Fuck elon musk for not allowing Ukraine to dismantle those war machines providing cover for this type of diabolical behavior to continue.
Elon, like any other conservative sub-human, will always side with oppressors. Always.
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I would add that dehumanizing rhetoric of any kind can become a gateway drug to justifying atrocity. No matter what side you stand on. It can contribute to the radicalization of any group. Nobody is immune to becoming a monster.
Not everyone is willing to do what’s necessary to cure the disease. I am willing. If that makes me a monster, then I am the monster they themselves created.
Conservatism is a plague of oppression and death. It always has been. History has proven time after time that pacifism cannot stop conservatives. We must be willing to do difficult things to survive this kind of deadly infection. Preaching peace is unfortunately not helpful. It placates those who are better served by understanding the danger we are all in and what needs to happen to stop that threat.
I am not arguing in favor of pacifism. I fully recognize the need to defend against harmful ideologies that infect people’s minds with bad ideas. And if those who harbor bad ideas threaten violence then it may be necessary to react in kind. I accept that.
I’m simply saying that it matters what kind of language we use when we talk about it. Calling conservatives, or any opposing side perceived as a violent threat, subhuman creates the misconception that your own side could not ever be in the wrong. In so doing, it is possible that the we too could become infected with the bad idea that “All (insert opposing threat here) must die.” I don’t ever in my life time want to see anything like the Holocaust happen because people couldn’t stop and think that at some point the killing needs to stop, because it’s reached a point where we are no longer defending and only killing out of pure and base fear that the threat will rise up again. There is a point where self defense goes too far and gives rise to genocide. That possibility scares the hell out of me.
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We should instead call all conservatives subhuman because the tenets of whatever the fuck passes for conservative these days are senselessly antagonistic and cruel to the vulnerable among us
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I don’t disagree with you, but at some point, most of these folks are grown ass adults with full cognitive capacity and the same access to information as the rest of us.
It’s a commitment and dedication to wilfull ignorance that is a conscious decision. They make the choice to ignore new information and ignore their own values and hypocrisy. They are 100% responsible for their own actions and treating them as victims invalidates their responsibilities and denies them personal accountability.
I don’t know that I’d call them subhuman, but they are hurting, killing, and oppressing people in active worship to the God of ignorance. These are bad people, and they don’t deserve your defense.
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There was a time when you would have been right, but at this point, they are a part of the problem, not a symptom of it.
They are actively voting in and supporting people who are disrupting attempts to mitigate the actual issues. For example, every American should be against gerrymandering, as it is expressly anti-democratic, yet here we are voting in toxic people who are running interference on any effort to combat it.
This should be a bipartisan issue. I lived in Maryland for a long time and my district looked like an electrocuted spider, in favor of the Dems. Republicans should be against this, but here we are slamming our hand into the car door every time we try to make progress.
The people pulling the strings should be held accountable, no question. Pretending that these folks aren’t the problem is nice for diplomacy, but it’s no longer the case.
We can hold them responsible for their actions and still recognize that they are victims of indoctrination. However, this would require the same intellectual honesty you chastise them for not having.
Straight to the personal attacks? Not really a great argument, particularly when the rest of it amounts to “NUH UH!!”.
I’m gonna need more than that. @[email protected] and I were having a pretty civil discussion, and I appreciate his points, though I personally disagree with them.
Read the room, man.
Are they still victims when they become violent? Or when they promote violence? At some point the threshold is crossed.
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So the poor defenseless indoctrinated are ok with racism in their party and nazism? They have no autonomy at all to choose?
Those “victims” will gleefully watch you suffer and die. They will smile as your existence becomes illegal. Those “victims” will proudly facilitate your death and, in many cases, will physically participate in committing that murder.
Nearly every act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history has been committed by conservatives. Nearly every act of racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism in our country is committed by conservafives. They are not the victims, they are the victimizers.
Conservatives have the entirety of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips and access to the world’s foremost experts. Yet, they choose to follow hateful ideologies. They choose to be opposed to education. They choose to condemn scientists and doctors as liars and traitors. Conservatives are not the victims. They are not victims of anything at all.
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I was born and raised in the south in a conservative household. I recently retired from a profession completely infested with conservatives. I know conservatism very well, unfortunately.
They know they are voting for bigots. They know they are voting for misogynists. They know they are voting for white nationalists. If they are able to consume media well enough to know what days to vote and where to vote, then they know what these candidates are.
The people you are describing often refer to themselves as “centrists” so they can pretend they aren’t racist, bigoted misogynists like the people they vote for. That is deception. They are deceiving you so you don’t disown them for being vile garbage.
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I considered myself a libertarian before I saw how the people on the right reacted to same-sex marriage being legalized. Their collective reaction broke the lie that they were the party of freedom/equality. I spent years deprogramming/re-educating myself. Now I’m very progressive and much more sensitive to biased info sources, but… I’m dating a “conservative”. He’s questioning his political beliefs now due to the right’s resurgence of anti-lgbtq and the conversations we’ve had surrounding that.
Thing is, all humans attach their beliefs/values/principles to the narrative they sell themselves about who they are. We settle into these narratives as we come of age, and constantly reinforce them through our perceptions of our lived experiences. For someone to be able to withstand the process of unraveling and reconstructing who they are on a fundamental level, an extreme event is necessary. Something that shocks them with enough force to break one of the core beliefs of whatever system they’re beholden to.
YOUR PROBLEM is that you lack understanding in this area of human nature. That lack of understanding leads to frustration, resentment, and ultimately the same tribalism you see in the people you choose to hate. You see them as sub-human, automatically elevating yourself above them because your confirmation bias tells you that your version of truth is the only real truth, but you’re too heavily steeped in your own soup to realize that you’re engaging with politics the exact same way they are.
Be better. Hate the swindlers, not the swindled. Don’t tolerate intolerance either. Just gently point out when they’re being intolerant and let them (hopefully) stubble into their own epiphanies.
TL:DR; Confirmation bias is a helluva drug. Your willful ignorance of your own confirmation bias is blinding you and limiting your ability to understand basic human nature. I hope this stimulates a little more thought, with a little more intellectual honesty on your part. Cheers.
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conservative sub-human
Hey man. There’s no need for that
Very redundant
I thought Lemmy was different than Reddit. I’m not mad, just disappointed.
Now now. You don’t want the Musk rats attacking you.
Not sure what Elons reasoning is here, but i guess if it wasnt for Starlink, communication would have collapsed in the first week.
Oh boyyyy can’t wait to hear from the Tankies going NUH UH THOSE ARE FAKE AND/OR RUN BY UKRAINIANS ON RUSSIAN-SPEAKING PEOPLE THIS IS EVIDENCE OF UKRAINIANS COMMITTING GENOCIDE OR ITS THE CIA COMRADE PUTIN WOULD NEVER DO THIS
SOURCE: TRUST ME BRO
e_e
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I doubt there are stupid enough people who would deny Putin’s crimes.
I’m not surprised given that even drafted are tortured in army, or sledgehammer thing when Ukraine exchanged POWs.
COMRADE PUTIN WOULD NEVER DO THIS
If militant gang pensioner did it Russia with chemical weapon or in Britan, he sure will do it again.
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No, the tankies are also most definitely swallowing up the same bullshit because they believe Russia and China to be freer states than the rest of the world.
I mean, there is a long documented list of crimes that make China look like a Muslim paradise compared to anything in Europe or North America, and Ukraine has every problem that Russia does. Again, why are we all trying to compare sides? Of course, with Russian suppression, it will soon be just as repressive as Ukraine, and China has a bunch of “war on terror” laws just like the US, so there’s nothing to be proud of there.
I mean i don’t think they actually believe them to be freer, i think they don’t care about individual freedom. Whether or not Russia is more free or more repressive doesn’t matter to authoritarians. (Or if anything, they prefer the repression.)
There are a lot of pro-putin (and other shitty regime) tankies, that’s really my problem with them. If they were just militant communist types I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with them, I may not agree with them, but I’d at least understand their position, maybe even be somewhat sympathetic in some cases.
When you dig into their reasoning, it’s usually something like they support them because they’re also against the US/NATO/the west, sort of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of deal, but that argument doesn’t really hold water for me, throwing your lot in with someone pulling the kinds of shit Putin does is totally indefensible, even if your plan is to ultimately turn on them after you’ve successfully toppled the west or whatever, you’ve still been supporting or at least turning a blind eye to some pretty horrific shit.
Exactly. I’m cool with communists, but fuck Hexbear and also kind of Lemmygrad for spreading authoritarian propaganda.
There’s no excuse for it, really. They always get involved with anti-(US)imperialism, and end up having high ranking members of their parties shake hands with reactionaries. You can support lifting sanctions on Iran, Syria, etc. without actually supporting Bashar al-Assad or Holocaust-deniers. They went to far in pursuit of geopolitcs rather than recognizing that one’s domestic bourgeosie is the major threat.
Imagine if Trump won 2024 and backed out of NATO. Who cares if Trump (a hardline anti-labor conservative) gets us out of wars if he thinks Joe Biden is a Communist. Of course, anyone to the left of Nick Fuentes would be sent to jail for “anti-patriotic actions” or some shit.
The same excuse of “the enemy of my enemy…” was used when the USSR told the Chinese Communists to just fully join with the Kuomintang after defeating Japan (which were backed by Americans that got rich off the Opium Wars and massacred leftists); or when China under Mao called the USSR social-imperialist and backed the Pol Pot regime.
tankies and extreme conservatives are the same kind of stupid and both deserve mockery
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fascist alignment happens on the left - rarely, but it does. And when it does, they are very LOUD, and they unironically believe that ukraine was genociding russians.
It rarely happens because fascists laugh at them before ordering their execution, and they get purged by any serious Communist party. Loud as they are, we all know what happens to them in the end.
I’m not a Russia or Putin Stan but this isn’t evidence of anything. A Ukrainian blog stating the Ukrainian police found 80 places the Russians used to allegedly hold and torture civilians? The article offers nothing but a statement as evidence this happened. The only photo in the blog post is a room with what looks like a mattress and clothes.
I’m sure the Russians are doing fucked up shit. I’m pretty tired of the pro-ukraine take.
I didn’t say any of that. I pointed out that this particular blog source isn’t providing any tangible evidence and should be treated with skepticism.
I deliberately don’t follow much Ukrainian war news, I find the coverage from a western perspective distasteful so I went and googled around a bit.
This is a better evidenced and written article. Like I said I’m not a Russia fan and approaching western reporting with skepticism is generally a better approach in my opinion.
That’s fair, and Iappreciate your response. However, at this point most reasonable people understand how vicious Russian occupiers are. Most people still making arguments about the veracity of their crimes are not arguing in good faith.
To be completely fair, the meme applies to me completely lol. I have to examine and reflect on my bias as well.
And that is why I am against forcing Ukraine to accept lost territory. If you let russia keep territory it has currently occupied, they will get away with all the torture, killing and abduction of civilians.
I thought you were against it back when Putin ordered Navalny
This is a really misleading title if it’s just grouping places where people were imprisoned with places people were actually tortured. There’s obviously a massive difference. This seems like the original article in Ukrainian: https://mvs.gov.ua/news/pid-cas-zustrici-iz-specialnoiu-dopovidackoiu-oon-z-pitan-tortur-katerina-pavlicenko-povidomila-pro-viiavlennia-v-ukrayini-80-rosiiskix-kativen
Are they actually saying people were definitely tortured in all 80 places there? (Also kind of funny, Google Translate seems to do a better job than the link in OP but it’s still not clear to me exactly what they meant.)
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can you explain?
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Thanks for a serious answer, I didn’t know that!
One little question nobody here has asked himself:
How do YOU know that that’s true? Can you verify this information for youself? Could the source have any incentive to lie? Have you read any response about this from the other side?
I think you have a point in that it’s very possible government sources are exaggerating about this - I’m not too invested in what the invaders have to say about it though.
I would be extremely careful about these claims from Ukrainian officials. They showed before that they are capable of anything to have attention of mainstream press and western countries. It’s propaganda on both ends - Russian and Ukrainian.
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They need to make this moral conflation work because it’s the only way their position isn’t monstrous and genocide apologia.
(sorry, I’m on a low pixel diet)
You can’t even read it because it’s so badly pixelated
Well, yeah…
You’re the type of idiot that would be living in Africa during the 1910s holding arguments about whether Germany or the US is better, while refusing to let anyone speak up about them both being awful.
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Both propagandas are bad. They obviously want to make themselves look better than the other and the other as bad as it gets. This kind of information war is a basic instrument in wars since Americans invented it.
To your question that both are bad… Russian are killing people which is bad but to say that Ukrainian soldiers are good and that Ukrainians were saint nation before the war is a false statement as well.
From my point of view Ukraine is just a victim of global politics. To blame only Russia for this development is not fair cause Americans pushed them to this.
When USA attacked Iraq everyone was praising them and not placing sanctions against them even though that all reasons they provided to attack were intentionally falsified. And millions of civilians died and were tortured. But it’s middle east so why would west care, right?!
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Russia and the US are trying to do the exact same thing to Eastern Europe right now. Just because the US claims “this is for democracy” doesn’t make it better. Also, the US recognizes Taiwan as an island beloning to China, they just hold informal agreements for the sake of military and tech, like chips or manufacturing.
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Propaganda is “bad” but that does not mean everything is of equal weight. Killing people is bad but that doesn’t mean killing unprovoked is equal to killing in self defense. That doesn’t mean they’re even similar.
I would prefer if you kept your propaganda to yourself.
As a matter of fact I don’t give a damn what you prefer. 🤣
Clearly.
Be extremely careful about bad translations
