I’ve been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to “voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism” and “the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic” and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they’re replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling – in retrospect I’m pretty sure I could’ve built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that’s what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) – and the only reason I’m not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
I would call someone like you kind of a jackass. I am not a fan of this peicemeal quote back and rebuttal style of discourse. I think it’s quite frankly disrespectful and lazy.
I am not really interested in dealing with you particularly because you seem rather hostile and more like the type of person I stated at the outset that I am tired of dealing with.
You wrote 4 whole paragraphs. How did you want me to discuss that without getting lost as to what I am referring to? It’s not lazy at all, it’s more work to copy stuff back and forth but it’s the easiest way to make it clear what I am referring to. Virtually all essays use quotes as well.
Calling someone a jack ass is disrespectful. Calling someone hostile for not agreeing with you is disrespectful. I find it disrespectful that you think anyone who supports “the working class own the means of production” is a communist. It shows you lack understanding of political beliefs that aren’t liberal hybrid economies despite claiming to be a socialist.
I am not calling you a jackass for disagreeing with me. I am calling you one because you have repeatedly come in hot trying to paint me as some kind of villian because I have said that my stance is that I find some capitalism okay. Go look at my original post. I specifically said that I find people who describe socialism by only one small facet of the total ideology or people who do not claim to be socialists attacking people for “not being socialist enough”. Then you come at me and do EXACTLY THAT trying to force your narrow definition down my throat. I am tired of people’s tiktok pop culture narrow short quippy and wrong statements. Yes “workers having control over the means of production” is one FACET of socialism. Happy? Fuck off! I said I am specifically tired of communists and OTHER SOCIALISTS trying to force some kind of fictional pure strain socialism down my throat then what I think constitutes a society we can actually get to because I said their fucking trigger word.
Get a fucking clue and go harrass some neo-liberals.
It’s not a narrow definition - it’s the definition. The original from the times of Marx and Bakunin. The version you are talking about was created by reformists after the fact. I don’t believe in revisionism or reformism. Therefore I don’t use that definition, and I don’t support anyone who does.
People make fun of those in the USA for claiming that socialism is whenever the government does stuff and use that as a reason not to have things like universal healthcare or benefits. That’s exactly what you are doing here, claiming that socialism is when the government does stuff to help the people. Yet you would probably call out these people and ridicule them.
Also you are a liberal lmao. Someone who believes in capitalism with government protections and safety nets is by definition a liberal. This isn’t hard.
Originalist bullshit. Go suck Marx’s dead withered removed and talk to me when you’ve decided to expand your reading list past the 19th century.
Now you’re just being rude. You can just admit you are a liberal instead of acting like an arsehole.
Also would you tell a mathematician or a physicist to stop sucking Newton’s or Einstein’s dick?
Depends do you ignore every physicist who expanded on their work? Fuck off troll.
That’s not what’s going on here. If anything you are being a troll. Pretending to be a socialist when you are really a liberal.
Libralism’s main tenants are generally speaking tied up in the idea of freedom of style of life (ie profession, religion, choosing where you live free of persecution and so forth) but it’s particular idea of private property only recognizing private ownership as legitimate and it’s resistance to personal accrewed wealth being beyond government reach isn’t what I believe.
Taken on economic grounds I am not a liberal though I do believe in a great deal of individual freedoms in other sectors. In the case of governance I am generally upset at the lack of representative voting systems and ideally believe we should adopt at least a partial democratic lottery system as I find elections in a general sense tend to select for the ability to play to a crowd rather than aptitude and is very weak towards issues of populism and conflicts of interest. I believe in very robust social safety nets that increase equality including basic income, housing as a basic human right (not simply a perscriptive shelter system) a sharp increase in public transit as an issue of equity for non-drivers (as a discriminated category) , third spaces and think suburbs an ecological hell. I disagree strongly with the ideas of “parental rights” which treat children as owned property. I believe in a right to participate in society which is not adequately offered to all people at present. I believe that anyone who treats anybody as worthy of consideration and comfort based on their abilities, earning potential or mental health is despicable. I am a Non-binary trans person from an area with high levels of acceptance who knows that a low forced gender compliance society is possible and nessisary. I am anti colonization on board to recognize that generational wealth is not legitimate if it was stolen and that repatriation is desperately nessisary and participate in the culture of land acknowledgement, restorative justice and fight inside my Union to implement the 94 articles of reconciliation where we can apply them.
Saying I don’t mind some capitalism doesn’t mean I approve of a lot of it. Stocks and public trading is out of control, speculation markets that infringe on human rights need to be throughly dismantled. Environmental damages need to be punished through personal criminal liability and the personhood of corporations needs to be repealed. Do I think everything needs to be a co-op? No. Do I think unions and collective action are vitality important to us having a future that does not devolve into dystopia? Yes. Do I mind a system where individuals can own a business and hire labour hence “owning the means of production”? No. Do I think unchecked acrual of wealth is a massive problem and individuals should not be able to pocket massive profits as an exploitative incentive to cut corners and undercut labour and consumers? Yes.
I think your catchphrase socialism is reductionist. Your desire to reduce my beliefs to a single word you can point and hiss at a precursor to mob mentality. If you want to think I am a liberal then I am going to think of you as an empty headed communist because you are being trained to not think for yourself.