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To me, fascists and colonial regimes have been the deadliest. Literally ethnic cleansing, sterilizing native populations, restricting social liberties, and such, but the damage done by supposedly left governments, which have also fallen into authoritarianism, cannot be denied either. 

I'm not in the business of denying the actions of, say, the USSR or China, make no mistake. Mainly the issue is that the whole debate is a distraction from more specific points, or simply discards the fact that a conservative, traditionalist ideology is going to be resistant to evolution, while progressive politics don't neatly map onto regimes from the 20th century.

But when you get into specifics, you see the issue. It's not hard to figure out why, say, eugenics is wrong, even without the Nazi party. There's no actual objective measure for what genes are better than others, and even if there was, political policy restricting the ability for demographics to consensually bear children as they wish, based on that or anything else, is an enormous and destructive attack on people's freedom. There's no separating the genocide out.

But like, worker-owned businesses and economies? It's a lot harder to just say "the USSR believed in that, so Winco is doing a holodomor to me personally!". It's always "the left are authoritarians", until the left criticizes the police and military. "If antifascism is so popular, why did the government declare it a terrorist group? Checkmate, liberal". Or how it's kinda hard to justify being on the opposite side of racial equality activists and claim that you're the moral center, that's why the conversation has to become "you're the real racist", because they know "actually racism is good" won't fly. Because the left changes and updates itself, the attacks on it have to update as well, that's why, for instance, trans people have to be sold as a "new phenomenon" and an "attack on women", because conservatives know that feminism actually is popular but don't want to engage with the whole "attacking the exact same groups the Nazi party started on". The enemy is both strong and weak, as they say.

Actually, no political movement in history has ever really made trans rights its centerpiece, so I guess lacking a historical scapegoat to compare it to would probably be why they just go back to the old blood libel stuff from the 30s. 

That's why they play identity politics; now, criticizing illegal military occupations and ethnic cleansing is antisemitic, so the left were the REAL antisemites all along (nevermind the antisemitism inherent in equating jewish personhood to the actions of a racially-segregated imperialist state). Homophobia isn't real, but the left are the TRUE homophobes when they shit on Dave Rubin or Milo Yiannopolous oh whoops he verbally advocated for child rape? great now we get to call gays pedophiles again. Or hey, in this very thread, saying "this guy is black and gay, therefore he can't possibly be reinforcing any reactionary politics, and you as a leftist have to listen to him".

One time, I saw conservatives spamming Occasio-Cortez with an image macro saying "IF YOU HATE WHITE PEOPLE SO MUCH, WHY DID YOU MARRY ONE?", and I think understanding how someone could come to believe that made sense to print will basically let you see the damn matrix every time they open their mouths.

Quote

To me, fascists and colonial regimes have been the deadliest. Literally ethnic cleansing, sterilizing native populations, restricting social liberties, and such, but the damage done by supposedly left governments, which have also fallen into authoritarianism, cannot be denied either. 

I'm not in the business of denying the actions of, say, the USSR or China, make no mistake. Mainly the issue is that the whole debate is a distraction from more specific points, or simply discards the fact that a conservative, traditionalist ideology is going to be resistant to evolution, while progressive politics don't neatly map onto regimes from the 20th century.

But when you get into specifics, you see the issue. It's not hard to figure out why, say, eugenics is wrong, even without the Nazi party. There's no actual objective measure for what genes are better than others, and even if there was, political policy restricting the ability for demographics to consensually bear children as they wish, based on that or anything else, is an enormous and destructive attack on people's freedom. There's no separating the genocide out.

But like, worker-owned businesses and economies? It's a lot harder to just say "the USSR believed in that, so Winco is doing a holodomor to me personally!". It's always "the left are authoritarians", until the left criticizes the police and military. Or how it's kinda hard to justify being on the opposite side of racial equality activists and claim that you're the moral center, that's why the conversation has to become "you're the real racist", because they know "actually racism is good" won't fly. Because the left changes and updates itself, the attacks on it have to update as well, that's why, for instance, trans people have to be sold as a "new phenomenon" and an "attack on women", because conservatives know that feminism actually is popular but don't want to engage with the whole "making an enemy out of the exact same groups the Nazi party started with".

Actually, no political movement in history has ever really made trans rights its centerpiece, so I guess lacking a historical scapegoat to compare it to would probably be why they just go back to the old blood libel stuff from the 30s. 

That's why they play identity politics; now, criticizing illegal military occupations and ethnic cleansing is antisemitic, so the left were the REAL antisemites all along (nevermind the antisemitism inherent in equating jewish personhood to the actions of a racially-segregated imperialist state). Or hey, in this very thread, saying "this guy is black and gay, therefore he can't possibly be reinforcing any reactionary politics and you have to listen to him".

One time, I saw conservatives spamming Occasio-Cortez with an image macro saying "IF YOU HATE WHITE PEOPLE SO MUCH, WHY DID YOU MARRY ONE?", and I think understanding how someone could come to believe that made sense to print will basically let you see the damn matrix every time they open their mouths.

Quote

To me, fascists and colonial regimes have been the deadliest. Literally ethnic cleansing, sterilizing native populations, restricting social liberties, and such, but the damage done by supposedly left governments, which have also fallen into authoritarianism, cannot be denied either. 

I'm not in the business of denying the actions of, say, the USSR or China, make no mistake. Mainly the issue is that the whole debate is a distraction from more specific points, or simply discards the fact that a conservative, traditionalist ideology is going to be resistant to evolution, while progressive politics don't neatly map onto regimes from the 20th century.

But when you get into specifics, you see the issue. It's not hard to figure out why, say, eugenics is wrong, even without the Nazi party. There's no actual objective measure for what genes are better than others, and even if there was, political policy restricting the ability for demographics to consensually bear children as they wish, based on that or anything else, is an enormous and destructive attack on people's freedom. There's no separating the genocide out.

But like, worker-owned businesses and economies? It's a lot harder to just say "the USSR believed in that, so Winco is doing a holodomor to me personally!". Or how it's kinda hard to justify being on the opposite side of racial equality activists and claim that you're the moral center, that's why the conversation has to become "you're the real racist", because they know "actually racism is good" won't fly. Because the left changes and updates itself, the attacks on it have to update as well, that's why, for instance, trans people have to be sold as a "new phenomenon" and an "attack on women", because conservatives know that feminism actually is popular but don't want to engage with the whole "making an enemy out of the exact same groups the Nazi party started with".

That's why they play identity politics; now, criticizing illegal military occupations and ethnic cleansing is antisemitic, so the left were the REAL antisemites all along (nevermind the antisemitism inherent in equating jewish personhood to the actions of a racially-segregated imperialist state). Or hey, in this very thread, saying "this guy is black and gay, therefore he can't possibly be reinforcing any reactionary politics and you have to listen to him".

One time, I saw conservatives spamming Occasio-Cortez with an image macro saying "IF YOU HATE WHITE PEOPLE SO MUCH, WHY DID YOU MARRY ONE?", and I think understanding how someone could come to believe that made sense to print will basically let you see the damn matrix every time they open their mouths.