What is your definition of “fascist”?

As well you should have been. If you can’t see how this is problematic then I truly think you should sell professional help. You are not the morally justified party in this scenario.

Do you like to eat? Because the people hanging out with that dirt are the people producing your food. Have some respect. Your cities are far more fragile and dependent than you like to pretend.

Or, you know, it might simply be people with a different opinion from you. That exists too.

You seem to really like the word psychological…

You clearly understood the message of his special where he told a heart wrenching story about his trans friend killing herself due to the bullying she received from the tolerant left. That’s what I like about people like you, you’re SOOOO compassionate, and smart.

Cool, thanks for engaging with my points and not giving a lazy response. Appreciate you.

Spoken like an elitist liberal. You’d fit right in in California.

You remind me of someone I once read about. They too believed in progressive ideals. They decided to hitchhike from Italy to the middle east in an attempt to share their message of love and peace. Three weeks into the trip they were raped, murdered, and left in a ditch. But I guess you’re right, evil people don’t exist, it’s just those damn aggrieved saps at the bottom who don’t respect the system.

You’re right, there are certainly people who have been downtrodden by the world and become cold and callous, but there are also people simply born cruel. I’ve seen downtrodden people act with tremendous kindness/morality, and I’ve seen successful people act with tremendous evil/immorality. For you to pretend that bad behavior is simply a result of “the system” is idiotic and out of touch with reality.

And I think your political literacy is poor, and barely surface level. The conditions you speak of are not due to nebulous “progressive” policies, but to the vast wealth inequality your country as a whole, but California particularly, suffers from. California has progressive policies, but still does not address many of the worst of the issues.

What do you suppose led to the vast inequality? I’ll give you a hint, it was elitist thinking and liberal policies. California is one of the most progressive states in the country. It’s been that way basically my entire life. We charge more for everything (taxes, healthcare, energy, housing, etc) so that we can fund our progressive agenda. As a result our middle class has evaporated. Now we have only the poor and the insanely wealthy. Our progressive leaders know this, so they pander to the poor, giving them benefits to keep voting them in, and cut deals with the rich. They don’t want to stigmatize anyone so they’ve stopped enforcing many basic laws. The rich aren’t terribly impacted, they live in gated communities and have armed security. Instead it’s everyone else who suffers. You acknowledge California has progressive policies that don’t address the problems, yet you simultaneously dismiss them being the cause of the problems. What is your answer then? Let me guess… communism? That seems to be the answer everyone on Lemmy espouses.

So now you’re mental health shaming? I thought progressives were supposed to be compassionate and nonjudgmental. You’re really letting the ideology down.

Or could it be that we see policy enacted which tangibly DOES in fact make our lives worse, our community run down, and our family less safe? Why is it that in the 50s you could leave your front door unlocked without fear of someone stealing your stuff or harming your family? The country has gotten significantly more progressive since then. Would you feel safe doing that now? In big cities (overwhelming progressive) people are advised to leave their car windows down so that anyone trying to break in won’t shatter the window. In those same cities homeless encampments, open drug use, and relieving oneself in the streets has become the accepted norm. Call me crazy, but I liked it better the way it was before.

Not all change is good, and not all conservation is bad. That seems to be a sentiment we’ve lost sight of.

I’d like to make a nuanced correction to your statement. You state that conservatives believe that hierarchy is natural and unavoidable, and progressives believe in equality. As someone who considers themselves a right leaning centrist, I think you’re missing an important distinction. I believe that good people and evil people exist. I believe that hard working people and lazy people exist. I believe that kind people and selfish people exist. You can never have true equality in a progressive sense so long as those two sides exist. The evil, selfish, and lazy people will ALWAYS prey on the good, kind, hard working. It isn’t that we fundamentally disagree with what progressives want, it’s that we think they have an unrealistic utopian view. Sort of like how a child will say they wish for world peace. It’s sweet and well intentioned, but misses the reality of the world. As a native Californian, I can tell you that many of these progressive policies you want have led to increased violence, property crimes, and a general reduction in quality of life across the board, not just for the people at the top, but for literally everyone.

Obviously it’s not ALL Europeans. No country in the world is a monolith. The governments, however, ARE representative of the general will of the people. The fact that the governments of Europe (again who are representative of the people) are backpedaling on gender affirming care and pausing things like hormone replacement therapy, gender reassignment surgery, and shutting down gender clinics indicates to me that the general will of the people in Europe is one of transphobia.

“Most American Republicans” are in the minority and NOT representative of the will of the people as indicated by the fact that our current administration is Democrat. We also affirm trans individuals by allowing widespread access to gender affirming care, flying the trans flag on public buildings, and highlighting trans individuals in mainstream media.

For the record, my argument was not a “whataboutism”, but yours in fact was.

You sound like a happy person. I hope you get the help that you need.

You clearly missed the point, but what can I expect…?

I have no issue whatsoever with you bashing my side. What I DO have an issue with is you bashing my side and then staying uncharacteristically quiet as your side does the same thing. Selective outrage is hypocritical and disingenuous. Even your response here illustrates to me that you aren’t willing to suck up your pride and be honest. Rather than focus on the specifics of what I’ve said you ignore it and attack me personally.

I would never consider Trump my guy. That being said I think he was treated unfairly by the media and those like yourself. Y’all spent 4 years claiming he was a Russian Manchurian candidate, that he would clearly start world war 3, that he would imprison his political opponents, and on and on. The sick part is Biden has come much closer to many of those accusations than Trump did and you STILL carry water for him. You should be ashamed.

What does any of that have to do with inflation?

What caused inflation in this instance was the uncontrolled spending/printing of money by our government, and their mandates to shutter large portions of our economy even after COVID was shown to be less of a risk than initially feared. It’s absolutely true that Trump was still president when it began and COVID was having a serious impact on our economy. What wasn’t Trump’s doing was the continued spending and closures well after COVID had been dealt with. We continued to pass multi-trillion dollar spending bills under the blanket of COVID relief which in reality had next to nothing to do with actual COVID relief. Instead, our government saw a once in a lifetime opportunity to have what was essentially a blank check, and oh boy did they capitalize on that. Take a look at Biden’s baby, the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s a prime example of this. Even now proponents admit it did little to stifle inflation.

And Europeans are anti-trans bigots who have begun limiting gender affirming care to minors. What’s your point?

Let’s be honest, if Trump were in office and inflation was happening y’all would be blaming him personally in exactly the same way.

The fact that you see people on the right as cartoon villains means YOU are the hateful person.

Completely false. The implication of this post (and most posts here) is capitalism=bad and communism=good. Capitalism certainly has its faults, but comparing it to communism and portraying communism as the shining beacon on the hill is just laughable. Someone else here said it better than I ever could, “Communism’s solution to homelessness is mass starvation”. I just find it ridiculous that the very system which allows people the resources to sit around wasting time online is the system they constantly rail against.

Answer me this, if this post ISN’T portraying capitalism as pure evil, but is instead simply highlighting a problem we have as a society, then why do I never see similar posts highlighting problems communist societies face? I only ever see communism being defended and/or held up as THE standard by which we should all strive.

How is that not a valid critique? I despise Apple as a company. As a result I refuse to purchase any of their products or use any of their services. To this day I have never purchased a single Apple product. I do this because I have conviction and standards.

1st world communists like to denigrate capitalism, yet live comfortable lives because of it. That shows zero conviction or standards.