E: Every down vote without discussion just proves my point even more. You’re all in a cult.
Nah, both sides suck for different reasons.
Most situations have more choices than the two you are often presented with. For example, who is in the right, Hamas or Israel? Neither of them. They’re both trying to justify killing innocent people because the other side killed innocent people.
In the meme, a centrist would obviously agree with the Democrat. If it were flipped and the Democrat were saying some equally off the wall thing, they’d side with the Republican. They’ve both become extremist versions of what they once were and the other side points out the obvious insanity and gets to feel smug about their low hanging trophy. And dumbass people from both sides eat it up.
Why do you think people are clinging to the center despite all the weird hate against it? They don’t want to be associated with either side. Both sides get some things right and some things wrong. Yet, we’re expected to take them as a package deal, because politics have become cult like.
I have been trying on Lemmy for months. They purposefully and willfully misunderstand all centrists / independents and for some reason feel they are all secretly right wing.
It’s the current state of US politics - the straw man they’ve built in their head that has all the wrong opinions has the same label that they’ve slapped on you, and labels are all that matters to them.
Most are not here to engage, think, and expand their worldview. They are here to push the “fuck you” button that gives them a dopamine hit by punishing you for having the wrong label.
But once in a while you’ll talk to someone who treats you like a real person, and it’s kind of wonderful.
I’ll take the downvotes happily everytime. I know it’s going to happen as I’m writing, but if it means it gives even one person something to think about it’s worth it.
Unfortunately I don’t think it will make anyone brainwashed by echo chambers think, only enrage them
Now do healthcare as a right and abortion. Where’s the compromise?
You missed the point, there is no compromise and even people who identify as centrists will have different thoughts.
Me personally?
Healthcare as a right is already a thing. You can get it even if you’re unemployed right now. The real problem is in the insurance/medical/pharma industries with all of the insane price gouging. It needs to be more obtainable and more effective. Free? No, medical supplies and labor still have some cost even if we fix the issue of cost and that money needs to come from somewhere. Even if it were given out for “free”, you really think our taxes won’t go up to compensate?
Abortion? Let them do what they want.
Health care should be free for the simple reason that it’s inhumane to deprive a person of it just because they can’t afford it. It’s a basic human right. It works in many other countries. Maybe rich people and corporations should stop getting tax breaks and your government should reduce a bit the amount spent on the military.
Jupp, healthcare should be free for the individual in need. And at the same time it is not “free” because the costs get compensated by taxes. At least that’s how it works in Germany, where i am from. So the point of the person you answered to stands: yes, free for individual, covered by state/insurance which gets the money from someone else.
The person I replied to literally said it shouldn’t be free because it may increase their taxes. So it was implied that they meant it should not be free for the individual, meaning the individual should be expected to have to pay for their own medical treatment when needed.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t like the left, you guys expect everyone to be in lock step on every issue and you use a holier than thou approach to do it. However, I don’t want to live in a Christo-Fascist Theocracy, so even though I don’t love it… I will still vote D for now. I’m literally on your side, but it’s impossible to have a conversation with you guys. The right and left’s chances of that are near zero and it’s fucking sad. You call us centrists, but most of us never moved. You guys did. You move the line more and more every day.
That is very a very american-centrist pov, it’s your bi-party stuff that’s fucked up, not the left
I mean, I thought the right’s problems were pretty obvious. I don’t think there are many right wing people that need to hear it here anyways. Right wing people seem to absolutely love it when you tell them their party is flawed anyways.
To your other point, this thread is literally me saying the two parties are a problem and I’ve posted other comments in here saying people should vote third party.
Now you really gone and rilled the identity warriors with you mentioning “bi-parties”…
Not sure to understand what you mean
“Bi” as in “Bisexual” rather than standing for “two” as you probably meant it.
Bad joke, sorry ;)
Oh nice joke :D
Oh, I forgot you Americans are still arguing about basic stuff
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The issue is that “centralist” has been co-opted by the American Right. The republican MAGA element has flopped so far to the extreme right that the old right now looks in the center. Because of this, and the idiotic behaviour of the MAGAs, a lot of republicans seem to use “centralist” to distance themselves. A lot of the original centralists have been forced into siding with the democrats.
From the outside, American politics is all right wing. The democrats are more in line with most countries right wing parties than their left. This has only gotten more extreme recent years. Right now, the democrats are far too close to the centralist joke in this meme. “A little bit of genocide is ok” at least when it’s not Americans. You act like it’s far fetched now, but we also joked about the MAGA idiots and Trump becoming president.
“NOOO IF YOU DON’T WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH WHAT I SAY YOU’RE WORSE THAN HITLER”
Not everyone is American. I’m German and it’s way less distinct here imo. Yes, I hate the right with a passion (as everyone should), but the left really isn’t any good either. It’s just all a big bag of trash.
Right: These people who don’t share my opinion need to be genocided!
Left: No! THESE people who don’t share MY opinion need to be genocided!
Centre: Could… Could we, like… Not have a crisis on our hands FOR FIVE FUCKING SECONDS!?
Extremists be like “You’re either with me or against me!”
I think the true centrist would be the least likely to genocide. Right and left both imply an attachment towards one arbitrary end of the spectrum. Center implies you’re willing to entertain ideas from both sides, because realistically the truth almost always lies in the middle of the extremes.
The end state of these ideals is two sides who have nothing alike wanting the other gone, and the others going, “woah wait guys, you’re both a little right, let’s chat instead of murder.” Centrism isn’t just not being able to pick a side or take conviction, it’s about wanting to synthesize all relevant information into a worldview that is a bit more aligned with reality.
Why does the left have an arbitrary attachment in your opinion? Why is it wrong just because it’s “extreme”? I don’t find that a very appealing argument. And why cannot an “extreme” position be aligned with reality?
What if the status quo is an “extreme” or absurd position? What if wealth inequality and private ownership, where people earn power just from owning things, is extreme?
Remember, democracy used to be a radical and extreme position. People thought that giving a vote to everyone was completely absurd. Do you think that’s too extreme? What about letting women vote? What about abolishing slavery? What about saying that black people are not worse than white people? What about saying monarchism should have been abolished? What about abolishing feudalism and serfdom? What about labor laws and mandating that workers cannot be forced to work more than 8 hours a day?
All of these position were extreme once upon a time.
I think the true centrist would be the least likely to genocide.
Wtf are you talking about. On the Left, we hate killing. We’re completely opposed to it. We don’t entertain the idea. Centrists who might allow some killing are not the least likely to genocide. The Left wants no unnecessary deaths.
Huh, that’s strange. There was a left-leaning fellow I responded to yesterday who said:
“So then you’re saying that liberals and leftists CAN publicly call for the roundup, imprisonment, and execution of all Republicans who push fake news in online and broadcast media?”
Sounds like they were very much in favor of some killing.
Attachment to an ideology is breeding grounds for contempt. Look at all of the leftists on social media lately calling for genocide of either Palestinians or Israel. As soon as you get so mired in labels, ideologies, etc you run the risk of becoming radicalized and unable to see the “other” as people. The central view is “both of these sides have done some abhorrent shit, let’s figure out how we can do better without an all out war.” The extremes are “Palestine wrong” and “Israel wrong”.
For the record, most of my personal beliefs lean pretty left of center. I still don’t identify as left, right, or even really center, because labels will only get in the way of truly expressing your beliefs. I just hate the “centrists like riding the fence. Centrists are cowards” kind of rhetoric you see everywhere.
Everyone has an ideology. You may just not be aware of it.
because realistically the truth almost always lies in the middle of the extremes.
so you think earth is a semi-sphere?
Clever. No, that’s a matter of hard science. Not much room for interpretation there. But anything that’s a matter of subjective opinion, yeah, it’s almost always somewhere towards the center of the extremes.
so:
the question of should it be legal to sell meth to children, the answer is yes under some conditions?
the answer to “the Jewish question” is, 3million?
how about enfranchisement? half the population? what half?
how about slavery? that was literally solved somewhere towards the center of the two extremes, and it caused a civil war.
civil rights? well, Jim-crow was a nice centrist position.
etc…
Centrism is rarely the correct answer
Centrism doesn’t mean you’re taking a median view of the population. It means you’re not blindly following a left or right approach, and even more so as it approaches extreme ends of the spectrum. It means you’re listening to all relevant data to the issue at hand, and forming it into one coherent opinion, usually somewhere right of extreme left, and left of extreme right.
There are ALWAYS pros and cons to everything, even ‘obvious’ things like abolishing slavery. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous and damages your own point for the sake of being a bit more emotionally comfortable. I prefer to eschew labels, left, right, center, alt, or otherwise because it allows me to more easily assimilate information that I might otherwise disregard because “eww it’s RIGHT leaning”.
To be clear, I fall pretty far left on most topics, but not because I’m a lefty. I fall there because it makes the most sense after hearing all of the information.
Right: Let’s cut off our Dicks.
Left: Let’s not cut off our Dicks.
Center: Guys, your going to have to compromise, let’s just do some dick cutting.
Right: I guess I can live with that for now.
Left: No.
Center: See, this is why no one likes the left, you guys are the real extremists, smh
Quality post.
Muricans be like: let’s make centrists look bad by using strawman arguments.
Also muricans: yeah only voting for shit or shit lite® definitively isn’t a problem and voting 3rd party is throwing away my vote
Interesting how everyone seems to think this tweet from 2018 seems to refer to th situation in Gaza in 2023.
Ironically, in Germany, both the far left and the far right a re in favor of genocide. It’s even the same genocide!
Really makes you realize, that the political spectrum is much more a circle than a line.
It’s the same in America, we just belive it can’t be genocide when the left labels it “anti-genocide”
You people make up such fantasies in your head. This is far from the common trail of thought.
Echo chambers and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
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😩
I feel dirty, time for a shower.
Surprisingly, simply saying “EcHo ChAmBeR!!1!” without counter arguments has not fixed the problem.
I’m as shocked as you are.
Surprisingly, making it worse does even less good than pointing the causes out
I’m indeed shocked you tried so badly to make a “gotcha” towards obvious statements
there’s no agreed definition of echo chamber though.
It is an echo chamber to say “murder is bad” “CSAM is bad” “rape is bad” - as 99.99% of people, when pushed, will agree those things are bad, echoing each other verbatim.
Rightwingers aren’t people
Point proven
Indeed, the point that rightwing scum should be hounded up and left in a deserted island is brilliantly made by rightwingers themselves.
What kind of drugs are you on?
Reality
So you, a non-leftist, are against the cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing occurring in Gaza? That’s refreshing!
It’s fucking satire
Did you think this was supposed to be a direct quote?
It’s peak /c/theLeftCantMeme
Nah more like AteTheOnion
Bro/Sis this is what is happening in the debate about refugees in Germany right now so no, actually you are wrong
Well, back when Steinmeier was our foreign minister and toured poor countries to advertise Germany as the land of opportunity and wealth because corporations wanted slaves they don’t have to pay properly, I was called a Nazi by many for saying that they won’t find any opportunity or wealth in Germany. Our government never had the well-being of immigrants in mind, they just stuffed them into dilapidated “refugee camps”, told them their education is insufficient and left them to rot. I am not surprised.
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Any relevant links? I tried to google it, but it seems to me that the debate is about funding them - not about killing them.
I can’t speak to Germany, but in the UK the government had to be forced to use the lifeguard to save drowning people because they wanted to let refugees die, and had to be forced to stop sending people to Rwanda (even if they’re not from Rwanda) just to get rid of them.
Both stories are easily googlable.
That’s not a genocide. There is a big difference between refusing to expend resources to save peoples life and actively expending resources to destroy lives.
I dont particularly care about defining what is and isn’t a genocide, I care about not killing people.
And the Nobel Peace Prize you get for that will be mailed to you. Until it arrives, let’s do discuss about definitions, nuances, and all these other annoying details that set a principled debate apart from blind virtue signalling.
I, for one, really care about the distinction between initiating something evil and merely not doing enough™ to stop it. The UK did not made them refugees. Sure, the old British empire caused trouble all around the globe, but modern refugees are mostly escaping from regional wars and totalitarian governments. One could say that it’s still their fault because that’s the aftermath of them leaving, but that would imply that the UK should have kept occupying these countries, so you probably don’t want to go there.
So they did not cause them to be refugees. Both the refusal to save them from drowning and the deportation are an expression not of a deliberate attempt to kill them, but of a refusal to help them. The UK government does not want these refugees to be in the UK.
If we take this issue and place in the OP template, it’d look something like this:
Right: Let’s not let refugees in.
Left: Let’s let all the refugees in.
Center: Guys, you’re gonna have to compromise, let’s just let /some/ of the refugees in.
…One should notice that:
- Unlike the original post, this is not a strawman. You don’t have to go very far to the right to find plenty of people who want to let no refugee in, and you don’t have to go very far to the left to find plenty of people who want to let them all in.
- Once the strawman is removed - the centrist position does not seem that absurd anymore.
- If you keep insisting that “not accepting refugees” equals “genocide” - people will stop taking your claims about genocide so seriously. Because you don’t care about definitions, so it could mean anything.
It’s moreso Right: Let’s kill muslims Left: Let’s kill jews Centrists: let’s not do either of that
THANK YOU
The US is literally funding genocide right now but wait, it’s only wrong when it’s against white people
TBF in left leaning states are protesting en masse, over in California they almost overran the state congress over this exact issue. It’s taken 2024 election predictions from a certain victory for dems down to uncertain tossup for undecided swing states.
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Yeah that’s 100% bullshit and I’ll show you right now.
Downvote me if you’re going to vote for Joe Biden. My negative score will be your proof. Lemmy doesn’t give a shit about genocide abroad. When the only measurable act of support these people carry out is counted, it will be FOR genocide and the people who did it.
I’m not going to vote for Joe Biden or any democratic member for that matter.
I’m not American.
You’re a fucking moron if you think the Republican alternative is a better option for Palestine. And when it comes to the general election, you’re only lying to yourself if you think a third-party candidate has a chance.
We, as the US, need to fix our broken election system before we’re going to have a chance of electing someone who isn’t owned by corporate interests.
That’s a high minded reason to vote in favor of fascism ideologically and genocide in practice. My biggest problem is that you don’t even believe that’s what you’re doing. You’re not fixing the ‘broken’ ‘democratic’ system. You have no plans to.
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They’re both the same party.
Whataboutism. A vote is a gesture of support. A vote for something is supporting that thing.
You support murdering children.
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Bye Felicia
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Great, you’ve showcased you have a fundamentally flawed understanding of American politics.
We should be voting independent. Voting for R or D would lead to the same outcome. I hate the blind support for Israel. They’ve done some truly shitty things. Our relationship feels like trying to look out for the kid who gets bullied in school, but the whole time he’s out there spitting on people. We should at least be holding them accountable if we’re going to send them our resources.
Yes, you really need to vote third party as much as you can. It already happened in Argentina (you may disagree with the party, but the fact that it’s third party and won the elections is the point), it can be achieved somewhere else
If voting means you agree with one of the parties, not voting means you agree with both and are ok with either ruling.
The combined power rings of every major and minor party swirling in a thousand bands of light to combine into my political opinion
There are more than two parties.
In the US there are only two, for all intents and purposes. It’s the logical conclusion to the “first past the post” system.
In other countries I agree with you. Still, not voting is not an option (unless you are ok with any party).
Sorry I’m voting to keep the fascists out of office, and to hold them accountable for their actions?
People have been screaming about the military industrial complex since Vietnam but go off I guess…
Genocide of those who want genocide? Since we’ve agreed that some genocide is ok?
Ah yes genocide, where 14,500 people out of 2.048 Million have been killed in 45 days (0.7% of the population) in the war started by terrorists hiding behind the same civilians, and that number too given by the very same so trustworthy oh so poor terrorists I mean freedom fighters (who also include their own fighters killed in that number, as those poor freedom fighters have filmed themselves fighting in civilian clothes hence they are civilians), who kill their own civilians with their own crappy rockets yet blame it on the other party, and each one of the 14k killed hand counted and verified by the poor honest doctors who have never seen a gun bearing terrorist inside a hospital nor ever seen a tunnel or a hostage, being committed by the strongest military power in the region, which has the capacity to kill all those 2Million people in a single day!
is 14500 people not a lot?
Did someone redefine genocide to “killing a number of people that u/Iseif deems ‘a lot’”?
well what is it then.?
WWII resulted in 0.265% of the world’s total population being killed over the course of 72 months, while Israel murdered 0.7% of a population in only 1.5 months. They also displaced roughly 1.5 Million of those 2 Million people, many of which might not have anything to return to. Their methods were also pretty damnable considering they intentionally closed off 2 of the borders and consistently shelled the only remaining border making it nearly impossible to flee.
There’s just… so much to unpack here.
Maybe we just throw the whole damn suitcase away.
war started by terrorists
That is a convenient choice of time to label that as the start to this war.
Who crossed the Gaza-Israel border to massacre villages and cities at the beginning of October?
…well, lets assume for once that it started earlier. Like 50 years earlier. And that for some people on both sides this has been on and off since then.That conflict is old, very old. And to say “it started in October” is just so wrong in many aspects.
The current conflict did, and if we go to the past to say “no u started it” we’d go back to the bronze age
