Edit: we’re discussing the down votes for this comment below. I’m baffled, because I’m merely asking for info. Please, if you want to down vote, reconsider, and consider replying to me why instead. 🙂 I don’t care about the votes, I’m just curious why a simple request could be so unpopular. Thank you.
He lets Nazis use his platform and calls it “freedom of speech”, although this exact freedom is limited by the wellbeing of others. And promoting Nazis is harmful to not only minorities, but the society in my opinion, as they strive to split the society with populist arguments.
Nope. Lefties like to call any outspoken conservative a “Nazi” to discredit them. It’s like when conservatives call lefties “communist.” It’s juvenile IMO, but I guess it works.
If you’re looking to have a public forum, you need a representative sample from all sides of the political spectrum. Look at parliamentary systems as an example of that, where you have literal fascists and communists sitting alongside one another as a very vocal, but incredibly small minority. If that’s your goal, you need to take the good with the bad.
That is what Musk has stated as his goal, so what you’re seeing makes absolute sense with that stated goal.
That said, I don’t like Musk or what he claims to believe in politically, I just think the idea of an open town square is desirable. I hope someone can pull it off (doesn’t seem like Musk is doing it), which is part of why I’m working on a Reddit/Lemmy alternative that discourages echo chambers and encourages high quality discourse. Doing that is incredibly hard, because people like to group up into tribes, and I think Musk absolutely does that as well (hence why I don’t like him). However, I don’t think Musk is a “Nazi” because he allows Nazis on his platform, I think he’s just incapable of running the type of social media platform he wants to see exist.
I don’t, but there seems to be a very strong correlation between leftist political views and calling people who tolerate Trump “Nazis.”
That said, I’m not a leftist or a conservative, I dislike Trump, Musk, and what they stand for. I’m libertarian, and not in the “I’m a conservative who likes weed” way (I have no desire to use weed, but it should 100% be legal), but in a “We should work toward open borders” way. I respect Musk’s statement that he wants Twitter/X to be a free speech platform and understand him allowing Trump et al back on, but I think he has really lost what made Twitter interesting. I don’t think he actually wants free speech, he wants people to agree with him to be heard, and “free speech” is the excuse to get them platformed again.
My issue here has nothing to do with Musk, but with the liberal (pun intended) use of the term “Nazi” to label people you don’t like. There are actual Nazi movements that could apply to, such as the Proud Boys, and abusing the term just cheapens the meaning of the term.
Really? Because the right doesn’t throw the Nazi card around like there’s no tomorrow at the left with their disingenuous “national socialism bullshit”. Only one party/political leaning is actually courting the neo-nazi vote.
Of course they don’t, the Nazi card is a far-right concept. The far-left analog is communist, and they did plenty of that during the “red scare.” They still use “communist” or “socialist” terminology to write off opponents.
And no, the Republican party isn’t actively courting neo-nazis, it’s neo-nazis that are using Republican talking points to appeal to a broader audience. There’s certainly a venn diagram overlap there, so Republicans can appear to be supporting neo-nazis, but that’s really just neo-nazis trying to appeal to more of the mainstream.
Don’t get caught up in the partisan name-calling, it sucks when Republican do it, and it sucks when Democrats do it, it’s just a really stupid version of a strawman. Democrats don’t want to seize the means of product but Republicans want you to think they do, and Repbulicans don’t want to kill minorities but Democrats want you to think they do. Don’t buy in to the divisiveness BS, look at the facts and make your own decisions from there.
I personally hate both parties since neither actually deliver on the parts I like from their platforms, and they tend to behave similarly on the issues I care about (e.g. both largely support Israel, both seem happy to continue undeclared wars, both seem happy to run up deficit spending with little to show for it, etc). Screw the two party system and “pundits” in general.
No, I disagree with each of your definitions. Here’s how I see them:
leftist - anyone left of center; this is a big tent with both capitalists and communists
progressives - leftists who want significant, but moderate political change (e.g. universal healthcare, high minimum wage, etc)
liberals - anyone who believes in individual rights and private property, so basically the capitalist wing of leftist ideology; originally, liberals were more synonymous w/ modern libertarians, but now they tend to prefer larger government
So in terms of size of the groups: leftists > liberals > progressives. The communist part of the left is largely mutually exclusive from progressives and liberals, though some progressives are in favor of some elements from socialism.
At least that’s how I see it. I’m neither leftist or conservative, I’m a pretty centrist libertarian. I’m left of many leftists and right of many conservatives, depending on the issue.
You may disagree, but it is a pretty widely agreed upon distinction. It’s a symptom of the issue of a fractured left wing. The left leaning communists wanted to distinguish themselves from the left leaning capitalists, so they started calling themselves leftists and not liberals.
It’s just a bunch of different labels, it’s not really set in stone or definitive. I totally understand why you disagree.
My point really was just that a conservative calling someone a communist isn’t insulting to a lot of self described leftists because they are communist, it’s mostly just considered an insult to a conservative. Kinda like calling an alt right person a Nazi is an insult from a leftist, but plenty of alt righties wouldn’t be insulted because they are (jk but not really but jk)
The left leaning communists wanted to distinguish themselves from the left leaning capitalists, so they started calling themselves leftists and not liberals.
I don’t really care what they call themselves, I care what people in general mean by the terms they use. Academics use “leftist” to mean anyone on the left, “liberals” to mean those who prioritize individual liberties and private property (e.g. founders of the US), and “progressives” to mean those interested in utilitarian changes to existing systems to improve outcomes. “Liberal” has change a bit recently with the right using it to describe the left, but it’s also not wrong because both Dems and Reps are liberals, Reps are just socially conservative liberals, and Dems are socially progressive liberals. Those have clear definitions that are generally understood by the public, and changing their meaning just confuses things IMO.
My point really was just that a conservative calling someone a communist isn’t insulting to a lot of self described leftists because they are communist
But most aren’t. Calling Biden a communist because he wants to expand access to medical care is similar to calling Trump a fascist because he wants stronger border protections. They’re just inflammatory, inaccurate labels used for political gain. The communist label is relying on the “red scare” nonsense, and the fascist label is relying on holocaust imagery. Both are inaccurate and harmful IMO.
Yes, there are legitimate communists on the left and legitimate fascists on the right, but they’re such a minority that using them for any public figure is almost guaranteed to be inaccurate.
Liberalism is not necessarily capitalist. It is possible to be an anti-capitalist liberal by recognizing the inalienable right to workplace democracy @technology
I don’t think that’s true, at least not given the classical definition found here on Wikipedia. In general, I think John Locke embodies liberalism really well, and he believed in a natural right to life, liberty, and property. So to me, property has been a foundational part of liberalism since its creation.
Then again, a lot of people use “liberal” to essentially be the same as “leftist,” meaning anyone left of center. But I think that’s silly, because in my eyes and using the academic definition of liberalism, both the Democratic Party and Republican Party have strong liberal roots, and they’re different in where they deviate from that (Democrats are weak on property rights and free markets, Republicans are weak on civil liberties and secularism).
If you’re anti-capitalist, by definition you’re not a liberal IMO. And I think most people who claim to be anti-capitalist aren’t actually anti-capitalist (can’t speak for you though), they’re just frustrated at our corrupted form of capitalism. A purer form of capitalism (less protectionism, i.e. fewer IP protections, fewer options to limit liability, etc) accompanied with a healthy safety net (e.g. something like UBI) and worker protections is probably more than adequate to most who espouse anti-capitalist sentiment.
It is exactly people’s right to property that rules out capitalism. The principle behind property is getting the positive and negative fruits of your labor. The capitalist employer-employee relationship has the employer appropriating 100% of the positive and negative fruits of workers’ labor while employees receive 0% of the property rights to the produced output and liabilities for the used-up inputs. The only way for workers to get the fruits of their labor is in worker coops @technology
No, the way for workers to get the fruits of their labor is to not sell their labor, but instead sell the fruits of their labor. Worker coops are one way to do that, or they can become independent contractors. Both of those are capitalist, since the only real requirement for capitalism is for property ownership to be owned by an individual or small group, not collectively. A coop is essentially the same thing any other corporation, but the workers are the shareholders. There’s still a well-defined system of exclusive ownership of the means of production (i.e. the workers become capital owners).
But a lot of people don’t actually want that. Owning your own business (or having a share of your business) means taking on a lot of risk. If times get hard, your income takes a big hit because you’re absorbing the risk. If the venture fails, that capital disappears.
That’s why a lot of people prefer to sell their labor, they like the consistent paycheck. If the company loses money, they still get paid at their agreed-upon rate, or they lose their job and find a job elsewhere. It’s the same reason why a lot of people prefer to rent instead of owning their own property, they don’t want the risk associated with capital ownership. I create more value for my company than I earn, and that’s 100% okay because I’m looking for stability (I have a wife and kids), so I’d rather someone else get the rewards for hustling than have the stress of having to do that myself. I tried contracting for a few years, and that all ended when COVID happened and all of my clients disappeared. So now I’m content selling my labor and getting stability in return.
If worker coops are what you want, then you’re not anti-capitalist, you’re just against selling your labor and are comfortable taking on some risk. That’s completely valid in a capitalist society, and you have every right to start or join a coop. If you’re okay with labor unions, then you mostly just want to empower workers to get more leverage over their employers to force them to have thinner margins (but they’ll still need to be compensated for the risk). If you’re truly anti-capitalist, you wouldn’t be satisfied with coops or unions since those are capitalist systems.
Yeah, genius thought that creating CyberTruk and turn full Nazi will expand his consumer base.
Sucks for real founders of Tesla, but hey, at least you helped bootstrapping switch to EVs.
He’s a Nazi? Like, literally? What’s the latest?
Edit: we’re discussing the down votes for this comment below. I’m baffled, because I’m merely asking for info. Please, if you want to down vote, reconsider, and consider replying to me why instead. 🙂 I don’t care about the votes, I’m just curious why a simple request could be so unpopular. Thank you.
He lets Nazis use his platform and calls it “freedom of speech”, although this exact freedom is limited by the wellbeing of others. And promoting Nazis is harmful to not only minorities, but the society in my opinion, as they strive to split the society with populist arguments.
Nope. Lefties like to call any outspoken conservative a “Nazi” to discredit them. It’s like when conservatives call lefties “communist.” It’s juvenile IMO, but I guess it works.
If you let Nazis in your house and kick out people saying they don’t want to hang around Nazis, what does that make you?
Collaborateur! 📣
If you’re looking to have a public forum, you need a representative sample from all sides of the political spectrum. Look at parliamentary systems as an example of that, where you have literal fascists and communists sitting alongside one another as a very vocal, but incredibly small minority. If that’s your goal, you need to take the good with the bad.
That is what Musk has stated as his goal, so what you’re seeing makes absolute sense with that stated goal.
That said, I don’t like Musk or what he claims to believe in politically, I just think the idea of an open town square is desirable. I hope someone can pull it off (doesn’t seem like Musk is doing it), which is part of why I’m working on a Reddit/Lemmy alternative that discourages echo chambers and encourages high quality discourse. Doing that is incredibly hard, because people like to group up into tribes, and I think Musk absolutely does that as well (hence why I don’t like him). However, I don’t think Musk is a “Nazi” because he allows Nazis on his platform, I think he’s just incapable of running the type of social media platform he wants to see exist.
when you’re sitting with these people guess what? you’re a nazi
How do you know they are left?
I don’t, but there seems to be a very strong correlation between leftist political views and calling people who tolerate Trump “Nazis.”
That said, I’m not a leftist or a conservative, I dislike Trump, Musk, and what they stand for. I’m libertarian, and not in the “I’m a conservative who likes weed” way (I have no desire to use weed, but it should 100% be legal), but in a “We should work toward open borders” way. I respect Musk’s statement that he wants Twitter/X to be a free speech platform and understand him allowing Trump et al back on, but I think he has really lost what made Twitter interesting. I don’t think he actually wants free speech, he wants people to agree with him to be heard, and “free speech” is the excuse to get them platformed again.
My issue here has nothing to do with Musk, but with the liberal (pun intended) use of the term “Nazi” to label people you don’t like. There are actual Nazi movements that could apply to, such as the Proud Boys, and abusing the term just cheapens the meaning of the term.
Really? Because the right doesn’t throw the Nazi card around like there’s no tomorrow at the left with their disingenuous “national socialism bullshit”. Only one party/political leaning is actually courting the neo-nazi vote.
Of course they don’t, the Nazi card is a far-right concept. The far-left analog is communist, and they did plenty of that during the “red scare.” They still use “communist” or “socialist” terminology to write off opponents.
And no, the Republican party isn’t actively courting neo-nazis, it’s neo-nazis that are using Republican talking points to appeal to a broader audience. There’s certainly a venn diagram overlap there, so Republicans can appear to be supporting neo-nazis, but that’s really just neo-nazis trying to appeal to more of the mainstream.
Don’t get caught up in the partisan name-calling, it sucks when Republican do it, and it sucks when Democrats do it, it’s just a really stupid version of a strawman. Democrats don’t want to seize the means of product but Republicans want you to think they do, and Repbulicans don’t want to kill minorities but Democrats want you to think they do. Don’t buy in to the divisiveness BS, look at the facts and make your own decisions from there.
I personally hate both parties since neither actually deliver on the parts I like from their platforms, and they tend to behave similarly on the issues I care about (e.g. both largely support Israel, both seem happy to continue undeclared wars, both seem happy to run up deficit spending with little to show for it, etc). Screw the two party system and “pundits” in general.
Leftists are communist though. Liberals are the progressives that prefer capitalism
No, I disagree with each of your definitions. Here’s how I see them:
So in terms of size of the groups: leftists > liberals > progressives. The communist part of the left is largely mutually exclusive from progressives and liberals, though some progressives are in favor of some elements from socialism.
At least that’s how I see it. I’m neither leftist or conservative, I’m a pretty centrist libertarian. I’m left of many leftists and right of many conservatives, depending on the issue.
You may disagree, but it is a pretty widely agreed upon distinction. It’s a symptom of the issue of a fractured left wing. The left leaning communists wanted to distinguish themselves from the left leaning capitalists, so they started calling themselves leftists and not liberals.
It’s just a bunch of different labels, it’s not really set in stone or definitive. I totally understand why you disagree.
My point really was just that a conservative calling someone a communist isn’t insulting to a lot of self described leftists because they are communist, it’s mostly just considered an insult to a conservative. Kinda like calling an alt right person a Nazi is an insult from a leftist, but plenty of alt righties wouldn’t be insulted because they are (jk but not really but jk)
I don’t really care what they call themselves, I care what people in general mean by the terms they use. Academics use “leftist” to mean anyone on the left, “liberals” to mean those who prioritize individual liberties and private property (e.g. founders of the US), and “progressives” to mean those interested in utilitarian changes to existing systems to improve outcomes. “Liberal” has change a bit recently with the right using it to describe the left, but it’s also not wrong because both Dems and Reps are liberals, Reps are just socially conservative liberals, and Dems are socially progressive liberals. Those have clear definitions that are generally understood by the public, and changing their meaning just confuses things IMO.
But most aren’t. Calling Biden a communist because he wants to expand access to medical care is similar to calling Trump a fascist because he wants stronger border protections. They’re just inflammatory, inaccurate labels used for political gain. The communist label is relying on the “red scare” nonsense, and the fascist label is relying on holocaust imagery. Both are inaccurate and harmful IMO.
Yes, there are legitimate communists on the left and legitimate fascists on the right, but they’re such a minority that using them for any public figure is almost guaranteed to be inaccurate.
Liberalism is not necessarily capitalist. It is possible to be an anti-capitalist liberal by recognizing the inalienable right to workplace democracy @technology
I don’t think that’s true, at least not given the classical definition found here on Wikipedia. In general, I think John Locke embodies liberalism really well, and he believed in a natural right to life, liberty, and property. So to me, property has been a foundational part of liberalism since its creation.
Then again, a lot of people use “liberal” to essentially be the same as “leftist,” meaning anyone left of center. But I think that’s silly, because in my eyes and using the academic definition of liberalism, both the Democratic Party and Republican Party have strong liberal roots, and they’re different in where they deviate from that (Democrats are weak on property rights and free markets, Republicans are weak on civil liberties and secularism).
If you’re anti-capitalist, by definition you’re not a liberal IMO. And I think most people who claim to be anti-capitalist aren’t actually anti-capitalist (can’t speak for you though), they’re just frustrated at our corrupted form of capitalism. A purer form of capitalism (less protectionism, i.e. fewer IP protections, fewer options to limit liability, etc) accompanied with a healthy safety net (e.g. something like UBI) and worker protections is probably more than adequate to most who espouse anti-capitalist sentiment.
It is exactly people’s right to property that rules out capitalism. The principle behind property is getting the positive and negative fruits of your labor. The capitalist employer-employee relationship has the employer appropriating 100% of the positive and negative fruits of workers’ labor while employees receive 0% of the property rights to the produced output and liabilities for the used-up inputs. The only way for workers to get the fruits of their labor is in worker coops @technology
No, the way for workers to get the fruits of their labor is to not sell their labor, but instead sell the fruits of their labor. Worker coops are one way to do that, or they can become independent contractors. Both of those are capitalist, since the only real requirement for capitalism is for property ownership to be owned by an individual or small group, not collectively. A coop is essentially the same thing any other corporation, but the workers are the shareholders. There’s still a well-defined system of exclusive ownership of the means of production (i.e. the workers become capital owners).
But a lot of people don’t actually want that. Owning your own business (or having a share of your business) means taking on a lot of risk. If times get hard, your income takes a big hit because you’re absorbing the risk. If the venture fails, that capital disappears.
That’s why a lot of people prefer to sell their labor, they like the consistent paycheck. If the company loses money, they still get paid at their agreed-upon rate, or they lose their job and find a job elsewhere. It’s the same reason why a lot of people prefer to rent instead of owning their own property, they don’t want the risk associated with capital ownership. I create more value for my company than I earn, and that’s 100% okay because I’m looking for stability (I have a wife and kids), so I’d rather someone else get the rewards for hustling than have the stress of having to do that myself. I tried contracting for a few years, and that all ended when COVID happened and all of my clients disappeared. So now I’m content selling my labor and getting stability in return.
If worker coops are what you want, then you’re not anti-capitalist, you’re just against selling your labor and are comfortable taking on some risk. That’s completely valid in a capitalist society, and you have every right to start or join a coop. If you’re okay with labor unions, then you mostly just want to empower workers to get more leverage over their employers to force them to have thinner margins (but they’ll still need to be compensated for the risk). If you’re truly anti-capitalist, you wouldn’t be satisfied with coops or unions since those are capitalist systems.