• NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Anti-Conservative

    There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.

    There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.

    There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.

    Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

    There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

    There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

    For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

    As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.

    So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

    Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whatever-the-fuck-kind-of-stupid-noise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.

    No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:

    The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

    Also, those who insist on political purity tests reveal themselves to be temporarily-inconvenienced-dictators-in-waiting.

    • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
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      48 minutes ago

      While I am totally in the “bind all and protect all” camp and really against the “in group protect, out group rules” and I think conservatism is often in practice “protect me and rule others”, I am not sure if I agree with it being called conservatism.

      I think fundamentally the hierarchy in right wing politics imply an in/out group. But just like conservatism is a form of right wing political views, so you could argue that the hierarchical political views are a Form of “in group protect, out group bind”.

      Whatever you want to call it, is part of conservatism, I believe. But I don’t like to call it conservatism, so it feels like we are defining two related but different things with the same name, which will be confusing and could be used by e.g. “progressive” capitalists to claim that they aren’t conservative and therefore not “in group protect, out group bind”.

      • NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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        5 minutes ago

        I am not sure if I agree with it being called conservatism.

        Yes, Wilhoit, if I’m understanding his treatise correctly, addressed this point:

        For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.

        The corollary label could be “Anti-Establishment”. Perhaps, “Anti-Authoritarian”.

    • BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net
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      2 hours ago

      Also, those who insist on political purity tests reveal themselves to be temporarily-inconvenienced-dictators-in-waiting.

      I hope this isn’t about leftists refusing to support biden/kamala in the US.

      • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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        16 minutes ago

        You didn’t have to support them. You just had to use your brain and choose the lesser of two evils. Like which one of these people is more likely to illegally deport me for exercising my first amendment rights? I think you’ll find the answer to that question soon.

    • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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      2 hours ago

      the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

      it’s a nice sentiment, but you really need to have criticisms of the political economy if you want to address the root cause. the reason “the law” doesn’t protect everyone is because the law is set up to prioritize the will of people with money and property over everyone else. I think the more common through-line is anti-capitalism rather than “anti-conservatism”.

      • NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        I think the more common through-line is anti-capitalism rather than “anti-conservatism”.

        I will concede that this clarification makes sense if one regards capitalism and conservatism as de facto interchangeable.

        Personally, I like the “Anti-Conservative” label as defined by Wilhoit because it more accurately describes my own political position within the specific constraints of voting and engaging in political discourse as a U.S. citizen.

        • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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          59 minutes ago

          Personally, I like the “Anti-Conservative” label as defined by Wilhoit because it more accurately describes my own political position within the specific constraints of voting and engaging in political discourse as a U.S. citizen.

          So as someone who doesn’t actually want to address the systemic mass inequalities, because it might require something other than voting, got it.

          • NeilBrü@lemmy.world
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            11 minutes ago

            What a vapid and obtuse thing to say.

            What other actions do you want me to take, other than organizing and voting?

            Shall I run for office? Shall I take up arms against the government? Should I abandon my family to do those things? I will have to in order to be remotely successful at either.

            On the latter, I am not a combat veteran. I wouldn’t know where to begin, and I’m not inclined to throw my life away easily.

            Furthermore, I believe wildcat strikes would be far more effective at dismantling the machinery of disenfranchisement, subjugation and oppression than armed revolution.

      • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Stop calling them the GOP or Republicans

        They’re NAZIS.

        They have Nazi goals, Nazi tactics, Nazi personnel, Nazi legislation, Nazi ideology, Nazi violence.

        They are NAZIS.

        • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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          2 hours ago

          This is completely untrue.

          The GOP was taken over by racist southern dixiecrats.

          Dixiecrats inspired Hitler and the nazis, he wrote about them as the model Germany must follow in mein kampf, and the Nuremberg Laws are just Jim crow without the one drop rule.

          The south are worse than nazis, they literally inspired them, without southern racists we wouldn’t have had nazis.

          • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            Okay but it’s time to normalize calling them what they are like they try to do with their ridiculous “Marxist” slurs

              • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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                5 hours ago

                Biden bragged about being friends with republicans.

                Later he said that the “MAGA republicans” were a problem.

                Upon his Harris’s defeat it was obvious that it was ALL republicans.

                They’re Nazis. No other term applies any more

        • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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          9 hours ago

          No.

          I advocate for removing the southern racist conservatives (aka the christofascist dixiecrats) by any and all means necessary.

          Once they are neutralized I advocate for a more balanced status quo, closer to northern European social democracy.

          But mostly, the south has to burn. They are the cancer destroying this country.

          I advocate for a reasonable debate, a fair fight, not corporatism.

          I know that makes me literally worse than zionist super-Hitler to the tankies.

            • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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              2 hours ago

              You clearly didnt read the thread, I said both should wipe each other out and leave us in peace, which is the opposite of zionism.

          • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            Hohoho!, so you’re a leftist then! You do know that status quo is over there on the left yes? Though framing your enemy as the people in the south is self defeating. You want a class warfare not a geo locational line in the sand.

            • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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              8 hours ago

              No I’m a me.

              Fuck all your labels and causes.

              Rightists won’t be happy till we’re all slaves.

              Leftists will never, ever be happy and the more they win the more chaotic things will get as the internal politics of leftism is broken as well.

              I ally with leftists to destroy the right when they are clearly out of control.

              We are not the same.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    12 hours ago

    The fundamental objective of leftism is the dispersion of sociopolitical power as widely and evenly as possible, with an ideal (neither realized or considered possible) in which each person has no more and no less power than any other.

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
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      12 hours ago

      leftism

      What does this mean? It sounds like you’ve described utopian egalitarianism, which is certainly not common in all ‘left-wing’ ideologies.

      • Considering the right side of the court was aligned with the king and the left side was opposed, its essential to what is leftism.

        Many despots assert left-wing alignment that their rule is democratic no matter how autocratic it actually is, so a lot of confusion has been sewn.

  • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    only if you go to .ml and hexbear instances. or if you go on politics.

    • STØERENFRIED@feddit.org
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      4 hours ago

      .ml users love telling people “kys” and actually threaten you with death for not sharing their opinions. Also they will judge you according to your nationality and then deny being racist. At least that was my experience. Although i’m sure it’s not all .ml users, just a very radicalized minority.