[war1025]

It's weird to think of Facebook as the reasonable people in the room.

The left wants to own online political discussion in the US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready audience when they are allowed to compete.

[cmrdporcupine]

That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around down there in the US. What is being called "left" in that context is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and it has wanted to own political discussion in the US in some form or another for over a century. It's right of centre and frankly conservative on fundamental economics issues [i.e. where all the power is held], and could only be called "left" in the domain of cultural issues...

Actual socialist politics are not permitted in US discourse, just stuff around the margins which is not threatening to corporate power (identity politics, maybe some health care reform).

I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people who can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.

EDIT: as a person with actual radical socialist politics, I can assure you that both Facebook and the NYT want nothing to do with my views.

[tablespoon]

>> The left wants to own online political discussion in the US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready audience when they are allowed to compete.

> That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around down there in the US. What is being called "left" in that context is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and it has wanted to own political discussion in the US in some form or another for over a century.

I don't think that's the "left" the GP was referring to. I think were most likely talking about the "culture war" left.

> I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people who can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.

It's because we don't always get to control definitions, even ones we care a lot about (ask me about "crypto" sometime). IMHO, those are both fashionable (in some circles) new terms for the "culture war" left, somewhat inflected by plutocratic interests that harness opposition to it to further their own agenda.

Edit: IMHO, I think a flag-waving socially-conservative socialism could be surprisingly successful in America, if someone could get it off the ground.

[war1025]

> IMHO, I think a flag-waving socially-conservative socialism could be surprisingly successful in America, if someone could get it off the ground.

I think that's basically Trump's base to be honest. Politicians just haven't figured out how to wrangle them into something useful.

[cmrdporcupine]

I think I agree with you (and actually prefer not to use the term "left" myself in general for this reason), but I still think it's worth underscoring the points about the incoherence of the use of these terms. Someone on a hobby group I am on the other day started ranting about how rising fire insurance rates for farmers were "Just another step to push out the middle class and independent owners to make way for big corporate ownership." [ok fine, whatever] and then suffixed it with "The United Socialist States of America" [W the actual F? Makes zero sense].

I see this kind of talk from people with Q & Trump-inflected politics all the time. It's bizarre.

[fleddr]

My perspective from the Netherlands...

The way I see it, the US has two "lefts".

Traditional left/progressive values would include things like affordable healthcare, worker protection, progressive taxation, livable wages, the like. Importantly, for all.

The Democrats don't seem to deliver on any of these basics long achieved in many other western countries, therefore I agree that they are neither left nor progressive.

By comparison, not even our main right wing party (VVD) would be as conservative as the Democrats on the matters above. So locally, we would see the "left" Democrats as near far-right. That's one huge gap.

(as a weird complexity, over here "liberal" means right-wing. In the US it means left-wing. yet since US left-wing is in fact right-wing, I guess it does add up)

The second type of left in the US, I do consider truly left. It's hard to put your finger on it, but it includes identity politics, the "woke", down to even marxists.

Clearly they are on the rise, at least in media and institutes. Yet they are now in an unhappy marriage with the core of the Democrats, which as we established is right-wing. Good luck with that.

For the record, here in the Netherlands we largely reject that type of left.

So I agree with most of what you said, except for the Silicon Valley part. You're going to be super surprised how the biggest supporters of extreme left policy are in fact rich comfortable people.

I'll refer to one of the most mind blowing tweets ever produced (now deleted). A co-founder of Twitter took issue with the founder of Coinbase disallowing political discussion in the workplace, and tweeted:

"When the revolution comes, me-only capitalists like X will be the first to be put against the wall. I'll be happy to provide video narration."

The extremity and cruelty is impressive, but the truly shocking part is that the person tweeting it has a net worth of 300M.

[walkedaway]

> Actual socialist politics are not permitted in US discourse

We have multiple socialists elected to US Congress.

[CRConrad]

Newsflash: No you don't.

[cmrdporcupine]

If you want to call them that, sure.

[triceratops]

Democratic socialism isn't anywhere near the same as the Cuba/Venezuela/USSR type of socialism. Are any politicians of the latter stripe currently in Congress?

Like I get that there's a popular meme that taxes and government services are "socialism". But that's a wildly inaccurate boogeyman conjured up by people who really, really don't want to pay taxes. (No one wants to pay taxes, but most of us accept they're the cost of having a society)

If taxes that fund government services are "socialist" then having a police force is "socialist" too. Do you agree with that? It sounds ridiculous to me but that's where that logic leads.

[eggsmediumrare]

No one is talking about censoring arguments about what constitutes reasonable levels of immigration, or whether the government is spending too much, or what rights states should have vs federal gov. IE conservative policy positions. The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.

[Auracle]

This is a weird argument to make when the lab leak “conspiracy” was censored the same way.

Also, there was election fraud. There always is. Was it enough to turn the election? Who knows. To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me. The only way we can have trust in our election process is if we can ask questions.

[stouset]

> To say that people shouldn’t be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me.

This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective. Nobody is arguing that we can't discuss election fraud.

The argument—which I'm sure you are actually aware—is that there needs to be some level of credibility to the idea that a) fraud occurred, and b) that it happened in meaningful quantities before we spend significant time, cost, and effort in investigating claims.

Simply having lost is not a credible claim to investigate widespread fraud. Finding one or two isolated cases in elections with margins of thousands or more votes is not a credible claim to investigate widespread fraud.

Further, fraud cannot simply be a claim that is made and then perpetually reinvestigated by decreasingly-reputable third parties until you are able to invalidate an election whose outcome you disagree with.

[ipaddr]

Stopping people talking about election fraud because you don't feel a certain credibility has been granted is censorship.

Whatever gatekeeping rules you agree or don't with shouldn't matter. The gatekeeping is the problem. Being afraid of ideas and shutting down anyone who doesn't speak about approved topics is the issue not whether your gatekeeping rules have been met.

[stouset]

> Stopping people talking about election fraud because you don't feel a certain credibility has been granted is censorship.

Zero people are being stopped from talking about election fraud. You and I are sitting here discussion election fraud right now. The only thing that has been stopped is investigations of claims of widespread fraud for which there is virtually zero evidence.

This is precisely the kind of wild misrepresentation that people—including myself—are tired of fighting. If you need to misrepresent your opponent in order to defeat them, maybe you should reflect: are we the baddies?

[dnissley]

> This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective. Nobody is arguing that we can't discuss election fraud.

The comment 2 levels up by eggsmediumrare seems to be arguing exactly that.

[war1025]

> This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing perspective.

I think that's currently how the game is played. You can try to be better than that, but then the other side wins because they are still happy to play dirty.

[splitstud]

It's good that we're only talking about censoring things you don't agree with.

[throwitaway1235]

So liberals get to pick the political arguments humans get to talk about? You may support that type of social conversation, but don't call it democracy, because it's not.

[war1025]

> The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.

It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies. I am personally vaccinated, but I think it's reasonable to let individuals make that choice.

Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it is entirely natural for people to be suspicious. Those people then asked for audits and were told to go to hell. If you want to undermine trust in the election system, that is exactly how to accomplish it.

None of this is "you aren't allowed to lie" it's "You aren't allowed to ask questions"

[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/politics/us/2020/michigan-w...

[skinkestek]

Exactly this.

Again, I don't believe there was widespread fraud but people who refuse to discuss what happened and refuse inspections sure aren't helping us becomong more confident.

[bigtex1988]

Last I checked, pregnancy isn't contagious. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Who was told to "go to hell"? There were plenty of recounts in all of the close states. Even the recent farcical commission checking fraud in Arizona didn't find anything.

As to the "spike" in that picture, a simple Google search of "Michigan spike voting" produces plenty of resources showing how the "spike" was not fraud. And if you're so worried about the spike in Biden votes later in the process, why are you not also worried about the spike in Trump votes at Nov 3 21:00 (on the graph on the right)?

You're being downvoted because these arguments are so bad as to almost clearly be in bad faith.

[war1025]

> You're being downvoted because these arguments are so bad as to almost clearly be in bad faith.

I'm being downvoted because some subset of people here view down vote as "I disagree". I used to be bothered by it. I don't think much about it anymore.

Edit:

I'm also fairly certain I've got some followers who take it upon themselves to go through my comment history and start downvoting other posts of mine just for good measure. You know, really sticking it to the man or whatever.

[stouset]

I downvoted you. Not because I disagree, but because I too believe your arguments are in bad faith and/or misrepresenting the positions of those you disagree with.

> It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies.

Unlike anti-abortion laws which force women to take pregnancies to term against their will, I am aware of zero proposed legislation that aims to force people into vaccination against their will. The one potential exception to this is for entry to public schooling, for which religious exemptions are (generally but not always) easy to come by.

If not bad faith or misrepresentation, then what?

> Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it is entirely natural for people to be suspicious. Those people then asked for audits and were told to go to hell.

It is reasonable for people to be suspicious. But far from being told to go to hell, people have been given repeated and convincing evidence for why these spikes occur (blue votes tending to cluster in high-density, high-population districts). There was even ample discussion in advance of the election about how, where, and when we expected these spikes to occur, why they're expected, and demonstrating their historical precedent.

Some people still demanded investigations of fraud. Most of those claims were dismissed through official processes due to lack of evidence. Being denied an investigation into claims that have been repeatedly debunked is not being told to go to hell. In fact some of those claims were investigated, but essentially zero systemic fraud has been found to date.

If not bad faith or misrepresentation, then what?

[AnimalMuppet]

> Unlike anti-abortion laws which force women to take pregnancies to term against their will, I am aware of zero proposed legislation that aims to force people into vaccination against their will.

Just this week, Biden was talking about having people go door-to-door to push the unvaccinated to get the shot. Arizona publicly told him to get bent - they weren't going to do that in their state.

So, that's not "forcing" people, but it's too close for my taste. I'm going to presume that you wouldn't be fine with the state sending people door to door to push those who were pregnant to carry to term.

[jhgb]

> It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies.

Public health is public health, not purely your business.

> I am personally vaccinated,

Good on you!

> but I think it's reasonable to let individuals make that choice.

No, it's not and if you don't see why then you have a major problem with understanding modern medicine.

[throwawayboise]

This is just saying "as long as I get to define what is reasonable, we can have a reasonable debate about anything"