What do you believe that most people of your political creed don't?
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I don't seem to have a political creed anymore.
I believe in honesty and being honourable.
I suspect that most people, including those who don't align with any particular political creed, believe in honesty and honour too. So I don't think you answered the question correctly.
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Leftism is unpopular by definition, especially to the privileged classes. Leftism seeks to upend the status quo, and loss aversion is a problem.
Not that efforts can't be made.
Where in the definition of leftism is it said that leftism is unpopular?
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When you're coming from a position of extreme privilege and you're either a bit stupid or lack empathy or general social awareness being treated equally with "lesser people" (like women, brown people or people from particular religious backgrounds) can seem an awful lot like you're being discriminated against.
I think you're missing the point a bit. Liberal/centrist values are already to treat everyone equally, but not equitably. So when leftism comes in with suggestions for change, it looks to centrists like inequality. If you listen to centrists objections to leftism, this is what they say repeatedly, so I'm inclined to believe that is how they legitimately feel. This is why I think we need slightly different messaging/branding/whatever, or to talk about these issues in a different way, so that centrists actually understand what we're getting at. It's also not hard to find instances of leftists who, when angry, lash out at the majority -- which while relatable, doesn't help make leftism look appealing.
(By "majority" I mean the average joe, not billionaires.)
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The white nationalist movement preys on alienated young white men (more than other groups). Creating avenues for including these people in our movement means less people we have to fight.
I'm not saying everyone is able to fit into our movement, or they may require so much education that we just don't have the resources to depropagandize them, but as a mass movement, more is generally better.
100% agree. I honestly think that in ~2015, the left's failure to appeal to young white men caused them to turn to the alt right. I think we scared them off with things like "check your privilege" etc., and should have focused more on getting them amped about class warfare.
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Are you active in any socialist parties?
I would like to be, but I just can't figure out how to get involved in my area.
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That is a controversial opinion here.
(And I agree with it. I don't know what the way is, but I hope it can be found)
I think the first thing to do is to shift sentiment toward solving the problem of how to make things appealing to centrists and the apolitical. Let's get "I agree -- but that has bad optics so let's focus on something else first" into our lexicon. Once the left is able to be more strategic about this, then I think we'll gain a lot more strides. I have some thoughts about what that might look like, but it's outside the scope of this post.
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Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain't dead. Remember, don't downvote for disagreements.
As someone who was in a supportive relationship with a transgender person for 3 years and who personally struggles associating with my own gender, I never really got into the stating my gender pronouns.
I get why it's done for the times it matters and can do so in a sensitive space, but I get the sense it's usually done as public compliance (like a cis neolib as an email sig), which can lead to shallow support or worse, resentment. What we ultimately need is more genuine contact with people different from ourselves because that helps reduce "othering" a group.
Oh, but I do tend to default to "they" out of old internet habits. Always disliked the assumption all gamers are men.
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Abortion is sometimes the less monstrous alternative in a horrible situation, and it should never be seen as less than that.
Women should have enough social safety nets that abortion would never even cross their minds.
It is mostly Capitalism with its focus on productivity and selling youth and beauty that pressures women into it, women are "freeing" themselves into Capitalistic slavery.From: "leftist" privileged cis het white guy, feel free to ignore or bash me
No sane person is going to bash you because you are privileged, cis, het, white, and male. Rather, it is being privileged (etc.) that seems to cause people to say ignorant things. Mind you, I disagree with you about abortion -- if I got pregnant by accident I'd have an abortion in a heartbeat, despite having a safety net. But I appreciate you being brave to share your dissenting view in this thread.
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Protests do more harm than good to a cause, especially annoying protests.
Protests are only good if they're annoying. They're meant to be annoying. They're meant to make other people notice, to stop traffic, to cause delays and ideally an economic hit to the city. If nobody felt the protest, how do you expect it to have an effect?
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The animals we create are morally entitled to the exact same unconditional love and protection as our own children.
I agree, animal rights are important. I am not sure that animals are worth as much as humans morally, but even so, the argument for shrimp welfare is extremely moving. Well worth reading. It's easy to imagine shrimp's lives are meaningless because they are small, have tiny brains, and have a silly name.
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Law enforcement is one of the last careers that still offers a pension, has a union that fights for its members, and is a good source of income without going into massive college debt.
Seems like something the left would be in love with, but systemic issues have demonized the entire profession. I think an influx on left-leaning officers would be great, but like politics- people who would be good at the job stay away from it.
Teen Vogue (I know, right?): Police Unions: What to Know and Why They Don’t Belong in the Labor Movement
Police unions have always been outliers among organized labor, and there are many reasons why the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union has long refused to allow cops (and prison guards) into its organization. […] Actually, police unions themselves used to be illegal, because local governments worried about the consequences of allowing armed state agents to organize. And historically speaking, the police have been no friend to workers, whether officers were shooting at the families of coal miners during the Battle of Blair Mountain, crushing the ribs of immigrant garment workers during the Uprising of the 20,000, or teargassing working-class protesters in Minneapolis after police killed George Floyd.
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The animals we create are morally entitled to the exact same unconditional love and protection as our own children.
Can you elaborate a bit more? I don't seem to understand what you mean.
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I think we need to figure out how to make leftism more appealing to centrists, and particularly to the cis/straight/white/male demographic.
I think you should read J. Sakai’s Settlers. It explains this (in a US context) quite well and I think that it refutes the concept of just making leftism “more appealing” isn’t a valid concept.
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This question is difficult to correctly answer, as anyone can define their own political boundaries. They can be wrong about those boundaries and they can define many different ones that are all valid. Is my "political creed" to be a communist? Which subset might that mean? Am I friendly with certain subsets despite disagreeing with them (yes) and if so would they potentially count as the majority? Am I a (de)famed Western leftist or part of a worldwide effort in terms of having a less popular view of a subject?
I would say that among the people with whom I have the most general agreement, my least popular opinion is the potential for imperial core workers to become radicalized and organized for the left. A very large amount of organized resources is constantly poured into efforts to prevent this from happening, including those that reinforce settler, white supremacist, and chauvinist attitudes that permeate our cultures. That means that our struggle is very challenging right now but also means that if those flows are ever cut off or undermined, there will be immense opportunity and we have to be ready to channel the inevitable accompaniment to the conditions (austerity) that got us to that place away from neoliberal fascistic movements.
Basically, there is a common pathway in understanding that goes from hope for revolution from within the imperial core (no successful precedents) to attempts to understand this and explain why it's least likely to happen there. This can lead to a self-defeating cynicism towards all imperial core organizing or to curb vision. But I think it is our duty to continually reformulate as needed to discovery organizable enclaves, to grow with current and upcoming conditions. We owe that to each other.
I think I agree with your unpopular opinion. It might be an unpopular opinion because it's conditionally-expressed, and conditionals are hard to reason about ("I think if X happens then Y would be a good idea" really sounds a lot like "I think Y is a good idea.")
Reading this reminded me about another unpopular opinion: I think "settler" and "colonizer" are poor terms for non-indigenous people broadly.
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Tariffs on Chinese goods are a good thing. And I honestly see why the next logical step is tariffs on Mexico because Chinese companies are already building in Mexico so they can assemble there and ship across the border and circumvent tarrifs.
I think China manipulates markets and damages the global economy while making consumers feel like they don't need to value the products they buy because they are so cheap. And I don't think we should be letting China off the hook for the Uyghur genocide/gluttony of human rights violations.
Buy local. I wish it was easier to buy American manufactured stuff.
The Uyghur genocide that the UN doesn’t refer to as a genocide? That genocide?
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The concept of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater"
There's no nuance from the left. The left polices itself like the radical right thinks they (the party of law and order) do.
Had a podcaster get dropped by their long time partner because there were lewd text messages sent.
I'm tired of the reactionary bullshit, currently Dawkins and Gaiman are being dropped, and I understand not wanting to associate/support Dawkins' current views, the guy wrote very persuasive works that shouldn't lose value because he lost his empathy.
I still read and enjoy enders game despite knowing what a tool Card turned into, how is it so difficult to separate art from the artist?
I'm someone who is generally skeptical when accusations of sexual misconduct are made against someone I admire(d), but even I have to admit the case against Gaiman is very strong. I'd say he deserves to be dropped.
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Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain't dead. Remember, don't downvote for disagreements.
I'm really appreciating how much restraint y'all guys are showing with the downvotes. Thanks everyone.
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There’s no nuance from the left.
I would say there are many, many thick volumes of nuance, with reams of footnotes to evidence supporting it.
This whole comic is comedic gold, but this tiny part is especially funny to me somehow
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Dawkins' anti-theist works and his reactionary views are related to one another. As with Hitchens and Sam Harris, their work was poorly researched and was forwarded because their real agendas were based on chauvinist attitudes, particularly against muslims.
Dennett was the only good one and unfortunately he passed away. PZ Myers is less knowm but also didn't bite on the islamophobia bait.
Based on the various accounts, Gaiman is a cruel and explpitative rapist and I find it difficult to appreciate words about charm or love from such a source.
Do you have any other examples of people who should not be rejected by the left? Who was the podcaster?
PS always kill your heroes. Being of the left means doing work and building organizations that (in addition to trying to prevent) withstand the inevitable failures of prominent figures.
I think Lindsay Ellis didn't deserve the hate she got for comparing Raya to The Last Airbender.
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In general, I disagree with you. I think the two things you fixated on (souless architecture and rentals) are bad approaches to density, but you will notice that for the most part, this is the form of "density" that places who are notoriously bad at density do. Its what happens when we deliberately regulate ourselves into not allowing other options.
It's what happens when housing is controlled by corporations, and once you start building housing as system that is bigger and more complex then one person or small family / support network can manage, then you inherently need to cede control and responsibility to a larger outside entity, which ends up being a corporation.
Even cities like Boston that have a relatively large amount of mid rise housing still havea massive housing costs that suck residents dry because it all ends up being landlord controlled.
Also, i would like to highlight that a very small portion of people are living in newly built homes, and only a small portion are really able to make meaningful design impact. Most just buy the builder-grade suburban model home. The idea that suburban single family homes are some design panacae is just wrong.
I'm no fan of suburbs, but at an inherent level (assuming no crazy HOA), you have far more control of any house that you own over any space in a building that you do. Your average 100 year old suburban home will have far more charm and look far more unique than your average 100 year old apartment unit.
To your last point, I don't value the external appearance of my home at all. I see the outside when I'm exiting and entering. I see the inside for all the time I spent at home. So being able to change the internal appearance is far more important, and condos, as long as you don't compromise the other units, generally give the freedom to do what you want. We need more affordable condos. Renting is still a useful housing supply, but the condo market needs to be absolutely flooded.
But property is for some reason considered a retirement plan so causing a housing crash would be political suicide.
