The Fallacy of Centrism

[Sultanate of Turkey]

Eww. Bad bill is bad.

Has it actually been signed into law since that article was published? The article says it was still in the legislature.

Both the senate and house have passed it, and it is currently awaiting DeSantis's signature, which it will almost certainly get.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_Prussian_coup_d%27état
Wikipedia works well enough for me. Use the sources at the bottom of the page.

[Saor Alba]

Numerous issues, I do not have a complete list but they were largely negative votes against the democratic government. A good example of this anti-democratic collaboration is their joint participation in the 1932 BVG strike in Berlin, or the KPD's endorsement of the Nazi attempt to overturn democratic government in Prussia.

This is actually really cool because I'm reading a book on this right now. Their joint participation was a gamble by the Nazis to gain working-class votes since they were rapidly losing votes due to Hitler's refusal to accept any position other than the chancellorship. Other than this, they never worked together and the SA often got into violent clashes with the Communists, with hundreds of injuries and deaths.
As for the second one, I haven't heard of that one. Could you provide a source?

Calling it a gamble is a bit misleading, but regardless of their reasons Thalmann considered it "desirable" to have the Nazis work with them on the strike. Nazism was always hostile to the "bourgeois" - at least in rhetoric - after all.

"...in Prussia in 1931 and Saxony in 1932, the National Socialists and Communists stood in united support of the referendum [to dissolve democratic government]."
Direct Legislation in the German Laender, 1919-32 by LS Greene (1933)

[Necroghastia]

They are literally coming for freedom of speech,freedom of expression, and bodily sovereignty across the board, but go off I guess.

Conservatives support freedom of speech and expression? Just because you can’t parade in a dress

So, they don't support freedom of speech and expression.

doesn’t mean they are going for genocide.

Sure. Taking children from families, removing peoples' healthcare, burying research and slandering us all as pedophiles just like the Nazis almost a century ago... well...

And because they don’t support your precious abortion - genocide in all but name - doesn’t mean they are regressive and against human rights.

lol, that ol' canard.

Both the senate and house have passed it, and it is currently awaiting DeSantis's signature, which it will almost certainly get.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_Prussian_coup_d%27état
Wikipedia works well enough for me. Use the sources at the bottom of the page.

Uh... gesundheit?

[The Grand Fifth Imperium]

everyone seems to have missed my post. I asked everyone's opinion, and still haven't gotten a reply.
Also, I put in the spoiler so you don't have to go altheway (that is now a single word) back to page 4

as someone whose political views are more on the Libertarian side of the spectrum, I'm gonna call the idea behind this thread a load of hooey. First off, centrists (i.e. moderates) are probably the smartest people in the room because extremism (regardless of whether right or left wing) is what leads to things like "dehumanization" and "othering" (which you say are the initial steps to genocide, no?). Secondly, to say "left wing is pro rights and right wing is anti rights" is abso-positively ludicrous! I would say it is a rather naive way of looking at things, as it ignores one basic thing: both major political parties in the US oppose freedom in some way.

For instance the Democrats are anti gun, which one could argue is a breach of the fundamental human right to self defense. They also are pro abortion, which could be argued to violate a human's fundamental right to live (while some would argue, on the other hand, that it protects woman's rights, but I feel that's a topic for a different thread). Simultaneously, one could say both parties limit (or seek to limit) free speech in some way. As far the Republicans are concerned, the left wing folks on this thread seem to have shared their thoughts on how they believe Reppies have restricted freedom, so I need not get into that.

Thirdly, to say the Republicans are all or mostly fascist is as ludicrous as saying the Democrats are all or mostly Communists. Donald Trump is no more like Hitler than Joe Biden is like Stalin. Frankly, I find the attempt to label all or most Republicans, conservatives, or whatever you wish to call them as "fascists" (essentially synonymous with "inhuman monsters") as somewhat "dehumanizing" in and of itself.

The key to ending violence and protecting people's rights (which according to the poll is what the left wing claims to go for) is not to be achieved by seeking to tear down and slander those who are not full blown revolutionaries for our respective causes, but by learning to tolerate one another and accept each other as being not just different from ourselves, but having different goals, values, and ideas from one another (diversity of the human mind, I call it). It is only by agreeing to disagree, and compromising on a solution that benefits everyone, not just our political faction, that we can truly cure the ill that is tearing apart the American nation, and ultimately the Free World as a whole. The only way to bring about true change, true progress, is not by fighting and bickering amongst ourselves, but by working together to achieve something great for humanity.

In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "A radical is a man with both feet in the air." Well I disagree with FDR on that. I would say a radical liberal is someone with both feet in the air, a radical conservative is someone with both feet obstinately on the ground, a moderate conservative is someone who places one foot in front of the other slowly on the slippery sands of time, a moderate liberal is someone who runs on said slippery sand, and a centrist is someone who seeks to balance these two sides into a reasonable and responsible walking speed.

Sorry for the rant, but what are your thoughts, NSG.

[Celritannia]

WTH is this poll supposed to mean? It is both hilarious and wrong.

[EuroStralia]

WTH is this poll supposed to mean? It is both hilarious and wrong.

The main problem with the poll is that it classifies Republicans as Far-Right, and Right has just opposition to left.

[Rivogna]

WTH is this poll supposed to mean? It is both hilarious and wrong.

The main problem with the poll is that it classifies Republicans as Far-Right, and Right has just opposition to left.

We should note the "cares about human rights" detail for the left-wingers. It might imply that conservatives don't care about human rights when that isn't true.

[EuroStralia]

The main problem with the poll is that it classifies Republicans as Far-Right, and Right has just opposition to left.

We should note the "cares about human rights" detail for the left-wingers. It might imply that conservatives don't care about human rights when that isn't true.

Well, the author has a clearly strong left-wing bias, they think all conservatives are the bad guts and all left-wingers as the good guys.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

If your positions cause you to be hated by both right-wingers and left-wingers, you earn the right to claim centrism.

okay but this is true for me and I wouldn't describe my positions as being remotely centrist. Centre-left, maybe, but not centrist.

Unless you are yourself an extremist standing at the very edge of extant political opinions, you will always find yourself arguing on every front. I've both defended and denounced liberal-capitalist market economics on this site, for example.

[Urkennalaid]

Historians and many governments have studied for decades that genocide doesn't just happen right away with gas camps. It begins with otherization, demoralization, propaganda, etc.

I’m very much aware of what precedes a genocide. I am Jewish after all.

The Conservatives talk about how the Woke left is trying to groom your kids to be trans. They said the same thing about gay people literally not even a decade ago. Many states have passed laws banning trans healthcare for even adults, trying to push the age higher and higher. Some have said they wanted to eradicate it, like Michael Knowles.

While terrible being an asshole does not a genocide make.

Florida, I believe, made it legal for the state to kidnap parents children, if they suspect the child to be trans.

Ya I doubt that.

Immediately when there was a trans mass shooter, the Right called all trans people evil and violent, and even said that they should restrict access of guns SOLELY for trans people.

Not an indication of genocide.

I mean, a fucking politician, like an actual US politician retweeted a 4chan post accusing a random trans person of being the fucking Uvalde shooter. Florida passed a law allowing doctors to refuse medical care if it restricts on their beliefs.

Again bad policies but not genocide.

Sounds like steps of genocide to me, but hey, what do I know.

And it doesn’t seem to be so to me. It can easily transform from bad policies to genocide as that what it seems some of the right seem to be on the road to.

But we aren’t there yet. Though I’d say it’s more accurate that some in the GOP are laying ground work for one.

Ah yes, well I suppose when the Nazis were "being an asshole" to the Jews and used the Reichstag fire to pave a way to begin suppressing dissenting speech, that wasn't what led to genocide and is part of the steps leading to genocide? No, you wouldn't say that, because historically, that's not true.

They did pave a way to radicalize the populace into being okay with concentration camps. THE NAZIS LITERALLY MURDERED AND ATTACKED TRANS PEOPLE. THEY CALLED THEM DEGENERATES? Why can't we see the same way the Nazis paved a way to further their goals, the GOP is doing the same? Before the camps, Nazis used propaganda to spread false information on the Jewish people. The Right is doing the exact same, and comparing trans people to the Holocaust isn't dumb, because trans people were literally the fucking targets to attack in Nazi Germany themselves as well as other oppressed minority groups. Also, love how you say you doubt that there's a law separating trans kids from their parents and then get immediately proven wrong.

Also ignored the part where Florida is now allowing doctors to not give patients medical care if it infringers on their beliefs, which definitely includes giving care to trans people.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

-snip-

When right-wingers want to withdraw the aegis of the modern democratic state's protection from certain minority groups, one has to wonder what they want to do to those people once they are no longer protected.

I mean, lynchings very quickly declined from an everyday happening to a rare outrage once the United States government started containing black politicians capable of ordering black police officers to shoot back. Representation works.

[Urkennalaid]

everyone seems to have missed my post. I asked everyone's opinion, and still haven't gotten a reply.
Also, I put in the spoiler so you don't have to go altheway (that is now a single word) back to page 4

as someone whose political views are more on the Libertarian side of the spectrum, I'm gonna call the idea behind this thread a load of hooey. First off, centrists (i.e. moderates) are probably the smartest people in the room because extremism (regardless of whether right or left wing) is what leads to things like "dehumanization" and "othering" (which you say are the initial steps to genocide, no?). Secondly, to say "left wing is pro rights and right wing is anti rights" is abso-positively ludicrous! I would say it is a rather naive way of looking at things, as it ignores one basic thing: both major political parties in the US oppose freedom in some way.

For instance the Democrats are anti gun, which one could argue is a breach of the fundamental human right to self defense. They also are pro abortion, which could be argued to violate a human's fundamental right to live (while some would argue, on the other hand, that it protects woman's rights, but I feel that's a topic for a different thread). Simultaneously, one could say both parties limit (or seek to limit) free speech in some way. As far the Republicans are concerned, the left wing folks on this thread seem to have shared their thoughts on how they believe Reppies have restricted freedom, so I need not get into that.

Thirdly, to say the Republicans are all or mostly fascist is as ludicrous as saying the Democrats are all or mostly Communists. Donald Trump is no more like Hitler than Joe Biden is like Stalin. Frankly, I find the attempt to label all or most Republicans, conservatives, or whatever you wish to call them as "fascists" (essentially synonymous with "inhuman monsters") as somewhat "dehumanizing" in and of itself.

The key to ending violence and protecting people's rights (which according to the poll is what the left wing claims to go for) is not to be achieved by seeking to tear down and slander those who are not full blown revolutionaries for our respective causes, but by learning to tolerate one another and accept each other as being not just different from ourselves, but having different goals, values, and ideas from one another (diversity of the human mind, I call it). It is only by agreeing to disagree, and compromising on a solution that benefits everyone, not just our political faction, that we can truly cure the ill that is tearing apart the American nation, and ultimately the Free World as a whole. The only way to bring about true change, true progress, is not by fighting and bickering amongst ourselves, but by working together to achieve something great for humanity.

In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "A radical is a man with both feet in the air." Well I disagree with FDR on that. I would say a radical liberal is someone with both feet in the air, a radical conservative is someone with both feet obstinately on the ground, a moderate conservative is someone who places one foot in front of the other slowly on the slippery sands of time, a moderate liberal is someone who runs on said slippery sand, and a centrist is someone who seeks to balance these two sides into a reasonable and responsible walking speed.

Sorry for the rant, but what are your thoughts, NSG.

Ah yes, I remember the time where moderate centrists said the same thing through American history. That extremists on both sides were the problem...

Like the black panther party fighting against segregation and the KKK...

or the abolitionist John Brown who murdered slavers and the Confederates...

I mean, wasn't that long ago that people saw MLK as an "extremist." Also, I'm sorry but I would really like to hear how you think the Democrat party opposes free speech, because I agree that they do, but they usually prefer to do it to leftists. They don't let any American travel to Brazil, anyone who's considered even maybe a little bit kind to China as a nation is silenced out and denounced by all the liberal media types, you had news sites like NYT censoring leftist journalists info on the Iraq War and war crimes. God forbid you call Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or any one of the recent politicans war criminals who should be tried at the Hague.

To be honest, I see the liberals give more free speech to republicans. Have you SEEN the amount of "moderate republicans" o0r even neo-con pro-trump conservatives on CNN? They literally had Trump do a propaganda press tour in the CNN town hall to a crowd of "independents"(who literally all said they loved Trump on live TV btw

[Urkennalaid]

-snip-

When right-wingers want to withdraw the aegis of the modern democratic state's protection from certain minority groups, one has to wonder what they want to do to those people once they are no longer protected.

I mean, lynchings very quickly declined from an everyday happening to a rare outrage once the United States government started containing black politicians capable of ordering black police officers to shoot back. Representation works.

Yeah, now we just have modern day lynching's that people cheer, like Amir Aubrey, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jordan Neely, etc. Also, it's not that representation works, it's that the Right evolves their ways. Hell, places like Chicago, NYC, Georgia, etc have tons of black cops or a diverse set of cops. We have a diverse group of politicians. The Vice President is a black Indian woman. That doesn't change how much police brutality is, or the fact that those same people uphold the system that we live under.

[Saor Alba]

Ah yes, I remember the time where moderate centrists said the same thing through American history. That extremists on both sides were the problem...

Like the black panther party fighting against segregation and the KKK...

The Black Panthers were made up of violent career criminals and their crimes involved murdering police officers and torturing & murdering a teenager.

or the abolitionist John Brown who murdered slavers and the Confederates...

A religious extremist and terrorist who murdered innocent people.

They don't let any American travel to Brazil

It took me five seconds to google "flights US to Brazil" to find out that this is false.

[Torisakia]

I guess you could consider me a centrist. But I figure it's more of a "minding my own business" sort of thing. I got my own life to live. I can't spend every waking moment worrying about everyone else's. That's their concern more than mine.

[Saor Alba]

Yeah, now we just have modern day lynching's that people cheer, like Amir Aubrey, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jordan Neely, etc. Also, it's not that representation works, it's that the Right evolves their ways. Hell, places like Chicago, NYC, Georgia, etc have tons of black cops or a diverse set of cops. We have a diverse group of politicians. The Vice President is a black Indian woman. That doesn't change how much police brutality is, or the fact that those same people uphold the system that we live under.

The "lynching" narrative is arguably one of the most dangerous myths that spreads about American race relations. There is zero statistical evidence whatsoever to suggest that black people are uniquely threatened by police brutality or interracial violence. Black people are overrepresented in police killings when it comes to their share of the population, but that assumes there is an equal probability of a white person coming into contact with the police as a black person coming into contact with the police. Black people are more likely to live in urban areas than white people, which have higher crime rates and more police. The research of Joseph Cesario tackles this and he has published a few papers which argue that when you control for crime rates and exposure to police, black people are not overrepresented in police killing.

[Urkennalaid]

Ah yes, I remember the time where moderate centrists said the same thing through American history. That extremists on both sides were the problem...

Like the black panther party fighting against segregation and the KKK...

The Black Panthers were made up of violent career criminals and their crimes involved murdering police officers and torturing & murdering a teenager.

or the abolitionist John Brown who murdered slavers and the Confederates...

A religious extremist and terrorist who murdered innocent people.

They don't let any American travel to Brazil

It took me five seconds to google "flights US to Brazil" to find out that this is false.

John Brown didn't kill innocent people. He killed slavers. There's a difference. Also, gotta love calling him a religious extremis as if the people he was executing weren't southern plantation owners who used the Bible to subjugate black people and treat them as objects ALL the time. Also, the FBI murdered Fred Hampton in cold blood.

[The Sherpa Empire]

or the abolitionist John Brown who murdered slavers and the Confederates...

A religious extremist and terrorist who murdered innocent people.

TBF, less violent abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison were also considered "extreme" by mid-19th century standards. One of the Southern states even put out a warrant for Garrison's arrest despite the fact that Garrison had been in Massachusetts the whole time.

[Saor Alba]

John Brown didn't kill innocent people. He killed slavers. There's a difference. Also, gotta love calling him a religious extremis as if the people he was executing weren't southern plantation owners who used the Bible to subjugate black people and treat them as objects ALL the time. Also, the FBI murdered Fred Hampton in cold blood.

The Doyles never owned any slaves and yet they were murdered by Brown and his terrorist gang. They even intended on killing their children before their mother pleaded for their lives. Him murdering other religious extremists doesn't change the fact that he was a religious extremist. His worldview was fundamentally rooted in Evangelical protestantism. His entire justification for his actions was religious. He was a religious extremist and a terrorist.

Fred Hampton being assassinated by the FBI does not change what I said. The Black Panthers were a violent gang.

[New Zoigai]

All parties in the United States are leftist. True right politics strolls away from democracy, and closer to monarchs and dictators

Why?

Did you look at it? What is being classified under any of those headings are pretty wild.

Who even thinks that the American Democrat Party are left wing?

They are pretty left wing compared to the alternatives.

[Cannot think of a name]

The main problem with the poll is that it classifies Republicans as Far-Right, and Right has just opposition to left.

We should note the "cares about human rights" detail for the left-wingers. It might imply that conservatives don't care about human rights when that isn't true.

Since when?

[Cannot think of a name]

Yeah, now we just have modern day lynching's that people cheer, like Amir Aubrey, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jordan Neely, etc. Also, it's not that representation works, it's that the Right evolves their ways. Hell, places like Chicago, NYC, Georgia, etc have tons of black cops or a diverse set of cops. We have a diverse group of politicians. The Vice President is a black Indian woman. That doesn't change how much police brutality is, or the fact that those same people uphold the system that we live under.

The "lynching" narrative is arguably one of the most dangerous myths that spreads about American race relations. There is zero statistical evidence whatsoever to suggest that black people are uniquely threatened by police brutality or interracial violence. Black people are overrepresented in police killings when it comes to their share of the population, but that assumes there is an equal probability of a white person coming into contact with the police as a black person coming into contact with the police. Black people are more likely to live in urban areas than white people, which have higher crime rates and more police. The research of Joseph Cesario tackles this and he has published a few papers which argue that when you control for crime rates and exposure to police, black people are not overrepresented in police killing.

So black people are not over represented in police killing because they're over policed.

That's a killer take.

[Neu California]

MLK was an extremist, for reference (as much as he gets painted as a moderate in this day and age). To quote him:

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

I completely agree with him. Why should people whose rights are being taken away or denied just wait for the forces rallied against them to back down or become more amenable to their position? That is the position of the moderate: Just wait your turn and don't rock the boat, which, considering the hell women* and lgbt folk** are going through, I think they'd rather get action now than wait for the moderate to come around to their viewpoint.

* If you have some serious medical issue and are pregnant in a state that bans abortion, Good luck

** See the various trans bans and efforts to push them back into the shadows, while denying them care that can significantly reduce their risk of suicide.

[Saor Alba]

The "lynching" narrative is arguably one of the most dangerous myths that spreads about American race relations. There is zero statistical evidence whatsoever to suggest that black people are uniquely threatened by police brutality or interracial violence. Black people are overrepresented in police killings when it comes to their share of the population, but that assumes there is an equal probability of a white person coming into contact with the police as a black person coming into contact with the police. Black people are more likely to live in urban areas than white people, which have higher crime rates and more police. The research of Joseph Cesario tackles this and he has published a few papers which argue that when you control for crime rates and exposure to police, black people are not overrepresented in police killing.

So black people are not over represented in police killing because they're over policed.

That's a killer take.

They are not overpoliced, they are policed adequately for how much crime they perpetrate.

[The Sherpa Empire]

MLK was an extremist, for reference (as much as he gets painted as a moderate in this day and age). To quote him:

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

I completely agree with him. Why should people whose rights are being taken away or denied just wait for the forces rallied against them to back down or become more amenable to their position? That is the position of the moderate: Just wait your turn and don't rock the boat, which, considering the hell women* and lgbt folk** are going through, I think they'd rather get action now than wait for the moderate to come around to their viewpoint.

* If you have some serious medical issue and are pregnant in a state that bans abortion, Good luck

** See the various trans bans and efforts to push them back into the shadows, while denying them care that can significantly reduce their risk of suicide.

Overturning Roe and passing a bunch of whacky new anti-LGBT laws is not moderate. That stuff is definitely some right-wing bullshit.