation where people are calling for genocide, apprehending the group that could actually commit genocide, and dismantling the institutions that made it possible for people to join that group. This process is resource-intensive and often anticlimactic.
You don’t win by persecuting people, you win by making it difficult to commit crimes. It is a slow process that requires swift action.
The left’s search for idealism is what doomed them in the 2024 election.
You don’t win by persecuting people, you win by making it difficult to commit crimes.
Well provided you accept that you need to prosecute the people who’ve already committed crimes. You can’t just go ooh well it’s society’s fault so let them be
Of course you have to prosecute criminals, what is an alternative for that?
Making them president, apparently
Take the W man.
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Who is?
If one side is calling for genocide and the other is calling for the prosecution of those advocating for genocide, a centrist perspective isn’t about endorsing a little bit of genocide or putting a few people in prison.
This is not the situation. Both the fascist Republican and the Democratic Party, that’s supposed to be the opposition to Fascism, unconditionally supported arming a state that has not only been committing genocide for over 15 months, but has committed ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and settler colonialism for over 76 years.
Instead, it involves investigating how we reached a situation where people are calling for genocide, apprehending the group that could actually commit genocide, and dismantling the institutions that made it possible for people to join that group. This process is resource-intensive and often anticlimactic.
This is an incredibly far left position to the Democratic Party, which denounced the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant and the ICJ case against Israel. Nor is it anticlimactic when we know genocide is already underway because of how incredibly well documented it has been.
The left’s search for idealism is what doomed them in the 2024 election.
Do you mean the Democratic Party here? Because what doomed them is ignoring the demands of their constituents. “The Left” in the US is entirely grassroots and had no effect on the policies of the Democratic Party during the election.
Driving 3 million people into a concentration camp and restricting food, water, and medicine is with the intention to ethnically cleanse them is bad, but have you considered that using violence to escape that concentration camp is also bad?
Let’s meet in the middle. How about we only exterminate half of them?
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Oh my. An actual centrist and not a far-right nutjob claiming it to seem intellectually superior. What a sight for sore eyes
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Wait actually? I didn’t check I just took this one comment at face value. The one time I don’t do my due diligence lmao
Looking at a dozen of his comments, that does not appear to be the case.
Criticizing HAMAS =/= genocide supporter
When someone does “both sides” to a group committing genocide and their victims, they are supporting genocide.
If you’re being stabbed and I go “Yes, stabbing random people is bad, but you’re ruining his jacket by bleeding on it, so really you’re both bad people”, that criticism is supporting the guy who is currently stabbing you.
Yeah but that’s not really what he said right? What he said was more along the lines of “Fuck you for stabbing them. Fuck you for stabbing back”
To be clear, I don’t actually agree with them. I was just surprised by a genuinely centrist opinion of “fuck you all for everything”
Edit: Nah I was kinda off the mark with this one actually
Except one side here is committing the genocide, Hamas is not restricting food, water, and medicine into Israel, Hamas is not targeting Israeli hospitals, Hamas didn’t kill hundreds of Israeli children yesterday.
It’s gross to refer to Palestine’s response to getting rounded into a concentration camp and subject to inhuman conditions as if they were doing the same thing to people living in Israel.
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Why /s?
The top comment is giving a false equivalence of the leaders of Israel who are perpetuating genocide and the leaders of Hamas that are resisting that genocide. There are many parallels to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and it should be clear to everyone that equating the leadership of that uprising to the leadership of those who put them in the concentration camps is ridiculous
In the Shadow of the Holocaust by Masha Gessen, the situation in Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghettos. The comparison was also made by a Palestinian poet who was later killed by an Israeli airstrike. Adi Callai has also written on the parallels in his article The Gaza Ghetto Uprising and expanded upon in his corresponding video
But the right think that Trump is wonderful. At least the right in the US do, I think the right in every other country thinks he’s a dork who’s drawing too much attention to himself, and them by extension.
It’s important to consider all points. It’s also important to analyze them and throw out the ones that are wrong, whether they’re incorrect or inhumane. Blindly accepting all opinions as equally valid is stupid.
God I hate the current political discourse. You have extremists vs extremists, and now both sides are vilifying everyone that doesn’t blindly adhere to all their positions.
I’ve had people try to tell me that basic healthcare and corrections to income equality are “extremely progressive” viewpoints. I’m done with letting others’ definition of extremism into the conversation.
Being called an extremist is not really the thing I’m taking issue with. The right wing has been doing that for decades, screeching “communist!” at the most ridiculous things. And depending on which particular ideals you subscribe to, being such an “extremist” is probably a good thing.
The issue I have is that instead of calling out that shitty behavior, the left has started emulating and expanding on it. In addition to calling everyone “fascist”, they’ve started attacking the entire concept of being a centrist (and I mean actual centrist here, not just right wingers arguing in bad faith). People aren’t born believing in one socioeconomic system or another, it’s learned. Generally, everyone is going to start off somewhere in the center, as they become politically aware. If the only voices they ever hear is two sides screeching names at eachother, you wind up with a disengaged and disinterested voting population, which will only help the fascists.
I agree with this actually. I think your other comments were worded too vaguely, allowing differences of interpretation to cause severe disagreement.
Centrists lack a moral center. They test to see the way the wind is blowing and do that.
The issue I have is that instead of calling out that shitty behavior, the left has started emulating and expanding on it.
Why wouldn’t we adopt a tactic that has proven effective?
The left tried “calling it out” for decades. Unfortunately, as the right realized, the liberals were so committed to compromise and being the “reasonable” ones that they could be as unreasonable as they want and they’d still reach across the aisle and try to compromise. When you’re up against an enemy like that with no backbone, whose whole identity rests on being the “reasonable compromise,” all you have to do is take the maximalist, most extreme position on every issue, and then you can let yourself be “talked down” to what you actually want. Meanwhile, you can actually promote specific ideas and a general ideology in order to influence where the electorate stands, while the other side can never full-throatedly embrace a coherent ideology and just triangulates carefully focus group tested positions.
The right has won by being beligerant, extreme, and unapologetic, and the reason they’ve won is because it’s taken so fucking long for any sort of actual left to even begin to emerge and react to that by actually standing up to them and giving it back to them. Even so, the closest we have to a “left” in the mainstream, the Democratic party, is still overwhelmingly committed to moderation and compromise! Rather than criticizing the left for being too beligerant, the left should be criticized for not being beligerant enough! Instead “centrists” will go out and find some fringe group of online communists with no power and compare that against the extremism of the mainstream right, which currently holds majorities in every branch of the US government.
You misunderstand my position. Maybe that’s on me for being too vague.
My position can be summed up as “talk softly, carry a big stick.” At no point does that necessitate compromising. When dealing with online discussions, it’s not just you and the person you are directly speaking to. There’s other people reading. Some of those people are the frothing at the mouth right wingers, who you are never going to reach anyway, and so they are irrelevant. On the other hand, some of those people will be the young, some will be the adults who are just become politically aware. These are all people who can be persuaded with logic, and you want on your side. None of that necessitates you compromising your ideals (and not should you).
The same thing applies to when you go out protesting. The point is to get more people on your side, without simply becoming what you are fighting against. So you should be peaceful, you should be respectful, but in the interest of not compromising, you should also be armed.
I see, I understand that a bit better. Imo you need a carrot-and-stick approach, meeting belligerence with reason can come across as weakness, and if bad faith tactics are allowed to be deployed, they can win against someone committed to staying in good faith. The goal should be to have a reasonable discussion, but to do that, you gotta make sure the costs of straying from that are too high to be worth the benefit, and that can mean being rude and confrontational and throwing their tactics back in their face - but it’s situational. That’s what “speaking softly but carrying a big stick” means to me.
Exactly, and in my opinion, online discussions are not the place for the “unreasonable” tactics. It’s not really possible for an individual to be “louder” via text, and it’s not just the unreasonable person you are reaching. It’s all the people who may happen across the conversation later, and you have no way of knowing just how many of those are people that may still be swayed by reason.
I don’t really agree. You can be “shouted down” in text format, even if not literally. And yeah it’s not about reaching the unreasonable person, but it’s about not letting them win at the game they’re playing. Like I said, responding to aggression with reason can come across as weakness, and for some people, they’d rather feel strong than feel reasonable. It’s not really as simple as the more reasonable person wins, there’s a range of different things that are going to influence who people agree with, it might be aesthetics and which side sounds more cringe, or it might be empathy, or so on. “Logos” is only one factor.
Found the enabler. ⬆️
Found the source of the problem.
No two humans are going to agree on every point. If you vilify everyone that differs from you in the slightest, you are a detriment to your own cause.
But of course, no one actually wants to fix everything. They want to just make snarky comments online to feel superior.
If you vilify everyone that differs from you in the slightest, you are a detriment to your own cause.
“In the slightest” being centrist code for “who counts as a human being” and “does bombing hospitals and starving children count as genocide”
Nobody is vilifying someone because they have different opinions on the importance of reading Shakespeare in high-school, or if they think, big centralised public libraries are a better option to lots of smaller public libraries.
This is just the quintessential enlightened centrist argument, reducing down serious issues about basic fundamental morals into just “disagreement”
Nobody is vilifying someone because they have different opinions on the importance of reading Shakespeare in high-school, or if they think, big centralised public libraries are a better option to lots of smaller public libraries.
No, but they are dumping people into that category in their mind, and then making all kinds of assumptions and conclusions about that person based off the one false assumption. And then because it’s the internet, the name calling starts and all constructive conversation ends.
Just look at this thread. I started it with “the current American political discourse sucks” and no-one commenting was able to take that statement at face value. Everyone replied with assumptions on what my stance was on issues I didn’t mention. It’s that exact reflex that I have a problem with. Essentially, I agree with the message, but I disagree with the delivery method.
no-one commenting was able to take that statement at face value
People can smell the tepid liberalism and pretty reliably guess what else you believe because they’ve seen it before. The modlog indicates they were right. You are exactly the person they’re talking about when they mock someone bothsidesing genocide.
Hamas doesn’t equal the entirety of the Palestinian population in the same way that the Israeli government/military doesn’t equal the entire Israeli population. Why is that so hard for you .ml tankies to separate? There’s a reason why I specifically make sure to phrase the discussion as “Hamas’s actions” not “the Palestinians’ actions”
Israel is fighting to eradicate the entire Palestinian people, Hamas is fighting to protect the entire Palestinian people, and even groups whose members Hamas murdered to obtain power are supporting them at this point in time. When you adopt the zionist framing that Israel is justified in fighting Hamas because they’re just so evil, you are carrying water for Israel.
If you’re old enough to remember Iraq, they did the same shit; the right wanted to murder as many Muslims as possible, the tepid liberals tried to say they only opposed Saddam and the Baathists and terrorists as if the two positions weren’t equivalent in practice.
Whatever you say Herr Niemöller. Keep your false equivalences, ignore the US now has literal concentration camps, and calmly wait until they come for you.
I never made any equivalences, stated any of my political opinions, or said anything other the fact that the current US political discourse sucks.
And things are only going to get worse because people like you would rather make up shit to get offended by, instead of doing anything that might get the majority on your side.
Making things up? Have you read the news? People have been arrested by plainclothes thugs and deported with no due process. There was a picture earlier of the holding bunks of the victims of these extrajudiciary ICE raids next to literal concentration camps. They are being sent, irreversably, to work camps in other countries that are known to torture and kill their prisoners, especially foreigners. You are ignorant to the point of danger.
If thinking I am a human being with full and equal rights to every other human being and that anyone who disagrees can go fuck themselves makes me an extremist then that’s a reflection of the society I live in, not me.
And yeah, the people who ‘don’t agree with me on every point’ are the people trying to criminalize my existence. How many states is it illegal for you to piss in a public restroom? How many states are trying to criminalize your healthcare? Have you had the government confiscate or alter your passport? Did you even know this shit is happening?
Exactly. 99% of the time attacks against centrists are just smug nerds who believe their side of extremism is better than the other sides.
If you villify everyone that differs from you in the slightest, you are a detriment to your own cause
Jokes on you! I villify everyone!!
There is no extremist left in the american political discourse. Theres hardly even any left at all. And yes you really are the villain if you dont want women and minority groups to be equal with cishet white men or for israel to stop genociding.
What positions of the two provided (being against facism, and protecting women) don’t you “blindly” adhere to?
And there’s the idiotic extrapolation I’m referring to. I’m talking about the discourse in general, not the specifics.
That’s a way to say you don’t want to say which specifics you are against because people will see your shitty morals
Wrong again. I’m trying to point out that it’s exactly this type of conversation that has been driving people away and making the left wing half of the US political spectrum completely impotent.
Seems like a great way to say “I bought into the right wing populist bullshit, and don’t want to be held accountable for the results we’re now seeing. So I’ll blame the left that the right wing populist bullshiit told me to blame for everything.”
As dumb as it is to claim the left and right are only having minor disagreements, or are equally valid, your comment is not helping because this behavior is exactly what Anteater is referring to.
And what would you have the left do?
Meet the right in the middle. Again?
So that in 4 years, asking that political prisoners be treated with the slightest amount of human decency is just too damn extreme for the right to take seriously?
Which minor policies are you being vilified for supporting?
This is just more jibledek bunk. Typical jibblist prattling on about their things and giving not a single consideration to the obivous pliquist arguments against. And all this even after the main hedging of Two Whistlers!
Ridiculous.
Centrists are just lazy at this point. They’re basically “I thing treating people bad is bad, but I don’t want rules and taxes either, so I’ll settle for treating people-not-me badly if I don’t have more rules and taxes.”
The centrists I meet have an extremely infantile view of how politics work— assuming there’s an evenly distribution of representation and power for the left and the right. The reality is that this country has always been right-leaning and is now pushing into far-right fascist territory. To be a centrist in America is essentially a European conservative.
Laziest take.
also, more rules and taxes. really im just into treating people-not-me bad. also maybe people like me, if, you know, I think I’m one of the good ones.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. - W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming (1919)Just as bad or actually worse are the “Both Sides Bad” centrists.
yeah this really is what centrism looks like. although I gotta say, a lot of people are so reactive towards this line of thinking that they identify anyone questioning their beliefs as “centrists”. no, not wanting russia to control the world does not make me a centrist. just like criticizing the democrats does not make me a centrist.
Honestly democrats are a little too naive and annoying to say I fully align with them but republicans are straight up dangerous in belief and practice, so while I still criticize democrats I wouldn’t agree with republicans
As a rationalist I think any idea should be evaluated for at least longer than it takes to react to a meme. Ideas should be accepted or rejected on their own merits or lack thereof, and not because you notice a similarity with something clearly heroic or terrible and you want to quickly decide which way to mentally swipe so you can scroll on to the next thing in your feed. People do too much of that kind of superficial thinking. [And I’m not defending any particular political point here, I’m talking about rationality vs superficiality.]
as a rationalist, i believe its important that we consider maybe Antactica is actually a great ice wall holding in the worlds oceans. i think we should at least evaluate that fact before making such superficial descisions.
OP’s definition of centrism heavily influenced by CIA/media/zionism.
Reddit be like
