I think there's also the fact that a lot of things can be understood as "censorship" even when we don't normally call it that. Moderating, blocking, filtering, defederating, etc.
Libs are so used to calling all the bad parts of liberalism by a different name that they really believe they're not [doing the thing] while [doing the thing]. Like how they're not concentration camps, they're "immigration overflow facilities." And they don't sell weapons, they "provide lethal aid." And they definitely don't impoverish millions of people in order to incite war, no they uh "apply targeted sanctions" or something.
They probably, genuinely, don't see the contradiction in advocating for free speech while banning stuff instinctively. They categorically don't see it that way, because they're the ones doing it.
That's true. Though being politically illiterate doesn't explain why libs are so incurious, to the point of dismissing evidence before even looking at it. Their ignorance is willful to an extent because they know on some level that they benefit materially from playing along. Or if they don't benefit, then they can at least avoid getting punished for rocking the boat.
Definitely. Americans in particular are surrounded by media that affirms and reaffirms their supposed greatness, but libs across the west believe similar stuff and it's not just because they're in an echo chamber. emizeko shared this article that goes into another aspect of liberal myth making: westerners agree with this shit because they want to.
Westerners aren’t helpless innocents whose minds are injected with atrocity propaganda, science fiction-style; they’re generally smug bourgeois proletarians who intelligently seek out as much racist propaganda as they can get their hands on. This is because it fundamentally makes them feel better about who they are and how they live.
I believe that, on the contrary, the process of Western propaganda is better understood in terms of “licensing”: the issuing of moral license for the bourgeois proletariat to profitably go along with bourgeois designs without the feeling of shame overwhelming. In this alternative account people aren’t “brainwashed” insofar as they don’t actually believe the lies, not in the way that we generally understand belief. It’s more correct to say that they go along with them, whether enthusiastically or apprehensively, because it’s actually their optimal survival strategy.
I think everyone is well aware of how little change they can truly effect within liberal democracy. How much carnage their governments cause at home and abroad. What happens to people who protest... Accepting that all the people our government subjugates deserve it brings a sort of comfort. Pride, even.
Thanks for the essay! I just finished it, it's some of the most pointed and relevant stuff I've read in a long while. I especially liked this bit towards the end:
When we proudly assert that we are for the individual over the collective, we’re essentially saying that some people count as people, and some don’t. At the heart of liberalism lies dehumanization; we should not forget that slave ownership was one of the original “individual rights” that was so fiercely fought for by American revolutionaries.
Therein the arguments against socialist states. Every death under socialism is a failure of the government, because it dared to try to solve problems collectively. Under capitalism, deaths are due to the individual’s failures, and therefore no one’s responsibility.
Also it's hilarious how the author thought to compare Marx with Tupac
Wow I don't know what's dumber: calling Lebanese people Chinese-Mongolian because Lebanon is in Asia or calling Lebanese people white because Jesus is white (to white Americans)
In authoritarian America, citizens aren't taught the history of the New York Draft Riots and anyone who googles 紐約徵兵暴動 gets disappeared by their secret police! 😱😱
Yeah so much western propaganda is essentially just accusing this or that country of being like the USA. I genuinely don't understand why it's so effective
Westerners refuse to believe that about half the fatalities were PLA members because in their countries, the police would never be unarmed, never abandon their equipment, never hesitate to kill in retaliation.
Westerners also don't pity the murdered PLA officers because they view them the same as their own police: violent people that eagerly abuse their power.
Do you mean they have those options as a response to the race question? Or as a question separate from race? Cuz if you mean the latter, then those are the same options given in this census
White Spaniards fill out Yes and write "Spaniard" for question 8 then pick White and write "Spanish" for question 9. It's funny that they have write out the same thing twice.
Beats me why Lebanese and Egyptian people are considered white though
Racial categories have always been jank in the US for Latin people. Forms have a separate question on whether or not you're Hispanic. But because of that, "Latin" is never included as an option for race so we have to fill in something stupid.
Look at questions 8 and 9 here. I'm the tan kind of Mexican American, so I have to answer question 8 with Yes, Chicano and question 9 with...??? Other? I'm a Hispanic Other. Makes sense.
Women's labor, sex work and U.S. military bases abroad