[bigger_inside]

it's really interesting where this comes from, and why this seems to some such an easy "gotcha".

first off, that these come up doesn't mean they're wrong, though it does likely mean they're shallow.

more deeply, this is an old, well-known dynamic often decried by the left. the left will dig deeper into often pretty obvious social dysfunctions and pioneer a social critique, analyzing the political and economic structures and systems that underpin it, and turn it into a challenge to existing authorities. This challenge is complicated, it hinges on teaching you political economy first, before it can even start to tell you what the systemic problem actually is. but it touches on real problems people feel every day.

The conservatives make a media thing out of it. Now, mass media, forever, has made their money by selling your prejudices back to you; from entertainment to news, they all basically work this way. Conservatives work this way as well (making for that sweet synergy between the two): it takes a run-down, stripped-down, dumbed-down version of the criticism, strips all political economy analysis from it (can't have them blame capitalism!), frinds some easy scarecrow figures - Gates, Soros, whoever (not that they're not horrible people, but that's not the point really), ascribes "debauchery and corruption" to them (because then the SYSTEM is fine).

In the end, when people then google the problems, they find these easy stories, which makes them associate the identification of the problem with these dumbed-down assaults. Then even mentioning the problem becomes that.

[vonwoodson]

I agree that the "Obama war on whistleblowers" is shallow, and that is a more accurate statement of what I was trying to convey. A "red-meat" "feels good to hate" story than any actual news.

[zmgsabst]

The same happens in reverse:

Conservatives will document how a lack of principles means that a mechanism in society will converge to something damaging, to have Progressives shout about how they’re “istaphobes” without that even being a relevant complaint.

They’re particularly vicious about that when conservatives point out that the proposed systemic solution converges to a breakdown in society or worsening of the situation — eg, trying to use systemic bigotry to “solve” systemic bigotry.

These shallow bullying articles get spread around a network of blogs, small media outlets, YouTube channels, etc. and then dominate search results.

[reddit_refugee3]

I'm curious, what would be some examples where conservatives warned that some "lack of principles" would lead to a "breakdown of society," and were actually correct? Certainly not same sex marriage, abortion, or any thing that conservatives have fought against during my lifetime.

It sounds, to me, a lot like the "degenerate" label that the Nazis loved to throw around.

[zmgsabst]

I gave one in my post — using systemic racism to “fix” historic damage from racism hasn’t worked and has worsened the problem over the past few decades: the failure to follow principles (ie, equality) has resulted in bad outcomes. We see the same problem with systemic misandry in education: sexism in schools is now worse than when Title IX was enacted.

They were also correct about the problems with social welfare destroying families and lax enforcement leading to a breakdown of cities, eg Seattle and San Francisco downtowns.

> It sounds, to me, a lot like the "degenerate" label that the Nazis loved to throw around.

Implying that I’m a Nazi while failing to address the specific example in my original post is exactly the bad faith responses we’re discussing in this thread. That kind of shallow ad hominem is corrosive to meaningful dialog.

Thank you for exemplifying.