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The Gays Destroyed The "No Politics" Rule
Pride month began, and the moderators of /r/Battletech enforced their "no politics" rule as they have through elections, wars, referedums, economic crisis, etc. A long standing rule fastidiously kept by most Battletech groups I frequent. It's preserved Battletech as one of my escapes for long years as every other hobby I had got overrun with far left politics. Alas, no longer.
In response, Catalyst games launched /r/OfficialBattletech, specifically calling out the "bigotry" of /r/Battletech, and announcing Battletech is a "safe space". They parachuted in a community leader with experience moderating "safe spaces". People began making the sorts of spurious claims against the mods of /r/Battletech you are used to seeing, calling them being fascist at best, literally "Heil Hitler" nazi's at worst on the most spurious of circumstantial evidence. The originator of /r/Battletech came out of nowhere and completely removed the mods of /r/Battletech to make damned sure /r/Battletech participates in Pride Month.
Because it's not political. It's just being a decent person.
So I guess Battletech is explicitly left wing now. You are no allowed to opt out of their politics.
Hobbies/Fandoms I'm allowed in
Video GamesBoard GamesScience FictionStar WarsStar TrekBattletechWoodworking
And I log into youtube to watch Stumpy Nubs tell me how to sharpen a chisel every day in fear some flashpoint will have occurred. That the Eye of Sauron finally noticed that woodworking is too white and must be destroyed. And suddenly every content creator I watch will be posting these mewling apology videos for not doing enough to foster diversity and inclusiveness in this important hobby. And the rest of the month ends up being pride themed woodworking content. Making your own buttplugs on a lathe or whatever. How to add glitter to a poly finish.
Gays destroyed the what now rule?
You don't have to look all that far back to remember days where the dynamic you see was, in fact, entirely upside down. DADT was implemented in the 1990's, and was replaced by gays being allowed to serve openly a cool two decades later. When my parents left high school and the male graduates applied at the draft office, the military still undertook serious effort to root out anyone gay - and I live in a nation that is friendlier to gay people than most of Europe is.
Talk about the vacation plans you and your (fellow gay) SO have been making in 1993? You're fired, do not pass go, do not collect $200. You don't get to marry that person, because of course people of the same sex don't get to do that. Local drunks will ambush you if you go for a drink and the police will cackle about this. If you bring any of this up, well, it's really not politics, is it? It's just being a decent person.
Yes, there's excesses in this: call it part of man's desire to have his culture be superior over others. So it goes. But accusing the gays of this uniquely? Please. Many of them well remember how they used to live, they can see places in their own nations where people still do, and they act accordingly. There's nothing odd or particularly wicked about these people, and we don't have to pretend otherwise.
DADT was not a serious effort to root anyone gay out, it was a serious effort to keep them in. It's fair to say it was still unfair, too restrictive, and discriminatory, but it is extremely dishonest to claim that the goal was to get rid of gay people.
Even with this example in mind, it is pretty clear that progressives are explicitly destroying attempts to keep non-political spaces. Given that their protestations that they just want to be left alone quickly turned to bullying bakers, and promoting mastectomies for minors, it's fair to say their goal was never to keep anything apolitical.
The progressives disagree with you that these spaces were ever non-political, and frankly, I think they're right. I could talk at length about Dutch pillarisation and the funny consequences this had for society, but the people who bemoan politics being everywhere now are people who haven't been paying attention for all that long.
Frankly, this is bullshit. Name a single "non-political" internet space that ever had giant crosses plastered across it, and the rules updated to include "in this space we believe: there is no god but Jesus, all who do not praise him will be banned"
"There is no such thing as no-politics" is just used as an excuse to do whatever you want to people, claiming there are no standards of decency and pluralism that should stop you.
I refer to my original comment, where being known as gay would get you barred from the military or most any normal person's job, and where this was so pervasive it was the expectation. "There's no such thing as no-politics" indeed, because these gay people I've met and spoken to never had a choice.
"We never had a choice!" he screamed from atop a float shaped like a dick as it slowly trundled down the main thoroughfare during the second week of Pride Month.
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That might apply to some places. It doesn't apply to the hobby groups that are being discussed. You absolutely could participate in Battletech or video games without saying anything whatsoever about your private life.
I mean, you certainly couldn't play Counter-Strike without someone saying quite an awful lot about your private life. And your mom's private life, too, for that matter.
No, you couldn't pay Counter Strike without someone baselessly speculating about your private life. There were no consequences for what they said, because none of it was real, they were just fishing around for insults. There is so much difference between "anonymous person makes something up to annoy you" and "being known as gay would get you barred from the military or most any normal person's job" that it's a difference in kind, not degree.
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No, being known as gay would get you barred from high status jobs, which most normal people don’t have.
More to the point, the objection isn’t actually ‘gays should go into the closet’. There are people who believe that but it’s not the contention at issue. The contention at issue is whether a ‘no discussion of current events, period, with current events defined as anything after 1988’ rule should preclude 2023 pride month specific content. Which seems obvious.
I get why gay activists feel like they should have a special exception. I just don’t care. They got what they wanted.
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So? Why should I care about what an unrelated organization did? This is a hobby space ffs, not some government or public entity. You’re trying to justify totalitarianism based on some kind of collective blood libel that almost no one alive in the country has anything to do with.
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They absolutely had a choice. They made the choice to be gay, and not just homosexual, and that was a political act of their own free will.
Nah.
It would be better to just drop the conversation altogether rather than leaving comments like this.
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