Well, see, the thing is, the user who said they don't like to talk about politics repeatedly misgendered me and said some misogynist stuff about it later on. So, I was right.
Seeing other queer people say they hate politics is triggering to me, because it reminds me of the way transphobes have attacked my gender in the past. Subjectively, it feels the same as seeing a slur. And I know that this language has horrible effects on the queer community, because I've seen it happen. I've seen gay people attack bi and trans people for being political. I've seen trans people attack enbies for being political. I've seen enbies with more acceptable genders attack xenogender people and neopronoun users for being political. And I've seen white people all over the queer spectrum attack BIPOC queer people for being political. I know from experience that speech like this is going to radicalise queer people against minorities and may contribute to someone being abused.
A person's right to avoid having anyone disagree with them ends when they harm other people. And this speech is harmful. If the goal is to make everyone safe and prevent hostile disagreements, then the place to start is with removing harmful speech that embraces the narratives of the oppressor and ends with people getting hurt. Nobody had to go and use this speech, it was a choice. It wasn't an informed or considered choice but it was still a choice that impacts other people. That's why it needs to be informed and considered. It's inflammatory and controversial in the impacts it has on how other people think, and I don't want to see it here. Removing political controversy means removing speech like this.
Either they're a tankie and start singing the praises of the USSR and PRC and all sorts of totalitarian hellholes, or they start talking about hypothetical economic systems and states which haven't been shown to be practically achievable
Well allow me to present the third option: communism has been tried in Australia and North America, and it worked. Marx's ideas of what a communist society would look like were informed by descriptions he read of how the Haudenosaunee people actually organised their society. They did communism for thousands of years and it worked.
That sounds pretty statist. How do you square that with the fact communism is stateless?
You're right that when most people say politics, they mean "opinions I disagree with". But if someone hates hearing differing opinions, they should say that instead of saying they hate politics. And the reason for that is that our belief that politics is disagreement with the status quo is propaganda. The ruling class wants us to hate it when people disagree with the status quo, so they find a name for it and tell us it's bad.
I've spoken to dozens of people who "hated politics", and 90% of them couldn't even define what politics is. Probably because they didn't want to admit that what they hated is differing opinions. The word politics as it exists in propaganda is a thought terminating cliche. It destroys introspection, critical thinking, and rational decision making.
The truth is, human beings are given at birth a tremendous love for politics. Humans are a social species, and politics is the building of society. Humans love that shit, they can't get enough of it. That's why all the best books and movies are political. That's why Disney is "woke". Politics sells because everyone loves it.
I'm not of the mind to bow down to this thought terminating cliche and let people walk around demanding things with no critical thinking. If someone wants to tell me that politics is bad, they better have thought it through, or I'm going to make a fool of them until they stop making a fool of themselves. They better bring a definition to the table, because I've got a definition and it says everyone loves politics. If someone can't define what they hate, then they obviously have no idea what they're talking about and I'm not going to go along with their cliche. They're going to have to explain what they mean and say "I want to stop everyone on the internet from disagreeing with me".
I hope NATO pulls a WWII and goes to war with the USA when the Republicans start the second holocaust
Actions speak louder than words, and words speak louder than thoughts. If they aren't acting on left wing ideology, then they're not left wing ideologically. They're just liars.
I never met anyone in my life who didn't act on their beliefs. I met plenty of hypocrites, people who said they believed different than they acted, and usually their professed beliefs were better than their actions. But those weren't their beliefs, they were just liars. There's no such thing as a person who doesn't believe in their actions.
If you knew any theory, you'd know that communism is anarchist.
I agree, this "left unity" BS is propaganda and it's wrong. True unity means making a space welcoming to everyone by kicking out intolerance. Left unity is created by deplatforming authoritarians and transphobes, and building systems that provide justice to the marginalised. Welcoming fascists and bigots means disunity, as much as they love to scream otherwise.
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I agree. In fact, communism is defined as stateless, so "communist state" is as much an oxymoron as "dry water". However, communist societies did exist in North America and Australia prior to colonisation