• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Nope. Lefties like to call any outspoken conservative a “Nazi” to discredit them. It’s like when conservatives call lefties “communist.” It’s juvenile IMO, but I guess it works.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      If you let Nazis in your house and kick out people saying they don’t want to hang around Nazis, what does that make you?

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        If you’re looking to have a public forum, you need a representative sample from all sides of the political spectrum. Look at parliamentary systems as an example of that, where you have literal fascists and communists sitting alongside one another as a very vocal, but incredibly small minority. If that’s your goal, you need to take the good with the bad.

        That is what Musk has stated as his goal, so what you’re seeing makes absolute sense with that stated goal.

        That said, I don’t like Musk or what he claims to believe in politically, I just think the idea of an open town square is desirable. I hope someone can pull it off (doesn’t seem like Musk is doing it), which is part of why I’m working on a Reddit/Lemmy alternative that discourages echo chambers and encourages high quality discourse. Doing that is incredibly hard, because people like to group up into tribes, and I think Musk absolutely does that as well (hence why I don’t like him). However, I don’t think Musk is a “Nazi” because he allows Nazis on his platform, I think he’s just incapable of running the type of social media platform he wants to see exist.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        I don’t, but there seems to be a very strong correlation between leftist political views and calling people who tolerate Trump “Nazis.”

        That said, I’m not a leftist or a conservative, I dislike Trump, Musk, and what they stand for. I’m libertarian, and not in the “I’m a conservative who likes weed” way (I have no desire to use weed, but it should 100% be legal), but in a “We should work toward open borders” way. I respect Musk’s statement that he wants Twitter/X to be a free speech platform and understand him allowing Trump et al back on, but I think he has really lost what made Twitter interesting. I don’t think he actually wants free speech, he wants people to agree with him to be heard, and “free speech” is the excuse to get them platformed again.

        My issue here has nothing to do with Musk, but with the liberal (pun intended) use of the term “Nazi” to label people you don’t like. There are actual Nazi movements that could apply to, such as the Proud Boys, and abusing the term just cheapens the meaning of the term.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        No, I disagree with each of your definitions. Here’s how I see them:

        • leftist - anyone left of center; this is a big tent with both capitalists and communists
        • progressives - leftists who want significant, but moderate political change (e.g. universal healthcare, high minimum wage, etc)
        • liberals - anyone who believes in individual rights and private property, so basically the capitalist wing of leftist ideology; originally, liberals were more synonymous w/ modern libertarians, but now they tend to prefer larger government

        So in terms of size of the groups: leftists > liberals > progressives. The communist part of the left is largely mutually exclusive from progressives and liberals, though some progressives are in favor of some elements from socialism.

        At least that’s how I see it. I’m neither leftist or conservative, I’m a pretty centrist libertarian. I’m left of many leftists and right of many conservatives, depending on the issue.

        • GeneralVincent@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          You may disagree, but it is a pretty widely agreed upon distinction. It’s a symptom of the issue of a fractured left wing. The left leaning communists wanted to distinguish themselves from the left leaning capitalists, so they started calling themselves leftists and not liberals.

          It’s just a bunch of different labels, it’s not really set in stone or definitive. I totally understand why you disagree.

          My point really was just that a conservative calling someone a communist isn’t insulting to a lot of self described leftists because they are communist, it’s mostly just considered an insult to a conservative. Kinda like calling an alt right person a Nazi is an insult from a leftist, but plenty of alt righties wouldn’t be insulted because they are (jk but not really but jk)

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            The left leaning communists wanted to distinguish themselves from the left leaning capitalists, so they started calling themselves leftists and not liberals.

            I don’t really care what they call themselves, I care what people in general mean by the terms they use. Academics use “leftist” to mean anyone on the left, “liberals” to mean those who prioritize individual liberties and private property (e.g. founders of the US), and “progressives” to mean those interested in utilitarian changes to existing systems to improve outcomes. “Liberal” has change a bit recently with the right using it to describe the left, but it’s also not wrong because both Dems and Reps are liberals, Reps are just socially conservative liberals, and Dems are socially progressive liberals. Those have clear definitions that are generally understood by the public, and changing their meaning just confuses things IMO.

            My point really was just that a conservative calling someone a communist isn’t insulting to a lot of self described leftists because they are communist

            But most aren’t. Calling Biden a communist because he wants to expand access to medical care is similar to calling Trump a fascist because he wants stronger border protections. They’re just inflammatory, inaccurate labels used for political gain. The communist label is relying on the “red scare” nonsense, and the fascist label is relying on holocaust imagery. Both are inaccurate and harmful IMO.

            Yes, there are legitimate communists on the left and legitimate fascists on the right, but they’re such a minority that using them for any public figure is almost guaranteed to be inaccurate.