One side is trying to rob the rights of a group of people, the other side is burning down their own cities claiming to be saving the lives of a marginalized group. One side is advocating for guns to stay legal and accessible while children are mass murdered, the other side has members dressing up in all black and assaulting people in their peaceful protests. One side is denying climate change as the world literally crumbles in front of us, the other is advocating for the abolition of all law enforcement officers.
Both sides are so fucking stupid that I’d feel embarrassed to be a part of either. While my principles are more in line with the left, they are so far from an ideal party that I still wince knowing they’re the best choice I have. Centrists are hated by both sides because we aren’t partisan dick suckers but my god try to have an independent thought. You don’t have to completely agree with every shit take your party churns out. You’re allowed to not be happy with them and still vote for them.
Perhaps you’d prefer we reduce reduce the scale of police duties so we can have dedicated public safety responders for different situations? We can fund it by proportionally using money that police no longer need.
I’d prefer to have elected oversight committees that dictate exactly where every dollar of the police budget goes so we stop buying Armored Personal Carriers from military surplus and put it into fucking training so people don’t confuse their tasers with their sidearms. I’d like a perfect police force that doesn’t fuck up and panic leading to people dying unnecessarily, but that doesn’t happen if they have less money for proper training. It doesn’t happen so long as they’re only accountable to themselves.
I’m down to make the police better, to structure the systems in a better way. I’m not down to abolish them and leave a gaping hole where a critical pillar of society should be.
Nobody who is worth listening to ever advocated for abolishing all police and not replacing them with something else. Pretty much everyone agrees that some form of law enforcement is necessary. There are differences in what that law enforcement looks like, but I feel like everyone other than cops can see that police culture and the way that they abuse their power and protect each other is a problem.
The problem with how you look at things is that you’re seeing only the most extreme positions of each group and assuming that each “side” holds those views.
So it doesn’t matter that a dozen buildings were set on fire, looted, and ruined? Doesn’t matter shop owners were beat with planks of wood? So long as we’re under that 15% it’s acceptable, yeah? I’m glad the defense is “Well they didn’t do enough of it so what’s your point?”
Yes and you’re taking the braindead take that for a city to be set fire to it has to reach your arbitrary 15% ratio or it doesn’t count. Shit burned down but for you to acknowledge it, it has to really cripple the whole city huh? Something something goalposts.
Minneapolis. 164 structure fires in three days. 200 buildings affected. Oscar Lee Stewart Jr. died as a result. I didn’t even know that last part. So you kill people to save people, that’s interesting.
Holy fuck you don’t even know what moving the goalposts means. I didn’t realize how fucking awful the left was with the pseudo intellectualism. Call it a strawman next. Oh oh, ad hominem too. Just throw all the terms at the wall and hope to god you sound smart. Here, I’ll help you since you have such a short memory.
Who are the people that allegedly did this and what are their affiliations? Who of any prominence endorses them? You keep bringing this nonsense up as if it has any kind of relevance or traction outside the right wing lying liars’ echo chambers.
"Burning down their own cities claiming to be saving the lives of a marginalized group". Yes, looting happens, things are broken. Things. Property. Because at the end of the day, what our system listens to is the interests of business owners, and they listen to lost money. Stonewall was a riot, and whether or not you think that it's better to go through bureaucracy to stop the oppression of minorities or not, clearly riots are effective. These cities aren't being destroyed, and they get repaired, and sure that sucks for the business owners that have to deal with that... but human lives matter more.
I think the people that you are thinking of, who are dressing up and assaulting peaceful protests are the proud boys. Who are fascists. Most leftists protesters are not attacking people, they are defending themselves. Because cops happily resort to violence first and foremost.
"advocating for the abolition of all law enforcement officers."
Strict punishment and law enforcement doesn't work. In the US we have incredibly high rates of recidivism, and more prisoners than pretty much any other country. Cops solve very few crimes, and are there to protect property rather than people. That's why when protests happen, they go out in armored vehicles and use tear gas to protect businesses, but they would never do that you protect you or your home. Eliminating modern cops doesn't mean that you do nothing to enforce laws and protect your communities, it has to do with how that effort is organized. The profit based power-trip cops we have exist because the system is broken.
The problem with centrism, in general, is that ignorance of nuance. You aren't right just because you picked a point in the middle. One side is fascists, and the other just wants to live.
“The problem with centrism, in general, is that ignorance of nuance.” I love how you preceded this comment illustrating how black and white everything is and after say “one side is fascists and the other isn’t” You do realize nuance would be cascading gray, yes? That it means the right side would also have some level of nuance, yes? Both sides LOVE to jerk themselves off as intellectual juggernauts then contradict themselves because they’re not actually the intellectuals they claim to be, they’re regurgitating what they heard smarter people argue on their behalf. “strict punishment and law enforcement doesn’t work” holy fuck point to a single country, providence, or territory in the world that can operate without law enforcement. You are unironically advocating for anarchy and can’t see how fucking retarded the notion of that is. “it sure sucks business owners have to deal with that but human lives are more important.” So to save lives you destroy other people’s livelihoods? Did it work? Are we done now or are those people out tens of thousands of dollars? Their entire lifes work destroyed because you wanted some fucking attention and did fuck all with it. No, that’s such a shit take that your empty fucking virtue will not save you from.
They dress up in white hoods, you dress up in black beanies. You’re two sides of the same god awful coin and instead of pursuing a change that would disrupt two shit choices, you fully embrace one and denigrate critics. You are just barely less of the monster you claim the right is and you’re so devoid of the nuance you believe to be aware of that you refuse to step back and criticize your own failures. Refuse to improve so that detractors have less to call you out on.
The world is not black and white, of course. But if we're talking about the modern day Republican party and it's voters, it's very clear what's going on. I'm no intellectual, and neither are you, so let's keep this respectful. I'll repeat that eliminating our police force doesn't mean not enforcing laws, but rather is rooted in how that effort is organized. Most crime is a direct result of poverty, if you want to effectively decrease crime, you need to improve people's standards of living. Things like affordable housing projects, raising minimum wages, more paid vacation, better public transportation, cancelling student debt, decriminalization of drug possession and use, etc.
Our police force doesn't want to decrease crime because our prisons are for-profit and they make more of they book more prisoners.
You can point fingers at me if you want. I guess? I haven't participated in looting or rioting. My point was that it's effective regardless of whether you support it.
Also, humanity enforced laws for a long time before our police system was designed.
Hell yeah, deaths don’t matter till we hit at least a million. Cities burning don’t count till the whole thing falls. That’s some awesome standards you’ve got.
“That’s paywalled” - The picture of them reducing a building to ash isn’t. “Or if they did, they rebuilt very quickly” - Here I’ll help you CARRY THOSE GOALPOSTS. Where we putting them down at this time? (That’s how that term is used by the way.) I’m bored of this same song on repeat though, have a good day, please have some independent thoughts.
I live in the twin cities metro, literally 5 minutes from University. There weren’t many buildings that burned down, and the district 3 pig pen burning to the ground is largely regarded as “based as fuck”. There were a few small businesses that burned down due to anarchy tourists, and those businesses are greatly missed. The other buildings that burned were megacorporations, which is also based.
Who did it and who are they affiliated with? Those of us not glued to right wing apology and grievance networks and who do not have the memory of a goldfish might remember The Umbrella Man:
The other thing here is that these people make this implicit leap to assuming it’s somehow some liberals/leftists that did any of the acts of vandalism. Who is endorsing any of that on the left? I mean, someone of actual prominence and viewed with reverence by people on the left?
Burning down their cities? Where the fuck is that happening? I’m so sick of that blatant lie. You aren’t a centrist, you’re a liar, and that’s why people hate you.
Never happened. This is an oft-debunked right wing echochamber strawman and as such, anyone who invokes it is either right wing, an impressionable useful idiot or, most likely, both.
Not even going to adress the rest of your strawmen, false equivalences and irrational conclusions since you’re barely worth the time and effort I’ve already wasted on your rank stupidity.
My brother in Christ Antifa throwing molotovs on video recording is not an echochamber strawman [insert another logical fallacy to sound cool]. Hell they made a lot of noise about Target getting hit too but yeah let’s just sweep those pictures under the rug too, didn’t happen. All those locally owned businesses? Nah, not looted, you said so. An elderly woman beaten with planks of wood for asking rioters not to break her windows? Definitely didn’t happen, just a strawman.
You’re a fucking pseudo intellectual. Don’t reply if you’re going to just jerk yourself off with nothing comments.
I’m pointing out your logical fallacy not to sound cool, but in order to warn anyone else who might be susceptible to being tricked that you’re employing rhetorical trickery to make an invalid claim sound plausible by making a valid counterclaim sound ridiculous.
Just stop it with the faux-edgy centrist histrionic hyperbole already. You’re not fooling anyone.
You’re a fucking pseudo intellectual. Don’t reply if you’re going to just jerk yourself off with nothing comments.
the other is advocating for the abolition of all law enforcement.
This is a non sequitur, and also false beyond fringes.
To be fair, this last one was a slogan explicitly used, at a level where it could be reasonably seen as mainstream depending on how much time you spent on the wrong websites.
Kinda interesting, really— In-group signalling incentives greatly harmed the chances for successful out-group messaging.
And sad, maybe— Could have possibly gotten a good thing going at that point— But I guess “Decrease funding to violent law enforcement in order to reallocate more resources to preventative and constructive community services” just doesn’t have the right ring to it in today’s media environment.
As it was, it was big enough to get serious attention from several major cities, while also being self-defeating enough to thus far have had apparently basically no lasting positive impact whatsoever yet.
Maybe it’s just me, but my default interpretation when I hear about something being “defunded” is more or less synonymous with complete elimination.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter, since everything else that comment was saying was indeed just bunk, and even this funding thing was indeed still at most a relatively fringe messaging failure.
But that’s not the case very often - you can live your life and a protest won’t stop the murderers.
Protesting is ineffective full stop. In any scenario, I don’t care if it’s conservatives trying to ban abortion or transgender begging not to be killed.
The most effective way to do things still stands: write a letter to your senator, and vote for senators with your views. If you don’t live in a democracy, plot a revolution and fight for your right to vote, which is something the North Koreans would do if they knew.
NAH. White men only harassed black men when they were first living amongst each other. Still happens today with old people that grew up in white circles, but they’re dying out. The real reason we had racism is because before the 1800s, black people lived in Africa and white people lived in Europe. When globalism and more travel happened, some met, but it was a lot rarer to see travellers back then. So when the US was founded, people from all around the world flocked and first lived together which lead to a lot of culture shock and some disgusting negative stereotypes. The simple act of white men and black men living in the same country was enough to slowly eliminate racism. And it’s pretty much completely gone in today’s society.
I’ll get right on that when there’s someone to vote for in my area with trans positive views. Not like they’ll be voted in given the right wing community in the local area to the point that we need anti-xenophobic counter protests whenever they march downtown.
All my problems are solved, thanks
Edit: Just for reference, I live in the UK, a place that’s just out a ban on places having exclusively gender neutral toilets
Couldn’t be further from the truth. Every single right you have that doesn’t directly benefit rich white men was achieved by people protesting until politicians could no longer stand in the way of justice without being trampled, figuratively speaking.
Write a letter to your senator and vote for senators with your views
Aww, you still think all senators care about what you want if you’re not supplying the legal bribes they depend on for re-election and personal enrichment? AND you think either of the two major parties of the US will just let you vote for someone who actually represents your interests rather than a corporate stooge who can help further enrich the private corporations masquerading as public organisations?
The in-group was originally even far more narrow than that: it was basically xtian cishet land-owning white men. Thank goodness there is a framework for changing that, though.
You either support the hate, vitriol and murder against trans people, or you don’t. There is no middle ground.
The idea that demanding trans people be treated with the dignity and respect other classes of people expect as being “aggressive” is just a pathetic way to try to deflect from their desire to support the side they know they cannot morally defend. It allows them to pretend “both sides” are at fault in order to deflect for the hate they functionally support. Only a stark moron could look at the current events relative to the treatment of trans people and think they are somehow demanding greater rights than the rest of us have.
Just another flavor of the “both sides” bullshit that has permeated politics; but only one side has abandoned democracy and staged an insurrection while collectively acting like the victims in the aftermath.
If you are a “centrist” and this seems like an appealing position to support, maybe you should take a long, long look in the mirror.
Given the sheer complexity of human affairs, the massive number of combinations of opinions possible on every subject that’s politically important (merelly Ecology, Taxes and Religion, if they only had 2 choices, would yield 9 different combinations of opinions) and the fact that on most subjects there are in fact more than two possible choices (just look at Religion!), it’s mathematically impossible that there are 2 and only 2 political sides.
What it is is a simulacrum of Democracy, were people cast votes but the system that allocates power based on those votes is matemathically rigged to produce a power duopoly, which is far easier to control than genuine Democracies with Proportional Vote were parliaments much better reflect the vastness of political opinions in society.
The whole “centrist” thinking is really people trying to mentally solve the mental tension between having been culturally brainwashed to believe “there are 2 and only 2 sides” whilst actually having political opinions which do not match either side - instead of challenging what they’ve been convinced “must be so” (even though it’s illogical) they try to invent a place for themselves which still related to the “2 sides”.
Let me put things this way: if you really feel the need for 2 sides and yet you moved beyond the “2 sides you’re told represent every political opinion there is”, then think of yourself on the “Thinking side” as opposed to the “Tribalist, flag-waving parrot side”.
To be fair they are not the same by any means, but at the same time… Anything they can to poison the well, they both fight for this fucked system because it’s what gives them power. With all this trump shit and the GOP off the deep end I keep hearing about how we must restore our second party.
I see no politics or request for killing white males. Sounds like white males whining when their power over others is threaten.
We shouldn’t mutilate kids, so let them keep their forskin, you relegious weirdos! Oh, and trans adaptation surgery isn’t allowed for kids and never was requested.
Yup, genital mutilation is bad without consent, and children can’t consent. If research demonstrates that transition surgery supports mental health (ie reduced depression/suicide, increased quality of life) there’s no argument to stop it as long as it’s properly medically regulated. Their body, their choice.
So it is obviously not the mainstream pro lgbtq or political left. While homophobia and anti transgender views are common and explicitly used in konservative to right wing mainstream.
I mean, Blair White is a successful pro-trump conservative… Who happens to be a trans woman. Where is all the hate for her?
Just because you don’t like the way they want to change policy doesn’t mean it’s driven by hate. The vast majority of conservatives are just ignorant and fired up because the right wing talking points are more engaging.
The louder you shout “homophobia, transphobia, fascist” at a conservative the further you’re pushing them to the right.
What this meme does is compare extremists on one side to rational actors on the other. I’ve heard this kind of thing called “nut picking” and it’s used by all kinds of public figures to try and deligitimize the opposing stance.
#killallwhitemen trended in 2015 and garnered a crazy amount of support considering how stupid it is. There are also hateful uneducated conspiracists, antisemites, and white supremacists, too. They are all wrong and bad.
There are hateful extremists and rational actors on both sides. Extremists on both sides are a problem. If you can’t recognize that then you’re part of the problem. But we need move past that and talk to the reasonable people.
Nothing about what I’m saying suggests that I take a side. I like to think I’m on the side of human flourishing. We need to protect the social fabric, by reducing wealth inequality, supporting mental health initiatives, and getting money and lobbying out of politics.
Your reading comprehension is pretty shit. I didn’t comment on the social movement, I used a social movement that has been around since the sixties as an example to demonstrate that extremists exist everywhere.
The stance on politics should be based on how extreme the idea is, not by counting the heads. The call for killing someone is extreme, calling for human rights is not. The fact you don’t see left extremists doesn’t mean the opposite of right wing extreme is moderate. And yes, the left extreme exists and is prevalent, just go ask hexbear users about Lenin’s thoughts on positive discrimination and they will gladly tell you about it.
a) Nah, this is also extreme shit and I will fight the shitheads who call for genital mutilation no matter the side they take.
b) “and trans adaptation surgery isn’t allowed for kids and never was requested.” - this was, is, and always be a point of heated debate. Just by the nature of it. You don’t want to wait for kids to come of age before doing a life-saving operation? Then why force kids to carry the genitals they hate and risk them committing suicide while waiting? But on the other hand, kids are easily impressible idiots, so you never know whether they will change their mind later. So, there always will be someone calling for increasing and someone for decreasing the minimum transition age.
This is just stupid the centrist position isn’t between trans rights and murdering trans people its between trans rights and I don’t believe there are more than 2 genders but you do you this is what anti trans people push to make trans people seem extreme
My hot take: I find transgenderism to be weird. I don’t get it. It weirds me out. I suspect I’m incapable of understanding.
Here’s the thing though: it doesn’t matter what I think. None of my fucking business. They can do what they want. Why is this a national issue?!? I find it weird, yes, but building a political ideology around hating them for it, that’s WAY weirder. And more dangerous.
Americans love freedom right? I’m having trouble thinking of anything more free than waking up a man and going to sleep a woman. Yes, I find it odd. But I’ll fight to the death their right to practice their flavor of odd.
I totally agree, I just don’t think that healthcare should pay for body modification. More accurately, if people want insurance that covers those costs, it shouldn’t be subsidized be people who don’t wish to subsidize it.
I’m trans and asexual. It would be insane for me to take a stance against people having sex. I don’t enjoy it and the machinations surrounding it confuses me. However, I don’t care that people have sex even though I don’t understand it.
Turns out a lot of Americans don’t love freedom. They love only their freedom, which is corrupted in my opinion.
Eta: “I’m having trouble thinking of anything more free than waking up a man and going to sleep a woman.”
I didn’t read this correctly the first time and now I’m moved. That happened to me, it did feel like I was set free.
As much as I can and do respect anyone’s choices in life, there’s a bit of a complication regarding how many qualified doctors out there know how to properly treat ailments of those that have had physical transition surgery.
Like, how many medical students go into the field with the idea of ‘hey, I wanna study how to treat people that have drastically altered their bodies from what we learned in med school’…?
No, I’m not mad at anyone, but seriously, how many doctors actually know how to treat altered humans properly? Is the goal to force doctors and surgeons to cater to special unnatural situations?
Do you think that trans people are cyborgs or something? At the most extreme case it would be a human with hormone levels that dont fit the standard for that biological sex and some surgery for their gentials. 99% of modern medicine still fits them exactly the same
Certain medications are known to cause severe issues in the opposite sex. Other medications haven’t even been properly tested for the opposite sex, because they were never meant for that sex.
So how would you handle a trans male asking for Viagra?.. Is the customer always right?
If only doctors had a brain that they can use to understand and explain simple issues like “hey, this medication is not well tested on your biological sex, here are the risks of using it…” Also I am not aware of any medication that is good for one sex and harmful for the other, maybe not good but straight up harmful? Other then hormon stuff I’m not aware of any.
So how would you handle a trans male asking for Viagra?.. Is the customer always right?
researchers found that Viagra helped women in a couple of ways. For instance, the women reported increased genital sensation and increased satisfaction during intercourse and stimulation. However, the women also reported some mild side effects, including headache, flushing, rhinitis and nausea.
Some studies suggest that exposure to paroxetine in the first trimester might be associated with a small increased chance for heart defects. Other studies did not find a possible increased risk. The background rate of heart defects for any pregnancy is about 1 in 100 (1%). If there is an increased chance of birth defects with paroxetine use in the first trimester, it is expected to be small. Paroxetine exposure in pregnancy has not been shown to increase the chance of other birth defects.
trans rights are human rights, wanting people dead for wanting human rights is a lot more aggressive than just trying to live life as anyone else. quit the ragebait.
I can’t treat my gender dysphoria in my state. I have to ask an official if I can get treatment, which is dangerous to ask, and the answer will be an invariable “no.”
Hate this whole reductionist left/right theory. I know/hope most of you don’t think it’s “Democrats are 100% right” and “Republicans are 100% wrong”. And hopefully not many people actually think some mixture of the two is 100% right either. There’s huge fundamental issues that they’re both wrong about. And the real “both sides” is that both parties in government are responsible for crimes against humanity (regardless of which one is worse), it’s like railing against “enlightened centrism” is this shortcut so people don’t have to confront hard questions about things our society is doing fundamentally wrong. Like, people, it’s not that either you’re 100% Dem, you’re 100% Republican, or you’re some milquetoast combination of the two. This whole system is fucked. The GOP is basically just the vanguard of oppression and the Dems are like this still-unacceptable compromise between horrible oppression and a sane society.
And it’s really just textbook whataboutism that any time somebody points out that there are also horrible things done by Dem politicians, they point to something worse done by the GOP. That’s why “lesser of two evils” is a fallacy, we get so myopically focused on how each individual could opt for a slightly better option than “the worst possible option”, but we never even consider that the sum of individuals going outside that system and creating something better than both awful options would give a better result.
Everytime I say this, I get shut off by some politician-worshipper that says nuh-uh, you’rewrong and refuses to elaborate or even worse, spreads the same lying FUD their god preaches.
I encourage this the most from Biden and trump worshippers; I wish they both weren’t so clueless at how much both Biden and trump sucks and hung onto their fairy tales
Republicans are almost always wrong on everything, and even when they are right, they’re either on the same side as everyone else or they’re on the right side for the wrong reasons. The main problem with the Democrats is that they’re moderates unwilling to roll up their sleeves and do what it takes at best, or simply grifting at worst.
However, on trans rights, there’s no contest. Dems are almost entirely right, with Republicans being so far in the wrong that they’re not even worth talking about. For a bunch of out of touch politicians, democratic lawmakers are doing a decent job on that issue in particular. This is obviously thanks to a ton of hard work by outspoken advocates, but the major improvements they could make would really be less specific to trans people, like better civil rights protections or better access to Healthcare.
What you are describing is the Overton window in the United States. The Democrats are not left of center on the political spectrum. They are controlled by neoliberals and are center right. The Republicans are controlled by fascists and are far right. Political theory is more expansive than just left and right. And there is a lot more to the left of the Democratic Party.
I’m curious what centrists actually mean when they say they are centrists. Do they mean between neoliberalism and fascism as would be the case in the US? Or do they mean moderate on the political spectrum, between center left and center right, so actually to the left of the Democrats.
It’s not quite the “Overton Window”, specifically because the whole left-right scale is nonsense to begin with. Maybe if you reformulated the idea as a set of acceptable ideologies.
Anyone who goes around calling themselves a “centrist” is probably an idiot. It’s basically like “I haven’t even thought the 20% enough about politics to pick a side like everyone else feels compelled to, so so I’m just going to say ‘eh maybe it’s either’”.
The Overton Window is a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics. The core concept is that politicians are limited in what policy ideas they can support — they generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate policy options. These policies lie inside the Overton Window. Other policy ideas exist, but politicians risk losing popular support if they champion these ideas. These policies lie outside the Overton Window.
Acceptable ideologies is what the Overton window is all about.
In the US specifically the Overton window has been shifted to the right since the Regan administration in the 80’s. So for over 40 years now.
Huh you’re right. I’ve just seen it cited a billion times before in terms of left/right, like, “the Overton Window shifted to the right”. Like you just said. People cite it in terms of “only candidates this far left to this far right are acceptable”, you know.
Anyway, point being that it describes an area in a highly multidimensional space, not a slice of a univariate left/right spectrum.
There are a handful of quite hateful people out there. But they are very much a tiny minority. There are few legislators out there that worry me. But a lot are mostly just concerned with the huge rise in childhood cases.
I think that is partly true. I’m not convinced it’s entirely true.
As there absolutely is a subpopulation for whom early intervention is incredibly helpful I honestly think it just needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis.
But it’s hard. There is that other vocal minority that is against transition in all its forms.
It is dealt with on a case by case basis. There is no one size fits all solution for being trans at any age.
I will say We are in a weird situation at present where people’s lack of acceptance about trans people is the cause of making the choices harder than it need be. In an ideal world gender non-conforming people are accepted and you make choices based purely based on your own comfort. But at present there are a lot of people out there trumpeting to the rooftops that if you look trans you deserve to be misgendered or segregated. If people can clock you as a trans person at a distance there is a cost in the form of getting hassled by bigots, higher chances of assault and possibly of being detained by security in airports, discriminated against for housing and job applications and there becomes more places in the world where it is not safe to go. The pressure to conform more neatly to one sexual phenotype’s presentation is at least in part a safety issue… One that can driven by the existence of transphobia in the world at large not strictly by personal desire. In any case the risks of the issue complicated as they are are for individuals to navigate case by case. Nobody forces anyone into surgery or horomones it is ultimately the choice of the paitent and if they are 16 (the minimum age for HRT and top surgery) their legal guardians.
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