Asklemmy

I think we need to figure out how to make leftism more appealing to centrists, and particularly to the cis/straight/white/male demographic.

That Trump is neither conservative (in any way) nor cares at all about any traditional Republican values

Abortion is not a moral hazard at all. Most people who might exist don't. The whole "everyone agrees abortion is awful..." shit is obnoxious. I legitimately do not care. I am far more concerned about the lives of actual children. Once we seriously tackle that issue, we can move upstream, and this should be viewed as both incentive and a purity test for those who pretend to care about the "unborn."

Y'all don't need to keep adding things to lgbtq or lgbt+. The q or + takes care of everything

I am very very very left wing, BUT I can get really annoyed with a lot of those "on my side" advocating for the most idealist of all idealism, as if it's a contest. Feels like a competition of "who's the bestest and mostest leftist of all". You scare people away and - not justifying it - but I get why some people get upset with "the left" because of this...

That intellectual property, both copyright or patents, doesn't serve its theoretical purpose and just acts as a legal shield for the monopolies of big corporations, at least in our capitalistic system, and it limits the spread of information

In theory, a musician should be protected against abuse of their music. In practice, all musicians need to be on Spotify through one of the few main publishers to make any decent money, and their music will be used for unintended purposes (intended for their contract at least) like AI training

In theory, patents should allow a small company with an idea to sell its progressive product to many big corporations. In practice, one big corporation will either buy the small company or copy the product and have the money to legally support its case against all evidence, lobbying to change laws too. Not to mention that big corporations are the ones that can do enough research to have relevant patents, it's much harder for universities and SMEs, not to mention big corporations can lobby to reduce public funding to R&D programs in universities and for SMEs.

And, last but not least important, access to content, think of politically relevant movies or book, depends on your income. If you are from a poorer country, chances are you cannot enjoy as much information and content as one born in a richer country.

I'm far left, but I believe that any citizen should be allowed to own any gun.

Stop out-woking one another, it's okay to be right silently in order to bring in fence sitters.

If someone says, "my spirit animal told me late-stage capitalism is evil" welcome them to the club with open arms, focus on how you're alike and trust them to work out their faux pas over time spent among like-minded peers.

Also cultural appropriation ≠ exploitation, we can stop clutching our collective pearls over these faux pas.

I believe that the stance against nuclear power (specifically, nuclear fission, as opposed to radioisotope power used by spacecraft) by greens undermines the fight to stop global warming, and that many of the purported issues with nuclear power have been solved or were never really issues in the first place.

For instance: the nuclear waste produced by old-gen reactors can be used by newer generations.

I don't like extreme leftists (they live in a bubble) but they've been right about everything and they are our best chance at resolving economic disparity

Immigration is universally a roaring net positive in all of history ; economically, socially, everything. It's more than disinformation when they spew talking points. It's hate. And most people complicit are just fully ignorant. USA lost their empire due to lack of education. Every other first world nations have their success in lockstep with the level of education they give their kids. A heist of all wealth has been conducted and you are viewing the aftermath. Elon will find your coffers empty. The real treasure, turns out, was the people.

The DNC is the primary obstacle to progress and no progress is possible between now and when they go the way of the Whigs because of the rigged duopoly system.

• Religion can be a force for good. For social cohesion and a feeling of belonging. That it often isn't speaks more to the samesuch cultural and emotional rot that has affected literally everything than to religion unto itself.

• It actually makes perfect sense for a country to want to limit or tariff importation of goods. This, if done right, can bring industrialisation into the country. You can't have a nation that is all middle-managers, despite the First World's best attempts to become that, it's just fundamentally unsustainable. And while you can have a nation that just produces/exports raw materials, this is ultimately bad for the people in that nation.

I don't really know what constitutes a "political creed," really, so I don't know how to answer.

I'm really appreciating how much restraint y'all guys are showing with the downvotes. Thanks everyone.

I'm mostly an anarchist. But.

I think that there needs to be some degree of authoritarian, arbitrary power. Mostly because I've been in anarchist groups in the past, and when everyone has input into a decision, shit gets bogged down really fast. Not everyone understands a given issue and will be able to make an informed choice, and letting opinionated-and-ignorant people make choices that affect the whole group is... Not good.

The problem is, I don't know how to balance these competing interests, or exactly where authoritarian power should stop. It's easy to say, well, I should get to make choices about myself, but what about when those individual choices end up impacting other people? For instance, I eat meat, and yet I'm also aware that the cattle industry is a significant source of CO2; my choice, in that case, contributes to climate change, which affects everyone. ...And once you start going down that path, it's really easy to arrive at totalitarianism as the solution.

I also don't know how to handle the issue of trade and commerce, and at what point it crosses the line into capitalism.

I believe that the vast majority of people are inherently good, and that tribalism and political divisiveness are some of the biggest issues we have to face.

Political differences arise mostly from different values, fears, education (or lack thereof), etc, but most people if you get to know them believe what they do because they believe it is genuinely good. But increasingly politics is focused on vilifying others, instead of trying to understand each other.

That the dense city movement, of building up, instead of out, is ultimately ceding a huge proportion of our lives (our dwelling sizes and layouts, their materiality and designs, how the public space between them looks and feels, their maintenance and upkeep, etc. etc.) to soulless corporations trying to extract every dollar possible from us.

When we build out, people tend to have more say in the design and build of their own home, often being able to fully build it however they want because at a fundamental level a single person or couple can afford the materials it takes to build a home, and after it's built they can afford to pay a local contractor who lives nearby to make modifications to it.

What they don't have, is the up front resources to build a 20 story condo building. So instead they can buy a portion of a building that someone else has already built, which leaves them with no say in what is actually built in the first place. Ongoing possible changes and customizations are very limited by the constraints of the building itself, and the maintenance and repairs have to be farmed out to a nother corporation with the specialty knowledge and service staff to keep building systems running 24/7.

Yes, this is more efficient from an operating standpoint, but it's also more brittle, with less personal ownership, less room for individuality and beautification, and more inherent dependence on larger organizing bodies which always end up being private companies (which usually means people are being exploited).

In addition, when you expand outwards, all the space between the homes is controlled by the municipalities and your elected government, and you end up with pleasant streets and sidewalks, but when you build up with condos, you just have the tiniest dingiest never ending hallways with no soul.

And condos are the instance where you actually at least kind of own your home. In the case of many cities that densify, you end up tearing down or converting relatively dense single family homes into multi apartment units where you again put a landlord in charge, sucking as many resources out of the residents as possible. In the case of larger apartment buildings, you've effectively fully ceded a huge portion of the 'last mile' of municipal responsibilities to private corporations.

Yes, I understand all the grander environmental reasons about why we should densify, and places like Habitat 67 prove that density does not inherently have to be miserable and soulless, however, the act of densifying without changing our home ownership and development systems to be coop or publicly owned, is a huge pressure increasing the corporatization of housing.

The acab movement has caused more harm than it has salved. Furthering the ideas that there are no good cops means that nobody good will become a cop in the future, furthering the issue

Donald Trump isn’t stupid.

Wanting less/more immigration are both perfectly valid positions.

Immigration can provide opportunities to a country but can also cause issues and it's undemocratic and dangerous to demonize either position on the issue.

It seems like the atmosphere is changing now but I've been saying this for years.

The language of privilege is backwards and counter productive.

The animals we create are morally entitled to the exact same unconditional love and protection as our own children. Leftists practice tolerance but they're not really willing to go as far as actual compassion, empathy, and mercy. A lot of the things they tolerate, they should not.

Abortion is sometimes the less monstrous alternative in a horrible situation, and it should never be seen as less than that.
Women should have enough social safety nets that abortion would never even cross their minds.
It is mostly Capitalism with its focus on productivity and selling youth and beauty that pressures women into it, women are "freeing" themselves into Capitalistic slavery.

From: "leftist" privileged cis het white guy, feel free to ignore or bash me

You can be Jewish and even support the idea of a Jewish homeland while also being fervently appalled by the actions of the state of Israel (Netanyahu, West Bank settlements, unarmed Palestinians shot/killed, houses being bulldozed, mass displacements).

The phrase "we aren't free until we're all free" applies to animals as much as humans, and thinking otherwise is straight up bigotry. That so few extend leftist thought to the rest of the living world is a travesty, if you've managed to come around to leftist thinking then you've absolutely been capable of challenging your pre-conceived biases and this is just another step in that process.

All that said, I'm not one to judge people for not agreeing with this. It took me an exceptionally long time and the right circumstances to finally reassess my reasoning and to realise it was absurdly flawed, hypocritical and informed by propaganda.

As a USian, while I think gun violence is a preventable mass tragedy that unfolds daily here I also think that when minorities, indigenous people, women, queer people or really anybody who isn't a white christian rightwing man talks about wanting to own a gun to protect themselves while living in this country I can't disagree. If you don't understand the very real threat of police violence that you can't resist or stop, and the very real threat of other kinds of violence that police will NOT step in to stop because of who you are, you can't really argue against owning guns in the US to people that have no other choice than to take this kind of thing seriously.

I think handguns should be made much much much more illegal, since the handgun is actually the tool of state violence and oppression, it is the tool of surprise murder and intimidation. On the other hand if you carry a rifle you have to state your capacity for lethal violence, there is no hiding it or revealing it like a powertrip or gotcha card, which isn't to downplay the terror and violence that evil rightwing terrorists have wrought upon the US with assault rifles, but at this point I don't think owning a hunting style rifle or a shotgun as somebody who lives in the US is an unreasonable idea, especially if you have become a convenient political and literal target for the right.

To be clear, the whole stupid idea that owning an ar15 with a 30 roung mag, bumpstock and quick change mags somehow makes you safe to a home defender that breaks into your house at 3am when you pull it out and proceed to shoot 30 rounds erratically in the general direction of something you hear, sending bullets careening through the walls of your neighborhood and more likely killing somebody's kid sleeping in their bedroom than doing anything to make you safer IS pathetic and spits on actual real gun culture.

Also I want to note that people who roleplay as mil-sim types by spending actual thousands of dollars on pseudo-military equipment to live powertrip fantasies are by and large hilariously pathetic, especially because they are usually completely and utterly blind to (or worse directly supportive of) forms of authoritarian violence (state or otherwise). See lots of loser white dudes showing up in 24k worth of weekend warrior dress up GI Joe gear to defend the incredible threat to civil liberties that society expecting people to wear masks during a pandemic represented.... Good job chuds! You saved the day!

I don't seem to have a political creed anymore.

I believe in honesty and being honourable.

People should be free to vote outside the two party system secure in the knowledge that their vote will still be counted if their preference didn't win.

This question is difficult to correctly answer, as anyone can define their own political boundaries. They can be wrong about those boundaries and they can define many different ones that are all valid. Is my "political creed" to be a communist? Which subset might that mean? Am I friendly with certain subsets despite disagreeing with them (yes) and if so would they potentially count as the majority? Am I a (de)famed Western leftist or part of a worldwide effort in terms of having a less popular view of a subject?

I would say that among the people with whom I have the most general agreement, my least popular opinion is the potential for imperial core workers to become radicalized and organized for the left. A very large amount of organized resources is constantly poured into efforts to prevent this from happening, including those that reinforce settler, white supremacist, and chauvinist attitudes that permeate our cultures. That means that our struggle is very challenging right now but also means that if those flows are ever cut off or undermined, there will be immense opportunity and we have to be ready to channel the inevitable accompaniment to the conditions (austerity) that got us to that place away from neoliberal fascistic movements.

Basically, there is a common pathway in understanding that goes from hope for revolution from within the imperial core (no successful precedents) to attempts to understand this and explain why it's least likely to happen there. This can lead to a self-defeating cynicism towards all imperial core organizing or to curb vision. But I think it is our duty to continually reformulate as needed to discovery organizable enclaves, to grow with current and upcoming conditions. We owe that to each other.