this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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To be honest, a lot of Republicans are still very respectable. The republican platform is fucked up, but if you are talking to your neighbor, don't make his party affliation equal to his personal belief. A Democrat doesn't believe in everything in the Democrat's platform either.
In that sense, insulting a party is not generally helpful for public discourse.
I don't give a shit about personal beliefs, I care about outcomes. Republicans' desired outcomes actively hurt people I care about, so I can absolutely tell them to fuck off. Even if they don't "believe in everything," they are indifferent enough to let horrible things happen.
It's quite a tall order to be kind to those who want you and those you care about dead.
Oh you don't give a shit about personal beliefs? You the kind who thinks a king is better than a democracy? Because democracy is all about personal beliefs, and convincing your fellow citizens of what you think is right.
What an insanely stupid read of my comment
To be fair your comment was entirely baseless and inaccurate.
Then where is the Republican outrage against the fascist policies so many Republican politicians are advocating for? There are only two options: either they don't care, or they're secretly happy.
Exactly anyone today that votes Republican or calls themselves one (my boss) yet continues to vote republican just because either don't care or wants what they want.
If you are not in the republican circle, how do you even know how they perceive the policies?
... did you read the MLK quote I included? The fact that there aren't many Republicans loudly and repeatedly condemning the leaders of the party says exactly that. If you want to read the whole thing, I recommend you take a look at King's full Letter from a Birmingham Jail to fully understand the point: silence means acceptance.
You look at this thread, and you ask "where's all the voices". You don't find that ironic?
Silence could mean acceptance, it doesn't mean agreement. Just like being on the left if I say "let's keep the discussion going" all you fuckers are gonna downvote me to oblivion and accuse me of less intelligent and make anyone who have a different idea an outcast, it is the same thing for republicans. Someone who don't go with the flow is made an outcast, so if you don't agree, tough luck.
Yeh, if the left treat its different opinions like this, what the fuck you think a republican having a different opinion is treated like? So if you are strongly for the core policies of your affiliated party, would you raise your voice? Or if you did, you think those voices get heard and get reported?
See, now, the 1920s and 1930s taught us that reasonable debate with fascists is impossible. So where are all the Republicans in the public sphere standing up for moderation? No offense to you, but you're a rando on the internet (and so am I). Where are the politicians standing up to the far right?
You know even from liberal media that there is a moderate republican faction, and they are indeed getting hammered exactly by people just like you but from the right.
Where did you learn that? A reasonable debate with any extremism is impossible, it isn't just fascism. Point is you can't let an ideology slip into extremism to begin with. If you refuse to debate your position, that's already a sign of extremism, and calling your counterpart fascist doesn't really make yourself better.
Fuck Republicans and fuck Democrats.
That's the spirit.
Democrats are not perfect, but if someone identifies as a Republican in 2023, there is something deeply wrong with their personal beliefs.
Dehumanizing your subject is easy. Republicans do that to people on the left too. Let's just hate each other till we destroy each other. That's gonna get a good society going.
One side says, "Kill em all"
The other says "Line those killers against the wall"
—Father John Misty
That’s like half the USA
Your comment implies that people take insult when someone calls them out for supporting a platform that - just to take one example - decides it’s proper to prosecute victims of crime because they also think the government should have jurisdiction over woman’s body and a say in their health and wellbeing.
Is them taking umbrage to valid crisis the real issue here?
You support a platform for many different reasons. For example you really want small government, so what choice do you have? And how do you know that a republican definitely is a pro-lifer? And if he is a prolifer, how do you know he believes government should control woman? You can't just paint them all as evil as you imagined. What you imagined is not your neighbor.
Perfectly illustrates my point. I didn’t paint them as evil, I just criticised them. Big difference, which you seem unable to draw.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with me saying “I get you have ideological views, but supporting a party that hurts people to win culture wars is not something I am not cool with”. Branding that as insulting or hateful is just attempting to dodging accountability by disingenuously claiming victim status.
Party allegiance aside, it’s unreasonable and hypocritical for anyone to support a platform with an agenda that will directly and adversely impacts broad swathes of society with an expectation that they will not be directly or adversely impacted by their actions and decisions (which in this case is something as innocuous as simply drawing criticism).
Rebranding Nazism as Republicans is not painting them as evil?
I mean I understand as the discussion goes people often confuse themselves with what we are talking about, but the OP of the post is branding republicans as nazis, and nazis are people we don't need to give any consideration to, these are people we should eliminate from the surface of the earth.
Hey you want to get things done you have to start somewhere. If you think your republican friends are better off getting a new party started, I guess you can start the conversation there.
But have a conversation, don't just call them nazis.
…is the part of your argument I am responding to. Saying “don't five people a hard time for supporting fucked up things” is pretty fucked up.
So something being messed up doesn't mean you can't support it. Let's not even talk about the party, you might believe this country is fucked up. Every country have people who believe their own country has a lot of problems. It doesn't mean you don't support it. You support it because, say, you rely on it to achieve your own ideal, or perhaps you just love what it used to be and you want it to be more successful, or whatever.
The platform isn't a singular thing. I can totally see someone who's in the party to support small government and having to endure the mess that is abortion and extreme gun rights.
Agree! Supporting your country =/= being complicit in all the bad shit done by or in the name of your country. That’s why activism exists, that’s why people can and will protest.
So how come this same logic doesn’t apply if the protests and activism is being directed at your republican neighbour?
I mean if you talked with your neighbor and you can't have a beer over some heated discussions and your neighbor is throwing dog shit in your yard and calling you names, yeh, direct your protest and activisim towards them because they are an asshole.
Being a republican doesn't automatically make them an asshole. Talk first, treat a person as a person, instead of his political affiliation.
Your activism should never start with targeting people. Target ideas. Ideas won't change but people are probably amenable if you use the right approach.
I've never argued or suggested this. I'm enjoying this thread and exploring this idea, but not a fan of strawman arguments :(
Your original point was that that people aren't responsible for the bad ideas of their party, so lecturing on on how to change people's minds is disingenuous in this context.
And I think this is the core contradiction in what you're trying to argue. Imagine your dog-shit analogy in another way: if a neighbour discriminates against you because you're gay (let's say makes comments as you pass by), you appear to support the idea that he is responsible for that view and presumably you can tell him to get fucked to his face. But if that same neighbour votes for a party that discriminates against you, while politely waving to you in the morning, you're saying you shouldn't hold him responsible because he's probably a swell guy? The outcome is the same! You're being discriminated against.
For the record I wouldn't yell "Fuck you Bill!" in protest if this happened. But I absolutely have the right to say "Bill, we've been neighbours for 10 years and I enjoy having you around for BBQ in the summer months, but the fact that you support the party that wants to see my way of life restricted in this way is really disappointing and upsets me" and I absolutely would not be OK if Bill argued that he's not responsible for voting directly against my interests. And to be clear, I'm not saying Bill shouldn't be allowed to vote against my interests, I am just saying that I get to call him out on that. It's unbelievable to me that anyone would say otherwise, but circling back to OP:
You seem to think the world run on responsibilities. How many people you see in your life take responsibilities for everything they do and say? And I am not saying responsibilities do not matter, but you can't just interpret what I said based on your imaginary value system. I never said people aren't responsible for their ideas and what they support. It just doesn't matter in this conversation. You want it to matter? Then who are you to say "they are responsible"? Who are you to judge the consequences of policies? Who are you to call what exactly does a person believe in simply based on his party affiliation?
Well you missed the part of talking to your neighbor first. How he act alone doesn't really matter that much. To understand what he believes in you gotta talk to him. Does he hate gays? Or does he just believe in small government and love guns?
If he hate gays, and you tell him you are homosexual, would he start throwing dog shit in your yard, or would he have a painful conversation with you? That's the important part. You didn't really get what I am trying to say.
I said we keep the conversation going, I never said treat everyone like your BFF. You talk, you don't judge before you talk. You don't brand a Republican as a Nazi before you talk to him.
I am honestly not sure what are we arguing about. If you are fine with talking to your neighbor in a frank manner, what do you disagree with me on? Like, how do you know Bill is going to argue that way? How about he tells you "yeh I don't really like that shit either but I don't like how the liberals are doing things yada yada"? Wouldn't you think if you talk long enough the latter response is more likely and probably a more interesting discussion to have?
Amen brother. Everyone should be prepared to be face criticism, because no one is altruistic and never will be if they can’t bear to be challenged about their beliefs.
This belief depends entirely on the state. Other red states don't give a shit. Kansas and Florida for example haven't restricted it at all.
Not familiar with those states but after a quick search:
Florida has an an abortion plan that permits prosecution of a women as a third degree felony in some circumstances.
Kansas prohibits abortions after 22 weeks and “a woman who seeks an abortion will be given state-mandated propaganda designed to change her mind. She will then have to look at an ultrasound image, wait 24 hours and pay for the procedure out of her own pocket.”
“Not as bad” isn’t really a W.
Every country limits abortion to some extent. The UK limits it at 24 unless medically necessary. Denmark is at 12 weeks.
The US was unique in that you weren't permitted to limit it at all due to the supreme court decision.
Some limitations are fine, imo.
Wrong again:
In the argument you call out, wasn't the republican side pushing the decision of abortion legality to state level, putting it more in the hands of the people?
Edit: should clarify, I'm unaffiliated, and just looking for answers.
It used to be up to the individual. The Republicans took it out of the hands of the people.
Yeah they pushed it for state level and when they realized most people even in Republican states didn't support the ban they went straight to trying to push it federally.
It's all a grift for the sake of control and power. Acting like it's anything less when the mask has been removed makes you complicit which is why I say fuck all republicans.
Is the Republicans platform not anti-abortion?
It is, and I don't know how anyone could disagree with you on that.
We bash the Confederacy for using "states rights" to try and justify slavery. We should bash Republicans for using the same tactics.
Ok I hate that you are beeing down voted. The downvote button is not the "I disagree" button, but more like a "this does not help the discussion" button. And your point was fair and your opinion. If you agree or not does not matter. That's the point of a discussion for fucks sake.
Pls don't get to that reddit point of downvoting. The downvote behavior was so nice here the first few weeks, after I joined, but got so much worse after the last very big reddit migration wave.
I agree the original commenter doesn't deserve to be downvoted. If you disagree then leave a comment. Mass downvoting will build an echo chamber a la reddit
Here's a little snippet from the documentation of lemmy.ml and lemmy.world. I understand it as meaning that the downvote is actually there to express a negative opinion about something you don't like.
Lemmy uses a voting system to sort post listings. On the left side of each post there are up and down arrows, which let you upvote or downvote it. You can upvote posts that you like so that more users will see them. Or downvote posts so that they are less likely to be seen. Each post receives a score which is the number of upvotes minus number of downvotes.
It's sad isn't it, how predictable people are.
If they're respectable, why are they still voluntarily supporting such a fucked up platform?
You can't have it both ways.
Best I can say, don't make it so absolute. No one is perfect. Everyone has their share of sin. You are not an exception.
What kind of "respectable" people support a "fucked up" platform?