Yea because the universe only have left right and center. And anything not on your side is the other side.
“I have combined right with wrong to make a new thing called wrong” - some centrist
Look, letsjust exterminate half of your family, no vengeanceies, does that sound fair?
The design is very human
Alice: “I want to beat Bob to death.”
Bob: “I don’t want to be hurt.”
Charlie, the centrist: “Let’s compromise! Alice, beat Bob to half dead!”That’s a good take on bothsidesism.
Not all centrists are guilty of bothsidesism. It may the case in some countries. In my country centrists equally hate far right and far left (certainly a false equivalence) and want compromise with neither.
That’s not centralism that’s just demanding reasonability from government.
Extremists from both sides of the political spectrum tend not to exist in the real world, so it’s not hard to be against them.
It’s perfectly acceptable to argue that both sides have a good point, provided that both sides actually do have a good point. However often times, one side (usually the right but not always) have a policy of been actually cartoonishly evil. How do you both sides that? Obviously you cannot so any attempt to do so gets you branded as a useless fence sitter.
So when people say they don’t like centralists, that’s the reason, because they do stuff like that and refuse to accept that sometimes one side is actually right.
So enlightened
Ughhh I hate it…
Look, I support quite a lot of leftist agenda, but also some conservative ones, some authoritarian ones and some libertarian ones. Thus, centrist.
Is “Trans folk should be normal!” a good agenda? Fuck no, they are normal and already deal with rare and debiliating shit, no reason to offer anything else than support. But I do agree with “Leave church marriages to church rules”. One is bad, other preference of community.
Do I believe we need someone at the top to guide shit? Yeah, most of the time, but it may be I know too little about alternatives.
Do I believe we should have absolute freedom to say shit? Yes. Fuck censorship, no matter what drives it. Do I believe that saying shit should be also defended from opinions of other folk? Fuck no. If you’re walking trashbag spewing shit, don’t expect folk to treat you kindly.
So yeah. I don’t fit any camp neatly. I believe in traditions, but I don’t believe they can’t get outdated or face a new problem they weren’t designed to ha dle. I believe in vision and leadership, but I don’t believe we should lose our freedom for it - more guidance than a whip. No, slave owners were in no way or form guides for “poor silly slaves”, abuse is not guidance.
And I still know I am gonna get shat on, because this isn’t community for centrists xD But well, that’s my freedom to say things and face opinions in action.
Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily think you hold any of the following beliefs, but strongly believe that “free speech” is not something anyone should side with the right on, regardless of reason.
The thing about free speech absolutism is that no one actually believes it, they just draw the line in different places. You still will be unable to share recipes for homemade explosives, make credible threats, or leak state secrets. Society draws the line of free speech where harm prevention is more valuable than freedom. Why should all speech, even harmful speech, be protected? What principle makes that ideal sacred, other than that it was written into the US constitution?
Some speech is already deemed too harmful to society. We simply draw the line before the harm reaches the ruling class, and after the most vulnerable are harmed. How many more mass shooters influenced by online echo chambers of hatred and vitriol must we suffer? The right does not believe in true free speech. They believe that their speech that is harmful to the vulnerable must be protected, while speech that threatens the status quo must be punished.
Like calling for the executions of legislators telling military personnel to follow the law. Or designating antifascists as terrorists. Or stopping science reporting on global warming. Or preventing teachers from accurately teaching about gender and sexuality.
But the fascists calling for a white ethnostate and the end of human rights for multiple vulnerable populations, that speech must be protected.
Obviously, the government policing speech is dangerous, because those in power may choose to abuse that power. We’re seeing it now, with countless first amendment violations by the Trump administration, or things like Palestinian Action arrests in the UK. I do not think the US government, or most governments, are in a position to be trusted with speech restrictions. However, the “free speech” movement in the right does not actually care about the specifics of whether the government or private citizens restrict speech. The specifics of the first amendment don’t matter, because it’s all a dog whistle for other bigots. They clearly do want to control speech, as evidenced by the current administration in the US, or the response to the Kirk shooting, or the removal of qualified professionals from their positions for doing their job correctly, or the calls to silence accurate reporting and remove broadcasting licenses, and I could go on.
We do not, under any circumstances, “gotta give it to them.” The right does not care about free speech. They care about protecting the in-group while restricting the out-group. Free speech has always been a myth, and instead of trying to protect it as some sacred ideal, we should shift the line to protect the vulnerable instead of the powerful.
So first of all, congrats on proper disclaimer at the beggining - I tried to distance myself during reading thanks to that and I believe it helped me better grasp what you’re saying.
I do get your point, but honestly the only part that is speaking to me is the one about protecting the vulnerable, because what the right does in the US is, absolutely, not free speech in any way or form - they are practicing censorship and it’s painfully obvious. I am actually from Europe so the right vs left is not really that much on my mind in case of these topics - I simply abhor the idea of limiting by law what can be said or forcing what is to be said ( Gulf of America? .-. ). I do not argue for “free speech” as is proclaimed by the US right wing, but for absolute free speech - both in the terms of being free to say whatever and in being free to be judged by the public for whats left one’s mouth.
But, while I do not exactly agree with your points, I do agree that it’s worthwhile to consider defending vurnerable folk. Although in perfect scenario, communities would do so organically. :/
I always find disclaimers to be helpful to avoid making people feel attacked. As a citizen in a country where my rights are constantly under attack, often with “free speech” being part of the rationale, this issue hits close to home. Thanks for engaging in good faith, and for your point of view. I also agree that ideally, communities would be able to self-regulate without state control over speech, but do believe that in the short term better protections are necessary until societal change can happen. Any protections implemented would require broad support, and be very limited in scope. For example, saying, “I don’t like trans people,” should never be illegal, but something like, “we should kill all those [insert relevant slur],” or other such speech directly inciting hate crimes might be worth regulating, even if just to add an enhanced charge to related crimes. Again, thanks for engaging in good faith, and for your insight!
I for one, support your right to hold personal opinions without fitting into a specific camp!
Politics should be about values, not identity.
Centrists are those who don’t deny problems only because they are risen by far left or far right.
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“Both sides” lol this comic is about you
I was also gonna say that I see this straw-man a lot on Lemmy. A centrist isn’t someone who takes exactly the half way point between two positions from opposite sides, it’s someone who agrees with some positions from both sides. Like, they can be pro-free speech and pro-immigration, for example.
Did you just insinuate that the right is pro-free speech?
The “absolute” kind of “free speech” that I meant is typically attributed to the right, yes. That’s why you see Musk and Trump talking about it all the time, for example.
With Trump and Musk; You do not under any circumstances, ‘Gotta hand it to them’. They lie about liking free speech, they claim ‘absolute’ free speech is their goal, but don’t really care a bit about it. What they want is the right to say slurs without anyone challenging them, but they also want to be able to abuse state power to stomp out criticism of themselves. See the FCC in 2025 for example. The only speech they want protected is their incitement of hatred. Everything else is utterly meaningless to them.
You don’t have to just let them claim adherence to an ideal that they clearly disdain. You don’t have to go around spreading the lie that the right cares about free speech. Reproducing that here uncritically is doing their work for them.
You’re telling me all this like it’s not absolutely obvious to anyone with a brain. But this applies to practically all Trump’s policies, he says one thing and does the opposite or call something with an opposite name and do it directly. The point is that it’s the right that promotes the idea that everyone should be allowed to say whatever they want even if it’s slurs, I just used it as an example. I could have picked any other typically right position that’s not extreme.
You realize that you’re talking about the folks who banned books because there were gay people in them, right?
You have missed my point as well I fear. My point was that assigning free speech to the right as a ‘typically right position’ is incorrect and also harmful. They want people to say slurs, but they want to wield the government to silence trans folks, minorities, women, academics, artists, anarchists, peace activists, environmentalists and others. Someone who likes free speech and socialism isn’t a centrist. They are just a socialist.
The point is that it’s the right that promotes the idea that everyone should be allowed to say whatever they want even if it’s slurs
The right has no right to claim the side of free speech. To suggest otherwise is to accept their propaganda and is downright ahistorical. Conservatism is almost always at the heart of suppression of speech. It is just as true today as it was when Nazis burned LGBT books, or when the red scare led to the government blacklisting artists for being socialists, or when COINTELPRO was used to crush left wing minority movements.
Actions speak louder than words. Both Trump and Musk have engaged in copious amounts of censorship.
They’re lying, fucking duh
You may have been told this before, but I strongly encourage you to read MLK2s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.
A centralist is a person who refuses to act because “both sides are the same”. It’s sitting on the fence. It’s refusing to choose an action.
And then acting smug about it.
That’s why I call anti-electorialists ‘centrists’. “They’re the same.” “Don’t vote.”
These guys think if you’re not blowing Stalin and marx you’re a nazi. They’ll never get it through their head that while capitalism is faulty, communism is not a perfect vehicle to utopia. There can exist no compromise in the head of the tankie
