• gordon@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      What are you expecting to have them send you? A link to a paper proving that having empathy for fellow humans means you are not conservative?

      Bro. Just like, think about it.

      OPs talking points align nearly perfectly with normal progressive talking points.

      Increase high density housing.
      Increase public transport.
      Public safety net (housing for the homeless).
      Redistribution of wealth.

      What it likely boils down to are the two conservative talking points they have left, guns and reproductive rights.

      If OP truly feels that abortion is murder and believes in his heart that he has the right to dictate his own personal beliefs on others, and / or has fallen for the lie that the left is going to take their guns away (they won’t), they will vote Republican despite everything else pointing to the logical choice being a progressive Democrat.

      Edit:
      I feel I need to mention that just because I (a man) personally cannot imagine a scenario in which I would need to get an abortion (because I lack ovaries), and my current life situation is such that I don’t forsee my partner requiring one, I still will vote to protect women’s right to bodily autonomy. I strongly believe that I have no right to even participate in the discussion. My opinion is literally worthless, and I don’t have to live with the consequences of my vote.

      That being said, I take the position of provide access to abortion but also provide services to women to try and decrease the need for abortion. I also am in favor of providing free healthcare to pregnant women and children of families in need of it, and I believe childcare should be subsidized.

      • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        It’s funny because technically abortion shouldn’t even be a right vs left issue (has nothing to do with economic policy). It’s just like that in the U.S because of the ridiculousness of their binary political system.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Both “sides” are so incredibly close in Economic terms that all that’s left for them to differentiate themselves is the Moral plan, hence you end up with ridiculous shit like criminalizing abortion or the whole trans rights fight.

          It’s all cover to how both “sides” don’t really care about managing the country for the good of the many: they’re two cheeks of the same arse hence when it comes to overall quality of life you get the same shit.

          • Soggy@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Ah yes, the same shit. That’s why Republican-majority states are roughly the same as Democrat majorities on education, social services, household income, life expectancy, infant mortality… oh they aren’t? Yes because “both sides” enlightened centrism is a bullshit position.

            • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Only somebody ignorant of the political culture outside the US would call the middle-point between Democrats and Republicans “centrism”.

              By global standards, that shit would be “Full-on Right”, specifically on Economics were it’s Hard Neoliberalism (privatise everything including natural monopolies and refrain from regulating anything, to the point that, to pick quite a poignant example, the way in which the US regulates the safety of new chemicals for environments with direct human exposure - such as home use - is “allow by default until proven dangerous”, which is the exact opposite of what’s done in Europe were that stuff has to be proven safe first and only after that it’s allowed).

              Just because your further to the Right party could be best described as “Ultra-nationalist, ultra-religious, full-on racist, ultra-neoliberal, complete total nutcase Far-Right” doesn’t mean that the party not quite as much to the Right is left-of-center, especial on economic (and hence, quality of life) matters.

              The number of elected Democrats that are left-of-center can probably be counted using the fingers of a hand.

              • Soggy@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Centrism is a relative position, and the topic is United States politics.

                • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  In which case you made a quite the ill-informed assumption in your previous post in thinking that my criticism came from having a political position that was between those parties - a place were I even explicitly had said there was a lot less room than some seem to think there is - rather than one which is to the left of both were there is way more political room for people to be in, at least if one’s political vision isn’t limited by the very peculiar political blinkers pushed in the American political and media culture to make people think that what you have in the US is the full scope of politics.

                  That American Centrism you accused me of being part of is much more to the right than almost anything but the Far Right in Europe were even mainstream Right parties are generally to the left of the US Democracts.

      • problematicPanther@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        also, we should take gun rights back from them. their lord and savior Ronald Reagan was the one who introduced gun control when the black panthers started open carrying.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Republicans are the party of gun control.

          When they give you a shocked look, remind them of Reagan.

          Should seriously compromise their base.

          • gordon@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            And their current deity Trump enacted actual gun restrictions too, while the literal devil worshipper Obama did not enact any.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        to be abundantly clear, i’m probably more of a radical socialist than most of y’all, and that post was mostly made in jest but also i wish we’d see some sensible people reclaim the term “conservative” for opinions that are actually conservative and not just hateful.

        used to be that conservatives wanted to actually conserve stuff, like nature and the welfare of their society.

        • gordon@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I don’t think conservative has ever meant the environment. It’s about conserving the status quo. At this point the party should be renamed to regressives.

      • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        What it likely boils down to are the two conservative talking points they have left, guns and reproductive rights.

        OK that probably explains it. Thanks. I couldn’t work out how OP was claiming to be conservative.

    • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      I’m not sure how to explain that social security and public housing and public transport and corporate regulation are socialist policies lol. I knew this even before high school. Not decrying you because I agree with everything guy above you said, but you guys are certainly hanging with the wrong crowd.

      • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        social security and public housing and public transport and corporate regulation are socialist policies

        They are not. They are common sense policies supported, at least on paper, by both left and right in most parts of the world. The first modern welfare state was created by Otto von Bismarck, not exactly a socialist.

        Also, socialism in the traditional sense implies some form of public ownership at least of key industries and large companies, which would render corporate regulation a moot point.

        • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          He did that with the explicit goal of undermining his socialist opponents (so people wouildn’t have a reason to support them)

          In regards to your second point, lol no. That would be communism. I’m glad that you think left wing policies are common sense though? Most of us heavily agree which is why seeing the proliferation of conservatism is disheartening.

          • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            He did that with the explicit goal of undermining his socialist opponents

            I know, which is why I said ‘at least ln paper’. But a welfare state improves the productivity of workers and soldiers, and Prussia (and Bismarck in particular) did enact many other reforms with this objective.

            I understand communism to be worker control of (all) the means of production. Socialism is of course much more broad, but in general it would involve public / state ownership of at least key industries and any companies that are ‘too big to fail’.

            • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 months ago

              Bruh. That statement by Marx is an ideal, a metaphor for revolution. No country’s populace has ever controlled the means of production. In fact if you want to take that literally, capitalist societies have for more control over industry than socialist ones do. Modern communism is generally seen as where the government controls the distribution of property. In this sense not even Russia is communist anymore.

              And I wouldn’t conflate them because most socialists would be pretty offended to be identified as communist. The average socialist likes Denmark and Sweden. Not Cuba or something.

              • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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                3 months ago

                That statement by Marx is an ideal. No country’s populace has ever controlled the means of production.

                Yes to both. Countries calling themselves communist aspire to communism. Not even they claim to be fully communist; if I remember correctly, they call it ‘actually existing socialism’, which acknowledges that most industry is controlled by the state, rather than workers. They say they will return control to the workers once the conditions are ripe, but so far this has happened only in a handful of sectors. Very few people willingly give up power.

                And I wouldn’t conflate them because most socialists would be pretty offended to be identified as communist. The average socialist likes Denmark and Sweden. Not Cuba or something.

                Communists are a subset of socialists. Technically you might be wrong, because the Chinese communist party probably has more members than all other socialist parties in the world put together, but I get what you are saying.