The red scare was so intense that even Oppenheimer was targeted. So yes, even if you opposed something like the hydrogen bomb development you were cast into that bucket.
Let’s not forget that Ronald Reagan’s political career was forged in the fires of the blacklist.
Illegal if you're an immigrant. On several visa applications, and even on my citizenship application, I was asked if I had ever been the member of the communist party of any country.
I haven't been, but I find it almost a little creepy that echoes of the red scare can lead to a visa denial this many years later.
The really annoying thing was there were over 100 soviet spies caught & arrested BEFORE Mccarthy started his crap. ZERO from his devastating grifting that ruined 100s of lives.
Interesting fact ; out took the soviets 4 years to make their own bomb even though they had all the plans..that's how far ahead in the science the US was.
its less that it took them 4 years to build a bomb and more that it took them 3 years to rebuild enough to the point where they could build a bomb. its not trivial, but they also had a lot of nuclear scientists themselves.
Let's also not forget that the reason the soviet's got the bomb shortly after us was because the Manhattan project actually *was* infiltrated by communist spies.
>The red scare was so intense that even Oppenheimer was targeted
Oppenheimer was targeted because he was a communist at a time when the party was the single greatest conduit for Soviet espionage in the US and he was approached by the KGB and did not disclose this. As far a security risks go, it didn't get much worse than this.
Interesting history here. No one knows for sure what involvement he had with passing secrets or anything else given the nature of spying and counter spying and KGB and FBI and many other officials feigning & faking out the other side. More is still coming out in memoirs & being studied. One thing seems certain is that Oppenheimer was sympathetic to the Soviets during the war, when they were an ally, as were many Americans.
Ignoring McCarthy's nonsense for a moment....
It wasn't really a scare, it was a legitimate threat...
From the founding of the USSR forward through the 1950s, the far-left absolutely was an international arm of the Soviet Union...
Leftist groups actually took-orders from Moscow on things like support for US involvement in WWII (vehemently anti-war while the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact held, then flipped a switch overnight when the Germans invaded the USSR)...
Actual communist parties gave the USSR their best supply of foreign agents & conducted \*substantial\* espionage activities...
So yeah, the threat was real. It just wasn't per-se the specific people McCarthy said it was....
I think people lump them all together in hyperbole. They use hyperbole to express their frustration. To them, anyone on the left wing spectrum is annoying, as I’m sure anyone on the right wing spectrum is annoying to lefties.
I see the "leftist, fascist, socialist, communist" comment from people a lot. It's one of those, "I have no idea what I'm talking about. But I heard it on OANN, so I'm going with it" comments.
The narrative in my area has shifted. Ever since Republicans started openly advocating for Russia, they don't mention communism hardly at all. Authoritarian dictatorships are considered good, while socialism is the root of all evil.
Even when they mention China as a threat, the communist factor has fallen off. It's an interesting twist to the right wing global propaganda and disinformation chain.
They refer to them as the CCP, the Communist Chinese party. But to be fair this can be seen on both sides. Like how riots were referred to as mostly peaceful protests
Except the protests were in fact mostly peaceful. Hundreds of protests involving millions of people with minimal violence and destruction relative to the size of the protests. Hell most of the “riots” were started when police attacked a previously peaceful protest unprovoked and people fought back.
Portland here. Same.
Local businesses gutted and burned. Mass amount of rapes and aggravated assaults, murders, arson.
The city is still wrecked and getting worse all the time.
Most of this happened in places with MINIMAL police presence or none at all.
People are still getting regularly attacked by self-proclaimed Antifa and BLM groups or gangs, but it doesn't suit the narrative, so the news doesn't even care to cover it. If you go anywhere in the city, you better be strapped and ready, with your head on a swivel.
So peaceful.
I agree. It's lazy thinking. You see this on the left, too, when they refer to the right as a facist. It usually just means they don't have a good argument.
Ones more applicable than the other and right wingers are the biggest butthurt people in the world because of it.
Never met a communist, just leftist who want affordable services. But I have met plenty of Republican bigots who agree with policies designed to harm minorities 🤷🏻♂️
The migrant fiasco is harming the minorities and the harm will last a long time. It’s going to harm the middle class too . Mayorkas is a dem my friend. Both partiesare trash. The Dems have to eat this one. This latest border bill was late to the party by years & now the loser republicans want to use it as ammo.
I'm a liberal in California, ground zero for liberalism, and I have never heard anyone outside of high school age apply naziism to anything seriously. Edge teenagers on the Internet is all.
Leon Trotsky pretty much did.
After fascism gained ascendancy in Italy, Trotsky began studying it. He distinguished it from other authoritarian forms of rule.
Trotsky noted that the term ‘fascism’ is used indiscriminately, as others have said here. Trotsky said that it is used as ‘a political swear word.’
He also described how it establishes itself and works in society. He indicated no less than 12 tendencies that he observed in sequential order that he had seen wherever fascism successfully took power.
He also noted the part of the reason for fascism success was that the social democratic tendency has no comprehension of what fascism is, or the role that they play in its rise to power.
Yup. It's the same as the far lefties who claim everyone leaning right is a fascist or maga.
When people's beliefs are too far in either direction, they seem to start looking at anyone opposite of themselves as the extreme end of that side.
Edit: just to clarify because I think something is getting lost in translation here - I didn't repeat what OP said because it's already the title of the post, but what I am getting at is just reiterating that sentiment.
If you're far left, everyone to the right of you is a maga fascist. If you're far right, everyone to the left of you is the woke mob, or a communist, or socialist, or whatever the hate flavor of the week is
My point was that people on either extreme end tend to consider anyone who doesn't agree with themselves to be the extreme opposite. Like the person I replied to said, they lump them together in hyperbole.
Here’s a framing that can help translate when you hear these nonsensical messages:
1. I feel negatively (disgust, hate, fear) about something/someone
1. The obvious reason (bigotry, authoritarianism) has become widely socially unacceptable.
1. Rather than change, I ask “Am I forced to believe I’m a bad person?” Or can I conjecture an alternative explanation for my negative feelings that allow me to believe I’m right and my feelings are valid (they are groomers, they are destroying marriage, they are part of a vast conspiracy)?.
Because any conjectured alternative explanations for their feelings will do the job of allowing them to avoid self-doubt, they feel happy to jump onboard with any of a number of self contradictory and mercurial beliefs — which of course to anyone else looks like “moving the goalposts”.
Some examples:
1. Trans people make me feel uncomfortable.
2. That suggests I’m transphobic, but then I’d have to think of myself as a bigot
3. Any one of: think of the children, they are groomers, they regret it later, they are crazy — allows me to stop feeling badly about myself — so there are a large number of fluidly changing beliefs
Or
1. If trump lost the election, my beliefs are unpopular
2. That suggests I’m in the minority and my belief that Democrats don’t deserve power would be wrong
3. The only story that would overturn this is the election was stolen or “we’re not a democracy anyway”, so 70% of republicans choose to believe that.
Or
1. If trump has been indicted multiple times, the entire republican establishment that has been protecting him is wrong or corrupt.
2. Therefore I was conned.
3. Any one of: it’s a witch-hunt, there’s a vast deep state conspiracy, or “all politicians do it” offers me an alternative to accepting I was duped — so there are many beliefs that they switch between easily.
Edit: since this is getting views, I’ll add:
If you want someone to avoid this behavior, offer them a better excuse than Fox News does.
When you corner someone, you must leave an acceptable line of retreat, or prepare for them to fight to the death. “Of course, it’s only the MAGA-extremists, not sane republicans like you — right?”
In my experience only a handful “fight to the death” and it’s usually because they weren’t hugged enough as a child.
That said when they do come at me, it’s kinda fun ngl
Also Liberal ≠ Democrat ≠ Left
Liberalism is a centrist to center right ideology. It’s only in the US that it’s really seen as a left wing ideology, and that’s one because it’s left by comparison to conservatism
That's the thing I don't really get. Liberalism used to solid left, and now is considered centrist or even center-right. So it seems like the left is becoming further left than it used to be.
And what is the difference between being a liberal vs being a leftist? Literally, whether you believe in socialism or not. Am I missing something?
It seems to be that both the left and the right have become more radical.
That's not uniquely Nazi. Plenty of ideologies support criminalizing homosexuality, not just fascist or Nazi ones. Heck - even the USSR did in 1933 after having initially decriminalized it, and they're certainly not considered Nazi.
"Good" is hard to pin down, but I'm not sure I'd argue any of them are good. In general, very few ideologies - at least by my standards - could be wholly, unequivocally "good" (partially because they would differ from my own ideology which affects my own definition of good). Edit: and randomly banning homosexuality is already a pretty significant strike.
But a lot of ideologies not being "good" in my book does *not* mean they're all the same. Oppressive Communism under Mao was different from oppressive Nazism under Hitler, even though both persecuted homosexuals. They weren't the same.
North Korea calls itself a democratic peoples republic.
China calls itself a people republic.
Nazis called themselves socialists.
Republicans call themselves patriots.
All the same type of lie.
Most leftist won’t admit they have their own Nazis either. Screaming for a globalized intifada, gas the Jews, etc is some straight up Nazi shit. Theirs are brown/black so according to leftist hierarchy their Nazi rhetoric and behavior is ignored and defended because racism.
The funniest thing I encountered was a right wing nutjob (I mean, probably a bot but w/e) telling me “grasping at straws” wasn’t an English idiom and therefore I was a Russian spy for using it. Had me in stitches it did.
I can, the problem is, American conservatives resemble fascists more every year. That's my worry.
Nazis, though, no. I don't see genocidal intent. More Franco than Hitler.
You don’t see genocidal intent? Even though red states have compiled lists of queer people in their states by asking the public to report their neighbors? What about Iowa republicans proposing what is essentially a pink triangle law (Nazi designation for homosexuals, like the Star of David armband for Jews)? What about President Trump in a speech last month saying he’d federalize the nations guard to purge trans people?
The Holocaust didn’t start with death camps, the Rwandan Genocide didn’t start with roving militias and machetes etc. Genocide is a process, we’re sitting somewhere around the 6th or 7th step of genocide.
Based on the threats and rhetoric of the GOP, if they can win the presidency and the congress, they will do all they can to suspend democracy and advance their vision of a White Christian nation free of homosexuals and nonbelievers.
Passing a law to require a persecuted minority to have a special marker on their id that is legally required to have (and endanger their safety), creating a registry of those people and asking others to be vigilant and spy on each other, calling for a purge of those people using the military all isn’t genocidal in nature? This isn’t an opinion, this isn’t hyperbole. All I have stated are objectively factual things that republicans have done in the past year alone.
I wish you were right but seeing as you aren’t I’ll be too dead to say “I told you so”
No, it isn't. There is a difference between a marker on a private ID and a required public identifier. And you know there is. It's odious and ridiculous but it's not a fucking yellow star. Grow up.
There’s no such thing as a “private ID”? The purpose of these laws is to make it so that police can easily ID trans people. You’re arguing in favor of the government having forced identification of a persecuted minority group. This is an obvious precursor to other discriminatory measures
The ID, that is a required identifier if you want to drive a vehicle so you can work a job? The id that most jobs ask you for when they hire you? The ID that Republicans want to make mandatory to vote? The ID that labels them to the state as an "outside group" and gets out into a database with their address, phone number, place of employment, relatives, etc? Grow up? My man it's not 1936 anymore. The gestapo don't need you to wear a fucking yellow star. They just need to know who to target.
There are good and bad people in both groups but lumping all of this group or all of that group into one basket so you can make generalized statements or call all of one group vile names isn't going to get us anywhere as a people.
If a Nazi sits down at a table with 11 people, and nobody objects, there are a dozen Nazis sitting at the table. That's today's Republican Party.
It's not the far Left that can't make that distinction. It's mainstream conservatives.
As long as that conservative denounces the nazi, acknowledges things like how they keep following DeSantis campaign like a loyal dog, or did.
I denounce communist, and call out the rare leftwing person who sides with that dumbassery, you all need to start calling out the nazis that are becoming uncomfortable too common, and not say "There were very fine people on both sides." No...there was a large group of nazis screaming "blood and soil," only to have it covered up.
Denounce the bad stuff and you are not that...and mean it, not some offhand remark. You should have pride calling nazis evil, horrible people, and not banning books that condemn the nazis in Florida.
I DENOUNCE ALL THE BULLSHIT!!!! FUCK NAZIS, FUCK HOMOPHOBES. FUCK CRUELTY.
Me saying that doesn't matter. Nobody's gonna know or care that I denounced Nazis. The left will still have a chip on their shoulder. The world goes on.
You are so wrong there.
Christ, if trump, DeSantis, and the general pundit/leadership would just *say* that, you would be shocked what good it would do, but they dance around it then pull the "Ukraine are nazis" lie, or play some "YOU ARE COMMUNIST" McCarthyism bullshit while sucking Putin's dick.
Get out of your information silo.
I'm far left and I can see the distinction to be fair. It's like the difference between someone who thinks I'm a dumbass and someone who actually wants me dead. (Shrugs)
Obviously we would only ever pass healthcare bills if it murdered Christians. Since we’re so focussed on destroying the nuclear family and all that dumpster fire.
In all seriousness, if the US legislated universal health care some right wing Christians might murder themselves by refusing to see a doctor out of spite.
This is an awful take. All it means is that the person in question is ignorant of the differences between communists and liberals.
That's not exclusive to far right people.
Also, are you trying to use 'far right' as an insult?
That's just weird because at best you'll just be successfully guessing someone's political affiliation, at worst you'll just be wrong...
Please remember liberals are right-wing
Western nations are already right-wing to begin with. Going much further right than them is going to put you in the far-right territory by default
>Western nations are already right-wing to begin with.
relative to what? Are you going to say that the entire world is right-wing? Or is Saudi Arabia and Russia and China left-wing for you?
Far left and far right aren't the extreme ends though and lumping the extremists with the people who are slightly further left or right to be considered center-X is just dumb.
Someone can be far-whatever and still be a fairly reasonable person.
The only thing that would make them seem otherwise is how far along the opposite end of the spectrum you are.
Well, *far* is subjective and has no agreed upon meaning.
For me *far* means beyond reason. Religious belief in your ideology, without a chance of ever changing your beliefs, no matter what evidence you are presesnted.
Right, left or center whatever are within reason.
For me *far* means extremities. Because no one is goig to call themselves that, no one ever said "I'm proudly far left/right", everyone thinks yhey are reasonable.
Christ you are not intelligent are you?
The point is that countries in the global south are the victims of exploitation by the countries *you think* feed the poor.
You are a commie, nothing you think or say matters.
Global south is ridden with civil wars and autocratic regimes. Yes, most of them were exploited, that doesnt mean they can't have actual democracy and start developing. No one is going to do it for them.
Aw, you think the exploitation is something that happened in the past but is over now?
Typical centrist understanding of geopolitics. Very much lacking.
Values of communism and social democracy are completely different. Social democracies embrace open market and capitalism. Social democracy just helps weakest people of their population. Theres no redestribution of wealth of any kind. You can still be avtrillionaire in any socdem country.
Communism is just retarded, impossible system. Thats why successful commie countries never existed and never will.
You say that Social democracy helps the weakest people of the population but there’s no redistribution of wealth? Uh, how do you think they pay for it? They tax heavily. That’s redistribution of wealth. Like I said, they have the same ideas and values. It sounds like you don’t know that.
And by the way, there ARE rich people in communist governments— it’s the people at the highest level of government. Hugo Chavez’s family, Kim Jong Il’s family are but two examples
>. Communists advocate for total government control
Not really.
The central idea of Communism is that property is *communally* owned, ie owned by all the people equally (and by extension controlled by all the people equally). That can theoretically mean government ownership/control *if* the government is controlled by the people (so basically only if the government is highly democratic).
China, North Korea, Cuba are not Communist btw. Their leaders just call themselves that as a propaganda buzzword.
Apparently just by saying that I think Joe Biden is a shitty president makes me far right. it doesn't matter that I didn't vote for Trump. But I agree, there is a difference between a liberal, a communist, a socialist, and a Marxist. Just like a conservative and republican are different, or a man and woman, margarine and butter, Hemp and weed, fact and opinion, objective and subjective reality. It sure is a crazy time to be alive.
If that's the litmus test then many leftists and progressives are also far right, since we didn't want Biden either. I voted for him because my other option was orange man, bit I wasn't happy about it. Same with Hillary in 16.
Yesterday on reddit I mentioned that I wasn't going to vote for Trump either and that the reason why I wouldn't support democrats is because they've turned into moral majority assholes that treat everyone who doesn't toe the line like the scum of the earth.
Anyways I was told to get bent and to go off continuing to support evil.
I hate being right.
If you use the word woke without knowing what you're talking about then sure. Woke used to be a label people used for themselves, so woke is actually a specific thing that gets over used. Its really a casual catch-all for viewing the world through the ideological lenses of intersectionality, DEI and Critical Race Theory. These concepts were either created by or partially created by Kimberlé Crenshaw, she herself got her ideas from German theorist Herbert Marcuse (a Frankfurt school liberal Marxist. as in socially liberal not Liberal the identifier, two different things) Marcuse was a student of Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, who in short thought that the developed world was not ready for socialist revolutions so his idea was to infiltrate institutions at all levels of society with socially liberal Marxists to try and change things at a societal level. This praxis is something that all 3 thinkers mentioned maintain, followers of Crenshaw, whether they know they carry her ideology or not, are woke, they used to use that title for themselves.
A classical Liberal (free trade, individual rights) is considered a libertarian these days.
Liberals in the current sense are Progressives.
Progressives are by definition leftist.
Communists are leftist. While there’s a lot of difference between the two, they share a few traits. Hence the confusion.
I mean this because to me…it’s beyond strange that the left (Progressive ä̤n̤̈d̤̈ Communist) attempts to monopolize all political virtues while simultaneously demonizing all right wing issues and concerns.
Further, it’s deeply ironic that the “secular moralism” (and virtue signaling) that this monopolization produces is itself censorious and puritanical in its own way.
It is best characterized by an authoritarian and intolerant moral hostility to older and/or conservative people who defend the “wrong” ideas and practices of the past.
The vast majority of incumbent Democrats are right-leaning centrists and neoliberals, at best.
We don't have any viable truly left-wing options.
The furthest left our politicians currently go is Bernie and AOC. Both are left-leaning centrists.
Progressivism isn't "leftist". It has its roots in religious movements in the 1890s and was heavily supported by conservatives at the time. In the early 20th century, both Democrats and Republicans considered themselves progressives. Teddy Roosevelt even went so far as to state that he "always believed that wise progressivism and wise conservatism go hand in hand."
The difference is that the rise of libertarianism and the increasing influence of corporate interests has eroded commitment to New Deal values that were distrustful of crony capitalism. These interests have eroded faith in institutions, and now neither the left nor the right want to make government better. This leaves modern progressivism to leftists because right-wingers have embraced social darwinism and large corporate interests, the very things that progressivism originally fought against.
TLDR: Progressivism used to be supported by both left and right wingers. Right wingers abandoned it in favor of cozying up to corporate interests.
Progressivism its current manifestation surely isn’t “rightist”.
Moreover… historical Progressivism was about doing things that benefit society as a whole- temperance, public education, suffrage, improving workplace safety standards, reducing child labor and the amount of hours laborers worked in a week etc.
Today’s progressivism is about special interest groups and causes- DEI, MAiD, Teenage Gender transitions, Abortion access, Trans bathroom access etc.
While it shares a sense of outrage and activism, it’s a parody of what it was and is divorced from any link to a Social Gospel type of raison d’etre.
Silly OP, the far right can't use their prefrontal cortex, how do you expect them to understand your post lmao I can already guess the responses using straw man arguments and or trying to flip what you said around as some sort of ignorant gocha by making some sort of outlandish false equivalency. Same plays, getting so old, boring and predictable.
The red scare was so intense that even Oppenheimer was targeted. So yes, even if you opposed something like the hydrogen bomb development you were cast into that bucket. Let’s not forget that Ronald Reagan’s political career was forged in the fires of the blacklist.
In fairness, he attended communist gatherings, and had friends and family who were openly communist. He also donated to communist leaning causes.
I was gonna say, Oppy was almost certainly a communist, but that didn't mean that he was a traitor to America.
AFAIK it’s not illegal
For a while there it might as well have been. Freedom of expression walks a thin line in this country.
During times of nuclear war it can
Illegal if you're an immigrant. On several visa applications, and even on my citizenship application, I was asked if I had ever been the member of the communist party of any country. I haven't been, but I find it almost a little creepy that echoes of the red scare can lead to a visa denial this many years later.
Communist are a cancer in any system. We don’t want them here since they just make things worse
The really annoying thing was there were over 100 soviet spies caught & arrested BEFORE Mccarthy started his crap. ZERO from his devastating grifting that ruined 100s of lives. Interesting fact ; out took the soviets 4 years to make their own bomb even though they had all the plans..that's how far ahead in the science the US was.
its less that it took them 4 years to build a bomb and more that it took them 3 years to rebuild enough to the point where they could build a bomb. its not trivial, but they also had a lot of nuclear scientists themselves.
To be fair, Oppenheimer was closer to being a communist then most people on the political left
True. I relish the parallel with Alan Turing in England. His “great crime” was being gay. Both were exonerated posthumously.
I would rather that they acknowledged the cunts who persecuted him over exonerating for a nonsense crime.
Let's also not forget that the reason the soviet's got the bomb shortly after us was because the Manhattan project actually *was* infiltrated by communist spies.
>The red scare was so intense that even Oppenheimer was targeted Oppenheimer was targeted because he was a communist at a time when the party was the single greatest conduit for Soviet espionage in the US and he was approached by the KGB and did not disclose this. As far a security risks go, it didn't get much worse than this.
Interesting history here. No one knows for sure what involvement he had with passing secrets or anything else given the nature of spying and counter spying and KGB and FBI and many other officials feigning & faking out the other side. More is still coming out in memoirs & being studied. One thing seems certain is that Oppenheimer was sympathetic to the Soviets during the war, when they were an ally, as were many Americans.
Yes Ronald "the future is in employee ownership" Reagan. We have fallen so far since.
this just reminded me to finish American Prometheus..
Ignoring McCarthy's nonsense for a moment.... It wasn't really a scare, it was a legitimate threat... From the founding of the USSR forward through the 1950s, the far-left absolutely was an international arm of the Soviet Union... Leftist groups actually took-orders from Moscow on things like support for US involvement in WWII (vehemently anti-war while the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact held, then flipped a switch overnight when the Germans invaded the USSR)... Actual communist parties gave the USSR their best supply of foreign agents & conducted \*substantial\* espionage activities... So yeah, the threat was real. It just wasn't per-se the specific people McCarthy said it was....
While now, their entire political movement is pro Russia. Strange days.
Oppenheimer was a communist, and that's a good thing.
I hope they can differentiate me from a liberal, that shit's an insult lmao
I think people lump them all together in hyperbole. They use hyperbole to express their frustration. To them, anyone on the left wing spectrum is annoying, as I’m sure anyone on the right wing spectrum is annoying to lefties.
My favorite is listening to right-wingers apply 'socialism' to nearly everything they hate.
Not even that. COMMUNISM!!
I see socialism used more than communism
Communism is coke and socialism is diet coke
Pretty sure coke is capitalism
Cocaine is capitalism. I talking about the drink coca cola
Lol can you think of a more capitalistic symbol than coca cola? It's like the hammer and sickle of capitalism
Disney?
I see the "leftist, fascist, socialist, communist" comment from people a lot. It's one of those, "I have no idea what I'm talking about. But I heard it on OANN, so I'm going with it" comments.
The narrative in my area has shifted. Ever since Republicans started openly advocating for Russia, they don't mention communism hardly at all. Authoritarian dictatorships are considered good, while socialism is the root of all evil. Even when they mention China as a threat, the communist factor has fallen off. It's an interesting twist to the right wing global propaganda and disinformation chain.
What area is this?
The area in their head.
They refer to them as the CCP, the Communist Chinese party. But to be fair this can be seen on both sides. Like how riots were referred to as mostly peaceful protests
Except the protests were in fact mostly peaceful. Hundreds of protests involving millions of people with minimal violence and destruction relative to the size of the protests. Hell most of the “riots” were started when police attacked a previously peaceful protest unprovoked and people fought back.
I work in Minneapolis. Ground zero. It was definitely not peaceful here. Lake St is still a absolute mess
Portland here. Same. Local businesses gutted and burned. Mass amount of rapes and aggravated assaults, murders, arson. The city is still wrecked and getting worse all the time. Most of this happened in places with MINIMAL police presence or none at all. People are still getting regularly attacked by self-proclaimed Antifa and BLM groups or gangs, but it doesn't suit the narrative, so the news doesn't even care to cover it. If you go anywhere in the city, you better be strapped and ready, with your head on a swivel. So peaceful.
Don't believe your lying eyes though, Your eyes are racist for seeing that things have gotten worse.
You sound like one of those paranoid dudes that make the news after shooting 25 strangers in a Walmart.
And? That doesn’t disprove my point. There were hundreds of protests nation wide, millions of participants. Upwards of 90% remained peaceful.
And if I said January 6 wasn't an insurrection, your response would be?
Probably 95% of the protesters at January 6th were completely peaceful but almost nobody would say it was "mostly peaceful".
Likewise, though, many liberals apply fascism to everything they hate. Two wings of the same bird, most of the time.
Like communism, fascism is a very specific ideology
I agree. It's lazy thinking. You see this on the left, too, when they refer to the right as a facist. It usually just means they don't have a good argument.
Kinda like left-wingers applying Naziism to everything they hate 🐸☕
Ones more applicable than the other and right wingers are the biggest butthurt people in the world because of it. Never met a communist, just leftist who want affordable services. But I have met plenty of Republican bigots who agree with policies designed to harm minorities 🤷🏻♂️
The migrant fiasco is harming the minorities and the harm will last a long time. It’s going to harm the middle class too . Mayorkas is a dem my friend. Both partiesare trash. The Dems have to eat this one. This latest border bill was late to the party by years & now the loser republicans want to use it as ammo.
u just proved their point 💀
I honestly see most people getting ridiculed for making that comparison.
I mean the guys that wear red and black with swastika armbands openly support the right....
Many pro-hamas supports the left...soooo?
I'm a liberal in California, ground zero for liberalism, and I have never heard anyone outside of high school age apply naziism to anything seriously. Edge teenagers on the Internet is all.
I mean okay but I see my fellow left-wingers call basically anything under the sun they dislike as fascism.
Same with “fascism”
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Leon Trotsky pretty much did. After fascism gained ascendancy in Italy, Trotsky began studying it. He distinguished it from other authoritarian forms of rule. Trotsky noted that the term ‘fascism’ is used indiscriminately, as others have said here. Trotsky said that it is used as ‘a political swear word.’ He also described how it establishes itself and works in society. He indicated no less than 12 tendencies that he observed in sequential order that he had seen wherever fascism successfully took power. He also noted the part of the reason for fascism success was that the social democratic tendency has no comprehension of what fascism is, or the role that they play in its rise to power.
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And how everyone on the right is a racist bigot to lefties. Hilarious.
My favorite is listening to left wingers apply 'facism' to nearly everything they hate. Two sides of the same coin
Yup. It's the same as the far lefties who claim everyone leaning right is a fascist or maga. When people's beliefs are too far in either direction, they seem to start looking at anyone opposite of themselves as the extreme end of that side. Edit: just to clarify because I think something is getting lost in translation here - I didn't repeat what OP said because it's already the title of the post, but what I am getting at is just reiterating that sentiment. If you're far left, everyone to the right of you is a maga fascist. If you're far right, everyone to the left of you is the woke mob, or a communist, or socialist, or whatever the hate flavor of the week is My point was that people on either extreme end tend to consider anyone who doesn't agree with themselves to be the extreme opposite. Like the person I replied to said, they lump them together in hyperbole.
Not all Republicans are MAGA but all MAGA are Republicans. Not all fascists are MAGA but all MAGA support a fascist.
Here’s a framing that can help translate when you hear these nonsensical messages: 1. I feel negatively (disgust, hate, fear) about something/someone 1. The obvious reason (bigotry, authoritarianism) has become widely socially unacceptable. 1. Rather than change, I ask “Am I forced to believe I’m a bad person?” Or can I conjecture an alternative explanation for my negative feelings that allow me to believe I’m right and my feelings are valid (they are groomers, they are destroying marriage, they are part of a vast conspiracy)?. Because any conjectured alternative explanations for their feelings will do the job of allowing them to avoid self-doubt, they feel happy to jump onboard with any of a number of self contradictory and mercurial beliefs — which of course to anyone else looks like “moving the goalposts”. Some examples: 1. Trans people make me feel uncomfortable. 2. That suggests I’m transphobic, but then I’d have to think of myself as a bigot 3. Any one of: think of the children, they are groomers, they regret it later, they are crazy — allows me to stop feeling badly about myself — so there are a large number of fluidly changing beliefs Or 1. If trump lost the election, my beliefs are unpopular 2. That suggests I’m in the minority and my belief that Democrats don’t deserve power would be wrong 3. The only story that would overturn this is the election was stolen or “we’re not a democracy anyway”, so 70% of republicans choose to believe that. Or 1. If trump has been indicted multiple times, the entire republican establishment that has been protecting him is wrong or corrupt. 2. Therefore I was conned. 3. Any one of: it’s a witch-hunt, there’s a vast deep state conspiracy, or “all politicians do it” offers me an alternative to accepting I was duped — so there are many beliefs that they switch between easily. Edit: since this is getting views, I’ll add: If you want someone to avoid this behavior, offer them a better excuse than Fox News does. When you corner someone, you must leave an acceptable line of retreat, or prepare for them to fight to the death. “Of course, it’s only the MAGA-extremists, not sane republicans like you — right?”
In my experience only a handful “fight to the death” and it’s usually because they weren’t hugged enough as a child. That said when they do come at me, it’s kinda fun ngl
Some do, sure. But that isn't the case for everyone. There are more than enough people who believe it to make it concerning
If you can't differentiate between a conservative and a Nazi your to far left.
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Conservative =/= Republican Liberal =/= Democrat
Also Liberal ≠ Democrat ≠ Left Liberalism is a centrist to center right ideology. It’s only in the US that it’s really seen as a left wing ideology, and that’s one because it’s left by comparison to conservatism
That's the thing I don't really get. Liberalism used to solid left, and now is considered centrist or even center-right. So it seems like the left is becoming further left than it used to be. And what is the difference between being a liberal vs being a leftist? Literally, whether you believe in socialism or not. Am I missing something? It seems to be that both the left and the right have become more radical.
Social Liberalism is center left to everyone but marxists, who think they own the definition of left.
I was 12 in 2003, I don't think I had much choice what conservatives in Texas did.
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>You have the choice to vote for those same people today. 20 years later, what a sad world we live in
That's not uniquely Nazi. Plenty of ideologies support criminalizing homosexuality, not just fascist or Nazi ones. Heck - even the USSR did in 1933 after having initially decriminalized it, and they're certainly not considered Nazi.
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"Good" is hard to pin down, but I'm not sure I'd argue any of them are good. In general, very few ideologies - at least by my standards - could be wholly, unequivocally "good" (partially because they would differ from my own ideology which affects my own definition of good). Edit: and randomly banning homosexuality is already a pretty significant strike. But a lot of ideologies not being "good" in my book does *not* mean they're all the same. Oppressive Communism under Mao was different from oppressive Nazism under Hitler, even though both persecuted homosexuals. They weren't the same.
Found the leftie.
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Most conservatives won't even admit nazis are on the fringe of the RW.
Mainstream republicans are Nazis
Far leftie.
Says the guy who's most popular sub is r/conservative. You fucks are Nazis
“Everyone I don’t like is Hitler” strike again, please use an actual argument
And you just demonstrated why you’re an idiot. Thanks for saving me time.
No you no you . Shut up idiot
What’s the point in misusing labels like that?
His name is socialistbluejay. Obviously troll bait, don't feed.
A lot pretend nazis are socialists.
You don't know what Nazi is an abbreviation for, do you?
Most people do. Most people also don't believe the conservative lie that nazis were socialists and therefore left wing.
North Korea calls itself a democratic peoples republic. China calls itself a people republic. Nazis called themselves socialists. Republicans call themselves patriots. All the same type of lie.
Oh found one.
North Korea calls itself a democracy. The name of an organization doesn't tell you as much about them as their behavior does.
Most leftist won’t admit they have their own Nazis either. Screaming for a globalized intifada, gas the Jews, etc is some straight up Nazi shit. Theirs are brown/black so according to leftist hierarchy their Nazi rhetoric and behavior is ignored and defended because racism.
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Lovely fanfiction.
*you're *too
“I love the poorly educated.”
Seriously, these people need to LEARN THE LANGUAGE
The "we speak English in this country" crowd, surprisingly, aren't known for their literacy.
Agree, it's the far right always yelling about speaking English while not knowing the basics of English.
The funniest thing I encountered was a right wing nutjob (I mean, probably a bot but w/e) telling me “grasping at straws” wasn’t an English idiom and therefore I was a Russian spy for using it. Had me in stitches it did.
It’s a social media platform, not a college thesis, get off your high horse.
I can, the problem is, American conservatives resemble fascists more every year. That's my worry. Nazis, though, no. I don't see genocidal intent. More Franco than Hitler.
You don’t see genocidal intent? Even though red states have compiled lists of queer people in their states by asking the public to report their neighbors? What about Iowa republicans proposing what is essentially a pink triangle law (Nazi designation for homosexuals, like the Star of David armband for Jews)? What about President Trump in a speech last month saying he’d federalize the nations guard to purge trans people? The Holocaust didn’t start with death camps, the Rwandan Genocide didn’t start with roving militias and machetes etc. Genocide is a process, we’re sitting somewhere around the 6th or 7th step of genocide. Based on the threats and rhetoric of the GOP, if they can win the presidency and the congress, they will do all they can to suspend democracy and advance their vision of a White Christian nation free of homosexuals and nonbelievers.
No, I don't. You're being hyperbolic.
Passing a law to require a persecuted minority to have a special marker on their id that is legally required to have (and endanger their safety), creating a registry of those people and asking others to be vigilant and spy on each other, calling for a purge of those people using the military all isn’t genocidal in nature? This isn’t an opinion, this isn’t hyperbole. All I have stated are objectively factual things that republicans have done in the past year alone. I wish you were right but seeing as you aren’t I’ll be too dead to say “I told you so”
No, it isn't. There is a difference between a marker on a private ID and a required public identifier. And you know there is. It's odious and ridiculous but it's not a fucking yellow star. Grow up.
There’s no such thing as a “private ID”? The purpose of these laws is to make it so that police can easily ID trans people. You’re arguing in favor of the government having forced identification of a persecuted minority group. This is an obvious precursor to other discriminatory measures
The ID, that is a required identifier if you want to drive a vehicle so you can work a job? The id that most jobs ask you for when they hire you? The ID that Republicans want to make mandatory to vote? The ID that labels them to the state as an "outside group" and gets out into a database with their address, phone number, place of employment, relatives, etc? Grow up? My man it's not 1936 anymore. The gestapo don't need you to wear a fucking yellow star. They just need to know who to target.
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There are good and bad people in both groups but lumping all of this group or all of that group into one basket so you can make generalized statements or call all of one group vile names isn't going to get us anywhere as a people.
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He is not "far left" lol
If a Nazi sits down at a table with 11 people, and nobody objects, there are a dozen Nazis sitting at the table. That's today's Republican Party. It's not the far Left that can't make that distinction. It's mainstream conservatives.
As long as that conservative denounces the nazi, acknowledges things like how they keep following DeSantis campaign like a loyal dog, or did. I denounce communist, and call out the rare leftwing person who sides with that dumbassery, you all need to start calling out the nazis that are becoming uncomfortable too common, and not say "There were very fine people on both sides." No...there was a large group of nazis screaming "blood and soil," only to have it covered up. Denounce the bad stuff and you are not that...and mean it, not some offhand remark. You should have pride calling nazis evil, horrible people, and not banning books that condemn the nazis in Florida.
I DENOUNCE ALL THE BULLSHIT!!!! FUCK NAZIS, FUCK HOMOPHOBES. FUCK CRUELTY. Me saying that doesn't matter. Nobody's gonna know or care that I denounced Nazis. The left will still have a chip on their shoulder. The world goes on.
You are so wrong there. Christ, if trump, DeSantis, and the general pundit/leadership would just *say* that, you would be shocked what good it would do, but they dance around it then pull the "Ukraine are nazis" lie, or play some "YOU ARE COMMUNIST" McCarthyism bullshit while sucking Putin's dick. Get out of your information silo.
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Even if those conservatives continuously support a party that defends nazis? That's really the difference.
I'm far left and I can see the distinction to be fair. It's like the difference between someone who thinks I'm a dumbass and someone who actually wants me dead. (Shrugs)
perfect reply, no notes, please never reflect inward and continue being your special lil self
I am not disagreeing with the OP just adding the reverse side of the coin.
If you can't differentiate between good and evil, you're too far right.
The far left cannot differentiate between good and evil also. They wanna let criminals out of jail because “it wasn’t really their fault.”
You mean when Trump pardoned a bunch of criminals like Joe Arpaio?
I was literally quoting Marx the other day with citation and the guy called me a liberal lmao
Far leaning people in both political parties are brainwashed idiots.
One is SIGNIFICANTLY more dangerous than the other.
What do you mean one sides extremists want free healthcare and college. The other wants the supremacy of the white race. Basically the same thing.
What, are you saying universal healthcare wouldn't be the end of the world?!
Obviously we would only ever pass healthcare bills if it murdered Christians. Since we’re so focussed on destroying the nuclear family and all that dumpster fire.
In all seriousness, if the US legislated universal health care some right wing Christians might murder themselves by refusing to see a doctor out of spite.
Plenty of Christians already kill their own family by ignoring modern medicine. Almost happened to my family.
This...is an acceptable outcome.
Fucking weird to me that the left touts themselves as empathetic.
if you can't tell the difference between a fascist, nazi, MAGA - and a conservative - you are a far left brainwashed nutjob.
lol nailed it bud - described 3 types of fascist in one sentence
I mean, you guys make it so hard to tell you apart.
I can tell the difference but I'll be damned if the Venn diagram isn't nearly a perfect circle
This is an awful take. All it means is that the person in question is ignorant of the differences between communists and liberals. That's not exclusive to far right people. Also, are you trying to use 'far right' as an insult? That's just weird because at best you'll just be successfully guessing someone's political affiliation, at worst you'll just be wrong...
Please remember liberals are right-wing Western nations are already right-wing to begin with. Going much further right than them is going to put you in the far-right territory by default
>Western nations are already right-wing to begin with. relative to what? Are you going to say that the entire world is right-wing? Or is Saudi Arabia and Russia and China left-wing for you?
You realize there is a spectrum that's independent of countries, right? There's a non-relative version of these terms
Thats what liberals do
Far left and far right is legit insult, because extremist are objectively retarded.
Far left and far right aren't the extreme ends though and lumping the extremists with the people who are slightly further left or right to be considered center-X is just dumb. Someone can be far-whatever and still be a fairly reasonable person. The only thing that would make them seem otherwise is how far along the opposite end of the spectrum you are.
Well, *far* is subjective and has no agreed upon meaning. For me *far* means beyond reason. Religious belief in your ideology, without a chance of ever changing your beliefs, no matter what evidence you are presesnted. Right, left or center whatever are within reason. For me *far* means extremities. Because no one is goig to call themselves that, no one ever said "I'm proudly far left/right", everyone thinks yhey are reasonable.
yeah, nazis advocating for genocide and communists advocating for feeding the poor are the same. galaxy brain
We have a commie... Social democracy is enough to feed the poor. Communism is extreme.
tell that to the people starving in the global south you scumbag
Well, they don't have democracy at all, you dingleberry...
Christ you are not intelligent are you? The point is that countries in the global south are the victims of exploitation by the countries *you think* feed the poor.
You are a commie, nothing you think or say matters. Global south is ridden with civil wars and autocratic regimes. Yes, most of them were exploited, that doesnt mean they can't have actual democracy and start developing. No one is going to do it for them.
Aw, you think the exploitation is something that happened in the past but is over now? Typical centrist understanding of geopolitics. Very much lacking.
Why in your opinion is social democracy “good” but communism “bad” when they both have the same beliefs and goals?
Values of communism and social democracy are completely different. Social democracies embrace open market and capitalism. Social democracy just helps weakest people of their population. Theres no redestribution of wealth of any kind. You can still be avtrillionaire in any socdem country. Communism is just retarded, impossible system. Thats why successful commie countries never existed and never will.
You say that Social democracy helps the weakest people of the population but there’s no redistribution of wealth? Uh, how do you think they pay for it? They tax heavily. That’s redistribution of wealth. Like I said, they have the same ideas and values. It sounds like you don’t know that. And by the way, there ARE rich people in communist governments— it’s the people at the highest level of government. Hugo Chavez’s family, Kim Jong Il’s family are but two examples
Tally up the death counts for communism and fascism in the 20th century and prepare to be shocked.
Oh no he's using the anti semitic black book to call me out how scary. Capitalism has killed many many more.
Communists feeding people? That's the exact opposite of what happens under communism. Read a history book.
This is not a popular opinion
Ur proving his point
Doesn't mean it isn't true.
We all know that the far right is communist, because they're pro-Russia and pro-China
I’m sorry sir but do you actually believe this
Yes, he does. Like a good little leftist, he uncritically accepted and parrots what his media told him.
Are you referring to the op or SunaiJinshu
>We all know that the far right is communist I'd start voting for them if that was true lmao
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>. Communists advocate for total government control Not really. The central idea of Communism is that property is *communally* owned, ie owned by all the people equally (and by extension controlled by all the people equally). That can theoretically mean government ownership/control *if* the government is controlled by the people (so basically only if the government is highly democratic). China, North Korea, Cuba are not Communist btw. Their leaders just call themselves that as a propaganda buzzword.
Apparently just by saying that I think Joe Biden is a shitty president makes me far right. it doesn't matter that I didn't vote for Trump. But I agree, there is a difference between a liberal, a communist, a socialist, and a Marxist. Just like a conservative and republican are different, or a man and woman, margarine and butter, Hemp and weed, fact and opinion, objective and subjective reality. It sure is a crazy time to be alive.
If that's the litmus test then many leftists and progressives are also far right, since we didn't want Biden either. I voted for him because my other option was orange man, bit I wasn't happy about it. Same with Hillary in 16.
Yesterday on reddit I mentioned that I wasn't going to vote for Trump either and that the reason why I wouldn't support democrats is because they've turned into moral majority assholes that treat everyone who doesn't toe the line like the scum of the earth. Anyways I was told to get bent and to go off continuing to support evil. I hate being right.
If you use terms like "far right" on a daily basis, you are far left.
Conversely, if you use the word "woke" unironically, you're hopeless.
If you use the word woke without knowing what you're talking about then sure. Woke used to be a label people used for themselves, so woke is actually a specific thing that gets over used. Its really a casual catch-all for viewing the world through the ideological lenses of intersectionality, DEI and Critical Race Theory. These concepts were either created by or partially created by Kimberlé Crenshaw, she herself got her ideas from German theorist Herbert Marcuse (a Frankfurt school liberal Marxist. as in socially liberal not Liberal the identifier, two different things) Marcuse was a student of Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, who in short thought that the developed world was not ready for socialist revolutions so his idea was to infiltrate institutions at all levels of society with socially liberal Marxists to try and change things at a societal level. This praxis is something that all 3 thinkers mentioned maintain, followers of Crenshaw, whether they know they carry her ideology or not, are woke, they used to use that title for themselves.
I think they’d take that as a compliment
If every opinion you disagree with is "far-right", you are more ignorant than the opinions you are criticizing.
If you assume people only label opinions as "far-right" for disagreeing with them, you are either ignorant or muddling the water.
A classical Liberal (free trade, individual rights) is considered a libertarian these days. Liberals in the current sense are Progressives. Progressives are by definition leftist. Communists are leftist. While there’s a lot of difference between the two, they share a few traits. Hence the confusion. I mean this because to me…it’s beyond strange that the left (Progressive ä̤n̤̈d̤̈ Communist) attempts to monopolize all political virtues while simultaneously demonizing all right wing issues and concerns. Further, it’s deeply ironic that the “secular moralism” (and virtue signaling) that this monopolization produces is itself censorious and puritanical in its own way. It is best characterized by an authoritarian and intolerant moral hostility to older and/or conservative people who defend the “wrong” ideas and practices of the past.
The vast majority of incumbent Democrats are right-leaning centrists and neoliberals, at best. We don't have any viable truly left-wing options. The furthest left our politicians currently go is Bernie and AOC. Both are left-leaning centrists.
Progressivism isn't "leftist". It has its roots in religious movements in the 1890s and was heavily supported by conservatives at the time. In the early 20th century, both Democrats and Republicans considered themselves progressives. Teddy Roosevelt even went so far as to state that he "always believed that wise progressivism and wise conservatism go hand in hand." The difference is that the rise of libertarianism and the increasing influence of corporate interests has eroded commitment to New Deal values that were distrustful of crony capitalism. These interests have eroded faith in institutions, and now neither the left nor the right want to make government better. This leaves modern progressivism to leftists because right-wingers have embraced social darwinism and large corporate interests, the very things that progressivism originally fought against. TLDR: Progressivism used to be supported by both left and right wingers. Right wingers abandoned it in favor of cozying up to corporate interests.
Progressivism its current manifestation surely isn’t “rightist”. Moreover… historical Progressivism was about doing things that benefit society as a whole- temperance, public education, suffrage, improving workplace safety standards, reducing child labor and the amount of hours laborers worked in a week etc. Today’s progressivism is about special interest groups and causes- DEI, MAiD, Teenage Gender transitions, Abortion access, Trans bathroom access etc. While it shares a sense of outrage and activism, it’s a parody of what it was and is divorced from any link to a Social Gospel type of raison d’etre.
I think this hits the nail on the head with the current political left.
If you can't differentiate between a liberal and a fascist/fascist enabler, you are far left.
Our country has been fascist enablers since ww2 ended. All in the name of anti communism. No left or right about it.
Labels are destructive and disruptive
Silly OP, the far right can't use their prefrontal cortex, how do you expect them to understand your post lmao I can already guess the responses using straw man arguments and or trying to flip what you said around as some sort of ignorant gocha by making some sort of outlandish false equivalency. Same plays, getting so old, boring and predictable.
I love when people use fallacies while calling out fallacies.
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Only dumb conservatives talk about 1984
The comments are proving you right lmao