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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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I guess what I'm asking is: where the liberals at? Or alternatively, why has the proportion of racists increased dramatically since moving off Reddit?

I may kind of qualify?

While I appear on themotte: I have limited amount of time that I can spend on "someone is wrong on the internet".

And there is only so much that I will spend on arguing with handle abbreviated to SS about holocaust denial. It can be sort of interesting but only in low doses. (the same goes for other witchy topics)

Many other topics seems to be equally witchy in noninteresting way, where I have no competence or interest or are extremely USA-specific in a boring way.

And when something is on topic, it is often of so low quality that it is eyerolling.

Yeah - like, there's an argument on this thread about leftists not wanting to argue.

But, this isn't true - go to a Democratic/left-leaning well-educated group of political types and ask them about health care, taxes, etc. and they'll be a bunch of different ideas thrown around.

It's just yes, I don't have much interest in arguing about why the 2020 election wasn't stolen, why the Jew's don't actually control everything, how smart or not specific racial groups are, and how much we have to limit women's freedom to get them to make more babies, and start having them earlier.

Note, even controversial stuff is fine if it's based in actual reality - if somebody wants to argue we should stay out of Ukraine because America shouldn't involve itself in European power politics or something like that, OK. But, if it's arguing about how America helped an illegal coup in 2014, and Ukraine is full of Nazi's, then yeah, there's not much to talk about.

Same thing on immigration - if you want to talk about economics versus culture, or criminal rates or whatever, again, we'll probably disagree heavily, but there's something there. If your belief is well, immigration has basically been too high since anywhere from 1830 to 1970 depending on the poster, and our racial mix has been terrible since then, then there's not much to talk about.

In general, when I try to get involved here is when something is insanely wrong on a basic thing, when I think the actual left-wing view is being wrongly thought out, or something like that. But in general, this place is less interesting, not because it's more right-wing, but I already know the responses to anything the moment an issue or story gets brought up.

Which, I'm sure one could say about left-leaning forums or arguments, but y'know, we're right and you're wrong. More seriously though, on the issues I care about and don't have 100% firm opinions on, like health care, taxes, spending, foreign policy, and so on, there are plenty of conversations going on in left-wing, center-left, and centrist spaces. But, if you're only interest is proving social freedom of women has gone too far and we need to IQ test everybody to put them in their proper place in society, then yeah, left-leaning spaces probably do similar.

But, this isn't true - go to a Democratic/left-leaning well-educated group of political types and ask them about health care, taxes, etc. and they'll be a bunch of different ideas thrown around.

These are not "arguments". They are discussions about technical policy implementation details; discussions among friends who already agree on the underlying foundational political issues.

You know you're in a political argument when you feel like you've got skin in the game. It's a fundamentally anxiety-inducing process. If there's no anxiety, then you're dealing with policy, not politics.

Politics is that which you can't afford to get wrong.

I don't have much interest in arguing about why the 2020 election wasn't stolen, why the Jew's don't actually control everything, how smart or not specific racial groups are, and how much we have to limit women's freedom to get them to make more babies [...] immigration has basically been too high since anywhere from 1830 to 1970 depending on the poster, and our racial mix has been terrible since then

These are, in fact, exactly the sorts of issues that lead to political arguments. The fact that you are explicitly claiming that you have no interest in discussing these topics is further confirmation of the thesis that leftists are not interested in arguing with rightists.

I don't particularly begrudge you for this. But, either way, it is evidence for the point being made. It's not evidence against it.

If you don't think there's any anxiety in intra-left/center-left arguments about health care, I guess you weren't around those arguments in the mid-to-late 2000s.

But regardless, the issues you care about are real and true and matter, while yours are fake and just surface level.

Now, it is true that no, if you truly think we need to limit women's ability to get a college education/heavily tax childless people or think it was a bad idea to let the Irish or Italian's in, or the only people correct about the 2020 election are people who support Donald Trump, then yeah, I don't want to argue with you about this. But, I do actually wish those people had louder voices, because as we're seeing with abortion, the actual right-wing view on these issues - not even the Trump view, but the actual hard-right view is highly unpopular amongst normie people. It's why for example, in states where even the GOP did well, pro-"2020 was a stolen election" candidates for offices like Secretary of State ran behind basically all other GOP candidates.

Sometimes, the best argument is just letting people put forth their actual views, and letting other people react accordingly.