Most people have confused politics. If you want to land somewhere you need to educate yourself and develop principles so that instead of not knowing where you’ll land, you’ll know exactly where you stand
Well they are slightly vague terms, so please don’t feel stupid. A shocking amount of people who think they know, don’t know.
Left wing politics are generally about a rejection of hierarchy of people. Consequently, they tend to be interested in an international community because we are all the same and deserve the same. As freedom is something that everyone wants for themselves, the left tend to be in favor of an equally free community, e.g. freedom to love.
Right wing politica are generally about hierarchy of people. But not because the hierarchy is necessarily the point, but it tend to be in favor of maintaining the current state, Which just happens to be hierarchical. And usually everything get viewed from a hierarchical pov. E.g. nationalism is a hierarchical view of country and people, your country and its people above other country and their people.
Obviously you could point at the historical stance of us republicans that they want a small government and argue that a small government creates less of 2 class citizens, the law markers and the citizens. But the left would point out that a small government just enables the powerful people to exploit the weak people and create more 2 class citizens.
On the left: The strong hierarchy in the previous attempts of “communism” is the reason why some people will say that true communism was never tried. Other will argue that you need a little bit of authority to run a communustic state.
So the whole thing is a little more complex than “freedom” and “restrictions” and who supports what “restrictions” when.
might need to back up a little. personal, private, and public ownership are different things in one of the areas i worked in. same distinction? personal property is still legal, just privately held businesses not so much. brain’s fuzzy, am i remembering right?
Firstly, this concept only applies to means of production, as in the stuff that is used to produce stuff which could be sold. So e. g. a sewing machine.
Without getting into the weeds:
a. Personal: You own and operate the sewing machine, you pay for the resources consumed and own the item produced. (Good)
b. Private: You own the sewing machine but someone else operates it. You pay the resources consumed, the laborer a previously agreed upon amount and own the item they produced. (bad)
c. Public: the public owns the sewing machine and pays for the resources consumed. The laborer is paid the value of their work. That is, the value of the item produced minus the value of the resources consumed. (Very good)
How “the public” and “the value” are determined is the source of leftist infighting (anarchists vs marxist-leninist). But since both agree that private ownership needs to be abolished the call is for leftist unity to stand together against the people that currently own the means of production privately (the bourgeoisie) and exploit those that have to sell their laborforce in order to survive (the proletariat).
thanks for the refresher! i have worked in too many similar fields with bullshit jargon where they have basically made homophones antonyms just to fuck with anyone who decides to get uppity and do anything cross-discipline so now my brain is:
it’s one of those “i know i learned this somewhere, and i’ll remember in 3 days i’m sure!” things so thanks for helping a fellow out.
tankie is, as i understand it, a combination of authoritarianism, leftism, and some weird nostalgia for the soviet union i’m not entirely sure i’ve just been casually trying to pick stuff up.
That’s more likely to be Nationalist Bolshevism. The correct term is should be ‘NazBol’ and they’re nationalistic right wingers.
Keep in mind some users on Lemmy use the term ‘tankie’ to include anyone with opposition to capitalism and will argue to include anyone who is pro-palestinian or even anti-war ironically.
But those users just so happen to be critics of the Nuremburg Trial verdicts, so their opinions matter less than the NazBols to begin with.
i remember talking about the nuremburg trials with some… now that i think about of it most of them were lawyer friends, and i only have basic education about the nuremburg trials. a few of them have studied them in depth, and now that i think about it the only criticism i ever heard about the verdict was, if you’ll allow me to paraphrase, “you’re going to spend your whole life disappointed if you keep expecting everything to be perfect”.
so i’m very much not a fan of the death penalty as i’ve seen the criminal punishment system fuck up. a lot. they’ve gotta be above reproach if we can trust them with literal power over life and death.
at the same time, unrepentant Nazi. if it had been up to me, I’d’ve wanted to give him the ol’ Robert-François Damiens. first: people are allowed contradictions. second: sometimes the brutality is part of the point. hold the unrepentant nazis up for generations as villains. don’t allow them to be buried in normal cemeteries. Take their ashes and spread them around the country to be on permanent display in each and every post office as an example of why you don’t fuck with the postmaster. teach your kids “you end up being one of those damn nazis i’ll put you in the community ash jar myself”. we really could have done better.
I disagree that left of center is more nuanced than communism. Most communists historically reject all forms of sectarianism, although we can fall into it anyway for a lot of reasons. I have love and admiration for many progressive liberals, and leftists that are not communists (commies are often not the most left faction, leninists tend to be more center left.) When you get to this level of analysis though, left right and center stop being useful and you have to dig into actual issues and political action.
But many progressive liberals are wrongheaded or idealist and dualist, which is not conducive to nuance. But also people are often much more deep and full of insight than their politics suggest
All people are people, regardless of where they live. Borders are just another way for capitalists to fuel the class war. Keep malding that I’m not a tankie 🤙
I think they’re interpreting your response to the meme as “centrism bad” while the meme in question only offers Nazi, Tankie, or Centrist. These sort of mixups happen in these discussions where the implied context is just so massive.
i’ve known too many people who went anarchist > ancap > asshole > sovcit. I’m sure it works well for you, but i feel like it’s playing with fire black tar heroin
Say what. No one I know has ever gone down that route. Anarchism is the furthest reach from ancap or sovcit.
I guess I and my friends have the antidote: read some actual theory. You couldn’t possibly agree with theory then go ancap. Sounds like you’re describing YouTube anarchists.
I’m too uneducated on politics (read: stupid) to even know what left and right means. Where do I land
Most people have confused politics. If you want to land somewhere you need to educate yourself and develop principles so that instead of not knowing where you’ll land, you’ll know exactly where you stand
Well they are slightly vague terms, so please don’t feel stupid. A shocking amount of people who think they know, don’t know.
Left wing politics are generally about a rejection of hierarchy of people. Consequently, they tend to be interested in an international community because we are all the same and deserve the same. As freedom is something that everyone wants for themselves, the left tend to be in favor of an equally free community, e.g. freedom to love.
Right wing politica are generally about hierarchy of people. But not because the hierarchy is necessarily the point, but it tend to be in favor of maintaining the current state, Which just happens to be hierarchical. And usually everything get viewed from a hierarchical pov. E.g. nationalism is a hierarchical view of country and people, your country and its people above other country and their people.
Obviously you could point at the historical stance of us republicans that they want a small government and argue that a small government creates less of 2 class citizens, the law markers and the citizens. But the left would point out that a small government just enables the powerful people to exploit the weak people and create more 2 class citizens.
On the left: The strong hierarchy in the previous attempts of “communism” is the reason why some people will say that true communism was never tried. Other will argue that you need a little bit of authority to run a communustic state.
So the whole thing is a little more complex than “freedom” and “restrictions” and who supports what “restrictions” when.
Right: in favor of privately owned means of production.
Left: in favor of publicly owned means of production.
might need to back up a little. personal, private, and public ownership are different things in one of the areas i worked in. same distinction? personal property is still legal, just privately held businesses not so much. brain’s fuzzy, am i remembering right?
Firstly, this concept only applies to means of production, as in the stuff that is used to produce stuff which could be sold. So e. g. a sewing machine.
Without getting into the weeds:
a. Personal: You own and operate the sewing machine, you pay for the resources consumed and own the item produced. (Good)
b. Private: You own the sewing machine but someone else operates it. You pay the resources consumed, the laborer a previously agreed upon amount and own the item they produced. (bad)
c. Public: the public owns the sewing machine and pays for the resources consumed. The laborer is paid the value of their work. That is, the value of the item produced minus the value of the resources consumed. (Very good)
How “the public” and “the value” are determined is the source of leftist infighting (anarchists vs marxist-leninist). But since both agree that private ownership needs to be abolished the call is for leftist unity to stand together against the people that currently own the means of production privately (the bourgeoisie) and exploit those that have to sell their laborforce in order to survive (the proletariat).
thanks for the refresher! i have worked in too many similar fields with bullshit jargon where they have basically made homophones antonyms just to fuck with anyone who decides to get uppity and do anything cross-discipline so now my brain is:
it’s one of those “i know i learned this somewhere, and i’ll remember in 3 days i’m sure!” things so thanks for helping a fellow out.
No issue, here is a good intro to Marxism if you want it https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm
Can I be a leftist without being a tankie then?
Absolutely. There are numerous strains of leftist philosophy that are anti-authoritarian.
Yes, you can even be a communist without being a tankie.
tankie is, as i understand it, a combination of authoritarianism, leftism, and some weird nostalgia for the soviet union i’m not entirely sure i’ve just been casually trying to pick stuff up.
That’s more likely to be Nationalist Bolshevism. The correct term is should be ‘NazBol’ and they’re nationalistic right wingers.
Keep in mind some users on Lemmy use the term ‘tankie’ to include anyone with opposition to capitalism and will argue to include anyone who is pro-palestinian or even anti-war ironically.
But those users just so happen to be critics of the Nuremburg Trial verdicts, so their opinions matter less than the NazBols to begin with.
i remember talking about the nuremburg trials with some… now that i think about of it most of them were lawyer friends, and i only have basic education about the nuremburg trials. a few of them have studied them in depth, and now that i think about it the only criticism i ever heard about the verdict was, if you’ll allow me to paraphrase, “you’re going to spend your whole life disappointed if you keep expecting everything to be perfect”.
Here I distinctly recall a user calling the execution of Julius Streicher an inhumane act and that we lost our humanity executing unrepentant Nazis.
So that’s fun.
so i’m very much not a fan of the death penalty as i’ve seen the criminal punishment system fuck up. a lot. they’ve gotta be above reproach if we can trust them with literal power over life and death.
at the same time, unrepentant Nazi. if it had been up to me, I’d’ve wanted to give him the ol’ Robert-François Damiens. first: people are allowed contradictions. second: sometimes the brutality is part of the point. hold the unrepentant nazis up for generations as villains. don’t allow them to be buried in normal cemeteries. Take their ashes and spread them around the country to be on permanent display in each and every post office as an example of why you don’t fuck with the postmaster. teach your kids “you end up being one of those damn nazis i’ll put you in the community ash jar myself”. we really could have done better.
Not now that the term has expanded to mean everything to the left of Kamala Harris.
Yes? You do realize tankies are a minority group and that in many nations “leftist” is just a normal political position?
I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here
The vast majority of communists globally are “tankies”. I know that Westerners don’t consider non-westerners to be “real” though
Define tankie? What is this based on?
Good thing the political spectrum left of center is far more nuanced than just being communism, then.
Also, not going to get into a debate about whether certain people should be considered people or whatever you’re baiting, sounds like fascism to me.
I disagree that left of center is more nuanced than communism. Most communists historically reject all forms of sectarianism, although we can fall into it anyway for a lot of reasons. I have love and admiration for many progressive liberals, and leftists that are not communists (commies are often not the most left faction, leninists tend to be more center left.) When you get to this level of analysis though, left right and center stop being useful and you have to dig into actual issues and political action.
But many progressive liberals are wrongheaded or idealist and dualist, which is not conducive to nuance. But also people are often much more deep and full of insight than their politics suggest
“thinking that non-westerners are people sounds like fascism to me. I’m a leftist by the way”
All people are people, regardless of where they live. Borders are just another way for capitalists to fuel the class war. Keep malding that I’m not a tankie 🤙
Incoherent.
Literally just the most basic Marxist definition of the state. Calling this incoherent is an epic self own.
Incapable/unwilling to understand is completely district from impossible to be understood.
I think they’re interpreting your response to the meme as “centrism bad” while the meme in question only offers Nazi, Tankie, or Centrist. These sort of mixups happen in these discussions where the implied context is just so massive.
To me it looks like you’re trying to paint everyone who’s not a Nazi or a tankie as an ‘enlightened centrist’.
🤷 try glasses
Try anarchism. Goes down smooth
i’ve known too many people who went anarchist > ancap > asshole > sovcit. I’m sure it works well for you, but i feel like it’s playing with
fireblack tar heroinSay what. No one I know has ever gone down that route. Anarchism is the furthest reach from ancap or sovcit.
I guess I and my friends have the antidote: read some actual theory. You couldn’t possibly agree with theory then go ancap. Sounds like you’re describing YouTube anarchists.
Six strawmen in a single post! Well done, that must be some kind of record!
Reeeeeeeeeee I spouted centrist nonsense in a leftist space and I’m getting ratio’d reeeeeee
The ratio is not enough.
It is clever, you see, that any disagreement must be done online, therefore reinforcing the premise of the meme.