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I think this thread keeps circling the same pattern, just in different wrappers.
First it’s “leftists don’t work.”
Then it’s a list of slogans.
Then it’s “their ideas sound good until you see how they want to achieve them.”
Then it’s jokes about how much time someone must spend online.
Notice what’s missing in all of that? Specifics.
If the claim is that certain policies are bad ideas, great, pick one. Talk about the mechanisms, the tradeoffs, the costs, the unintended consequences. That’s an actual discussion/argument.
But broad generalizations like:
'hey don’t work'
'their ideas are scary'
'it all falls apart when you look closer'
'you post too much, therefore…'
are shortcuts at best. They let you dismiss without doing the harder work of analysis. That’s the same lazy framing, just dressed up in different ways.
And for the record, being online isn’t a proxy for employment or work ethic. People read forums between meetings, at night, on weekends, while traveling, or during downtime. Pretending otherwise doesn’t strengthen the argument, it just avoids engaging the substance.
Disagree with policies all you want. Obviously I do, depending on the issue.
But if the critique never gets more precise than slogans, vibes, or assumptions about people’s lives, that’s not debate, it’s just noise.
Argue the ideas. The rest is filler.
This is where this thread (and others too) goes off the rails.
'Jewish media' conspiracies and insinuations about Jewish people being behind social problems aren’t political critique, they’re antisemitic tropes that predate cable news and the internet.
You can dislike the left, the right, or both without going there. Once you do, you’re not arguing ideas anymore, you're figuratively goosestepping.
I hope someone can enlighten me but the only thing my real ID has done is allow me to buy a can of Zyn! It sure as heck hasn’t helped me get on a plane faster and no one’s scanned it in voting booths where I could have done mail in voting anyway. But it did cost states billions to implement and appears to have increased the wait line at DMV in my area at least. I’m sure it serves a purpose other than nicotine patches, so I’m partially joking 🙂
Call it what you want. I call it pattern recognition. It’s ok to call them on their bs. That doesn’t mean you hate them.
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I think with age comes a healthier dose of skepticism. Young kids haven't developed that yet. So no matter where you get your news, if they tell you things that you've seen the exact opposite 10 years earlier you're less likely to just take it in. However the left has a lock an academia and they filter it in to the curriculum. So you get out of school and see things through a different lens. As life goes on, you start to question those things. Just like my earlier example of 5 years ago after the George Floyd event. Most young college educated kids wrongly believed it was very large numbers of unarmed black men that were being shot by white police officers. As time passes they have come to realize that information they were fed was leftist propaganda. But at the time, there was no way to convince them different.
TM
Agreed on all points. The right is just as bad tho. Trump promised a lot. No new wars, lower inflation, no more world police, a return to normalcy and so far he done the exact opposite of all of it.
Sorry if you feel this was directed at you. It’s not. I just get tired of Americans dragging down other Americas because the main stream media has done nothing but gaslight and propagandize people since WW2.
I worry for my children’s future and want to see America come together. Maybe I’m an odd duck but I’m 36 and I see a lot of good in these young kids coming up.
Gavin’s high speed rail project is a great example of a democrat infrastructure project.
A good example how a democrat wants to protect the environment is how biden shut down the pipeline immediately after taking office.
Do I even need to mention the border? Look what the democrat open border policy has brought us.
those that don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it.
Is this what you want more of?
Leftists are so unhinged right now that they literally live a different reality. A friend of mine was saying that Renee Good "was just dropping her kids off at school," when she was shot. I asked her if she had seen the video of her parked diagonally across the street blocking ICE vehicles while her wife antagonized agents and she insisted that she was just randomly shot dropping off her kids. She also said we're all going to be dead in six months because of Trump starting WWIII. I told her Trump had done more to de-escalate global conflict than Biden had, by far.
Another friend of mine posted that we all live on stolen land and the U.S. is illegitimate and I thought about telling her that if she thinks that's the case, she should go turn over the deed to her house to the closest Native tribe, but I decided the conversation wasn't worth having.
Bingo !!
after more than a few decades of seeing the same shit playing out repeatedly, in an endless loop. And seeing the "news for ratings" cable news channels playing an increasing role.(actually being the spark for unrest by setting up knowing the fray will come to them wherever they set up. All in the name of prime time "BREAKING NEWS")
You easily see that all of the neverending choreography is just a smoke screen for for the hand you're not supposed to see.
In the case of what we're seeing today, it's a deflection the insane billion dollar fraud system(s) being run by illegal immigrants, and helped along by corrupt politicians who are lining their deepening pockets.
Goes back to my favorite phrase.
Media dupes.
Why you guys stressing over left v right? Is it impacting your daily lives to that degree? I have 3 sons and none of them wring their hands over any of this stuff. Except school shootings. That hit a little too close to home.
I get the skepticism angle. Media incentives, narratives, propaganda, all of that deserves scrutiny.
Where it breaks down is how selectively that skepticism gets applied.
You’re quick to wave off entire categories of reporting as 'propaganda' but you’ll also post some pretty wild, sensational stuff without much hesitation as long as it lines up with your existing worldview, and it's often from sources that don’t get remotely the same level of scrutiny.
That’s not skepticism, it’s pattern-matching. If something feels right (to you), it gets a pass. If it doesn’t, it gets dismissed. That’s an easy habit to fall into, but it’s not actually analysis or really even decent discernment.
Actual skepticism is uncomfortable. It means slowing down, questioning the things you want to believe, and being willing to occasionally say “I don’t know”, or even “Hey, it looks like I was wrong” instead of filling the gap with whatever fits best with your preconceived worldview. That’s harder work than searching for headlines that confirm what you already think.
If we’re going to talk about propaganda and critical thinking, the standards have to be consistent otherwise it’s just selective disbelief with 'better' branding.
Skepticism that never turns inward isn’t skepticism at all, it’s just confirmation bias wearing a 'critical thinking' costume.
There is no "both sides" are the same argument. There is definitely a side that's more aggressive and violent.
Stroll into an ICE "protest" with just a simple MAGA hat on and watch what happens to you.
Now walk into a MAGA crowd "protest", if they ever have one, and wear a Harris/Walz shirt or something from the left and watch the difference in the treatment of you from "both sides".
Any video examples of both scenarios you can source to add some credibility to the claim? I'd love to see both play out if/when the people aren't instigating.
This is exactly the problem with arguing from anecdotes.
One friend exaggerates one detail, another spirals into worst-case scenarios, and suddenly that’s proof an entire group 'lives in a different reality'. That’s not reasonable analysis, that’s cherry-picking the loudest or most unserious takes you can find and treating them as representative.
The Renee Good case is still under investigation, with conflicting accounts and video under review. Pretending it’s either 'random execution' or 'obviously justified' before the facts are settled is the same kind of narrative thinking you’re criticizing.
And the 'stolen land' argument has been around for decades. You can disagree with it, I do, without acting like it’s some brand-new mass psychosis.
If your evidence that 'leftists are unhinged' is a couple of extreme conversations with friends, that says more about sample size than reality.
Anecdotes aren’t data. They’re just stories that feel convincing.
Would you say your friends are further to the left than you are to the right? Who would be a figure on the right that you would consider the same distance from the center as your unhinged leftist friends just in the opposite direction?
J6 proves that wrong.
Both of you idiots are what’s wrong with the country. My tribe better no matter what.
I don't have a tribe.
Pit Row
Hmmm, well, since I live in California, this type of thinking is a pattern with my liberal friends, not an aberration. Things I hear a lot: Russians got Trump elected, Trump stole the 2024 election, Trump is a pedophile who rapes children etc. They hate ICE and immigration enforcement. It's very rare that I can get into a reasonable conversation with a leftist because their hatred of Trump colors their every thought.
I got into a conversation with a friend about drag queens in schools. He started ranting how they should do that as much as possible. He has no children. He had no reasoning, just a position. I asked him why they don't have trans doctors or lawyers come talk to kids instead of men acting out their sexual fantasies and posing as extreme caricatures of feminity. He had no answer of course. Logic doesn't fit in with this ideology. I mean, they say men can get pregnant and all the other silliness.
All we have to do is take a look at TMs latest Greenland thread to prove the false dichotomy.
Or rather prove that the right comes up with some seriously nutty stuff.
Me either. But, I do have a Circus.
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