Just saying. How’re yall doing, by the way?

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Libs love to say they’re open minded, rational, will entertain new thoughts, believe in the free market of ideas, etc., until you challenge the nonfalsifiable orthodoxy:

      During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

      Try to challenge that and suddenly the time for debate has long passed, all the answers are right there on Wikipedia, which is now authoritative, and even the meekest skepticism of that orthodoxy is soon equated to genocide denial.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      This. A lot of how we ended up in the old chapo subreddit was extreme frustration with liberals who care far more about civility, manners, institutions, and the American Civic Religion than any actual liberation or effective action in the real world. A lot of the vulgarit is a deliberate response to the empty and often violent use of civility rhetoric to shut down views that don’t strictly conform to the liberal world view.