US Politics Feedback Thread - Page 234

On May 25 2019 10:31 Nebuchad wrote:


I'd like to answer this specific point because why not. No I don't think that, actually, because I'm not a tankie. I don't think that we should have more government, I think we should have more democratic control. Those aren't the same thing.

Since you like freedom, here's a question for you: if the people in your system work for a capitalist boss, that runs his enterprise for profit and is incentivized to put their livelihood at risk if that's more profitable than not doing it, and the people in my system work for themselves (not the state, themselves) as they control the means of production of their labor, where are we maximizing freedom?

On May 25 2019 10:38 xDaunt wrote:

The answer is that you can only truly work for yourself in a capitalist system that allows for free enterprise.

On May 25 2019 10:42 Nebuchad wrote:


If the system that I describe, that you think is impossible, was instead possible, would you agree that it maximizes freedom of individuals, and would you as a result be in favor of it?

On May 25 2019 10:46 xDaunt wrote:

Your system necessarily involves massive government intervention that would deprive certain persons of their rights to free enterprise by redistributing their property rights to other persons. There is no freedom in that. Your system is a logical impossibility.

However, I’m all ears if you disagree.

On May 25 2019 10:52 Nebuchad wrote:


Absolutely it would entail depriving the capitalist class of their property rights, that's certainly true. We're not giving them to other people though, we're just going to have democratic control. I have acknowledged that you think this is impossible, but that's not the question I asked. I asked if you think, provided that it would be possible, it would maximize freedom, and if you would as a result be in favor of it.

On May 25 2019 07:56 GreenHorizons wrote:


I'm just curious if you think the type of responses I've gotten have improved massively or still resemble the responses I'd get when my posts were worse?

Whether you've noticed some posters have changed their engagement with me as result or others haven't?

Also if you're under the impression there is/was nothing wrong with how people respond to me and argue my positions?

Reading over the different descriptions of me and my posts from a variety of posters is interesting and I'm curious where you fell on those questions, though I'm curious about what most people think about those questions as well.

On May 25 2019 12:03 LegalLord wrote:
Color me a bit disappointed. Rather than any particularly meaningful insight into the real issues, what seems to really have sparked all of this was some of the least interesting posters the thread has to offer just being annoyed that the more interesting ones aren't getting enough bans for their liking. And frankly, the moderation response (from the one or so moderator who actively moderates the thread) seems to be little more than selective bias saying "thanks, those are the people I would like to believe are the problem anyways!"

This is the one post I agree with most:



Something I wish the active moderation staff, rather than one thread participant who happens to be a moderator (and chooses not to moderate), would take to heart. That general sentiment is kind of exactly what is lacking.

And this:



is a generally poignant insight. I can name a fair few individuals that fall into this bucket, and many of them are far more interesting to have had around than the current quorum. Some left because of the simple passage of time, but many more got moderated out or harassed by capricious moderation until they simply didn't want to have anything more to do with it. We're left mostly with the few punching bags who are willing to weather that abuse, and a lot of fairly uninteresting posters who want those last few holdovers pushed out.

On May 25 2019 08:58 Nebuchad wrote:
DMCD: that was here: https://tl.net/forum/website-feedback/542042-so-why-was-gh-banned?page=8#143

For once I get to say this so I'm going to: the truth is somewhere in the middle x)

There is no question that political preference plays a role in who is perceived as an annoying presence and who isn't. I'm not saying this as this objective presence that is judging you all: for example until today I thought NewSunshine was perfectly fine as a poster, and apparently some people on the right view him just as I view DMCD. Probably I don't have that perception because NS is more aligned with me politically than DMCD is. This is quite normal, and it's a bit ridiculous that we're going to pretend that some people are disruptive because of their attitude alone, and it just happens that all the disruptive people are the people who agree the less with liberal values, and there are people who agree with liberal values who are just as disruptive but aren't considered so.

So that's one side of the coin. The other: a lot of you guys are definitely asking for it. Danglars has admitted himself that he's there to work on his arguments against liberals. There is no hope of ever getting him to agree that you're right on anything, that literally goes against his project here. Pretending that he gets dismissed because of the liberal bias of this forum is comical.

xDaunt is, in my opinion, more honest. But he's also lawyering a whole lot. He is almost never presenting a full picture of his argument, he's focusing on what works well and ignoring what doesn't. I'm not even sure that's a criticism, he's a good propagandist. But there's an element of annoyance that necessarily goes with talking to people like that.

More generally (and more polemically) I think there's something inherent with conservatism that almost necessitates a strategy when engaging other ideologies. Conservatives will very often present as capital L Liberals, supportive of "classical liberalism". But conservatism was distinct from classical liberalism at the time (tradition descending from Burke vs tradition descending from Smith if you're interested). Simplifying a little (but not grossly imo), liberalism was an effort to give legitimacy to a new system of governance. We have overturned the authoritarian rule that was before us, however we still plan to govern the shit out of you, so how are we different? Well, we deserve it and they didn't. So here's some increase in meritocracy and social mobility, you might think it's awesome. Also I'm a white male so this applies to white males only hey (is that too caricatural? Can you tell I'm not a fan of liberalism? xD).

Meanwhile, people like Burke were saying: okay, this new thing is not ideal, but we can use what they're putting forward to maintain the hierarchies that we have and continue to have the upper hand on society.

In my view this is a large part of why conservatives often appear hypocritical and difficult to engage from another ideology. A lot of their justifications for what they believe are rooted in liberal values, but they... just don't really mean it. And so you get stuff like: "It's not that I don't want gay people to be treated equally, I'm just very concerned about freedom of religion (a liberal principle)". And in the next conversation when talking about muslims, I will immediately drop this liberal principle and instead talk about, say, women's rights, have you seen how the most backward muslim countries treat women? (another liberal principle) And then there will be this other conversation about abortions and... You get the drift.

So when liberals say that conservatives are often hypocritical, I can't say that it's wrong, neither today nor historically. To me an honest conservative would drop this whole liberal value stuff and just say that he wants to be treated better than people who are different from him. Similarly I understand how a liberal can appear hypocritical to a conservative, because traditionally liberals have wanted to maintain a hierarchy in society, and the meritocracy has never worked. So when considering this history, it's not unreasonable to perceive this attack on a privileged position as an attempt to replace the people occupying this privileged position. That's how liberalism was born, and that's coherent with capitalism.

Tl;dr be democratic socialists, we're cool

On February 14 2019 22:23 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
"Abolish the police" is the best example due to sheer frequency. As can be seen from examples, he never actually had a position on what this meant other than that it's not him that defines what this means. In which case it is meaningless. And so he can go shit on people how xyz isn't his position. Well shit, GH, why don't you tell us? And then he'll go back to literally writing "abolish the police" slogannering starting the whole cycle again.

On May 28 2019 00:41 Rasalased wrote:
You are all complaining as if there was no moderation during those days. But in fact there was as I was temp banned because I apparently misspelled someone's name. And here I see everyone use 'xD' or 'Daunt', 'GH' and 'p6'.

On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.

Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting.