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On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract.
The majority of Americans don't want positivity, they want it to be socially acceptable to be openly bigoted. They will always give into their worst impulses until it's made beyond clear that they can't mass hurt minorities without also getting hurt themselves in the process. But they can't realize that if they're busy falling for blatant lies like "tariffs are a tax on foreign countries" or "your wages will skyrocket once all the immigrants are gone".
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On May 29 2025 04:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Leftists can't be nazis. Right wingers can't be anarcho-socialists. These statements are unequivocally true, and if you believe otherwise, it is because you are ignorant of political ideologies. Left wingers also can't be libertarians. There's something to be said about right and left wing being descriptions of how someone is on a spectrum so maybe you could argue that a democratic socialist is right wing if everybody else is an anarcho-socialist, but nazism is commonly understood to be the most far right ideology.
If a leftist owns a tesla he's a leftist who owns a tesla, not a nazi. Whether you belong to a political ideology depends upon what beliefs you hold, not whether you have at some point done some action that in some way can be associated with some group.
I disagree. If leftists done wehrmacht uniforms, build doom camps, purge jews, attack neighbouring countries I would describe them as nazis. Admittedly this is my personal PoV which you may disagree with me on, I touched on it in previous discussion with Wombat, but I somewhat refuse to identify nazizm/communism as left or right forms of government. I consider both of them as authoritarian governments, which are in their own class, if that make sense. I am not saying I am right about it, but thats how I perceive it.
My Tesla point was directed at Kwark who wrote both of those:
On May 29 2025 01:59 KwarK wrote:
Leftists literally can't be Nazis for the same reason that rectangles can't be triangles. Nazism is intrinsically a right wing ideology.
One of your many problems is that you don't seem to have a sufficient vocabulary to express your ideas.
On May 27 2025 10:31 KwarK wrote:
The Tesla brand is inextricably the Musk brand. If I got a cool swastika tattoo in 1920 then by 1940 I’m getting a cover up. If I buy a Tesla in 2012 then by 2022 I’m selling it. Anyone not selling it can be reasonably judged as either supportive or tolerant of Musk.
It’s also a tangible way to harm him. His wealth, largely built on the Tesla brand, led to his position as an unelected fascist lurking in the Oval Office snorting ketamine. If people stop buying them because they’re afraid of the vandalism that’s an absolute win in the fight against fascism. The world would be a better place today if people had started years ago.
You might say “if people sell their Tesla that just means someone else buys it” but resale value matters. Teslas having shitty resale value makes them less desirable which again hurts Musk directly. Also if people who don’t want to be affiliated with Musk are getting rid of them then that helps ensure the owner of a vandalized Tesla is a card carrying Nazi.
This is a very clear case of business = money = fascism. He literally used Tesla shares as collateral to buy X to promote literal Nazi propaganda.
I do it (in a video game) and so should all patriotic Americans. It’s easy, free, and good for your soul.
I believe there is some contradiction here, if you are willing to acknowledge that there are leftists who cant afford selling their car at loss?
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Northern Ireland25281 Posts
On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract.
What if some people don’t want positive things? If punishing their perceived enemies outweighs potential improvement to their lives?
I think it’s all quite important. You need the tangible, provable good shit and aspiration. You gotta convince the reasonable, and you’ve gotta ostracise the unreasonable.
Collectively, I’d say folks of our vague persuasions are going 0/3 in doing these effectively. But I still think they’re all pretty important. Maybe 2/3 is enough, maybe even 1 but you’re not doing much with zero.
I find the reaction to Luigi Mangione rather instructive in ways. There was plenty of cheering of that even from everyday conservatives? Why was that? Well conservatives get screwed by insurance companies too.
Why does this anger not actualise into more bipartisan calls for reform then? Well some think alternatives are worse, or not viable. There’s a metric fuckton of evidence to the contrary, but perhaps some aren’t aware. Industry propaganda is strong too.
There are others who are angry at the healthcare industry when it screws them, but they don’t want to fund a system that stops other people being screwed. Not their responsibility. Which is pretty asshole mentality.
Going back to my trifecta from earlier:
1. You sell the ‘we can do better, we’re fucking America!’ Maybe some state does its own reforms and they work, as an exemplar.
2. Collectively this makes it a lot easier to sell to people who like the idea, but are scared of the ‘unknown’ or reticent for those kind of reasons.
3. Any holdouts are either stakeholders, or folks who don’t want to pay for a better societal outcome. Those aren’t difficult positions to attack.
I think we quite frequently end up in almost paradoxical positions quite often. If you just did the radical thing, and it worked, the radical thing would be popular. But you can’t do the radical thing, because the idea is unpopular (in some quarters), or seen as unviable.
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Northern Ireland25281 Posts
On May 30 2025 00:51 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2025 04:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Leftists can't be nazis. Right wingers can't be anarcho-socialists. These statements are unequivocally true, and if you believe otherwise, it is because you are ignorant of political ideologies. Left wingers also can't be libertarians. There's something to be said about right and left wing being descriptions of how someone is on a spectrum so maybe you could argue that a democratic socialist is right wing if everybody else is an anarcho-socialist, but nazism is commonly understood to be the most far right ideology.
If a leftist owns a tesla he's a leftist who owns a tesla, not a nazi. Whether you belong to a political ideology depends upon what beliefs you hold, not whether you have at some point done some action that in some way can be associated with some group. I disagree. If leftists done wehrmacht uniforms, build doom camps, purge jews, attack neighbouring countries I would describe them as nazis. Admittedly this is my personal PoV which you may disagree with me on, I touched on it in previous discussion with Wombat, but I somewhat refuse to identify nazizm/communism as left or right forms of government. I consider both of them as authoritarian governments, which are in their own class, if that make sense. I am not saying I am right about it, but thats how I perceive it. My Tesla point was directed at Kwark who wrote both of those: Show nested quote +On May 29 2025 01:59 KwarK wrote:
Leftists literally can't be Nazis for the same reason that rectangles can't be triangles. Nazism is intrinsically a right wing ideology.
One of your many problems is that you don't seem to have a sufficient vocabulary to express your ideas. Show nested quote +On May 27 2025 10:31 KwarK wrote:
The Tesla brand is inextricably the Musk brand. If I got a cool swastika tattoo in 1920 then by 1940 I’m getting a cover up. If I buy a Tesla in 2012 then by 2022 I’m selling it. Anyone not selling it can be reasonably judged as either supportive or tolerant of Musk.
It’s also a tangible way to harm him. His wealth, largely built on the Tesla brand, led to his position as an unelected fascist lurking in the Oval Office snorting ketamine. If people stop buying them because they’re afraid of the vandalism that’s an absolute win in the fight against fascism. The world would be a better place today if people had started years ago.
You might say “if people sell their Tesla that just means someone else buys it” but resale value matters. Teslas having shitty resale value makes them less desirable which again hurts Musk directly. Also if people who don’t want to be affiliated with Musk are getting rid of them then that helps ensure the owner of a vandalized Tesla is a card carrying Nazi.
This is a very clear case of business = money = fascism. He literally used Tesla shares as collateral to buy X to promote literal Nazi propaganda.
I do it (in a video game) and so should all patriotic Americans. It’s easy, free, and good for your soul. I believe there is some contradiction here, if you are willing to acknowledge that there are leftists who cant afford selling their car at loss?
One can make the argument that authoritarian regimes on the left or right are as bad as another. But that doesn’t make the same thing, the left/right split and associated ideologies are very, very different.
If I wanted to purge landlords, because they made a choice and are getting in the way of my socialist utopia, I’m doing it for very different reasons than if I wanted to purge say, Jews for well, being Jews.
Me and my partner are both humans. She has tits, I have a dick. You wouldn’t say we’re the same thing, even though we are both humans. At least I assume she is, android hasn’t been ruled out.
Two things can both be bad, that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same. I think the GOP and the Democrats both suck. One sucks more IMO. But they also suck for often quite different reasons.
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On May 30 2025 01:15 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract. + Show Spoiler +What if some people don’t want positive things? If punishing their perceived enemies outweighs potential improvement to their lives?
I think it’s all quite important. You need the tangible, provable good shit and aspiration. You gotta convince the reasonable, and you’ve gotta ostracise the unreasonable.
Collectively, I’d say folks of our vague persuasions are going 0/3 in doing these effectively. But I still think they’re all pretty important. Maybe 2/3 is enough, maybe even 1 but you’re not doing much with zero.
I find the reaction to Luigi Mangione rather instructive in ways. There was plenty of cheering of that even from everyday conservatives? Why was that? Well conservatives get screwed by insurance companies too.
Why does this anger not actualise into more bipartisan calls for reform then? Well some think alternatives are worse, or not viable. There’s a metric fuckton of evidence to the contrary, but perhaps some aren’t aware. Industry propaganda is strong too.
There are others who are angry at the healthcare industry when it screws them, but they don’t want to fund a system that stops other people being screwed. Not their responsibility. Which is pretty asshole mentality. Going back to my trifecta from earlier: 1. You sell the ‘we can do better, we’re fucking America!’ Maybe some state does its own reforms and they work, as an exemplar. 2. Collectively this makes it a lot easier to sell to people who like the idea, but are scared of the ‘unknown’ or reticent for those kind of reasons. 3. Any holdouts are either stakeholders, or folks who don’t want to pay for a better societal outcome. Those aren’t difficult positions to attack. I think we quite frequently end up in almost paradoxical positions quite often. If you just did the radical thing, and it worked, the radical thing would be popular. But you can’t do the radical thing, because the idea is unpopular (in some quarters), or seen as unviable.
This is basically the lifecycle of "RomneyObamaCare", which is the pinnacle achievement of Democrats in our lifetimes.
It was also too far right for Nixon and Republicans of the 1970's and still got 0 Republican votes 40 years later when Democrats decided it wasn't too far right for them anymore.
What you're saying ostensibly sounds reasonable, in practice, it's actually detestable.
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On May 30 2025 01:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 00:51 Razyda wrote:On May 29 2025 04:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Leftists can't be nazis. Right wingers can't be anarcho-socialists. These statements are unequivocally true, and if you believe otherwise, it is because you are ignorant of political ideologies. Left wingers also can't be libertarians. There's something to be said about right and left wing being descriptions of how someone is on a spectrum so maybe you could argue that a democratic socialist is right wing if everybody else is an anarcho-socialist, but nazism is commonly understood to be the most far right ideology.
If a leftist owns a tesla he's a leftist who owns a tesla, not a nazi. Whether you belong to a political ideology depends upon what beliefs you hold, not whether you have at some point done some action that in some way can be associated with some group. I disagree. If leftists done wehrmacht uniforms, build doom camps, purge jews, attack neighbouring countries I would describe them as nazis. Admittedly this is my personal PoV which you may disagree with me on, I touched on it in previous discussion with Wombat, but I somewhat refuse to identify nazizm/communism as left or right forms of government. I consider both of them as authoritarian governments, which are in their own class, if that make sense. I am not saying I am right about it, but thats how I perceive it. My Tesla point was directed at Kwark who wrote both of those: On May 29 2025 01:59 KwarK wrote:
Leftists literally can't be Nazis for the same reason that rectangles can't be triangles. Nazism is intrinsically a right wing ideology.
One of your many problems is that you don't seem to have a sufficient vocabulary to express your ideas. On May 27 2025 10:31 KwarK wrote:
The Tesla brand is inextricably the Musk brand. If I got a cool swastika tattoo in 1920 then by 1940 I’m getting a cover up. If I buy a Tesla in 2012 then by 2022 I’m selling it. Anyone not selling it can be reasonably judged as either supportive or tolerant of Musk.
It’s also a tangible way to harm him. His wealth, largely built on the Tesla brand, led to his position as an unelected fascist lurking in the Oval Office snorting ketamine. If people stop buying them because they’re afraid of the vandalism that’s an absolute win in the fight against fascism. The world would be a better place today if people had started years ago.
You might say “if people sell their Tesla that just means someone else buys it” but resale value matters. Teslas having shitty resale value makes them less desirable which again hurts Musk directly. Also if people who don’t want to be affiliated with Musk are getting rid of them then that helps ensure the owner of a vandalized Tesla is a card carrying Nazi.
This is a very clear case of business = money = fascism. He literally used Tesla shares as collateral to buy X to promote literal Nazi propaganda.
I do it (in a video game) and so should all patriotic Americans. It’s easy, free, and good for your soul. I believe there is some contradiction here, if you are willing to acknowledge that there are leftists who cant afford selling their car at loss? One can make the argument that authoritarian regimes on the left or right are as bad as another. But that doesn’t make the same thing, the left/right split and associated ideologies are very, very different. If I wanted to purge landlords, because they made a choice and are getting in the way of my socialist utopia, I’m doing it for very different reasons than if I wanted to purge say, Jews for well, being Jews. Me and my partner are both humans. She has tits, I have a dick. You wouldn’t say we’re the same thing, even though we are both humans. At least I assume she is, android hasn’t been ruled out. Two things can both be bad, that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same. I think the GOP and the Democrats both suck. One sucks more IMO. But they also suck for often quite different reasons.
Wombat I am Polish born in 70ties. Like in the socialism, but still under shadow of what nazizm was  . While I have nothing else, but trust me bro, trust me bro authoritarian = bad.
"Me and my partner are both humans. She has tits, I have a dick. You wouldn’t say we’re the same thing, even though we are both humans. "
and here you triggered another trans debate.
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Northern Ireland25281 Posts
On May 30 2025 01:26 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 01:15 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract. + Show Spoiler +What if some people don’t want positive things? If punishing their perceived enemies outweighs potential improvement to their lives?
I think it’s all quite important. You need the tangible, provable good shit and aspiration. You gotta convince the reasonable, and you’ve gotta ostracise the unreasonable.
Collectively, I’d say folks of our vague persuasions are going 0/3 in doing these effectively. But I still think they’re all pretty important. Maybe 2/3 is enough, maybe even 1 but you’re not doing much with zero.
I find the reaction to Luigi Mangione rather instructive in ways. There was plenty of cheering of that even from everyday conservatives? Why was that? Well conservatives get screwed by insurance companies too.
Why does this anger not actualise into more bipartisan calls for reform then? Well some think alternatives are worse, or not viable. There’s a metric fuckton of evidence to the contrary, but perhaps some aren’t aware. Industry propaganda is strong too.
There are others who are angry at the healthcare industry when it screws them, but they don’t want to fund a system that stops other people being screwed. Not their responsibility. Which is pretty asshole mentality. Going back to my trifecta from earlier: 1. You sell the ‘we can do better, we’re fucking America!’ Maybe some state does its own reforms and they work, as an exemplar. 2. Collectively this makes it a lot easier to sell to people who like the idea, but are scared of the ‘unknown’ or reticent for those kind of reasons. 3. Any holdouts are either stakeholders, or folks who don’t want to pay for a better societal outcome. Those aren’t difficult positions to attack. I think we quite frequently end up in almost paradoxical positions quite often. If you just did the radical thing, and it worked, the radical thing would be popular. But you can’t do the radical thing, because the idea is unpopular (in some quarters), or seen as unviable. This is basically the lifecycle of " RomneyObamaCare", which is the pinnacle achievement of Democrats in our lifetimes. It was also too far right for Nixon and Republicans of the 1970's and still got 0 Republican votes 40 years later when Democrats decided it wasn't too far right for them anymore. What you're saying ostensibly sounds reasonable, in practice, it's actually detestable.
What else is one going to do?
If the country has shifted on this issue to the degree Nixon’s plan was considered too far right, while the extremely similar Obamacare is too left these aren’t exactly fertile grounds
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United States42673 Posts
On May 30 2025 00:51 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2025 04:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Leftists can't be nazis. Right wingers can't be anarcho-socialists. These statements are unequivocally true, and if you believe otherwise, it is because you are ignorant of political ideologies. Left wingers also can't be libertarians. There's something to be said about right and left wing being descriptions of how someone is on a spectrum so maybe you could argue that a democratic socialist is right wing if everybody else is an anarcho-socialist, but nazism is commonly understood to be the most far right ideology.
If a leftist owns a tesla he's a leftist who owns a tesla, not a nazi. Whether you belong to a political ideology depends upon what beliefs you hold, not whether you have at some point done some action that in some way can be associated with some group. I disagree. If leftists done wehrmacht uniforms, build doom camps, purge jews, attack neighbouring countries I would describe them as nazis. Admittedly this is my personal PoV which you may disagree with me on, I touched on it in previous discussion with Wombat, but I somewhat refuse to identify nazizm/communism as left or right forms of government. I consider both of them as authoritarian governments, which are in their own class, if that make sense. I am not saying I am right about it, but thats how I perceive it. My Tesla point was directed at Kwark who wrote both of those: Show nested quote +On May 29 2025 01:59 KwarK wrote:
Leftists literally can't be Nazis for the same reason that rectangles can't be triangles. Nazism is intrinsically a right wing ideology.
One of your many problems is that you don't seem to have a sufficient vocabulary to express your ideas. Show nested quote +On May 27 2025 10:31 KwarK wrote:
The Tesla brand is inextricably the Musk brand. If I got a cool swastika tattoo in 1920 then by 1940 I’m getting a cover up. If I buy a Tesla in 2012 then by 2022 I’m selling it. Anyone not selling it can be reasonably judged as either supportive or tolerant of Musk.
It’s also a tangible way to harm him. His wealth, largely built on the Tesla brand, led to his position as an unelected fascist lurking in the Oval Office snorting ketamine. If people stop buying them because they’re afraid of the vandalism that’s an absolute win in the fight against fascism. The world would be a better place today if people had started years ago.
You might say “if people sell their Tesla that just means someone else buys it” but resale value matters. Teslas having shitty resale value makes them less desirable which again hurts Musk directly. Also if people who don’t want to be affiliated with Musk are getting rid of them then that helps ensure the owner of a vandalized Tesla is a card carrying Nazi.
This is a very clear case of business = money = fascism. He literally used Tesla shares as collateral to buy X to promote literal Nazi propaganda.
I do it (in a video game) and so should all patriotic Americans. It’s easy, free, and good for your soul. I believe there is some contradiction here, if you are willing to acknowledge that there are leftists who cant afford selling their car at loss?
There are always people who believe they can’t afford to do the right thing. I’m not going to go through their budgets for them and work out whether they could trade their car out if they skipped eating out for lunch or whatever. There are ICE agents who say their families need the health insurance and it’s a tough job market. I don’t much care how they justify it to themselves and it’s not reasonable for me to assess the merits of every person’s excuse.
There’s no contradiction. People can always do more and they can always be judged for what they failed to do. I don’t exclude myself from that either.
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On May 30 2025 01:46 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 01:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2025 01:15 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract. + Show Spoiler +What if some people don’t want positive things? If punishing their perceived enemies outweighs potential improvement to their lives?
I think it’s all quite important. You need the tangible, provable good shit and aspiration. You gotta convince the reasonable, and you’ve gotta ostracise the unreasonable.
Collectively, I’d say folks of our vague persuasions are going 0/3 in doing these effectively. But I still think they’re all pretty important. Maybe 2/3 is enough, maybe even 1 but you’re not doing much with zero.
I find the reaction to Luigi Mangione rather instructive in ways. There was plenty of cheering of that even from everyday conservatives? Why was that? Well conservatives get screwed by insurance companies too.
Why does this anger not actualise into more bipartisan calls for reform then? Well some think alternatives are worse, or not viable. There’s a metric fuckton of evidence to the contrary, but perhaps some aren’t aware. Industry propaganda is strong too.
There are others who are angry at the healthcare industry when it screws them, but they don’t want to fund a system that stops other people being screwed. Not their responsibility. Which is pretty asshole mentality. Going back to my trifecta from earlier: 1. You sell the ‘we can do better, we’re fucking America!’ Maybe some state does its own reforms and they work, as an exemplar. 2. Collectively this makes it a lot easier to sell to people who like the idea, but are scared of the ‘unknown’ or reticent for those kind of reasons. 3. Any holdouts are either stakeholders, or folks who don’t want to pay for a better societal outcome. Those aren’t difficult positions to attack. I think we quite frequently end up in almost paradoxical positions quite often. If you just did the radical thing, and it worked, the radical thing would be popular. But you can’t do the radical thing, because the idea is unpopular (in some quarters), or seen as unviable. This is basically the lifecycle of " RomneyObamaCare", which is the pinnacle achievement of Democrats in our lifetimes. It was also too far right for Nixon and Republicans of the 1970's and still got 0 Republican votes 40 years later when Democrats decided it wasn't too far right for them anymore. What you're saying ostensibly sounds reasonable, in practice, it's actually detestable. What else is one going to do? If the country has shifted on this issue to the degree Nixon’s plan was considered too far right, while the extremely similar Obamacare is too left these aren’t exactly fertile grounds
It means that 50 years of that strategy shifted the country and culminated in Democrats biggest accomplishment being too far right for Nixon and 1970's Republicans.
My preferences aside, reasonable people have to do something else. Advocating them continuing is, as I said, detestable.
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On May 30 2025 01:42 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 01:26 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2025 00:51 Razyda wrote:On May 29 2025 04:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Leftists can't be nazis. Right wingers can't be anarcho-socialists. These statements are unequivocally true, and if you believe otherwise, it is because you are ignorant of political ideologies. Left wingers also can't be libertarians. There's something to be said about right and left wing being descriptions of how someone is on a spectrum so maybe you could argue that a democratic socialist is right wing if everybody else is an anarcho-socialist, but nazism is commonly understood to be the most far right ideology.
If a leftist owns a tesla he's a leftist who owns a tesla, not a nazi. Whether you belong to a political ideology depends upon what beliefs you hold, not whether you have at some point done some action that in some way can be associated with some group. I disagree. If leftists done wehrmacht uniforms, build doom camps, purge jews, attack neighbouring countries I would describe them as nazis. Admittedly this is my personal PoV which you may disagree with me on, I touched on it in previous discussion with Wombat, but I somewhat refuse to identify nazizm/communism as left or right forms of government. I consider both of them as authoritarian governments, which are in their own class, if that make sense. I am not saying I am right about it, but thats how I perceive it. My Tesla point was directed at Kwark who wrote both of those: On May 29 2025 01:59 KwarK wrote:
Leftists literally can't be Nazis for the same reason that rectangles can't be triangles. Nazism is intrinsically a right wing ideology.
One of your many problems is that you don't seem to have a sufficient vocabulary to express your ideas. On May 27 2025 10:31 KwarK wrote:
The Tesla brand is inextricably the Musk brand. If I got a cool swastika tattoo in 1920 then by 1940 I’m getting a cover up. If I buy a Tesla in 2012 then by 2022 I’m selling it. Anyone not selling it can be reasonably judged as either supportive or tolerant of Musk.
It’s also a tangible way to harm him. His wealth, largely built on the Tesla brand, led to his position as an unelected fascist lurking in the Oval Office snorting ketamine. If people stop buying them because they’re afraid of the vandalism that’s an absolute win in the fight against fascism. The world would be a better place today if people had started years ago.
You might say “if people sell their Tesla that just means someone else buys it” but resale value matters. Teslas having shitty resale value makes them less desirable which again hurts Musk directly. Also if people who don’t want to be affiliated with Musk are getting rid of them then that helps ensure the owner of a vandalized Tesla is a card carrying Nazi.
This is a very clear case of business = money = fascism. He literally used Tesla shares as collateral to buy X to promote literal Nazi propaganda.
I do it (in a video game) and so should all patriotic Americans. It’s easy, free, and good for your soul. I believe there is some contradiction here, if you are willing to acknowledge that there are leftists who cant afford selling their car at loss? One can make the argument that authoritarian regimes on the left or right are as bad as another. But that doesn’t make the same thing, the left/right split and associated ideologies are very, very different. If I wanted to purge landlords, because they made a choice and are getting in the way of my socialist utopia, I’m doing it for very different reasons than if I wanted to purge say, Jews for well, being Jews. Me and my partner are both humans. She has tits, I have a dick. You wouldn’t say we’re the same thing, even though we are both humans. At least I assume she is, android hasn’t been ruled out. Two things can both be bad, that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same. I think the GOP and the Democrats both suck. One sucks more IMO. But they also suck for often quite different reasons. "Me and my partner are both humans. She has tits, I have a dick. You wouldn’t say we’re the same thing, even though we are both humans. " and here you triggered another trans debate.
Not really.
This is another of the things you don't seem to really get on the right. No one is arguing that dicks or tits do not exist. That is not what trans rights are about.
Literally no one claims that humans with dicks and humans with tits do not exist, or that they are the same thing in every way.
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On May 30 2025 01:50 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 00:51 Razyda wrote:On May 29 2025 04:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Leftists can't be nazis. Right wingers can't be anarcho-socialists. These statements are unequivocally true, and if you believe otherwise, it is because you are ignorant of political ideologies. Left wingers also can't be libertarians. There's something to be said about right and left wing being descriptions of how someone is on a spectrum so maybe you could argue that a democratic socialist is right wing if everybody else is an anarcho-socialist, but nazism is commonly understood to be the most far right ideology.
If a leftist owns a tesla he's a leftist who owns a tesla, not a nazi. Whether you belong to a political ideology depends upon what beliefs you hold, not whether you have at some point done some action that in some way can be associated with some group. I disagree. If leftists done wehrmacht uniforms, build doom camps, purge jews, attack neighbouring countries I would describe them as nazis. Admittedly this is my personal PoV which you may disagree with me on, I touched on it in previous discussion with Wombat, but I somewhat refuse to identify nazizm/communism as left or right forms of government. I consider both of them as authoritarian governments, which are in their own class, if that make sense. I am not saying I am right about it, but thats how I perceive it. My Tesla point was directed at Kwark who wrote both of those: On May 29 2025 01:59 KwarK wrote:
Leftists literally can't be Nazis for the same reason that rectangles can't be triangles. Nazism is intrinsically a right wing ideology.
One of your many problems is that you don't seem to have a sufficient vocabulary to express your ideas. On May 27 2025 10:31 KwarK wrote:
The Tesla brand is inextricably the Musk brand. If I got a cool swastika tattoo in 1920 then by 1940 I’m getting a cover up. If I buy a Tesla in 2012 then by 2022 I’m selling it. Anyone not selling it can be reasonably judged as either supportive or tolerant of Musk.
It’s also a tangible way to harm him. His wealth, largely built on the Tesla brand, led to his position as an unelected fascist lurking in the Oval Office snorting ketamine. If people stop buying them because they’re afraid of the vandalism that’s an absolute win in the fight against fascism. The world would be a better place today if people had started years ago.
You might say “if people sell their Tesla that just means someone else buys it” but resale value matters. Teslas having shitty resale value makes them less desirable which again hurts Musk directly. Also if people who don’t want to be affiliated with Musk are getting rid of them then that helps ensure the owner of a vandalized Tesla is a card carrying Nazi.
This is a very clear case of business = money = fascism. He literally used Tesla shares as collateral to buy X to promote literal Nazi propaganda.
I do it (in a video game) and so should all patriotic Americans. It’s easy, free, and good for your soul. I believe there is some contradiction here, if you are willing to acknowledge that there are leftists who cant afford selling their car at loss? There are always people who believe they can’t afford to do the right thing. I’m not going to go through their budgets for them and work out whether they could trade their car out if they skipped eating out for lunch or whatever. There are ICE agents who say their families need the health insurance and it’s a tough job market. I don’t much care how they justify it to themselves and it’s not reasonable for me to assess the merits of every person’s excuse. There’s no contradiction. People can always do more and they can always be judged for what they failed to do. I don’t exclude myself from that either.
I think there is. Let me explain:
"There are always people who believe they can’t afford to do the right thing" - there are also always people who genuinely cant do right thing, in some cases because they splurged on tesla to protect enviroment.
"I don’t much care how they justify it to themselves and it’s not reasonable for me to assess the merits of every person’s excuse."
It is reasonable for you though to judge them as nazis because they cant afford to be leftists enough  . Yeah my man, you better than them, and somehow you still cant figure out how you could possibly loose election.
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Northern Ireland25281 Posts
On May 30 2025 01:56 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 01:46 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2025 01:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2025 01:15 WombaT wrote:On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract. + Show Spoiler +What if some people don’t want positive things? If punishing their perceived enemies outweighs potential improvement to their lives?
I think it’s all quite important. You need the tangible, provable good shit and aspiration. You gotta convince the reasonable, and you’ve gotta ostracise the unreasonable.
Collectively, I’d say folks of our vague persuasions are going 0/3 in doing these effectively. But I still think they’re all pretty important. Maybe 2/3 is enough, maybe even 1 but you’re not doing much with zero.
I find the reaction to Luigi Mangione rather instructive in ways. There was plenty of cheering of that even from everyday conservatives? Why was that? Well conservatives get screwed by insurance companies too.
Why does this anger not actualise into more bipartisan calls for reform then? Well some think alternatives are worse, or not viable. There’s a metric fuckton of evidence to the contrary, but perhaps some aren’t aware. Industry propaganda is strong too.
There are others who are angry at the healthcare industry when it screws them, but they don’t want to fund a system that stops other people being screwed. Not their responsibility. Which is pretty asshole mentality. Going back to my trifecta from earlier: 1. You sell the ‘we can do better, we’re fucking America!’ Maybe some state does its own reforms and they work, as an exemplar. 2. Collectively this makes it a lot easier to sell to people who like the idea, but are scared of the ‘unknown’ or reticent for those kind of reasons. 3. Any holdouts are either stakeholders, or folks who don’t want to pay for a better societal outcome. Those aren’t difficult positions to attack. I think we quite frequently end up in almost paradoxical positions quite often. If you just did the radical thing, and it worked, the radical thing would be popular. But you can’t do the radical thing, because the idea is unpopular (in some quarters), or seen as unviable. This is basically the lifecycle of " RomneyObamaCare", which is the pinnacle achievement of Democrats in our lifetimes. It was also too far right for Nixon and Republicans of the 1970's and still got 0 Republican votes 40 years later when Democrats decided it wasn't too far right for them anymore. What you're saying ostensibly sounds reasonable, in practice, it's actually detestable. What else is one going to do? If the country has shifted on this issue to the degree Nixon’s plan was considered too far right, while the extremely similar Obamacare is too left these aren’t exactly fertile grounds It means that 50 years of that strategy shifted the country and culminated in Democrats biggest accomplishment being too far right for Nixon and 1970's Republicans. My preferences aside, reasonable people have to do something else. Advocating them continuing is, as I said, detestable.
Do what else then?
My crude framework doesn’t preclude doing other things. More engaged political activism is still within the purview of it.
Maybe a blog post convinces some people, maybe it takes a series of mass protests and rallies to get a sufficient groundswell, whatever it is.
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There's nothing stopping KwarK from attacking federal agents or Teslas, he just doesn't want to get arrested. He can afford anything. There's no practical reason in his way. And obviously his personally not driving a Tesla isn't saving any of the people who are being targeted by law enforcement simply for breaking the law. But he won't actually do anything - because the affordability he enjoys comes from being married to the system so he can't betray it. Even GH's plans to actually get people to do something later are better than just pretending you would do something now.
On May 30 2025 00:38 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2025 18:28 Godwrath wrote:
Arguing with right-wing voters about corruption cases has an extremely long track record of going absolutely nowhere. They don’t care. When they reply with a flat “and?”, it’s not sarcasm, it’s honesty. They genuinely don’t care, and it’s not because they think corruption is good; it’s because they’ve completely normalized it. In their eyes, everyone is corrupt. Every party, every politician, every institutio, it’s all rotten. So why bother pretending otherwise? They do care, they wish Trump wasn't corrupt, or an imbecile, or a rapist and that they didn't have to defend him for it.
I hear he also puts ketchup on well done steak, wears crocs with socks, breathes through his mouth, capitalizes random words, and oh yes clubs baby seals.
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On May 30 2025 00:40 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract. The majority of Americans don't want positivity, they want it to be socially acceptable to be openly bigoted. They will always give into their worst impulses until it's made beyond clear that they can't mass hurt minorities without also getting hurt themselves in the process. But they can't realize that if they're busy falling for blatant lies like "tariffs are a tax on foreign countries" or "your wages will skyrocket once all the immigrants are gone".
Hard disagree. Obama won, Americans are clearly capable of electing a black man, so bigotry cant be their primary motivator.
If we look at who Americans have liked to elect, its clear that theres a preference for big, positive visions for the future focused on the promise of bold action, even if theyre always various degrees of lies, its what Americans want. They want their lives to meaningfully improve instead of only being thrown into chaos or at best only had the decay halted some.
Democrats are too spineless and captured to deliver on meaningful change, and Republicans are actually kind of alright at delivering on meaningful change but their meaningful change is a Hell World.
Instead of pushing Kamalas and Hillarys with no charisma and no real vision beyond minor technocratic improvements, Democrats should have been cultivating more Obamas and trying to actually recapture the working class. Instead we got the technocratic, visionless charisma voices, and wow they lost.
I find the reaction to Luigi Mangione rather instructive in ways. There was plenty of cheering of that even from everyday conservatives? Why was that? Well conservatives get screwed by insurance companies too.
Stuff like that is why I maintain that its possible to sway conservatives away from their republican voting habits, not all or even maybe most of them, but more than enough, not to change them into swing voters, but to make them original West Virginia style Democrats who believe in strong labor and shit.
People just want things to improve, they at least dont want things to fucking degrade. "Its not as bad as it could have been" as corporations and CEOs rake in infinite money, cost of housing explodes, cost of food explodes, these are things that people materially feel and addressing these things can earn you a lot of loyal voters.
Noone in American politics seems to give two shits about actually making the lives of the average American any better though, the only ones who do are constantly sidelined by their party because it scares the billionaire donors who throw the fancy fundraiser lunch parties they love to socialize at.
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On May 30 2025 02:32 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 00:40 LightSpectra wrote:On May 30 2025 00:03 Zambrah wrote:
Reminder that swing voters arent a serious group of people in the US and that driving the turnout of your base is significantly more important.
Do good positive things, trying to rhetorically push back on liars and charlatans has not proven to be useful, Trump won twice, and the only reason he lost once was likely because of a colossal world wide pandemic.
Talk a lot and do nothing is the losing Democrat ideology, the focus should be on building a vision of a positive future, not spending energy counteracting the lies of freaks, they will always lie faster and more than you can counteract. The majority of Americans don't want positivity, they want it to be socially acceptable to be openly bigoted. They will always give into their worst impulses until it's made beyond clear that they can't mass hurt minorities without also getting hurt themselves in the process. But they can't realize that if they're busy falling for blatant lies like "tariffs are a tax on foreign countries" or "your wages will skyrocket once all the immigrants are gone". Hard disagree. Obama won, Americans are clearly capable of electing a black man, so bigotry cant be their primary motivator. If we look at who Americans have liked to elect, its clear that theres a preference for big, positive visions for the future focused on the promise of bold action, even if theyre always various degrees of lies, its what Americans want. They want their lives to meaningfully improve instead of only being thrown into chaos or at best only had the decay halted some. Democrats are too spineless and captured to deliver on meaningful change, and Republicans are actually kind of alright at delivering on meaningful change but their meaningful change is a Hell World. Instead of pushing Kamalas and Hillarys with no charisma and no real vision beyond minor technocratic improvements, Democrats should have been cultivating more Obamas and trying to actually recapture the working class. Instead we got the technocratic, visionless charisma voices, and wow they lost.
Biden won more votes than Obama. First candidate to win more votes than nonvoters in U.S. history, in fact. What was it about him? The stellar charisma? The bold, progressive vision of the future? I mean, you could chalk it up entirely to the pandemic, but I could counter by saying Obama only won because he was riding on GWB's 25% approval rating too.
Hilary Clinton was double digits ahead of Trump two weeks before the 2016 election, until Jim Comey handed the election to him on a silver platter by announcing her email server investigation would be re-opened (she was ultimately exonerated a second time). Exit polls showed Harris lost not because she was personally unlikable but because of inflation, which Republicans blamed entirely on Biden despite it affecting almost every country in the world at the time.
Point being: truth matters. Clinton and Harris lost because of blatant lies, Biden won because Trump couldn't lie his way out of the shit economy. We should be spending more resources on debunking lies, not less.
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United States42673 Posts
On May 30 2025 02:30 oBlade wrote:There's nothing stopping KwarK from attacking federal agents or Teslas, he just doesn't want to get arrested. He can afford anything. There's no practical reason in his way. And obviously his personally not driving a Tesla isn't saving any of the people who are being targeted by law enforcement simply for breaking the law. But he won't actually do anything - because the affordability he enjoys comes from being married to the system so he can't betray it. Even GH's plans to actually get people to do something later are better than just pretending you would do something now. Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 00:38 Dan HH wrote:On May 29 2025 18:28 Godwrath wrote:
Arguing with right-wing voters about corruption cases has an extremely long track record of going absolutely nowhere. They don’t care. When they reply with a flat “and?”, it’s not sarcasm, it’s honesty. They genuinely don’t care, and it’s not because they think corruption is good; it’s because they’ve completely normalized it. In their eyes, everyone is corrupt. Every party, every politician, every institutio, it’s all rotten. So why bother pretending otherwise? They do care, they wish Trump wasn't corrupt, or an imbecile, or a rapist and that they didn't have to defend him for it. I hear he also puts ketchup on well done steak, wears crocs with socks, breathes through his mouth, capitalizes random words, and oh yes clubs baby seals.
This is such a weird response to it being pointed out that he's a rapist. Rattling off a list of trivial complaints against him and including that he's a rapist in there to frame it as a big series of silly objections. Putting ketchup on steaks is not just as bad as rape and I genuinely believe that on some level you know that.
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Northern Ireland25281 Posts
On May 30 2025 02:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 02:30 oBlade wrote:There's nothing stopping KwarK from attacking federal agents or Teslas, he just doesn't want to get arrested. He can afford anything. There's no practical reason in his way. And obviously his personally not driving a Tesla isn't saving any of the people who are being targeted by law enforcement simply for breaking the law. But he won't actually do anything - because the affordability he enjoys comes from being married to the system so he can't betray it. Even GH's plans to actually get people to do something later are better than just pretending you would do something now. On May 30 2025 00:38 Dan HH wrote:On May 29 2025 18:28 Godwrath wrote:
Arguing with right-wing voters about corruption cases has an extremely long track record of going absolutely nowhere. They don’t care. When they reply with a flat “and?”, it’s not sarcasm, it’s honesty. They genuinely don’t care, and it’s not because they think corruption is good; it’s because they’ve completely normalized it. In their eyes, everyone is corrupt. Every party, every politician, every institutio, it’s all rotten. So why bother pretending otherwise? They do care, they wish Trump wasn't corrupt, or an imbecile, or a rapist and that they didn't have to defend him for it. I hear he also puts ketchup on well done steak, wears crocs with socks, breathes through his mouth, capitalizes random words, and oh yes clubs baby seals. This is such a weird response to it being pointed out that he's a rapist. Rattling off a list of trivial complaints against him and including that he's a rapist in there to frame it as a big series of silly objections. Putting ketchup on steaks is not just as bad as rape and I genuinely believe that on some level you know that.
Is crocs with socks really that trivial?
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He does capitalize random words at least, so I think oBlade is saying he's aware Trump is a rapist, he just doesn't care.
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United States42673 Posts
The more I think about it the more absolutely despicable what oblade just said becomes. Utterly irredeemable. He doesn't say it didn't happen, he contextualized it as just one thing in a long list of trivial things that we all agree that Trump does that he just does not give the tiniest shit about.
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On May 30 2025 02:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2025 02:30 oBlade wrote:There's nothing stopping KwarK from attacking federal agents or Teslas, he just doesn't want to get arrested. He can afford anything. There's no practical reason in his way. And obviously his personally not driving a Tesla isn't saving any of the people who are being targeted by law enforcement simply for breaking the law. But he won't actually do anything - because the affordability he enjoys comes from being married to the system so he can't betray it. Even GH's plans to actually get people to do something later are better than just pretending you would do something now. On May 30 2025 00:38 Dan HH wrote:On May 29 2025 18:28 Godwrath wrote:
Arguing with right-wing voters about corruption cases has an extremely long track record of going absolutely nowhere. They don’t care. When they reply with a flat “and?”, it’s not sarcasm, it’s honesty. They genuinely don’t care, and it’s not because they think corruption is good; it’s because they’ve completely normalized it. In their eyes, everyone is corrupt. Every party, every politician, every institutio, it’s all rotten. So why bother pretending otherwise? They do care, they wish Trump wasn't corrupt, or an imbecile, or a rapist and that they didn't have to defend him for it. I hear he also puts ketchup on well done steak, wears crocs with socks, breathes through his mouth, capitalizes random words, and oh yes clubs baby seals. This is such a weird response to it being pointed out that he's a rapist. Rattling off a list of trivial complaints against him and including that he's a rapist in there to frame it as a big series of silly objections. Putting ketchup on steaks is not just as bad as rape and I genuinely believe that on some level you know that.
Sure KwarK, imbecile and rapist were neck-and-neck equal though so you didn't miss anything, like for example the entire point.
Putting ketchup on steaks is worse inasmuch as it's the one that's actually true. Otherwise the normal answer is that he doesn't club baby seals obviously.
On May 30 2025 02:51 LightSpectra wrote:
He does capitalize random words at least, so I think oBlade is saying he's aware Trump is a rapist, he just doesn't care.
Pretty sure George Stephanopoulos had to pony up millions for running with that.
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EPT
