this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
857 points (100.0% liked)
196
16509 readers
2342 users here now
Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Those of us on the left needs to be more concerned with our optics and police ourselves better.
Catch-phrases like "all cops are bastards", "defund the police", "~~math is racist~~", "black lives matter", "trans-women are women" etc., do not help to promote ~~liberal~~ progressive ideologies and push the people on the fence away.
For the record, I'm not saying that the ideas behind the words are bad*, but the phrases themselves act as a litmus test; If anyone questions the phrases, the divide has occurred, and they're a fascist (another word which is used far too often).
Many of these are so easy to correct for, "Reform the Police", "Black Lives Matter Too" are the most obvious and easy changes.
There are those who'll say that conservatives are going to complain about it anyway, and many of them are set in stone, but there are far too many people going to the right, as a result of the left making fools of ourselves.
The strength of the right is that they'll accept anyone who isn't left. Proud Boys, Neo-Nazi's, and KKK are tolerated by the right because their strength is in numbers, not ideas.
*I support the ideas behind all of them, but how they are perceived by conservatives is not how they were intended to be understood.
EDIT: The conversations about liberal and liberalism have been draining. There is one definition which is practically synonymous with progressivism - this is what I meant, not Liberalism.
Only someone operating in bad faith would claim this isn't what "Black Lives Matter" means.
That's the entire Right. You cannot win them on the grounds of good-faith, truthfulness, or humanity because their politics is solely about power. Conservative politics are the politics of abusers—litterally everything they wish to "conserve" within society includimg "tradition" is their freedom and ability to abuse. That's it:
Family values is not about creating healthy families, it is about patriarchy and the right of the parents to abuse their children.
Defending the sanctity of marriage is about defining LGBTQ people out of legal rights and entitlements.
School choice is about controlling what ideas not just their children are exposed to but their neighbors as well.
Etc. Etc.
Every conservative position is a bad faith push to further their ability to control the lives others and their ideas deserve neither respect nor a platform.