Liberals, progressives and conservatives of note sign open letter to end cancel culture. (Noam Chomsky/J.K. Rowling/Gloria Steinem/David Brooks etc.)

[Agema]

It shows the rise of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China. Three of the worst regimes in the last century and all founded on the same philosophy. Hayak, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, the signs in the writing are all very clear to anyone that doesn't want to bury their heads in the sand.

What "philosophy" was that, precisely?

And all the oppression and silencing now isn't being done by the left? What about that Count Dankula incident that happened in your country? That didn't seem like a welcoming of expression and ideas.

What, you mean under the Tories, those famous proponents of leftism?

This is done by both sides, Escaraxe has pointed out how brainwashed so many people on the left are. The right isn't much better, the difference is that they're more obvious which makes people that realize the left is filled with snake oil salesmen hate them more.

What we most commonly think of the "left" is the internationalist, metropolitan, liberal, left-leaning middle class. They're pretty much all the people you're arguing against on this forum. And they are often pro-freedom liberals: you will not find them backing authoritarians. The issue really comes where a branch of liberalism has started viewing aspects of institutional power and inequality as impairment of their freedom. The rationale for this is... not at all bad, actually. However, this will appear to be bordering on censorious to those liberals who perhaps cleave closer to John Stuart Mill's vision. This stuff about "cancel culture" is that it is expression of individual right to choose and persuade, quite safely based in the simplest of liberal principles.

The authoritarian-inclined left, by contrast, is all but invisible on forums like this. Even most those few self-proclaimed communists who've cropped up were not Leninists or Maoists: they had no more interest in an authoritarian dictator installed by the power of the working classes than you did. You cite Orwell, for instance, as a warning. Orwell was, of course, famously a democratic socialist. Which mostly leaves the right flailing for a real opponent, because the historical boogeyman they've focused on for so long barely exists any more. In lieu, they merely try to crassly characterise the liberal left as oppressors of free speech. They've continued to do this even as actual authoritarians, the far right, eats up support for nationalist authoritarians and (for instance, in Trump) the right mostly moves to co-opt them to protect their voter base.

 

[tstorm823]

Did you just Gilmore Girl me?

 

[Aegix Drakan]

It shows the rise of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China. Three of the worst regimes in the last century and all founded on the same philosophy. Hayak, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, the signs in the writing are all very clear to anyone that doesn't want to bury their heads in the sand.

Wait wait waaaaaiiiiit.

You're basically arguing that the nazis, Stalin, and Mao's totalitarian takeovers were caused by basically SJWs demanding that minorities be treated with basic dignity and equal rights...And NOT because of deep economic unrest and insecurity being weaponized by nationalistic people to institute a government that was on paper supposed to help the people, but in the end was just another power grab?

I suppose if the US continues its current course and the economy implodes, and half the country is evicted on the street during a pandemic and starts to riot and maybe it turns into a violent overthrow of govenrment that'll be the fault of the "evil silencing SJWs" too, and NOT the fault of out-of-touch ultra-wealthy assholes enriching themselves to the detriment of everyone else?

I suppose a bar that goes "No shoes, no shirt, no service. Also, if you scream loudly in people's faces and bother other tables we'll tell you to leave" is also being oppressive and totalitarian for having standards for conduct?

In fact, is this very forum is totalitarian and censorious because it has a code of conduct you're not allowed to directly attack other people and call them mean things, instead of having total freedom to do and say whatever? I'd say no.

And all the oppression and silencing now isn't being done by the left?

*COUGH* The Right under trump is literally sending federal officers who do not identify themselves as federal officers to cities where protests are happening like Portland, Oregon, and literally grabbing people walking down the street for being anywhere near a protest and wearing black clothes and throwing them into unmarked vans and not telling them where they're going, or just firing rubber bullets into peoples faces at point blank range, requiring full facial reconstruction surgery, even in cases when the protests are actually completely peaceful and the mayor/governor are both like "we don't want the feds here, this was under control", a situation that scares the shit out of people because how the hell do they know that these people grabbing them and not saying who they are are law enforcement and not some kind of criminal gang dressed up in camo? *COUGH*

Sorry, something must have gotten stuck in my throat, that was a long cough.

Also, how many anti-war voices are welcomed onto TV news? How many ACTUAL left voices are welcomed onto TV news?

Do you ever see Anarchists, Communists, etc get prime time coverage? When's the last time any of the main news outlets had Noam Chompsky or Richard Wolff on? At most you'll occasionally see a lefty politician like AOC get a segment where she's typically grilled about "How do you intend to pay for any of that, that's all fairy tale stuff, you should sit back and let the REAL party leaders do the work while you learn from them!"

...And the rest of the time, it's down the line centrists or right wingers or billionaires who whine about how rough it is being so rich that people want their taxes to go up.

It only SEEMS like the Left has all sorts of oppression and silencing power because the population generally has accepted social issues and is like "Yeah, don't hate people for stuff they can't control, that's obvious" and more or less lets the people who really care about social stuff rave on twitter while slightly rolling their eyes...AND the corporations are like "Putting up a rainbow flag on twitter for a month to look woke is super easy and profitable, let's do that!"

And finally, re: that "the left and right are both equally brainwashed" thing...Imma just quote Agema here.

What we most commonly think of the "left" is the internationalist, metropolitan, liberal, left-leaning middle class. They're pretty much all the people you're arguing against on this forum. And they are often pro-freedom liberals: you will not find them backing authoritarians. The issue really comes where a branch of liberalism has started viewing aspects of institutional power and inequality as impairment of their freedom. The rationale for this is... not at all bad, actually. However, this will appear to be bordering on censorious to those liberals who perhaps cleave closer to John Stuart Mill's vision. This stuff about "cancel culture" is that it is expression of individual right to choose and persuade, quite safely based in the simplest of liberal principles.

The authoritarian-inclined left, by contrast, is all but invisible on forums like this. Even most those few self-proclaimed communists who've cropped up were not Leninists or Maoists: they had no more interest in an authoritarian dictator installed by the power of the working classes than you did. You cite Orwell, for instance, as a warning. Orwell was, of course, famously a democratic socialist. Which mostly leaves the right flailing for a real opponent, because the historical boogeyman they've focused on for so long barely exists any more. In lieu, they merely try to crassly characterise the liberal left as oppressors of free speech. They've continued to do this even as actual authoritarians, the far right, eats up support for nationalist authoritarians and (for instance, in Trump) the right mostly moves to co-opt them to protect their voter base.

 

[Trunkage]

Wait wait waaaaaiiiiit.

You're basically arguing that the nazis, Stalin, and Mao's totalitarian takeovers were caused by basically SJWs demanding that minorities be treated with basic dignity and equal rights...And NOT because of deep economic unrest and insecurity being weaponized by nationalistic people to institute a government that was on paper supposed to help the people, but in the end was just another power grab?

I suppose if the US continues its current course and the economy implodes, and half the country is evicted on the street during a pandemic and starts to riot and maybe it turns into a violent overthrow of govenrment that'll be the fault of the "evil silencing SJWs" too, and NOT the fault of out-of-touch ultra-wealthy assholes enriching themselves to the detriment of everyone else?

I suppose a bar that goes "No shoes, no shirt, no service. Also, if you scream loudly in people's faces and bother other tables we'll tell you to leave" is also being oppressive and totalitarian for having standards for conduct?

In fact, is this very forum is totalitarian and censorious because it has a code of conduct you're not allowed to directly attack other people and call them mean things, instead of having total freedom to do and say whatever? I'd say no.



*COUGH* The Right under trump is literally sending federal officers who do not identify themselves as federal officers to cities where protests are happening like Portland, Oregon, and literally grabbing people walking down the street for being anywhere near a protest and wearing black clothes and throwing them into unmarked vans and not telling them where they're going, or just firing rubber bullets into peoples faces at point blank range, requiring full facial reconstruction surgery, even in cases when the protests are actually completely peaceful and the mayor/governor are both like "we don't want the feds here, this was under control", a situation that scares the shit out of people because how the hell do they know that these people grabbing them and not saying who they are are law enforcement and not some kind of criminal gang dressed up in camo? *COUGH*

Sorry, something must have gotten stuck in my throat, that was a long cough.

Also, how many anti-war voices are welcomed onto TV news? How many ACTUAL left voices are welcomed onto TV news?

Do you ever see Anarchists, Communists, etc get prime time coverage? When's the last time any of the main news outlets had Noam Chompsky or Richard Wolff on? At most you'll occasionally see a lefty politician like AOC get a segment where she's typically grilled about "How do you intend to pay for any of that, that's all fairy tale stuff, you should sit back and let the REAL party leaders do the work while you learn from them!"

...And the rest of the time, it's down the line centrists or right wingers or billionaires who whine about how rough it is being so rich that people want their taxes to go up.

It only SEEMS like the Left has all sorts of oppression and silencing power because the population generally has accepted social issues and is like "Yeah, don't hate people for stuff they can't control, that's obvious" and more or less lets the people who really care about social stuff rave on twitter while slightly rolling their eyes...AND the corporations are like "Putting up a rainbow flag on twitter for a month to look woke is super easy and profitable, let's do that!"

And finally, re: that "the left and right are both equally brainwashed" thing...Imma just quote Agema here.

I also like how AOC always gets called a bar tender and not the holder of two politcal science degrees. And then they can't figure out how she. It's not rocket science MSM.

I also like how someone like Jordan Peterson gets so much press coverage over a very small amendment to an existing law but someone like Wolff, who has actual arguments, not made up dystopias, hasn't been given the same screen time. Pointing out no one has been charged under this law isn't a focus and isn't apologized for misleading the public is a crime

But, you know, the MSM ONLY attacks righr wingers, half the time for CRIMES the actually did.


This goes through Bari Weiss letter of resignation. Half of the letter talks about her disliking the intolerant bosses of NYT. Which could very well be true. But then she goes on saying that she needs retribution and those people need be taken out... which is the EXACT thing she pretends to fight against. Kyle here points out a number of times she's tried to get people fired with her power as a NYT columnist. (Kyle is not a great debater, so you have to be patient for him to get to the point.)

I also noticed Tucker Carlson hasnt been called a Canceller over Blake Neff. And he had the power to do something about that situation, unlike most cancellers

Jordan Peterson is another example. He was intolerant FIRST. But who did the MSM criticize? Lefties for having the audacity to tell JP he's not being nice. So many times when an 'intolerant Left' comment happens its straight after a person on the Right does something way more intolerable and the Left responds with a smaller infraction.

Dutch town ends ties with Polish twin declared 'gay-free zone'

Nieuwegein council votes to end links to Puławy, which has vowed to discourage tolerance

www.google.com

Gay people are banned public areas in Polish town (they have keep gaynees at home.) A Dutxh sister city decided to end that sister relationship over such intolerance and breaking of Freedom and Freedom of Speech ideals etc. Guess who Right wingers online think is the intolerant one... the Dutch. Because cutting ties with people over them literally oppressing people is just the worst.

But Im not suprised. Sports teams were heavily criticized and seen as intolerant for refusing to play Apartheid South Africa decades ago. We cant have poltics in sport. Refusing to play North Korea though... totally acceptable

 

[Specter Von Baren]

What "philosophy" was that, precisely?

Socialism, collectivism, communism.

What we most commonly think of the "left" is the internationalist, metropolitan, liberal, left-leaning middle class. They're pretty much all the people you're arguing against on this forum. And they are often pro-freedom liberals:

Not anymore they aren't. Censorship of ideas and opinions is not being pro freedom.

you will not find them backing authoritarians.

Then why are they backing them now? What the left should be does not mean it is, Trying to put more and more power into the central government so they can force people to follow the same views as you is not what I would call anti-authoritarian.

The issue really comes where a branch of liberalism has started viewing aspects of institutional power and inequality as impairment of their freedom.

And their solution to that is to impair the freedom of others. And its a branch that's very intent on making itself the trunk.

The rationale for this is... not at all bad, actually. However, this will appear to be bordering on censorious to those liberals who perhaps cleave closer to John Stuart Mill's vision. This stuff about "cancel culture" is that it is expression of individual right to choose and persuade, quite safely based in the simplest of liberal principles.

The authoritarian-inclined left, by contrast, is all but invisible on forums like this.

The reason isn't because it isn't there but because it slips in slowly with arguments of giving up freedoms in order to be safer. Give up your freedom of speech so we can keep people from saying things you don't like. The riots and protests seem to have made several people here realize why the right to bear arms is important again, but if they hadn't happened then would they have ever stopped to think about what disarming people while the government agencies keep their weapons means?

Even most those few self-proclaimed communists who've cropped up were not Leninists or Maoists: they had no more interest in an authoritarian dictator installed by the power of the working classes than you did. You cite Orwell, for instance, as a warning. Orwell was, of course, famously a democratic socialist.

Yes he was. Which is why I found what he wrote in 'The Road to Wigan Pier' so compelling. You'll also notice that some of the most outspokenly communist people on these forums are also being incredibly critical of the democratic party in America right now, that's your canary in the coal mine. The people in positions of power don't actually care about the socialist policies, they just want to use them to gain power and that's the direction socialism has always gone every time we've seen it tried.

Which mostly leaves the right flailing for a real opponent, because the historical boogeyman they've focused on for so long barely exists any more. In lieu, they merely try to crassly characterise the liberal left as oppressors of free speech. They've continued to do this even as actual authoritarians, the far right, eats up support for nationalist authoritarians and (for instance, in Trump) the right mostly moves to co-opt them to protect their voter base.

It's not a boogeyman. The right uses them as a boogeyman for power but that doesn't mean they don't exist and aren't a threat.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Glenn Greenwald's take:


Notably, Glenn Greenwald wasn't asked to sign the Harper's letter because some of those who signed it objected to his views. Can't make this shit up.

And since Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility comes up as "the new civic religion", I should add:

 

[Trunkage]

Notably, Glenn Greenwald wasn't asked to sign the Harper's letter because some of those who signed it objected to his views. Can't make this shit up.

That doesn't surprise me one bit. Many of the people worried about Cancelled are WAY too into Cancelling. Funny how Freedom of Speech gets thrown out the window so quickly.

And since Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility comes up as "the new civic religion", I should add:

Ah, White Fragility. The book that blames the person for racism rather than the laws and traditions that encourages racism. I don't disagree that there's white fragility. Just look at All Live Matter. The heavy criticism of any news pieces that lists the race of the person: "It shouldn't have said 'Black Person killed by kneeling cop'. It should have said 'Person killed by kneeling cop.' That's just being politically divisive." But her book really isn't about that. It's about her realising that we act racist via some traditions and making everyone feel evil because of their upbringing. How about we JUST get rid of the tradition, rather than hating on people, Robin?

And also leave corporations out of it. I don't want them policing behaviour either, and it just makes Cancelling more possible.

 

[Avnger]

Socialism, collectivism, communism.

We've got a live one here folks.

 

[Aegix Drakan]

Notably, Glenn Greenwald wasn't asked to sign the Harper's letter because some of those who signed it objected to his views. Can't make this shit up.

I think I just woke up the entire apartment complex with my laughter.

This is too perfect. The most on-point microcosm of this ENTIRE saga.

"We must ALL take a STAND against these horrible Censorious Cancelling LEFTISTS!!! ...But not you, Glenn, you're Cancelled, we don't want you here"

Reality really is less believable than fiction.

 

[Hawki]

SJWs demanding that minorities be treated with basic dignity and equal rights...

SJWs don't care about any of that, that's why they're called SJWs. It's what distinguishes them from the people who do care.

Jordan Peterson is another example. He was intolerant FIRST. But who did the MSM criticize? Lefties for having the audacity to tell JP he's not being nice.

Are you talking about Bill C-16? Because my understanding was that he wasn't objecting to certain pronouns, he disagreed with there being a law compelling people to do so.

 

[Trunkage]

Are you talking about Bill C-16? Because my understanding was that he wasn't objecting to certain pronouns, he disagreed with there being a law compelling people to do so.

The law existed for like 50 years. C-16 was updating so it covered trans as it did other. So if you can show where the law negatively affected a lot of people over the last 50 years, I'd love to hear it. Hell, since C-16 was supposed to make a liberal hellhole like JP pretendee, show me how many people were affected just by the new addition of trans to that Civil Rights law.

JP made up a disaster scenario to make bank. Its called virtue signaling

 

[Trunkage]

SJWs don't care about any of that, that's why they're called SJWs. It's what distinguishes them from the people who do care.

You know what.. let's deal with this too

I mean, SJW is a term to discredit every single person who even thinks about equality. You and I are clearly SJWs

It like the term Cancel Cutlure. If people opposed to it attacked actual Cancellers, I back them. But that not what happens because any criticism is taken as Cancelling. The fight against Cancel Culture is a great example of how bad Cancel Cutlure is - they've become everything they claim to despise

 

[Hawki]

You know what.. let's deal with this too

I mean, SJW is a term to discredit every single person who even thinks about equality. You and I are clearly SJWs

It like the term Cancel Cutlure. If people opposed to it attacked actual Cancellers, I back them. But that not what happens because any criticism is taken as Cancelling. The fight against Cancel Culture is a great example of how bad Cancel Cutlure is - they've become everything they claim to despise

I agree that people will use "SJW" too liberally at times, like "cancel culture." But I don't think the term is bereft of meaning.

I've lamented on this site how terms like "Nazi" and "racist" were (and are) thrown around so much that they've lost a lot of their meaning. It doesn't change the fact that these things still exist.

Speaking personally, the line between criticism and cancelling is reasonably easy to define. SJWs and SQWs? Harder, I'll grant you. But I don't think I'm an SJW. In a lot of things, I find myself rolling my eyes too much, though this goes for both sides of the coin. The coin that SJWs and SQWs are found on both sides of that make me want to take the damn coin and burn it.

 

[Agema]

Socialism, collectivism, communism.

It's hard to know really where to go with this. This simplest thing to do is perhaps to ask what sort of socialism, collectivism or communism, because at the moment I'm not convinced you know what they are.

Not anymore they aren't. Censorship of ideas and opinions is not being pro freedom.
...
Then why are they backing them now? What the left should be does not mean it is, Trying to put more and more power into the central government so they can force people to follow the same views as you is not what I would call anti-authoritarian.
...
And their solution to that is to impair the freedom of others. And its a branch that's very intent on making itself the trunk.

And which governmentally-imposed laws restricting free speech are these, precisely?

The reason isn't because it isn't there but because it slips in slowly with arguments of giving up freedoms in order to be safer. Give up your freedom of speech so we can keep people from saying things you don't like. The riots and protests seem to have made several people here realize why the right to bear arms is important again, but if they hadn't happened then would they have ever stopped to think about what disarming people while the government agencies keep their weapons means?

Yes, a right-wing, capitalist government that crows about individualism has, through heavy-handed policing, reminded people about the need to protect themselves against the enforcers of the state. Let's pause and digest that for a moment before we return to mulling over the threats of socialism.

Yes he was. Which is why I found what he wrote in 'The Road to Wigan Pier' so compelling. You'll also notice that some of the most outspokenly communist people on these forums are also being incredibly critical of the democratic party in America right now, that's your canary in the coal mine. The people in positions of power don't actually care about the socialist policies, they just want to use them to gain power and that's the direction socialism has always gone every time we've seen it tried.

No, it's obviously not what socialism has always done. Avowedly democratic socialist parties have been in power in many European states, and have singularly failed to turn any of them into authoritarian hellholes. Nationalist conservatives, however, are well on their way to doing so. To continue with this line, the major criticism of the Democratic Party from the left is that it is in thrall to the moneyed elites and big business rather than the people. I simply do not understand where criticism of "socialism" emerges from this except through confusion about how the world works and what socialism is.

This again makes me wonder what you think socialism is, so...

...let us perhaps turn to Hayek, much lauded as a bastion of classical liberalism and inveterate opponent of socialism. Towards the end of his life, Hayek was a great supporter of Augusto Pinochet's regime in Chile. Hayek came to the conclusion that enforcing what he would call liberalism (but we would more call libertarianism these days) was more important than democracy, hence him ending up promoting a military dictator who deposed the democratically elected president in a coup and oversaw a brutal rule where thousands were murdered, tens of thousands tortured, and hundreds of thousands driven into exile. Pinochet also literally burned books, and suppressed other non-approved culture believed to be remotely leftist. However, he instituted extreme wide-ranging economic liberalisation and privatisation. Hayek came out with such observations as:
“I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende.”
To which I might suggest this reflects who he spoke to, because I'm willing to bet they were not corpses, political prisoners, and of course the exiles were necessarily not in Chile to disagree with him there. And frankly, I doubt the likes of Hayek mix with poor people at all to know their opinions. (The average level of education and income amongst the poor fell during Pinochet's rule, for instance, even though the reforms were economically beneficial for the middle classes).

 

[Terminal Blue]

Socialism, collectivism, communism.

What do those words actually mean to you?

Like, if you actually think that Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Maoist China are examples of the same ideology, and that all of these situations are comparable to people saying mean things to racists on Twitter, then we're in the fairly unenviable position of having to argue semantics because something has gone very wrong. Some part of your ideology has gone extremely wrong, and it's preventing you from understanding the most basic features of either history or the present.

Both Tsarist Russia and the pre-civil-war Republic of China were collectivist societies. They were societies which were incredibly authoritarian and incredibly cruel, and in each case this is a huge part of why they fell to communism. In both countries, there was literal state censorship. If you said or printed the wrong thing you could be sent to prison or killed. In both these cases, the state maintained its control through fear and the threat of violence. These are not conflicts between authoritarian communism and individualist liberalism, they are conflicts between different forms of authoritarianism.

Nazi Germany is kind of a whole other thing, but just to point out that Hitler's rise to power was not due to Ernst Thälmann cancelling the social democrats on Twitter. It has more to do with the willingness by certain powerful conservatives to cooperate with the Nazis and to try to capitalise on them politically out of a fairly irrational fear of communism, and liberals completely failing to take the situation seriously because they thought they could own the Nazis with facts and logic. If you wanted parallels between the current situation and the rise of Nazi Germany, try that one.

Censorship of ideas and opinions is not being pro freedom.

Criticism is pro-freedom. It is the original form of freedom. The right to tell people, even people in positions of power, that they are wrong is at the core of every freedom you possess. The fact that freedom can have consequences, both for other people and for yourself, is a necessary part of what real freedom is.

The actual, real problems of social media callouts isn't people saying mean things about JK Rowling on twitter and her writing tweets and blog posts to her millions of fans about how oppressed she is and how her important billionaire opinions aren't being listened to because she's being silenced by people you've never heard of. It's people deliberately lying about things people have actually said.

Conservatives love to whine about "participation trophies", but suddenly when it comes to ideas and opinions, we're supposed to pretend that everyone's opinion is equally valid. No. If you don't believe in climate change, or if you think that being gay is a mental illness, if you think that trans people are trying to trick your children into being trans, or if you think that your intelligence or character is inherently determined by your race, then your opinion is worth less than that of a person who doesn't believe these things. If a university won't invite you to give your important opinions about how the climate change is a myth made up by Jews, you're not being censored, what has happened is that the debate has moved on without you, and you don't intrinsically deserve better than that. Either bring yourself up to where everyone else is, or accept the fact you're out of touch and just learn to keep quiet or live with the consequences.

People who complain about cancel culture or censorship are almost always people who believe that their beliefs have more credibility than they actually do, and thus the only reason they're not winning the debate is that someone must be oppressing them. It's genuinely kind of sad.

The riots and protests seem to have made several people here realize why the right to bear arms is important again, but if they hadn't happened then would they have ever stopped to think about what disarming people while the government agencies keep their weapons means?

As someone who has actually changed my opinion on guns in recent years, I feel the need to clarify that the American system of gun ownership is laughable as any kind of protection against tyranny. The idea that a bunch of rednecks in camo are going to rise up with their AR-15s and bring down the tyrannical government is a joke. The government isn't going to team deathmatch you, my dude, they have drones. Heck, even if the cops show up to arrest you for thoughtcrime, what are you going to do? Shoot a cop? Cause that's going to protect your civil rights and ensure your legitimate concerns are listened to. The reason I think people should own guns sometimes is because the state is doing such a bad job of protecting marginalized people from far right violence that people should probably do something, and there aren't many options available.

You'll also notice that some of the most outspokenly communist people on these forums are also being incredibly critical of the democratic party in America right now, that's your canary in the coal mine. The people in positions of power don't actually care about the socialist policies, they just want to use them to gain power and that's the direction socialism has always gone every time we've seen it tried.

Again, if your ideology was not extremely warped, you would probably realise that this is because the Democratic party is not socialist or communist. The extreme left of the party might, at best, be described as having adopted some anaemic socialist policies that are considered common sense in most developed countries, but the ideology of the democratic party is liberalism, not socialism, and the dominant liberal position within the democratic party is neoliberalism, a belief system that emphasises capitalism as a driver of societal freedom and progress. Neoliberalism is not a left wing position, it is a centrist position, if not a moderate right-wing position. We're not criticizing the democrats because they're are power hungry and are using socialism to advance their secret maximalist agenda, we're criticizing them because they all ideologically support a social system which is deeply unfair and only profits a small number of people, a group of people who unfortunately includes the entire American political class. Throughout recent history the democrats have been responsible for systematically dismantling (non-corporate) welfare systems, expanding mass incarceration and forced labour of black Americans and escalating the war on terror.

It's worth bearing in mind that, in order to criticize the democrats, the American right has to lie about them. They need to say that Obama is a Muslim, or that Bernie Sanders is a communist or that minor reform to the broken, ridiculously expensive American healthcare system will lead to euthanasia. The reason they have to lie is because there is not actually a real difference between what republicans (at least the more moderate republicans who aren't outright fascists) believe or want and what democrats believe or want. Even when it comes to social issues, the democrats support LGBT rights or civil rights only because we have reached the turning point where these things are popular and thus profitable.

It's not a boogeyman. The right uses them as a boogeyman for power but that doesn't mean they don't exist and aren't a threat.

Name some who you think are a threat.

I'm also going to return to my original point. Look at the societies which had communist revolutions, look at the society which existed before the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. If you think that's where we are, if you think we're about to have an authoritarian communist revolution, then is that not a very, very sad indictment of the current politics and social system.

Authoritarian Communism thrives in societies that are cruel, that are indifferent to the sufferings of the poor and marginalised. The best defence against authoritarian communism, as most anti-communists eventually figured out, is to be less cruel, or at the very least to pretend to be. If you think we're about to see the rise of authoritarian communism, then you need to ask yourself how your society has failed.

 

[Aegix Drakan]

SJWs don't care about any of that, that's why they're called SJWs. It's what distinguishes them from the people who do care.

I used the term SJW because I'm getting the feeling that Specter's lumping "people who care and have basic standards for decently" with "authoritarian SJW type people who want to make it so that if you even think a bigoted thought you go to gulag".

Cuz he's already lumping basic standards for decency in with socialism AND communism with no nuance whatsoever.

So, I feel like my original statement along the lines of "I suppose you think those totalitarian governments came into power because of SJWs demanding basic decency" makes sense in the context. Apologies if not.

Are you talking about Bill C-16? Because my understanding was that he wasn't objecting to certain pronouns, he disagreed with there being a law compelling people to do so.

It's been like 4 years since it was passed, so perhaps I'm rusty, but...

I actually bothered to read the law when it was updated. And like Trunkage said, as far as I could read, literally all it did was add trans people to groups that are already protected from hate crimes, like gender, race, etc.

Peterson notoriously jumps to conclusions and has dumb takes all the damn time, so him going " *GASP* Perhaps the libs would say that misgendering someone would be a hate crime! So I'd be fined!! And if I don't want to pay it because that's BS, they'll lock me up! So ipso facto, the government will lock you up for misgendering!!!!!!!!" is no surprise.

 

[Hawki]

What do those words actually mean to you?

Both Tsarist Russia and the pre-civil-war Republic of China were collectivist societies. They were societies which were incredibly authoritarian and incredibly cruel, and in each case this is a huge part of why they fell to communism. In both countries, there was literal state censorship. If you said or printed the wrong thing you could be sent to prison or killed. In both these cases, the state maintained its control through fear and the threat of violence. These are not conflicts between authoritarian communism and individualist liberalism, they are conflicts between different forms of authoritarianism.

That seems a bit spurious.

Starting with Russia...okay, sure, it did have serfdom longer than most European countries, but the rise of communism was more or less in response to the failures of its monarchy. There's not really a straight line between Tsarist Russia and communist Russia, it could have easily gone the other way if the new government post-Nicholas hadn't been so incompetent. Heck, a lot of Europe could have gone communist thanks to WWI. As for China, again, sure, collectivist, but I can't call it a straight line. Mao led the communists, Chang Kaishek led the Nationalists, and the two had to fight a civil war before the communists won. There's various reasons why they won, but I don't buy the idea that China was on a straight line between its dynasties and Mao. Again, it's not hard to imagine the communists being defeated. Heck, Mao had to lead one of the longest marches/retreats in human history years long before actually taking power.

 

[Agema]

That seems a bit spurious.

Rural Russia's agrarian communities long had all sorts of collectivist traditions, and even urban workers had been organising in worker councils before the Bolsheviks came along. Similarly in China, rice-growing required a lot of co-ordination that encouraged collectivist traditions. This perhaps matters, because the people are more willing to embrace a system that seems more in accordance with their values than one that isn't. This might explain why Communism took root there where it would have been significantly harder in many other states with more individualist traditions.

In a similar way, perhaps, authoritarianism may also be more palatable to a society "used" to it. Many young democracies backslide into autocracy, and I suspect this is in large part because autocracy is familiar to so many people who may retain a feeling that there is nothing inherently wrong with it. If they had supported revolution against the autocracy, it may have been because they wanted new governance more than a new system of governance.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I do what, now?

My whole ass point is technocratic neoliberalism is a right-wing movement that pretends to be on the left through a system of careful triangulation, performance to maintain a facade of progressivism on wedge issues, and deliberate media-craft (read, propaganda). It's of, by, and for economic elites to preserve their wealth, influence, and power. And, by means of negative partisanship technocratic neoliberals divide and conquer labor among identitarian cleavages, while simultaneously manipulating electorates rightward. None of the ideology is capable of withstanding honest, impartial analysis of any sort, and quickly collapses under the weight of its own self-contradiction.

Hell, this manifests itself in this "cancel culture" debate. The entire point of "callout culture" is ostensibly to punch upwards, to hold individuals in positions of relative influence and privilege accountable for their own choices, statements, and actions, and to pressure them into acting more responsibly in the future -- or to remove them from the public sphere should they not as a last recourse. That's all well and good I suppose, if not a practice wildly susceptible to abuse, manipulation, and corruption by being used as a partisan witch-hunting tool...

...which is precisely why it's been used as such from the beginning, part and parcel of "no bad tactics, only bad targets" consequentialism. The lessons of James Gunn and Dave Harmon should have been such nakedly partisan and escalatory behavior would not turn out well for any involved party, as if sleuths dig hard enough "cancel-worthy" dirt can be found and portrayed in false light against anyone. Two years later and that was a lesson clearly not taken away, the only perceptible response being (as usual) doubling down and circling the wagons.

That stupid fucking letter itself stands as testimony to this. The signatories of the letter are a rogue's gallery of perpetrators and wielders of 'cancel culture' to further their own self-interest, incessantly punching down and encouraging those below them to punch down and sideways, who have nearly all felt the crack of their own whip in instances of 'callout culture' being used as nominally intended. Bari Weiss' nickname is "the cancel queen" for a reason, that reason being allegations of antisemitism flow from her keyboard and mouth like water against anyone and everyone who speaks contrary to her interests and political ambitions, regardless of the individual and their views towards Judaism as a religion or ethnicity.

The only two names of international import on that letter whose presence on it grants anything approaching legitimacy, are Chomsky and Rushdie. And it boggles the mind those two in particular would grant their names to it, considering no small portion of the other names on it have at various points been their attackers, using the very same tactics nominally decried by the letter itself.

The elitism and hypocrisy on display should be immediately recognizable and damning to anyone who considers themselves a good-faith actor.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

It's hard to know really where to go with this. This simplest thing to do is perhaps to ask what sort of socialism, collectivism or communism, because at the moment I'm not convinced you know what they are.

What do you think they are then?

And which governmentally-imposed laws restricting free speech are these, precisely?

So far our government hasn't made any laws to restrict it but I'd rather not get to that point. Media companies and the SJW mob have been the ones getting people deplatformed or shut up. You know what, screw it. I was making up a full response but screw it. If not even the more knowledgeable people on this forum can convince you then there's no point in me putting in the effort to try when I've been politically asleep for so long.