> And you forgot the knee-jerk reactions from the left, [...] Some part of the population (including me) can't really stand the perpetually scandalised, self-appointed guardians of good manners,
This had me nodding along.
> and will become disgusted by both sides equally.
This is the part that makes you, or perhaps just that part of you, a bad person.
You are equating somebody who actually abused power and brought the world closer to an authoritarian strongman dystopia to people who, by your own description, are mostly ineffective and don't actually do anything.
(I can sometimes feel a knee jerk reaction that feels a bit like what you're describing, but I would never be proud of it, and I think it's important to be clear on that point.)
> I think the main problem with this line of thinking represented in this article (and maybe this is what you are getting at) is that the use of shame in political dialogue is a trait exclusive to the left.
That is what I was getting at.
You're right though, it was very dismissive. I should know better.
I just tired of that same old 'us versus them', 'left versus right' back-and-forth, simplistic tribalism.
> Saying that political thinking, of any stripe, is about power is pretty much a tautology.
I never stated that (you did). I merely pointed out the fact that humans are largely hypocrites and duplicitous by nature. ALL interactions between humans is underpinned by power.
In the past, the power grab was explicit, nowadays said power is sought after behind the veneer of "civility" and "niceness".
It is basic human nature that I'm criticising. The left are just as bad as the right - but at least, with the right - you can see them coming, because they are mostly explicit (at least relative to the left).
The left are just as power hungry as the right, but are very well versed in this "we are nice, caring people" act - this is why I (a seeker of the truth - and nothing but the truth), am enjoying their dirty inner workings coming to light.
> When is the last time you were swayed by lefty or righty radical? I'm not even convinced it really pushes people further down an idealogy.
I haven't been swayed by such radicals, but I have been turned off and disgusted by them, feelings which bleed over to people who I associate with them. I can see that effect as one that re-enforces political polarization.
>> In the US, the current party in power is always on the verge of instituting totalitarianism.
> And I'm pretty sure that you didn't mean it like people are taking it.
That blanket absolutist statement is at best false, and is easily disproven with the current situation. Then the whole argument is undermined by the last paragraph about angering the social media mob.
> And despite the talk of love and acceptance, the left really seems to be driven by hate and outrage now more than I remember plus a very healthy dose of hypocrisy.
Sounds like you're talking yourself into giving Nazis a "fair shake". Why would you do that?
> It is no surprise that people like you still romanticize the notion of state violence and greater authoritarian power.
I think that's a grave misunderstanding of my analysis and one entirely rooted in your own bias. Nowhere in my comment did I romanticize any state violence; at worst you could accuse me of engaging in ethically dubious moral calculus.
Authoritarian power will always be present no matter what label you identify yourself with. A world built on libertarianism can easily devolve into a competition of whoever has the biggest stick -- the NAP and other such pie-in-the-sky ideas only get you so far.
Re: leftists, I think you have a skewed understanding of leftism and its origins. The lumpenproletariat are the real obstacle that leftists need to overcome. See for example the election this past day in Britain; Boris Johnson was elected by an overwhelming majority on no other grounds besides a rabid fear rooted in nationalism. If leftists hope to see genuine change that fits their ideology, they're going to need to deal with the folks who succumb to conservative propaganda. Here again comes the spectre of authoritarian power.
Eventually we must face the reality that power and violence are integral to human social functioning, and that if betraying privacy is what it takes to avoid that, you'd have to be a radical ideologue -- on either side -- to choose otherwise.
> We fail to acknowledge that sometimes the reaction can be just as bad, and lead to the same pathology, as the problem that initially provoked it.
I think it's interesting that you speak in such abstract terms about this. What has the American far left or center-left actually done that's as bad as, for example, the recent attempted insurrection or the stripping of rights from women and LGBT people perpetrated by the right?
> the fascists ideologues were probably certain of being "the good guys", themselves.
I've personally never heard of a political movement--left, right, or center--that considered itself the antagonist in its own narrative
> Not to give citizens a free for all tongue wagging that can harm others or incite violence.
Absolutely agreed. And that should be applied EQUALLY, which has not and does not happen.
That is the problem. Hatred from the left has had a free pass in social media and the 90% of media outlets that support the ideology. People even cheer them on, not realizing just how much damage they are causing and how ugly the slipper slope actually is.
As an independent, that is what is deeply disturbing to me. My vote is already irrelevant in California. It has been for decades. I am taxed. I am not represented. And my voice? If I dare side with republicans in a public way, my life could be absolutely ruined by the violent left.
Here's what's interesting:
I have actually lived under military regime. So has my entire family. We absolutely cannot believe how the left in the US has become very much the kind of thing anyone who has lived under oppressive regimes will recognize as such.
The left, in this nation, has done an amazing job of taking over educational institutions and indoctrinating young ignorant minds. That's what we are battling. It isn't about wanting to go full-tilt-right, that is also a horrible reality that nobody wants to live under. Neither extreme should have control of a nation, because they are both detrimental to society.
> If someone is saying "jews are vermin", they absolutely have to be gagged.
No. That's wrong. You want to know who they are.
You want human garbage like that in the open. You don't want them hiding. As the descendant of genocide survivors, I want assholes like in plain view. I want them to be well-lit, not in the shadows.
So, yeah, forgive me for thinking that moderation and rules applied EQUALLY to all sides is actually better for not only this nation, but humanity as well. Notice I said "moderation". Nobody with two connected neurons wants a free-for-all or thinks that is a good thing. Elon certainly does not and has been very clear about this.
The hatred for Elon/Twitter is only coming from the left, because of the potential of having to live by the same rules on a single platform. This should cause everyone pause. This is no different from a totalitarian regime feeling like they are losing control and moving to suppress all ideas and media not in alignment with them.
It will be very interesting to watch this develop. If our government gets involved and treats Twitter with a heavy hand, well, I have lived in places resembling where this is going. You won't like it.
>The left is in a curious, self-damaging position, where lots of center-leaning moderates who are genuine progressives – are not meeting the ideological standards of those further left, which functions to their exclusion, thereby weakening the left overall.
I try to avoid placing myself on the political spectrum, I tend to believe politics need to take a well rounded view on things, so I guess that would place me center or something.
I tend to believe in a decent amount of personal freedom while believing the government exists to serve and provide social systems for the population.
I tend to find both the 'left' and 'right' push me away. Both are so extreme and exclusive in their views that they're blind to whatever common ground they might have with eachother if they have even the slightest difference in views.
It's ridiculous. Both far left and far right of the political spectrum have become caricatures of themselves. They've both lost all reason and critical thinking abilities and resort to black and white, yes or no, all in or out, fuck on or fuck off statements.
Human beings aren't like that, society isn't like that. Humans are a million shades of grey ans everyone likely falls somewhere not so extreme when asked candidly and given time to think on their beliefs.
Too much time is spent on alienating eachother, finding the smallest faults with eachother to show why they are 'them' and we are 'us' and not coming together over common ground.
I truly believe, the average person wants what a good majority of other people want and if people were given time to think and understand rather than react, the majority of us, whatever side you fall on, where ever you're from would likely have more in common then we all think, were we more able to look past all our differences.
>And before somebody tries to tell me that the far-left is as bad, I really don't think it is, or at least not nearly at the same scale.
It isn't politically correct on HN to imply that there is any difference between the extremism of left-wing versus right-wing politics, unless it's to argue that the left is even worse.
Since I'm assuming that I'm one target of this as the only person to contradict you in this subthread, I just want to be clear: I'm not on the right. As far as the conservatives in my (very red) state are concerned I'm a flaming liberal.
As for how I'd describe myself, I'm basically in the "we desperately need to reverse the trend of everyone assuming that anyone who disagrees with them is evil" camp, which is why I strongly object to casual comparisons to fascism. Using that word or the word "cult" to label someone immediately frees you from any obligation to engage with them as a person, and I'm not okay with that tendency from either wing of modern politics.
> I honestly do not think you are having a healthy dialogue or coming to terms with your own inherent biases yourself.
Since you so clearly perceive those would you mind exposing them?
> My own two-cents are that left-wing violence and anger is partly to blame for both his rise and the deeper polarisation we are now seeing since it enabled the alt-right to play the victim and fight a war of optics [0].
That does not mesh with my reading of the facts as presently available at all.
> However, it's not the only cause: a large component of what we're seeing is that Trump coming to power has emboldened the worst of the Right [1].
That we can agree on, and this is in large part due to the use of various 'dog whistles'.
And frankly, I have a hard time coming to terms with people self describing as 'moderates' who voted for Trump, that is some kind of cognitive dissonance. Trump is about as far away from moderate as it gets.
> Personally I don't think it's a right vs left thing. It's more about authoritarianism and the desire to crush the people you feel are violating the rules, especially if it seems like they're getting away with violating the rules. There are just some differences about what people think the rules are.
Oh I agree. I wasn't making it a right-vs-left thing, but rather neutering the idea that people perceive it to be.
I would not place myself on the political right at all -- even in the UK -- but I see this idea that bad-faith is an alt.right thing and I'm inclined to push back, because it's an oversimplification.
> For a moment I was going to waste my afternoon arguing with people desperately predisposed to being the underdog in the fight against the Big Mean Socialist
This out-of-the-blue accusation sounds like a confession of your true motives in this conversation: You like the man's politics, so you feel compelled to defend him in an unrelated topic.
> At the far left end, on the other hand, the hate is stared at the capitalist system and public figures benefiting from it.
Or violence against different thinking individuals.
Think third wave feminists. Antifa. BLM. Berkeley Riots.
Right now, the extreme left is much more dangerous than the extreme right (not to mention the similarly lumped not-so-extreme right), because people like you think they will do no “real” wrongs.
> "It's actually my main criticism of the Left nowadays: we are shit at politics!"
a good point in the making until this line, where you aligned yourself with a shallow identity. fuck left and right. stop trying to find a team to mindlessly root for. yes, it's hard, and yes, it means more mindshare devoted to evaluating what you think rather than who you want others to think you are in subservience to ideological hegemony. politics is shit because not enough of us do this, but rather settle on a tribe and leave our brains behind in the process.
the left isn't right, it's a coalition for power, which is for delivering advantage to some people at the exclusion of others. power doesn't value or uphold right and wrong, so you're premise is profoundly misguided here.
> This is the kind of rhetoric that pushed a ton of people on the fence towards Trump.
I hate to pick on this quote (I appreciate and suggest people read the rest of your post) but I don't agree with this. A common rightist tactic is to suggest either 1) I was okay with X policy when Obama did something so I have no moral authority to judge it now, or 2) I'm just a liberal whiner, too young, or too weak to appreciate that someone else is in charge so my beliefs are invalid. I am pushed to the left by conservative intolerance just as much as the reverse is true.
Both sides have extremes. I think it balances out. You are following your own proclivities of reasoning, fixating on which messaging you're most enticed by or most repulsed by.
> This approach is indefensible given the actual state of the world, and these activists are either confused about the facts, or cynically manipulating their followers for personal power.
Except that, as any student of history knows, the current state of the world is what it is thanks almost entirely to people just like that (although historians generally view them in a better light than you do because of what they've achieved, despite always being presented by conservative forces in the same light as you view them).
> I personally know several people who equate a vote for Biden as a vote to bring exactly this type of toxic behavior mainstream - they have told me exactly that. These sorts of extreme tactics on the left push many right-leaning people into the far-right-extremes.
As someone who used to be more on the right who's moving leftward (because of the current administration and a building frustration with many right wing ideas and attitudes), I can testify to the repulsive effect that these kind of displays have. I know these kinds of people are a minority, but they still concern me because of the power a zealous minority can wield in a party due to their zeal.
This had me nodding along.
> and will become disgusted by both sides equally.
This is the part that makes you, or perhaps just that part of you, a bad person.
You are equating somebody who actually abused power and brought the world closer to an authoritarian strongman dystopia to people who, by your own description, are mostly ineffective and don't actually do anything.
(I can sometimes feel a knee jerk reaction that feels a bit like what you're describing, but I would never be proud of it, and I think it's important to be clear on that point.)
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