The fact you confuse “liberal” (a right-wing ideology, though not as far to the right as the average conservative - and keep in mind, these are American definitions put in world context as America is not the only country on Earth [surprise]) with “communist” is laughable enough for me to not even respond any further (the most tepid of leftists are social democrats, like Bernie), but I’ll go ahead and shoot that post down.
The fact that when you have the good ol’ US of A sabotaging socialism whenever they can, it’s natural that only the wackiest regimes - ones that completely overshoot “socialism” and go off into a no man’s land - are the ones that manage to survive long enough to make it into the top billing of history - Stalin’s Soviet Union, North Korea, etc. The only exception is the Castros’ Cuba, which has turned out relatively well despite America’s best efforts to sink it. JEWEL’s Granada, Allende’s Chile, etc would have been great places to live if they were allowed to prosper and not CIA’d into the dirt.
You must be awful privileged/lucky to think America is not a dystopia. Good for you. But for those of us on the margins of society, we don’t much appreciate having to play real-life-one-life Frogger to catch buses that barely run or go anywhere, surviving on ramen and kool-aid, facing certain death for lack of medical coverage, risking getting shot by trigger-happy cops, etc while still busting our asses. But go ahead and stay in that bubble where you don’t have to be concerned about the proles.
And, finally, a healthy debunking of the “zomg commies killed but capitalism is heaven” bullshit. TLDW: capitalism has many times the death toll of communism - and counting - because capitalism emphasizes profit with no regard for people, and it’s not profitable to care about the poor left behind by a capitalist system. Millions of deaths per year that dwarf the “communism killed 100 million!” canard even if it was true.
It’s curious that you’re blaming capitalism for the ‘dystopian hell’ that is America, given that in the Unpopular Opinions You Hold thread you said the following:
[bolding mine]
FWIW, on the above I’m in agreement. If black people you know are living hand-to-mouth and subsisting on Ramen and Kool-Aid, it’s because of the way they were raised and the choices they’ve made. Here in my little midwestern town I’m friends with a fair number of black people, and every single one lives in a nice house, has a family, owns multiple cars, and have jobs paying well enough not only to cover their bills but also to attend concerts, take their families out to dinner on special occasions, and take vacations every year. One in particular is college educated, smart as hell, operates multiple ventures simultaneously, has a child in college and another who will be when she graduates high school in a couple of years. And these people accomplished all this not only despite capitalism, but because of it.
You do realize that being someone who realizes there’s a lot of hard-working, responsible, quality citizens held down by capitalism (since, like any feudalistic ideology, capitalism requires a designated underclass) and being someone who also realizes that some people are in bad situations because of destructive cultures/themselves are not mutually exclusive, right? Both are percentages that add up to a whole.
And good for those people you mentioned who were lucky enough to make it out of the bloodbath that is a competitive, capitalistic “society” as “winners”. Well, “good” as in saying so just for the point, since anyone who lives in excess without giving enough back is not a “good” person… anyone who lives the average “upper middle class” lifestyle in the U.S. or above didn’t get there legitimately, but through the exploitation and suppression of others (and that’s not limited to the mere theft of the value of others’ labor).
But for every “winner”, there’s multiple people who worked just as hard or harder and are struggling. And that’s not acceptable. Anyone who works hard and is a positive should not have to struggle, and we should all have a decent, rational quality of life as part of a healthy society. Period. That’s one of the bare-bones basics of the left. Yet according to y’all righties, we’re Bad People for that. Healthy societies are based on co-operation, not competition.
This is not to say that all wealthy people are “evil”, but simply that in order to be wealthy (in the U.S. today, that’s north of about $90,000 in most locales - NYC, SF, LA, etc excepted due to very high costs of living) one has to step on “lower” others in order to get there (barring very rare circumstances). It’s fine so long as one gives back enough in the form of charity, but the vast majority don’t. Contrary to popular delusion, us socialists have no beef with personal wealth so long as it’s through one’s own labor - it’s just very hard to become truly wealthy off just one’s own labor alone (though there are some hella savers out there that do that, and they’re cool).
I call it a slur because that’s how lots of people use it, and that’s how lots of people see it. That’s all it takes for a word to become a slur - language use changes pretty quickly sometimes. And this has happened with every slur - at one point it’s not commonly used as a slur, but then that usage starts to change for whatever reason, and it becomes a slur.
I see it as worse than a slur. A slur is an expression of contempt. This feels to me more like a denial that the target is even worthy of being regarded as human. Others may scoff (and some actually have), but I maintain that it carries that connotation. The targets of this kind of attack are considered beneath contempt, and fit for nothing more dignified than being swept aside and thrown away, like so much trash.
I refuse to countenance such language, or to ascribe decency to those who, having been informed of the enormity of this “superslur,” as it were, wantonly persist in using it.
And yet the poor special snowflakes will still whine and cry and pout if they are called on using slurs and painting others as less worthy humans. They feel it is their God-given right to insult and belittle others, and if you point out what they are actually doing, they cry “Unfair! You are mean to me!”
That’s preposterous. Illegal immigrant doesn’t need to be illegal immigrant human any more than pilot needs to be pilot human. The whole reason the illegal part is considered taboo by nuts on the left is so those who support breaking the law or obstructing enforcement of the law aren’t accurately assessed. And the “hypocritical assholes” are the same people who whine about an accurate term describing what people are doing while dehumanizing millions of their ideological opponents with ugly language.
I think you’re saying that the collection of lies about liberals, presented as what conservatives believe, is actually a lie itself, that conservatives don’t really believe that. Who do you think is doing this demonization of conservatives? That wasn’t written by some far-left writer, it was by someone who identifies himself with the conservative side.
When you say that the “attempt at speech control” is counterproductive, how would things be different if people were not criticizing the use of the term “illegal immigrant?”
Hard to say. But at least time could be spent debating the issue and not the terminology or the character of the person presenting an argument. At the very least the disingenuous language policing is an unnecessary distraction.
Of course it’s disingenuous (and of course saying “that’s shitty to say” is policing, but saying that one shouldn’t say “that’s shitty to say” is somehow not policing…?) – people that feel differently than you about something can’t actually honestly feel that way… they must be lying.
Absolutely not. People can believe what they say. I usually think people do believe what they say. However, there are people who don’t believe what they say but find that certain rhetorical techniques or tactics to be of high utility.
For the most part I believe your intentions are motivated by a sense of justice and fairness. I disagree with some of your methods but I agree with the outcome you seek. What I have a problem with are those that exploit people like you with noble sounding in simplified theory but dangerous in actual practice methods.
It sounds to me like there isn’t anything that’s actually counterproductive about scolding people about the term “illegal alien,” other than it annoys you to be chided in such a way.
I take it that you think you’d have the views on immigration policy whether the people we’re tlaking about are called “illegals,” “illegal immigrants,” “undocumented aliens,” or “blue-tufted bunny rabbits,” right?
I don’t mean to single you out for these questions to score debate points for myself. Sometimes I like to understand better the views of people who don’t typically agree with me. In this case, your earlier comment made me wonder how much the words we use to discuss something actually have an impact on the substance.
As nice as that would be, the 'roided-out U.S. is breathing down the neck of most all somewhat-decent countries, and there’d be dire consequences if they opened their doors to American refugees. And I* really* hope that you’re not as deluded as to think that someone non-privileged can just waltz into another country the same way one can waltz across U.S. state lines.
I’m not sure I follow you. Would you say, for example, that people who were called “deplorables” were slurred – that the adjective form would’ve been fine, and saying they are deplorable or even irredeemable is fine; but referring to their “deplorable” status in noun form crosses some kind of shittiness line?
They were certainly insulted (whether noun or adjective) – as to whether “deplorable” is a slur, I’m not sure. Maybe it is, or maybe it’s on its way to becoming one. Or maybe not. In my understanding, “illegal” as a noun is very commonly used as a slur, and thus even if that’s not your intention when using it, that’s no more an excuse than it would be for someone to claim that they didn’t mean “wetback” as a slur when they used it. It’s just highly obnoxious to use slurs, IMO, whatever the intention, and I recommend avoiding it.
