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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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a country with a fundamentalist religious tradition experiences a mass movement around a figure

fear of immigrants and immigration

contempt for journalists and journalism

violence

but when the people said: this is fascism

there were always those who said, no it isn't!

if it were fascism, he would be glorifying war!

he's the anti-war candidate!

now

he's been elected to deploy the military domestically

and he indicates he will expand the borders using the military

this is fascism

... duh.

  • -76

@FCfromSSC already warned you downthread, but you're still filling up the mod queue with reports on your posts, so consider this me underlining what FC said and highlighting a few more things.

Your username is suggestive and seems calculated to provoke, but that's fine - if someone was genuinely a member of the "antifa" movement or sympathetic to them, they would be as welcome to post here as anyone else (and it would be interesting to have their perspective). I don't know if you are sincere or trolling, but either way, you need to understand a couple of things: first, you're going to encounter a lot of hostility. We (mods) factor that in, so when you're being reported just for posting leftist opinions, we aren't generally swayed by that. However, you are following into an unfortunately familiar pattern that many hardcore lefties do when "arriving" here. (I put "arriving" in quotes because you created this account today, and you're clearly not new here, and I have a pretty good suspicion about who you are.) And that is being preemptively rude, condescending, and belligerent, with an attitude of "I am here to set you fascists straight."

Not only is that not going to be received well (or generate any decent discussion), it's against the rules requiring everyone to interact with charity and good faith. No matter how much you don't want to because you think of yourself as doing battle against the forces of evil fascism wokeism Jews the mods.

this is fascism

... duh.

you're afraid, aren't you? you're afraid that you missed the fascism

so your correction is that because some leftists were total psychopaths that makes it better that you failed to notice the fascism and were rude to leftists? wow

This is all condescending, belligerent, and just reads as bad faith.

I see no reason to let you continue to participate with a newly rolled alt if you are going to do so in bad faith. So if you continue in this manner, I'm going to move to go straight to permaban rather than letting you progress through the usual tedious cycle of increasingly longer bans just so you can come back every few weeks to play again.

I wish that you would recognize the reason “leftists” come in hot “arriving” here is because, I believe, you allow a hilarious amount of boo-outgrouping from “the other side” on here without the same vigor. One of the “quality contributions” literally goes on about how leftists don’t care about raped children, and somewhere down that line someone declares proudly that prep is a drug for gay people to attend orgies. Exactly where is the charity and good faith in declaring such things? Would I really be received with such neutral attention if I said such things about other outgroups? I think the answer is no. Therefore, I hazard most leftists look at your “be charitable” rule and laugh at it because they think you seem to define “chartiable” as “don’t say bad things about conservatives at all but feel free to dunk leftists” and therefore disregard the etiquette since to them you are disregarding it as well.

I wish that you would recognize the reason “leftists” come in hot “arriving” here is because, I believe, you allow a hilarious amount of boo-outgrouping from “the other side” on here without the same vigor.

I don't know what to tell you - we mod people for "boo outgrouping" every day. Yes, this is generally not a friendly environment for those on the left (and don't I know it, as someone nominally on the left), but the exact degree to which we calibrate how much we let people badmouth their ideological opponents is never going to satisfy everyone. Too much moderation and we're suppressing basically any degree of heat or emotion; not enough and the people being talked about feel like it's open season on them. We have had these arguments (and internal mod discussions) since the reddit days, and whenever someone proposes a "solution" that will achieve perfect balance, it turns out that solution maps precisely to "moderate exactly to the degree that would make this place conform to my preferred state."

Also, bluntly, I think you are wrong about causes. Leftists who come in hot are mostly not new posters but people arriving with a grudge because we exist and haven't changed the rules to their liking. Or someone who got linked here, takes a quick gander, is shocked and appalled at what we allow to be posted, and decides some corrective mocking is necessary.

One of the “quality contributions” literally goes on about how leftists don’t care about raped children

I'm not sure exactly which post you are referring to, but I know another recent post that asserted that got modded.

and somewhere down that line someone declares proudly that prep is a drug for gay people to attend orgies

That one was borderline, and got some pushback from a mod (albeit without modhat on). My own opinion is that the claim was not entirely offbase factually (my understanding is that the only reason prep is needed is because gay men don't wish to refrain from activities that spread AIDS), but reducing it down to "gay orgies" was rather inflammatory. Was it a particularly nice thing to say? No. Was it a defensible claim to make, even if it hurts feelings? With a bit more effort, yes.

Exactly where is the charity and good faith in declaring such things? Would I really be received with such neutral attention if I said such things about other outgroups?

It depends on what you said. If you just come in calling everyone who voted for Trump a fascist, no. If you made an argument that Trump is a fascist, you'd probably be downvoted a lot, unfortunately, but you would not be modded if you were civil about it. What else is it you want to say that you think you wouldn't be allowed to say here? There is a difference between "The mods will let you say it" and "Many people will argue with you, perhaps not very nicely, and downvote you."

Therefore, I hazard most leftists look at your “be charitable” rule and laugh at it because they think you seem to define “chartiable” as “don’t say bad things about conservatives at all but feel free to dunk leftists”

Then they are wrong and they don't actually look at our mod log.

and therefore disregard the etiquette since to them you are disregarding it as well.

This is incorrect. Every week I mod multiple people for "dunking on leftists" (and predictably get bitching and downvotes for it).

The really funny part is banning people for describing the exact perspective of this user in terms he would agree with himself, re.

It is the common good for everyone that social conservatism, much like institutional Civil War era slavery, is no longer tolerated by civilized societies, and is socially ostracized. Such as, for example, Turning Point. I do not believe that organization has anything useful to say, and so I find the motivations for why someone would want to listen to useless things dubious, unless they found it useful.
progressivism cannot exist alongside conservatism, because all of the progress done by the former will always be challenged by the latter.
the value of a forum like this is that it allows progressives, at least such as myself, to observe a rich diversity of right-winged thinking to identify the more insidious and subtle dogwhistles indicating the traits of a conservative, so one may steer clear of them in IRL interactions.

There needs to be some discussion about this. I'd be happy with a rule requiring all claims of "this is what leftists believe" to be backed up by quotes. But there needs to be some way to say "look, they openly say they have no intention of communicating with you, let alone coexisting with you" without breaking the rules, especially when literally everyone involved on all sides agrees it's true.

I’m at the laundromat for context as to why I haven’t responded to other comments yet, since my main mode of using this site is lurking on my phone in-between things. Anyway, just to clarify, I am verily not a man. I’m just a woman.

Additionally, I try to be clear about putting subjective opinions as “I think” or “I believe” in the spirit of debate. Yes, I still believe not only subjectively but objectively social conservatism should be rejected by civilized society. But since I don’t have nor want to find the evidence suitable for making such a claim that “it’s not just my opinion, objectively social conservatism is social cancer and everyone here who believes it has drunk the Koolaid” here, and therefore can’t, I try to keep everything within the realm of what I personally think. It is just my opinion.

That is to say, a long winded way of saying I can’t represent all of leftism, anymore than I think you represent all of, uh, I dunno. Everything else? I don’t know you sincerely. I’ve lurked on here for years since reddit times and I only remember Walterodim because of the cheeky Witcher reference and Amadan because of the big red color on their name.