[akomtu]

To be honest, the blue camp is different only in rhetoric: if the red wants control in the name of national security, the blue wants the same control in the name of grotesque moral rightnessess. Fake news is a good summary of our media today, it just applies to both camps.

[electrondood]

Bullshit false equivalence.

I notice that Democrats aren't forming white supremacist militias, plotting to kidnap state governors, attacking Congress specifically to overturn the results of a national election, etc.

[marcusverus]

If you only apply 'guilt by association' to your opponents, but not to yourself and your tribe, then your worldview will be built on a foundation of cheap rhetorical tricks.

Remember when Hillary's mentor (Mr. Byrd) was a former KKK Grand Dragon (and Democrat Senator)? Or when that democrat attempted to assassinate a dozen Republican lawmakers on a baseball field? How about the one who killed five cops in Dallas? Or the ones who engaged in (or cheered on) the 2020 riots that did billions of dollars in damage (including a months-long attack on a Federal courthouse in Portland, complete with firebombing!)?

All of this finger pointing bullshit is a distraction, intended to scare stupid people to the polls.

[wbsss4412]

Byrd entered congress while the south was still segregated.

Not to excuse his actions at earlier times in his life, but by the time he was a “mentor” to Hillary Clinton he had renounced racism and and segregation and was the longest serving member in the US senate and an expert on its procedures.

Pointing out that the Democratic Party was full of southern segregationists in the early 20th century is pure laziness.

Additionally, the federal courthouse wasn’t “firebombed” some groups broke in and set fires. It was violent and destructive but you’re vastly exaggerating the scale.

[dehrmann]

Remember the aftermath of the Portland protests? The damage and loss of business were estimated to be $23M. It's not the same as what you're describing from the far right, but it's also pretty bad, just in a different way.

[dev_by_day]

Democrats have plenty of blood on their hands in demanding censorship.

Remember the accusations of racism that were used to shut down the lab leak theory? Or the demands to censor scientists with any dissenting viewpoints over Covid? The cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that resulted in journalists from the Post being banned?

The "war on disinformation" their obsessed with is not any different from a "war on fake news". Censorship is a tool of cowards and there are plenty of cowards in both parties that will use it to shut down any dissenting view points.

[throwaway5752]

Division is the goal of the adversary. We should stop arguing for no good reason if we don't have to.

[dev_by_day]

We shouldn't allow people to spread lies and demonize one side unchecked. If were going to talk about problems, its best we don't scape goat on one side and admit there are flaws in both parties.

Letting them scape-goat and demonize unchecked doesn't help anything either.

[throwaway5752]

I stand by what I said. Focus on what you have in common and deal with disagreements by leveraging conflict de-escalation techniques such as NVC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication. Think about what you stand to gain arguing with someone on the internet. Consider what it does to your mindset. I agree with you on civil disagreement and standing up for what you believe.

For instance - I disagree with you on the lab leak theory and laptop comments. I understand you feel about them strongly, but I think you are smart and should reconsider the source material for those claims. Further, I feel the way you expressed it was regrettable: "blood on their hands" is unnecessary and inaccurate. You could have phrased that in ways that were more accurate, more effective, and less inflammatory.

Everyone is literally less intelligent, less capable of rational decision making, and more susceptible to manipulation when they are angry. I have certainly been guilty of this before, and I am just trying to share some of what I have learned.

One final comment: one thing that all social media including HN could do is remove user-visible up and downvotes. It engages the brain in a similar way to gambling (https://www.brainfacts.org/diseases-and-disorders/addiction/...) and creates self-reinforcing conflict that can be exploited.

[AnthonyMouse]

> For instance - I disagree with you on the lab leak theory and laptop comments. I understand you feel about them strongly, but I think you are smart and should reconsider the source material for those claims. Further, I feel the way you expressed it was regrettable: "blood on their hands" is unnecessary and inaccurate. You could have phrased that in ways that were more accurate, more effective, and less inflammatory.

Notice what you're doing though. The information content of this is effectively the polite version of "stop being mad and wrong, go read a book."

It contains no actual rebuttal of anything. You present no new facts or reasoning, only an assertion that you disagree which was already implied.

[dev_by_day]

So your saying Democrats are not in favor of censorship? Are we just going to pretend this is a one sided issue and they were not guilty in trying to cover up the lab leak theory or going after journalists who try to write stories about hunter bidens laptop?

I don't see how pointing how both parties are guilty of engaging in censorship is wrong. I am advocating for the position that censorship is a tool used unfairly by both parties when they are given the chance, I don't like conservatives or republicans either for how they treated Edward Snowden and Juliane Assange.

[dev_by_day]

By the way the "source" I am invoking are MIT scientists for the lab leak theory being plausible https://www.amazon.com/Viral-Search-Covid-19-Alina-Chan-eboo... and when it comes to dissenting views on COVID I am referencing Dr. Robert Malone(holds a patent for mRNA vaccines) and the great barrington declaration https://gbdeclaration.org/ which was created and signed by many Ivy League medical researchers and practitioners about how flawed our strict lockdown measure are.

Hunter Biden has gone on record saying that laptop might have been his.

Don't presume a persons sources without asking first. You strike me as a smart person as well and should check these sources out with an open mind before dismissing them.

[AnthonyMouse]

It's the censorship making the division worse.

Social media already has a big problem with filter bubbles. If you go to a place where 99% of people there are one party's partisans and try to rebut their misinformation, you get dogpiled. People insult you and sling baseless accusations of racism, which deters people from attempting to debate when they're highly outnumbered. So any place which has any partisan bias gets an even bigger one until everything is totally polarized.

Platform censorship makes it even worse because the platform's censors will be in one bubble or the other, their censorship decisions will be biased in that direction and push anyone on the other team onto other platforms and we end up with entirely partisan platforms that never talk to each other, and are thereby both highly misinformed about different sets of things.

[akomtu]

Again, the blue camp isnt any better here. Did you hear about the very recent Kentucky event? Did you hear about the sketchy "rise of the moors" organisation and that highway event? The "fake news" isnt just biased reporting, but also not reporting events that would challenge the narrative. A small disclosure: I was among those who donated to the Bernie's campaign, yet I reject most of the blue rhetoric.

[mrexroad]

s/fake news/entertainment exploiting a set of curated insecurities to maximize ad-sales/g

The problem is that most are convinced that it’s all “fake news” and their preferred source is the “least fake”, all while getting pulled deeper down the rabbit hole.

I see the same dynamic with my teenage kids and the YouTubers /etc they watch on topics they’re interested in. They hear something, get overly excited about it, and then fixate/share/etc. I almost feel it’s a part time job to show enough interest to where they’ll talk about it so I can try and help build the reflex of distill out fact/assumption/inference, and reframe narrative to a set of possibilities that for facts. It’s actually been a challenge b/c often things sound stupid if I'm too reductionist and they shut down. But TBH usually sounds stupid b/c it is stupid manufactured drama that sells YouTube ads. Same dynamic whether some Roblox gamer drama, MLB lockout drama, or politics — all “news” eventually optimizes to maximize ad revenue, competing with creative entertainment for attention.

[magicalist]

> Again, the blue camp isnt any better here.... Did you hear about the sketchy "rise of the moors" organisation and that highway event?

lol, Rise of the Moors super invested in universal healthcare and social safety nets now?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say supposed sovereign citizens aren't very active in local party politics.

[eric_cc]

dude just stop. Idiots on the left. Idiots on the right. Stop being a tool.. because honestly, only a brainwashed tool would truly believe the problem only exists with The OTHER group.

[dev_by_day]

Plenty of equivalence actually.

Democrats encourage anarchist militias who openly advocate for violence and arson, try to de-legitimize election results through "Russia-Gate" conspiracies, openly cheered on the fire bombing and attacking of police officers and government buildings(court houses), spread misinformation about the Kyle Rittenhouse despite all expert legal analysis saying they were misinformed.

[jgwil2]

> try to de-legitimize election results through "Russia-Gate" conspiracies

US intelligence confirmed that Russia tried to swing an election, so this isn't a "conspiracy." As for the rest of your points, those positions were never embraced by mainstream Democrats.

[dev_by_day]

The Mueller report showed some involvement but did not say the election results were illegitimate and there were a large amount of democrats who continue to claim this election result is not legitimate.

(FWIW I don't like trump but I still believe he would have won 2016 with or without Russia, its a cop out to blame Russia for that)

We literally had Democrat senators saying "rioting is the voice of the streets"(AOC), and calling Kyle Rittenhouse a domestic terrorist, whole portions of cities in democrat run cities were given to anarchist militias like in CHAZ and were flippantly calling these groups "peaceful" while they engaged in looting, arson, and attacking police officers.

[jgwil2]

AOC is famously not a mainstream Democrat (she is to the left of almost the whole party), nor is she a senator. And even if she were either of those things, the single line you quote, out of context and without citation, does not show that she is in any way equivalent to the crazier elements of the Republican party (c.f. Marjorie Taylor Greene).

[LegitShady]

Contrast with the next presidential election, which also had Russian interference, but questioning the results of make you a conspiracy theorist.

The Democrats have the election as either a sham or the most secure election ever based on if their side won.

[_ph_]

As a non-american, I can see how some actions of the left seem to be a bit over the top and as things escalated might really got a bit extreme too. But is a push against racism, for gender equality, LGBT rights really wrong? Do you notice, how much people, who stand for those issues, get attacked in the public discussion?

[emptysongglass]

> But is a push against racism, for gender equality, LGBT rights really wrong?

No, of course it isn't. But many people I know, myself included, are afraid to speak out against what we see as new forms of hate levied in their name. The CHAZ or the hijacking of this brutal war against Ukraine into a commentary on care only being bound to race or the evacuation of cisgendered women and men from their own bodies by way of language so that everyone is "just" a vagina-haver or penis-possessor are just a few examples of where I see these pushes become the very weapons of the forces its proponents profess to fight.

> Do you notice, how much people, who stand for those issues, get attacked in the public discussion?

As a liberal (or what was liberal 10 years ago), I mostly notice how much people who stand for these issues attack others who have a different opinion and try to silence them.

This is the first time I'm giving voice to some of these deeply unpopular opinions in the new liberal left spaces like HN, for which I fully expect to be downvoted and potentially flagged into oblivion.

I don't think the oft-violent rhetoric and deplatforming crusades of the new left is the right way of effecting positive change on the world.

[Chris2048]

> But is a push against racism, for gender equality, LGBT rights really wrong?

Framing it this way is misleading. "push back" that entails violent, harmful and illegal behaviour maybe wrong with total irrelevance to what you are trying to achieve.

> Do you notice, how much people, who stand for those issues, get attacked in the public discussion?

No, I see the opposite, to the extend that extreme virtue-signalling on these topics is met with no opposition, because no-one wants to be labelled an *-ist.

[mensetmanusman]

“ But is a push against racism, for gender equality, LGBT rights really wrong?”

Isn’t it an issue of framing? E.g. it appears that some think that the solution to racism appears to be implementing institutional racism indefinitely until racism is cured.

This is distracting from the real issue of class warfare which is what psyops relies on to divide prior arguing past each other.

[kbelder]

Neither party is racist, neither party is sexist, except for the fringe minority of both. They disagree on approach and methods, and twist that into believing their opponent is evil to the core.

Democrats think Republicans are evil racists for trying to shut down diversity mandates. Republicans think Democrats are evil racists for trying to impose diversity mandates. They both want to eliminate racism, but their worldviews cause conflict on how to do that.

There are some legitimate fundamental differences on LGBT rights, I'll admit. Not so much on LG, but as you get further into the abbreviation, it increases.

[Already__Taken]

As an outsider "name of grotesque moral rightnessess" thrown from the Christian right made me spit my coffee out.

[akomtu]

If most "christian rights" knew my beliefs about the religion, they'd burn me at stake. I do think that the Bible has a lot of wisdom in it, but a lot of bs too.

[stronglikedan]

> racism, for gender equality, LGBT rights

The thing is, those are all non-issues now, and have been for a while. The reason the MSM is known as fake news in the US, is that they keep trying to push these as current issues, even though they've been settled.

[ajford]

That's a truck-load of bullshit. Texas Gov. Abbot is pushing an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in the open. He and his pals are flat-out pushing anti-trans agendas that accuse parents of children seeking gender-affirming treatment of child abuse.

The Texas right-leaning lege just got through passing a bill that was designed to be hard to assail in the courts that hands out money for turning in anyone who assist someone in seeking an abortion, robbing people of their rights over their own bodily autonomy.

Florida gov't is trying to pass bills that prohibit talking about gender orientation and identity, racism, and equality in the workplace and classroom.

This isn't a "non-issue". This isn't "settled". We're still fighting for our rights and freedoms, and those of our children. I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some greedy nutjob politician deny my children (or anyone's children) the right to be who they are or want to be.

If they don't like gender transitioning, then they shouldn't transition, but don't tell me or mine that they can't!

[mensetmanusman]

In the Context of politics being preference:

“ He and his pals are flat-out pushing anti-trans agendas that accuse parents of children seeking gender-affirming treatment of child abuse.”

Isn’t this, by definition, a very debatable topic with pros and cons that have to be weighed. Where one comes down, I.e. their preference for policy on this, will be informed by their background and biases.

E.g. it isn’t entirely obvious that we should give minors, who legally can not consent to many activities, access to ethically untestable non-reversible treatments.

These issues are actually the purpose of politics. E.g. it is a feature of the system that there is debate on implementing the preferences of a democracy.

[ajford]

The treatment administered to minors is reversible.

Studies show that gender-affirming treatments and care can reduce thoughts of suicide and self-harm.

No one is pushing these treatments on unwilling minors. To take away peoples' rights to these treatments is unconscionable. And to direct people to be charged or investigated for child abuse is even more so. It's just another point that puts people in fear of the authorities.

[klyrs]

> Isn’t this, by definition, a very debatable topic with pros and cons that have to be weighed.

Honestly, you're voicing for support of the person you're responding to, here. These aren't "non-issues" as GGP claimed.

But, puberty blockers, the medical treatment under fire, aren't non-reversible.

[spoils19]

I agree whole heartedly. Until we figure it out, treating it as legal abuse and punishing the parents is the way to go.

[cheeseomlit]

Chemically castrating a child is child abuse.

[ajford]

Puberty blocking is not chemical castration.

By your argument chemotherapy is assassination by poison and setting a broken bone is assault.

[Broken_Hippo]

Delaying puberty is not chemical castration.

[metamet]

They certainly aren't non-issues.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/florida-s-don-t-...

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/judg...

[jtgeibel]

This is complete nonsense. I can easily think of an example from the past week where a Republican controlled state is attacking transgender children and their parents to score political points with the Republican base. It is absurd to claim that equal rights in America is a settled topic or a non-issue.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-transgender-care-lawsuit-...

[Broken_Hippo]

The thing is, those are all non-issues now, and have been for a while

That's just not true.