• Sabre363
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    5 months ago

    Do these labels really have any benefit or value in society, or are they just yet another lame excuse for us all to hate on a group of ‘others’

    • Imacat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      They referred to specific ideologies and economic and social policies before the modern corporate propaganda machine really started in the 80s. Pretty sure they’re meaningless to most Americans these days.

    • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I hate that the left is so hell bent on creating division among itself and allies with this “nobody is left enough for me;” bullshit.

        • DancingBear@midwest.social
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          5 months ago

          Kamala Harris for example is not a leftist; nor Biden or buttigieg…. They are still less evil than Trump though lol

        • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          If they’re voting against conservatives, they can be as far right as they like. I’ve seen people who vote left get called “too right leaning”. So what you would prefer they don’t vote along you? You don’t want an ally cause they’re too different from you??

          • seahorse [Ohio]@midwest.socialOPM
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            5 months ago

            They can vote however they like, but if our ideologies are different I want a way to distinguish that difference.

            Voting is like the bare minimum you can do. I know lots of people who make a more material difference in their communities than voting ever has.

            A liberal will turn my ass into the cops and then lick their boots clean after they kick my door in and lock me up. Don’t need that kind of “ally”.

      • Sabre363
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        5 months ago

        My point was more that there shouldn’t even be labels such as left, right, conservative, liberal, etc. Putting everyone into these little boxes and arbitrarily pitting them against each other only serves to create problems where non existed and solves precisely nothing along the way.

        There can’t be division if there are no groups for people to be divided into. There can’t be any of the “nobody is left enough for me” bullshit if there is no left or right.

        The only true purpose of these labels is for those at the top to divide those at the bottom so they keep their silly little power a bit longer. I for one, fail to see a logical reason to continue playing this game.

        • Luke@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Putting everyone into these little boxes and arbitrarily pitting them against each other

          Just because you apparently don’t have any strong political opinions and the status quo works fine for you, doesn’t mean that everyone else’s opinions are “arbitrary”. What an ignorant thing to suggest.

          • Sabre363
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            5 months ago

            I’m not disputing the validity people’s opinions and beliefs, only that it’s unnecessary to place a label on everyone based on those beliefs. What’s arbitrary is insisting that we are different than those people over there just because they think xyz should be zyx and deciding they are the enemy based solely on that supposed difference.

            Also, the status quo is to have a left vs right and to push everyone to one of those sides. Kinda exactly what I’m arguing against.

        • msage@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          You are wrong on so many levels.

          Let’s go to the most basic one - ‘left’ and ‘right’ are ideological opposites of the one question:

          Who should have more power?

          Individuals (control everything through capital) or government (redistributing capital amongst the people, so no one is left behind).

          That is not just some silly division, that is the real distinction between how people think the government should work, and those are not compatible at all.

          The US has very luke-warm ‘leftists’ compared to other countries - even Bernie Sanders, the most known ‘radical leftist’ is considered borderline right just because the country is so far right as of now.

          • Sabre363
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            5 months ago

            Perhaps once upon a time left and right simply represented two ideological extremes, but today that is not what it means. If you were to ask people on the street what the other side is, are they more likely to say “Oh that’s just my friends that happen to believe something different” or “Those evil fuckers are ruining the world and getting in my way”? In my experience, it’s overwhelming the later.

            The question of who should be in power should exclusively be answered by the people as a collective whole regardless of personal opinions. It should never be answered by vaguely definable groups having a pissing match. If two siblings are fighting, you don’t lock em in a room and egg them on. You sit them down, tell them to apologize, and make them share the toys.

            These labels might have a use in the field of sociology, but in the real world they only act as a wedge and an excuse to be mad at someone else. I’m not saying that they don’t exist because they very much do, only that need to stop existing if we ever want to learn to work together as a species.

            • msage@programming.dev
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              5 months ago

              So you are left leaning, and that’s great, but there is a giant push from the very wealthy to take our power away from us.

              That’s all that it is.

              • Sabre363
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                5 months ago

                If you think I’m either left or right leaning from all this then you’ve completely missed the point