Guys, at this rate I don't think the revolution's going to happen anytime soon.
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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That's not a Centrist viewpoint at all. That's a solidly right viewpoint.
The Centrist would, however, say "look, if you're going to make your whole vibe about tolerance, that's cool. I love it. But my homie, that's a slippery slope you haven't fully negotiated yet. So when your less disciplined people start to be big picture tolerant through on-paper intolerance, don't expect me to do the same mental gymnastics to defend it that you do with your mom at Thanksgiving. How about you solve the problem before you create it by not being sloppy and bumbling your way into an obvious trap every bully has pulled since the dawn of time?"
But hey, as a Centrist, the Left can't discern me from someone like Bush 43 or a raging MAGA freak because anything right of far left is a legit fascist. Which is why I cant hang with you all, your labels are weird. But the Right usually wants to hang me for being a traitor, so one of y'all is far more worth dealing with occasional cringe.
I'm still always surprised when people say "slippery slope" in earnest, as though it isn't a well-known logical fallacy to be avoided. As though, at no point along the slope, would we be able to reverse course. "This thing must necessarily lead to that thing over time!"
Okay Nostradamus.
Here, it's what I hoped was obvious shorthand for a subjective value set with no clear, well-defined boundaries of what is or is not defined for the practice of tolerance.
Most descriptions of tolerance are set by simply being allowed to exist, or a set of principles which are a bit nebulous in practice, like how the UN tries to define it.
Do you have a favorite courtroom-ready definition of the words "tolerance" and "intolerance" that would apply in every state equally to show anyone what they can and can't say with perfect objective clarity? I would love to hear it.
So when people are defining the term with the absence of the opposite of the term, it means the term is ultimately being used to define itself.
:-/
There is an argument that politics is the art of representing the aggregate interests of ordinary people on their behalf. And what a successful politician needs to succeed is a rapport with the community such that they can channel the socio-economic demands into the bureaucracy efficiently.
Unfortunately, we live in a country where seats are heavily gerrymandered, information on candidates for leadership is either highly censured or ludicrously unreliable, and singular individuals are expected to represent populations on the scale of 300k to 40M at the national level.
Socratic Rhetoric isn't the issue here. You're not engaging in an Ivy League debate between peers. You're talking entirely about the ability to manipulate public opinion at a national scale. A lot of that boils down to mass deception, demagoguery, and pure tribalist politics.
There's nothing you can say or do that won't result in the opposition calling you a foreign infiltrator or a degenerate loser or a reactionary terrorist. You're trying to play chess with a stampeding bull.
Yeah, I'm aware. And I appreciate your response.
Sadly, I see a lot of the same at even the state and local level. Really, it comes down to branding with parties as a fundraising avenue, and only having Pepsi and Coke as the options concentrates both wealth and power as narrowly as possible.
Sure, that's not for me. I don't need to have a fit about it either, until I'm being force-fed one of them which, in my opionion, results in the detriment of the Constition and the nation. I'm happy to hold my nose for things I don't love for anyone that rounds up to close enough. I've pleasantly done that for decades.
Which doesn't mean that far-left folks mischaracterising anyone not as far left as them is fair or accurate. Incremental change in policy and political culture is how it works. Always has. That's literally PoliSci 101 after you define terms.
So when the far left folks demand everyone be where they are or it's a disaster, the rubber band they held snaps and they lose any momentum going their way by getting out too far to still remain in touch with the vast majority or voters. I want things moving father left than they are on ....well, most things, but the Left would rather push me away and move even farther left and act out about how I'm not chasing them.
Which is how we arrive at where we are, bifurcated with nothing left but contempt for anyone thinking with a sliver of rationality who never felt at home with either group.
Well then all I can say is that there's a fair number of right wing people that consider themselves 'centrists' either dishonestly or genuinely believing it. It's actually what I was going for by putting centrist in quotations.
But something that I will never go near the centre on is human rights (whatever that looks like). For example, women should have full rights over their own bodies and not have to die in hospitals when something goes wrong because doctors don't want to risk harming a foetus (that ends up dying along with her anyway), trans people should be allowed to exist without fear and persecution from other people that can't mind their own damn business and everyone should be able to choose their religion or lack thereof. For me personally, these are the kinds of things that are more important than the price of eggs. And anyone that ignores those issues because of the price of eggs, does in fact look pretty similar to a MAGA to me.
As far as the slippery slope goes, I believe in no tolerance for the intolerant. Once you've shown that you just will not give other people the respect that you personally want, you don't deserve it.
Look, I can't help that you have limited real life experience, but the middle is crowded with people of a wide variety of political beliefs. For some, like me, I'm more center-left, supporting things like obvious human rights issues, but I won't go all in on some of the more outlandish financial policies. And I simply will not give machine politics a moment of my life. I've seen it fail miserably too many times to think it can work just because one side does it.
But so when your retort to someone not exactly like you is "you don't deserve respect until you're someone exactly like me and think only how I think," then your genuine intolerance is out there on display, and yet you aren't self aware enough to realize you've just said it.
It's disappointing that you jumped into that within A single comment. Seriously?
From the condescending opening line to the blatant straw man, it almost sounds like you’re replying to the wrong comment.
Did you really just "so much for the tolerant left" me? Hilarious. Thanks for the laugh, considering where this conversation started. I'll put it to you this way seeing as the concept seems so difficult for you to understand. If you go around condemning gay people to burning for eternity and telling women things like "your body, my choice" then I am not going to respect you because you clearly have no respect for anyone else.
And just to clear things up in case this is the reason that you're taking it so personally, when I say "you", I am not pointing a finger at you, I am using it in a general sense, talking about the people that do these things.
You arrived here telling me that my first comment was actually about right wingers while calling yourself a centrist, but you've already started clutching your pearls just because I don't want to ever meet in the middle with hateful bigots and tried to shame me into changing my position by pulling "iNTolERant LEft" schtick. So I dunno.
I'm asking you if you understand if what you in particular are saying is, by it's nature, a contradiction. You were never tolerant from the start, and never really pretended to be. You just think you have labels that magically confer this value on you without having to do the work.
You don't represent the Left as a whole. But you're picking up a lot of cues with Left-leanimg terminology that create a dogmatic point of view, regardless of the left/right side of things.
Friendo, I'm happy to hear your thoughts on this, as it adds to my understanding of a diverse range of points of view. Tell me more.
Your logic is bullshit, you are a "clever" one. You know that quote about antisemetism and valuing the meaning of words? That's about you. Logical fallacy and dissociation are all you have to offer the conversation. You wouldn't discern good faith if it was hanging from your fucking nuts.
What specifically is bullshit?
What is the logical fallacy?
Without actual details, it's hard to see this as anything more than just a lazy personal attack.
They talk big words and say nothing. It's an argument method where they attempt to look good/smart and goad other people into looking angry. In this particular case, they want you to reply angrily and say "Look how intolerant they are to me, and I was just pointing out how intolerant they really were!"