distic
2yr ago
This helpful article from Wikipedia may explain it all to you, it certainly opened my eyes:
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, as well as having nativist ideologies and tendencies.
Historically, "far-right politics" has been used to describe the experiences of fascism, Nazism, and Falangism. Contemporary definitions now include neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, the Third Position, the alt-right, racial supremacism, National Bolshevism and other ideologies or organizations that feature aspects of authoritarian, ultra-nationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or reactionary views.
If Sanderson believes his church's teachings, and his church teaches that gay acts are sinful, then his church is homophobic. And being homophobic means you are far-right, which means you're the same thing as a Nazi. Doesn't matter if he never personally burned a gay or trans person at the stake, until and unless he denounces Mormonism and acknowledges his guilt and accepts he was wrong all along, he's a Nazi. And you don't tolerate Nazis, now do you?
You are drawing so much conclusions from a factual wikipedia article.
-
It is a fact that the nazis were homophobic. It is also a fact that the nazis were far right, and also a fact that homophobia is a view held by a lot of far-right people. Are you challenging any one of these facts? It does not mean that if you are homophobic you are far right or a nazi. You know, most people have two legs but birds aren't people. By the way, you should have noted the "and/or" in the list, which suggests that far right people hold several of those views, not just one.
-
"Doesn't matter if he never personally burned a gay or trans person at the stake, [...] he's a Nazi." When you do this comment, it seems to me you are saying that anyone who did not personally burned anyone cannot be a Nazi. In this case, there have been very few nazis. Hitler, for example, did not burn anyone "personally", as far as I know. At the end, the holocaust was organized in such a way that almost no one had to kill anyone directly. Not every nazi is a war criminal. Most nazis were just people like you and me that lived their lives peacefully. They just happened to vote for some nazi guy once, and to help the regime once in a while.
distic
2yr ago
That seems like a very isolated standard that I have never seen applied to anyone before, and doesn't hold besides.
The fact that you have seen it applied or not is not very relevant. You can write an abstract of Marx writings without ever mentionning race or homosexuality and you wouldn't miss much. The same cannot be said about far right leaders or thinkers. On guevara, you are probably right, I don't know. Anyway as I stated before those things cannot be taken in isolation. Just because you are homophobic does not mean you are far right. For example, I don't think the distinction between gender and sex makes any sense (at least not as it is applied in liberal ideology). Some people would call me transphobic. But as I'm not racist and homophobic, I don't think I would qualify as far right by any reasonable standard.
What did you think the point of the wiki article was, if not offering institutional support to a wildly expansive definition of "far right"?
As it is an article about the far right, I'd say its purpose is to inform people about what is called far right by most people in our society. I'd be very interested to read your version of a definition of the far right...
distic
4mo ago
am tired of being a "reliable ally" to "allies" who offer nothing in return but ever-increasing demands, recrimination, and interference in our internal politics
Those allies have offered you a mostly free global market. The network effect means that the value of a network is proportional to the square of its number of users, and allied countries users have contributed in no small part to US big tech consummer basis, even though the US use its tech as a mean of spying on them.
That is why I think that the fall of Trumpism will not come from #Resist, or from democracy, or from the juges, but from capitalism itself.
to my tribe
When Scott Alexander explained this concept, it was meant as something to fight against, not as a political compass.
distic
2yr ago
I will comply, but should I really report someone that is arguing like that? It seems to me that he broke no rule apart from those of logic.
distic
2yr ago
But it seems to me that in countries that implement a strong censorship, like eg Russia, the justice system, including prison, is a lot more instrumental than reddit censorship which has yet to prove dangerous. The justice system has to establish what is true or false (for example did you and did you not murder X?), and this power on truth is the very basis of polical censorship (remember 1984 Ministry of Truth).
Once you've been able to stop people saying something small you don't like hearing, why would you stop?
Because the law is well written and only allows you to ban harmless things? That's like death penalty. If you kill criminal, why wouldn't you kill political opponents? The answer is that you can't because it isn't allowed. Why is it possible to draw a line for the harmless use of the justice system and not for the harmless use of small censorship?
It's also an outcome we've literally watched in history on multiple occasions.
Just like the justice system has been used for repression a lot. Or the army. Russia used poisoned tea to kill political opponent, so is drinking tea a first step toward political assassination? The only thing that could convince me completely is a proof that the censorship as it exists is already dangerous. There are other restrictions on freedom of speech (eg you cannot publish classified material). Is forbidding the word "nigger" really more dangerous than allowing the government to keep secrets that no one is allowed to tell?
distic
2yr ago
Far left do focus on economy because that is what far left is about. Das Kapital speaks a lot about economy, Mein Kampf not so much. It's precisely the nature of the far left ideologies to think that everything is about making the rich richer.
distic
2yr ago
like the framework of being a revolutionary ideology to remake all society in their own image
The libertarians are the same, so they are some kind of socialists?
If just being racist and homophobic is enough, then Marx, Engels and Guevera are "far-right"
Racism and homophobia weren't particularly important in their politics. That is what matters.
If we're going to ignore the distinctions and categories enough to group Brandon Sanderson with the Nazis
I never said you should group Brandon Sanderson with the nazis because I don't know him and I'm not interested in fantasy authors anyway. That is not my point, and that is certainly not the point of the wikipedia article either.
distic
2yr ago
Bernie Sanders politics would be center right in France. There is a french guy I know that was supporting Bernie Sanders in the US and François Fillon (the mainstream right wing candidate in 2017) in France...
distic
2yr ago
You are right, I claimed more than I intended. I would say that basic word-based reddit censorship, like censoring the word "nigger" or even the so-called (((echo))) has not really harmed the debate, even if it gives place to ridiculous cases like on /r/themotte.
There are other cases where reddit censorship is worse than that, like website-level rules against "transphobia". Those rules are very bad in my opinion, however they are nothing close to the Russian system of censorship. It is still possible to express opinion against transgender identity in most western countries, mainly because people can speak somewhere else.
distic
3mo ago
Optimistically, the academics leaving the USA are the ones most ideologically captured, such that their contributions to knowledge production is easily replaceable or even a net negative, as is the case for much of what is purportedly being cut by DOGE.
How fast from "there is no such thing as a limited freedom of speech" to "just fire them"...
This means the network is mutually beneficial, so the US is paying with it's own membership, so the allies are still not offering anything.
The money? The companies are american, didn't you notice?
distic
4mo ago
The US doesn't want to commit to a security guarantee because they know that there's a real chance they would have to intervene because of the same worry.
What purpose does serve an army if you prove everyone you will never use it?
distic
6mo ago
A first step is to just do a posteriori control, you eliminate the post that don't follow the rules strictly. However my feeling is that not much quality contributions would remain.
And the user driven evaluation could be more rules-based, instead of voting on a scale bad/good you could ask whether it's charitable, whether you agree or oppose the content, whether it is nice.
I have other ideas if you are interested, like categories for quality contribution: best left/right wing contribution...
distic
6mo ago
Every human group in existence today owes its continued existence to the fact that its predecessors took land and resources from other groups
Just like you have rapists, thiefs and/or murderers among your ancestors (because everybody does), however murder and rape are still evil.
Now, I’m perfectly happy to discuss whether or not other, more recently-emergent models of geopolitical coexistence have effectively obviated the underlying logic of wars of expansion.
It's not about models of geopolitical co existence, they are just a result of modern democracy and the abolition of slavery. It makes no sense for the US to invade Canada, because what do you do with Canadian citizens? You can give them voting rights, but then it would be a merge more than an invasion; you can give them no rights, but then it creates a class of sub-citizens (it looks pretty unconstitutionnal); you can kill them all, but if you don't think it's bad then I don't know what will be (don't bother me with "we do none of the bad things the fascists did" if you don't believe there are bad things).
It’s very easy to say “fighting wars to obtain terriorItory is wrong” when you’re the United States, surrounded on both coasts by massive oceans, who defeated the last worthy competitor to any of its contiguous territory 150 years ago.
That is a good thing that we were speaking about the US invading territories, then...
The question is very concrete and clear: is it bad for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to threaten to invade several countries which until now considered themselves as US allies?
distic
1yr ago
As I've touched upon before I think liberals tend treat the relative peace and prosperity of societies such as the US and EU as though it were a physical law (like gravity), rather than something that has to be actively cultivated and maintained
But that is precisely why losers should be required to provide proofs when they contest an election! Otherwise no peace is possible because the losers will always contest the results because it will always be in their best interest.
distic
2yr ago
Racists are far-right, homophobes are far-right, and homophobia means not being enthusiastic about everything you are told to be enthusiastic about.
I'm sorry, where do you read this in the wikipedia article? Especially the part in bold?
distic
3mo ago
Getting fired has nothing to do with free speech. The principle of free speech is that the government cannot prevent you from speaking.
That's why conservatives have no problem with private bodies (e.g. social media) censoring right wing opinions I suppose.
distic
4mo ago
You just told me the network was mutually beneficial, but now it pays for the money? The US gets the money and the network, the allies only get the network, but somehow the allies get more?
Do you think the dollar as the reserve currency for the world, or english as the international language, would have been unchallenged without the late international order?
distic
6mo ago
Oh I don't think they do it seriously either, but the discussion started on the premise that it did.
distic
6mo ago
I'm not saying you're not trying, but honestly it's not just a minor problem. If the goal was really to engage with people you don't agree with, this website is a failure. I only come here when I want to know what a specific part of the right thinks.
A good starting point would be to drastically improve the quality of the so-called quality contributions. They should be held to the highest standard, so people can go there and see what's expected of them. What I got from doing that is that your message should be long, written in good english and be right wing. That will garantee you a place there with a 50% probability. Following the rules in their letter and spirit is obviously optionnal.
Those wars don't count. The US at war with small and poor countries. Nobody in the world will ever think the US are a reliable ally unless the enemy is Iraq and Afghanistan, and even in the later case the US did not win...
More options
Context Copy link