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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • For starters, all liberals have Reddit and Lemmy.world, which are large. Where do leftists have?

    I agree that lemmy.world is a primarily liberal instance, but I haven’t seen the same level of censorship on lemmy.world as I have on hexbear, though I’m open to evidence to the contrary. You can create a space for a specific ideology without resorting to such an extreme level of censorship and lemmy.world is proof of that. Also see my home instance slrpnk.net, we’re a primarily anarchist instance and we haven’t had to resort to extreme censorship to achieve that.

    Secondly, this comment is indistinguishable from concern-trolling. I’d have to read through your post history or go back and forth with you to know if you were an honest actor or just a troll.

    By what method do you distinguish concern-trolling from legitimate concern? Concern-trolls generally want to shut down discussion, and the whole reason for my concern is that censorship shuts down discussion.

    Thirdly, most of us know your views, and have rejected them.

    They’re not my views, did you miss the part of my comment where I said I disagree with the comments that got them banned?









  • To be clear, the Bolsheviks were definitely Communists and Socialists, and implemented a more democratic and Worker-focused society than Tsarist Russia

    I agree that the USSR was more democratic and worker-focused than Tsarist Russia, but saying they were definitely Communists and Socialists depends on your definition of those words. An originalist Marxist for example would vehemently disagree that they were communist because communism was envisioned as this pure ideal stateless society, the “end goal” to work towards. Statelessness is definitely no longer a requirement of communism for modern Marxists, but it used to be.

    US and Western Powers deliberately attempted to shove a wedge in the Leftist movement by trying to paint the USSR as “not true Communism.”

    While this is definitely the case, people at the time had legitimate critiques of the USSR that may have led them to see it as “not true Communism,” see above. Wedges are driven into splits that already exist.

    Because everyone seems to have their own unique definition of what Communism/Socialism is, saying that something is/isn’t socialist/communist should be taken more as an expression of that person’s values than a semantic argument. If someone says they are socialist and [insert government here] is not, what they are really saying is that there are aspects of [insert government here] that they disagree with to the point that it’s a dealbreaker for them.


  • What do the words socialist and communist actually mean to you?

    I think with the way you’re using the word socialist, what you actually mean is social democrat, which is a newer term people use to mean capitalism but with heavy regulation and strong welfare / social safety nets.

    When you ask people who are actually anti-capitalists and consider themselves some flavor of socialist or communist to distinguish between the two you will get as many different answers as people you’ve asked. In Marxist theory socialism is generally understood as a transitional state towards communism. Historical events led to communism being used mostly to refer to the authoritarian ideology championed by the Bolsheviks, so people started using socialism to differentiate themselves from that definition.

    The only thing you’ll get most leftists to agree on is that both socialist and communist mean anti-capitalist, and those who disagree are confused liberals.









  • As a radical leftist who lives in rural Kentucky, if I truly had so much money that it was not an issue, I would stay and try to affect change.

    It’s tempting of course to move somewhere more sympathetic to my views and my desired lifestyle, but I don’t want to abandon my politically uninformed family and friends. I would rather use my wealth to organize mutual aid, fund libraries, and instill class consciousness here in my home, in the hopes of creating a community that aligns with my views and desired lifestyle.

    Considering that money is power under our current economic system, this is really a question of if you received power would you use it selfishly to help only yourself or try to help others.



  • You wouldn’t know what transexual means if you hadn’t been told or read or heard about it somewhere. That is as true of adults as it is of children. What you seem to be implying is that a child could not possibly understand the concept, and that is where we clearly disagree.

    You don’t give children enough credit. Children are capable of understanding how they are different from others, even if they don’t have the words to describe it. They can understand that there are people with authority who make the rules, even if they don’t know the details. They are able to recognize when things are unfair and feel indignant about it, even if they’re unsure of why or how.

    The mother can give her child the words to describe how they feel, the details of the world we live in, explain the whys and hows of it, and the child is capable of comparing that to what they know and thinking for themselves. Children are impressionable because of their lack of prior knowledge with which to make that comparison, but that does not mean they lack agency.

    It is certainly possible that this mother manipulated her child, put words in her mouth, shielded her from information that could provide a basis for comparison, but that is an assumption for which you have no evidence except that you can’t imagine the alternative.

    The alternative being that this mother raised her child lovingly, taught them all they could, trusted them with information from other sources, trusted them to make their own judgements with their guidance, and supported them when they came to their own conclusions.