How i feel on Lemmy
i have no problem with socialist economic policies but i do have a problem with using authoritarianism and the facade of a "benevolent dictatorship" to achieve them.
the misunderstanding stems from the constant twisting of terms. like is communism what happened in the soviet bloc, or is it an as yet unachieved (and still probably technologically unachievable) dreamland that has never been tried? is socialism what the soviets had? or is that just a specific set of economic policies that the soviets did in fact have but completely divorced from its oppressive system? what did the soviets and its colonized countries actually have?
there is a certain system that the soviets have tried and it failed miserably. i would never support that system after seeing what it does to a country. but the way it comes off to me through this discussion is that socialism both is and isn't that system, until observed, where the waveform collapses to whatever is more beneficial for the socialist's argument here.
and yeah, i do think the political compass is also extremely reductive, but at some point we gotta figure out how to communicate whatever the hell we're talking about.
yeah, that's why left/right is super reductive imo. whenever dealing with tankies i tend to refer to the two-axis political compass because tankies are authleft, while the US far-left is libleft, which is a huge distinction. but political opinion is not a scalar, and neither is it a two-element vector, it's a very complex thing, the left/right distinction only works as long as you're discussing a singular country and sometimes not even then. (for example, a lot of european countries have a lot more than two parties in their political spectrum, it's not as simple as a democrat/republican alignment here)
i don't see anything contradictory in there, i'm just not an extremist. not a centrist either, but the world doesn't just consist of commies and fascists and people who haven't picked a side yet. in fact, those aren't even the two ends of the spectrum, and it's actually rather insulting to most people to suggest so.
fascists can burn in hell as far as i'm concerned, but so can most of the authleft part of the spectrum. in general, it's authies i'm the most opposed to. the economic right is stupid but a failing libright system tends to suck less than a failing authleft one. although neither suck as much as a failing authright one, that one i do agree with
(and imo even the two-axis political compass is super reductive but at least it gets the point across that i stand with neither fascists not communists)
assuming you're being honest here, you're welcome. but if that is indeed the passive-aggressive mockery it sounds like then that might explain why people can't take you seriously outside of echo chambers.
tankies actively prop up anything anti-west, and since the west is leading the charge in embracing the queer community, they tend to attack that too. doesn't help that the two regimes they like to prop up the most, russia and china, also have extremely anti-queer policies
well, i can actually support democratic socialist governments, and i actually have voted for a party trying to build that out on every single occasion so far while i had a vote. i'm also all for integrating socialist principles into a capitalist society -- i do actually believe capitalism is a great tool for the luxuries in life, but the necessities must be provided to all for it to actually work. like supply and demand both need to be variable for it to work, if everyone needs a home you can't have the market "just figure it out" on the pricing of hosing, it's going to result in rampant exploitation, but a market for upgraded housing compared to a baseline would very much work.
mostly i was just directly responding to the notion communicated to me in this conversation, which is that the path to communism is a state that takes power away from people for their own good, builds a society for them, and then gives back that power, or at the very least allows the people to take back that power with force. that promise is bogus and has been the previous 40 times a nation has been sold on it. as someone who has to live in the aftermath of one of those attempts, i'm not going to not blame it for its lies and its oppression. especially when the system it's trying to reach, as described in this very thread, has been technologically impossible to reach on the scale of even just hungary, let alone the whole soviet bloc
my repertoire right there /s
(okay, half /s, i do play the lndon... and maybe the botez gambit sometimes)
not everyone is on an instance ran by tankies though, like you are. so yeah, that's probably a good idea. just know your audience.
no, i'm trying to create an equivalence between fascism and socialism, or whatever you call that transitional dictatorship that's hopefully benevolent. because that's the notion by which fascism works too, it just doesn't make an impossible promise about a system it will transform into.
your hilarious "if you are not with me you are my enemy (and also a nazi)" bullshit probably works on someone who also drunk the kool-aid on "this system will totally lead us to communism, we know that was a lie the previous 40 times but we totally fixed it now, trust me bro", but the errors in it and the sweaty attacks on character to mask them should be obvious to anyone not already indoctrinated into your particular idea of a "good" dictator.
it's mainly the overwhelming presence of guns prior to the proposed ban on them, and the culture built around them.
besides, how many mass shootings happened on the balkans which are also flush with leftover guns from the yugoslav wars? how many happen in the czech republic where you can legally own and carry firearms similarly to the american system? i'm not even gonna compare it to switzerland because while they have tons of guns, they heavily regulate ammo. something is just deeply broken with the united states and simply banning guns wouldn't fix it.
the real question imo is what drives a person to essentially end their life by shooting up some place? because whether you end up shot to death on sight, paralyzed, or simply stuck behind bars, that's the end of the road. a society that pushes people to do something this drastic will not stop being problematic if you just take the drastic tool away from people. they'll just stop taking roughly one other innocent person with them when they snap (which is the average if you consider a mass shooting as anything that injures 4+ people, which is the criterion by which the often cited "one mass shooting per day" works), which is, yes, an improvement, but it only masks the underlying problem.
i know "it's a mental health issue" is a right wing dogwhistle but that's because the statement is stupid, because it falls for the standard conservative bullshit of positing there are no systemic issues, just bad people. this is absolutely systemic. if predestined "bad people" in this sense existed there is no reason they'd be born at a vastly higher frequency in the united states than elsewhere.
the answer is likely deeply rooted in economic inequality and the total lack of a social safety net. which is probably why anti-gun rhetoric is pushed by rich organizations, and is therefore allowed to permeate mainstream culture and isn't stuck on the sidelines like right to repair or privacy legislations. not because it is actually a good solution but because it is cheaper than addressing the root cause. which would be ensuring people always have something to lose, like they have in all the other countries where we see different effects.
they can refuse to hire you for being too smart
wait what? like, this is completely on brand, but who the fuck thought this was a good idea?
idk what you're gonna do with me being on record on preferring a somewhat less authoritarian system to your more authoritarian system that comes with a promise of snake oil but go off i guess. (while, mind you, i already dislike the less authoritarian system enough to actively work on leaving the country)
it's amazing how much you hate fascists despite openly advocating for a system that's exactly like it in all but an but a lie about what it will eventually, hopefully, pinky promise transform into, exactly as it always did when it was attempted. like are you naive enough to believe that this time it will work, still completely ignoring how the general idea of keys to power functions, or are you just waving the opposing flag and larping that your ideas are good because they're bad and you oppose them so it must be so?
yeah, makes sense, but exactly like you said, credibility is important. being anti-imperialist in general with a focus on us imperialism is very different from being against only american imperialism while actively supporting the imperialism of other countries such as russia or china
i voted against it every single time and i'll gtfo as soon as i can because i lost hope that we can turn this ship back to democracy. but yes, i'd gladly take this over the soviet system that prevented us from leaving. the crazy attempts to cross the border to austria is a massive part of our culture thanks to the occupation in those 45 years of a "transitional period"
nice copium, but over here in hungary, one of the countries your glorious ussr managed to colonize that's not really the picture we got. the ten years following the collapse of the soviet system were by far the best ten years of this country in living memory, until the dust settled and an amalgamation of the old elite and the supposed revolutionaries took back control and re-instituted the same oligopoly, albeit with somewhat less oppression this time.
the whole point of having a transitional period between market capitalism and true communism is to reach that communism. that never happened. instead, the people were robbed of everything of value by an elite who claimed to represent the proletariat but was anything but that, and then it was re-privatized at the end of this period into the hands of a new elite. to give credit where it's due, this is in fact a redistribution of wealth, it just goes the other way than what's often heralded, and only made the rich richer and the average person more powerless.
and how do you wish to avoid that the leaders of said transitional socialist period just cling to power?
as someone who has to live in the aftermath of one of those "transitional socialist periods" that predictably went nowhere and just broke the country's spirit completely, i'm really damn curious. we are not talking about hypotheticals here.
top one is an american flag. a bit cliche and redundant but nothing wrong with that one. or at least, would be nothing wrong, had you just flown that by itself.
the second one is a heinous crime against the very concept of vexillology. beyond F-. a toddler could redraw the flag of wisconsin using mismatched leftover crayons from the MRE of your cousin at the marines and it would look official than this bullshit. do not ever desecrate a flagpole again with that crap. what the fuck do you think this is, a linustechtips video with sponsor spots?
the third one outright violates the US flag code. i don't know what the hell your goal was but unless it was to make a mockery of the country, this ain't it. there is no blue line in the american flag there and there is no black anywhere in it -- are you a pirate? is that what you're trying to say? are you trying to establish the united states as an estonian colony? are you dividing what the original flag declares as indivisible? do you just hate delaware? this is the flag equivalent of a one hour business presentation by middle management: technically coherent and rich in vocabulary but completely devoid of any meaning. i guess it's better than the billboard above but you managed to underperform the average minecraft banner. D for not breaking the basic rules and nothing else.
the fourth one is outright treason, especially with the american flag on top, and the pretendo-american above. i mean why the fuck are you flying the flags of two nations that were at war the last time both of them existed? are you just an edgelord who likes to play both sides? or are you serious about staging a coup, which is what your flags communicate? pick a side already, you're not switzerland.
and the fifth one is a cheap knockoff. it's extremely disrespectful to take the no step on snek flag and change the motto on it. plus your font choice suggests you made that in MS word. what the hell. this was a fun, albeit at best C+ tier flag that you managed to shove down to D- category through seriousposting some moronic crap.
overall, this flag pole conveys nothing but ignorance. are you an enemy of the united states, mocking its flag (#3) and flying the flag of its enemies (#4), or are you an american patriot (#1)? what the actual fuck is that ad break in #2? and pay up for the og flags, don't be cheap.
Yes, Russia is being extremely anti-imperialist in Ukraine, and it's also China's anti-imperialism that's threatening Taiwan. Tankies just hate the west, they don't have principles.
found the bard
If you're not interested in debating this, fine. Neither am I, tbh.
I'm just generally aggravated by this pattern where people posit that anyone who criticizes communism/socialism/any adjacent ideology just doesn't understand what they're talking about, and then when you actually make an attempt to figure out what the hell everyone supposedly doesn't understand you get this mess of conflicting definitions expressed very confidently, where the only real pattern is that if you agree with communism/socialism/whatever that's good, if you don't that's bad, now go figure out why. It kind of feels like talking to christians, actually.