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I was slightly conservative when I was young. Now I don’t know what political orientation I have
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Any opinions at all?
they probably are too privileged or can’t form an opinion by themself
Quite rude towards a total stranger simply admitting they don’t know something yet, but okay.
You can only get more conservative when you have things to protect like a house and a pension.
Most millennials retirement plan atm is die of heatstroke in 150 degree weather in a 8 person shared apartment in Alaska.
Luckyyyyyy!
Statement unclear whether increased conservatism is the natural result of property/capital or if property/capital are merely requisite.
That and the lead poisoning.
Or you’ll get more communist when you have people to protect, like children or friends who start getting sick now that they’re not young anymore
I became a socialist because I was an “essential employee” during the height of the pandemic. I was treated like shit by my company, the customers, and the government while singing me praise. I watched my grandpa get good cancer treatment with the VA (shocker, I know, but it happens) while my sister and grandma had to fight insurance for cancer treatment.
We can’t make a perfect world, but we can make a better one. And it starts with a socialist economy.
I became much more progressive after living in a “blue state” for much of my adult life. It’s hard to miss that the most successful economies in the us are also the ones who pay most attention to quality of life. We can look at the contrast in our neighboring states, and see the advantages brought by near universal healthcare, investments in an excellent education system, care about the environment, higher minimum wage, support for unions, and so much more
If you’re referring to Nordic Social Democracies, they fund their safety nets via Imperialism, they can’t exist without impoverishing and exploiting the Global South. It’s the epitome of the Labor Aristocracy.
No, sorry,I was being us-centric - it seemed like that’s where the thread was.
As one very specific example, when COViD funding for school lunches ended, some us states decided to no longer provide free school lunches. Massachusetts passed a “millionaire tax” and funded free school lunches out of that
As a slightly older example, Massachusetts passed effectively universal healthcare coverage, signed into law by governor Mitt Romney, and later served as the model for the Affordable Care Act
Looking at school system ratings by us state, I see what looks like a strong correlation between excellent schools and a stronger economy.
It’s the same issue as the Nordics, the US is a de-industrialized nation that makes the bulk of its profits off of Imperialism.
I have a house and a pretty sizable retirement account.
I will GLADLY take a lower home value, higher taxes on my retirement, higher taxes in general, so long as the ultra wealthy are also taxed accordingly.
You can only get more conservative when you have things to protect like a house and a pension.
In aggragate, that’s the more reliable way to make a population more conservative, but remember that a reasonable portion of fascists in a society that is going in that direction are going to be people who either lost that or never had it and, in either case, blame some minority for that fact. (The majority are still people like you describe, though, the petite bourgeois, etc., who feel insecure in their holdings)
I agree if you mean neoliberal-conservative
I assume they meant conservative, not fascist.
In the mid 20th-century, people reliably got more petty bourgeois as they got older.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379422000452
Yep, correlation, not causation. Getting older doesn’t cause it.
There’s a much better correlation between wealth and conservatism than age. Almost like those who begin to benefit from the system of oppression are incentivesed to keep it going.
I know that conflating Liberals and Conservatives is practically lemmys official pass time, but I have to point out they are not the same.
Liberals and conservatives are more similar than liberals and progressives.
No, I have a lot of experience in liberal organizations and they are not, despite the memes, closer to conservatism than progressivism. It honestly makes me feel like most people on lemmy have never really worked with liberal groups.
The major differences between a liberal and a social democrat or progressive comes down largely to deciding when a market has failed and when to use government intervention, both Liberals and progressives are fine with intervention, only the threshold changea. We want the same things, mostly, but disagree on how to get them.
Conservatives, philosophical Conservatives anyway, won’t typically even consider such a thing, and often do not even want the same things as Liberals or progressives.
This both sides same stuff just hurts progressive causes, because it sours mushy people with little to no real philosophy on voting for liberal parties. Those people flip flop back to Conservatives when they get angry and we lose the progress we’ve made, as is about to happen in Canada.
rofl! The difference vetween a progressive and liberal is NOT just when they decide to intervene in corporations…
American liberals want to means test EVERYTHING that could concievably go to a poor person. A progressive realizes the red tape is fucking stupid and expensive in its own right. Remember the COVID funds? Sucked up by megacorporations more than small businesses like it was supposed to be for? Notice how American liberals didn’t go after those corporations or really care that the money instantly dried up for smaller fries?
Yea, American liberals are ABSOLUTELY closer to American conservatives in practicality. It doesn’t matter how many polite words they use if the end result is FUNCTIONALLY THE SAME. No, conservatives wouldn’t have given any money to poor people, but as already said, liberals didn’t care that corporations with lawyers that could push all the red tape got the money, not small businessesthat actually neededrhe help.
They BOTH serve to drain the government of public funds. You’ve just fallen for the pleasantries they put on the same negative slant of actions. No, liberals are not fascists themselves, but they’re always, always dumb enough to make things suck enough that fascists sound nice to fools.
No, I have a lot of experience in liberal organizations and they are not, despite the memes, closer to conservatism than progressivism.
Perhaps if you redefine progressivism.
The major differences between a liberal and a social democrat or progressive comes down largely to deciding when a market has failed and when to use government intervention, both Liberals and progressives are fine with intervention, only the threshold changea. We want the same things, mostly, but disagree on how to get them.
Yep, you redefined it.
Conservatives, philosophical Conservatives anyway, won’t typically even consider such a thing, and often do not even want the same things as Liberals or progressives.
Conservatives often do, and the distance between genuine progressivism and liberalism is shorter than liberalism and conservativism.
This both sides same stuff just hurts progressive causes, because it sours mushy people with little to no real philosophy on voting for liberal parties. Those people flip flop back to Conservatives when they get angry and we lose the progress we’ve made, as is about to happen in Canada.
Electoralism will not save you.
The major differences between a liberal and a social democrat or progressive comes down largely to deciding when a market has failed and when to use government intervention,
Okay sounds like you’re just describing different labels for liberalism.
Compare these people to a communist who thinks we should literally nationalize and worker-self-manage the relevant sectors of economy and you’ll see what people are trying to tell you about how liberals and conservatives are basically the same.
I think the fact that you’ve spent a lot of time in liberal organizations is why you think that way about where it falls on the continuum between progressivism and conservatism.
Interesting that you characterize my statement as "both sides"ing. I would say the thrust of my statement is not “both sides” but “one side”. America does not have a progressive party, only conservative and conservative-lite. Given the choice, of course I’ll choose the latter, not least because the former is so far off the deep end it may never recover as a party. That does not mean I think that both parties are the same.
Visually:
--------Progressivism ------------------------ Center ------ Liberalism --------------------------- Conservatism.
A lot of conservatives are liberals. The two terms are not mutually exclusive.
Yet both liberals and conservatives (in your sense of the words) say this.
Based on that link it says that conservatives are at odds with and are critical of liberalism. There is a subset of conservatism called liberal conservativism that incorporates liberal stances into the conservative position however.
Both the democratic party and the republican party are liberal parties. One of them got scratched.
Conservatives are a subcategory of liberal. They aren’t conflated, that’s like saying thumbs and fingers get conflated.
I am becoming more annoyed by young liberals as I get older but I’m sure as shit not turning GOP conservative.
Whenever people say that you grow more conservative when you get older, they’re working from the premise that you’ll grow more affluent and comfortable later in life. For Americans, that just isn’t true anymore. Wages are mostly stagnant, home ownership is much less attainable, and cost of living is at an all time high. Yet for some reason, pundits just can’t figure out why millenials aren’t getting more conservative as they age, or why zoomers appear to be following this trend.
What if you start to become better off, but realize so many other parents are unable to provide for their kids like you can, and you can’t hope to provide for your kids like the wealthy can? What if paying exorbitant amounts of money for your kids education drives home the point that we need to make that investment for all kids futures? What if you are more often on the hiring side and realize your well being depends on the next generation having opportunities and the means to successfully achieve them?
Then you are alright with me. I think a large amount of our problems as a species come from those with a lack of empathy. If everyone thought like you, then we wouldn’t have the vast wealth inequalities and greatly varying qualities of life between working class and upper class.
On the other hand, if everyone had empathy in the first place, I think we wouldn’t have the economic systems that put profits over people.
The Mode of Production determines social thought, not the other way around.
You don’t think that more empathetic people would be involved in creating fairer modes of production? I think sociopaths and those lacking empathy are at least part of the reason that capitalism still runs rampant in the world, but its just my opinion.
If you downvoted me don’t know why, just adding my opinion.
I know plenty of people that grew up in capitalism and still have empathy, and also hate capitalism, so I guess I don’t understand exactly what you mean, either.
You don’t think that more empathetic people would be involved in creating fairer modes of production? I think sociopaths and those lacking empathy are at least part of the reason that capitalism still runs rampant in the world, but its just my opinion.
The base creates and reinforces the superstructure, which reinforces the base, not the other way around.
The base creates and reinforces the superstructure, which reinforces the base, not the other way around.
I don’t know what this has to do with empathetic people and sociopaths. I understand that the system that we live in is more likely to produce sociopaths than a Socialistic one, but I don’t think that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about them and their hindrance to our advancement, considering that they do indeed exist.
I usually appreciate you spreading knowledge, but I don’t really see what you are trying to add here. Nothing I wrote disagrees with anything you said, and vice versa.
You said if people were more empathetic we would have a better Mode of Production, but the process is reversed.
Then you’re a good person, which is a statistical minority. Most people will never intentionally vote against their economic self-interests by raising their own taxes (although you can trick them into voting against their economic self interests; Republicans have been doing that for years by using racist dog-whistles to attack entitlement programs and pushing discredited trickle-down economic theories).
yup it applies only to the privileged class, and of course only people in that class would think that is the general experience.
All of that is the same here in Germany. Check out the stats on home ownership here… But oh man are the kids flipping to the AfD (far right nazi party) quick and in huge numbers. It’s scary to see.
German government should just ban the AfD and end with it.
While that sounds like a good idea, it’s not really a solution. You can’t just ban a political party because you don’t agree with it, that wouldn’t be democratic.
Fuck this “goody two-shoes” bullshit, ban and repress.
The Nazi Party being banned was good, just not enough
You 100% can, fascists are a national threat. Entertaining them via “civility” is nonsense.
Honestly, that makes sense to me. It seems like when economic systems start breaking down for people, they turn to populism. It’s either left-wing populism, which argues for reigning in the excesses of capitalism, or right-wing populism, which scapegoats minority or immigrant groups. Right now, the youth in the U.S. are interested in left-wing populism, but right-wing populism (AKA Trumpism) is the only thing making it into the political mainstream.
left-wing populism, which argues for reigning in the excesses of capitalism
Left wing means ending Capitalism, not just “reigning it in,” which never works long-term.
“Left-wing,” is a very broad term. In the Weimar Republic, yes, the left-wing alternative to right-wing populism was communism. In America today, Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders are the left-wing alternative. If that doesn’t fall in line with your definition of, "left-wing,’ that’s fine, but it most people wouldn’t define it as exclusively anti-capitalist ideologies.
The Overton Window is relative, sure, but that’s only useful in defined constraints, and only for one point in time. Leftism is socialist, rightism is Capitalist.
Bernie is a Social Democrat as well.
…and Sanders himself defines Democratic Socialism as the completion of the New Deal reforms, not a gradual transition to a socialist economic system. There’s a difference between the Overton Window shifting and a gradual change in definition over generations, but if you want definitions to remain entirely static, then we’re both using left-wing incorrectly, as it’s, “real,” definition is opposing monarchy’s veto power over parliament.
Yes, he calls himself a Democratic Socialist while being a Social Democrat, I’m aware.
Left wing in the modern context refers to anti-Capitalism.
Where are those youth in the US? While they seem loud online, why hasn’t that translated into votes?
The youth in the US is mostly actually leftist, and they give them the choice to vote for a centrist or a right wing candidate. That’s a big part of the reason. Also, just the fact that the youth also votes less, on average, even those youth who identify as right wing.
I know because I am an actual leftist, and I didn’t vote for a long time into my adulthood, because it feels like a scam. I finally got over the fact that not participating in the vote is worse, but I completely understand the apathy amongst actual leftists in the US. We’ve had no true representation in our whole lives.
If you don’t vote for the centrist candidate, you can’t object to the right extremist.
Actually this does track that a lot of what I see online is people who seem unwilling to compromise: neither are what I want so both the same. You need to be willing to vote for the one closest to what you want, and work toward moving that leftward over time.
We had a huge success with “The Squad” getting enough attention before Biden’s first nomination to influence the party platform. As a minority voter, this path is more likely to succeed than not voting
If you don’t vote for the centrist candidate, you can’t object to the right extremist.
You absolutely can. Voting is not the extent of political action.
Actually this does track that a lot of what I see online is people who seem unwilling to compromise: neither are what I want so both the same. You need to be willing to vote for the one closest to what you want, and work toward moving that leftward over time.
You can’t move right-wingers left through thoughts and prayers, this is astrology.
We had a huge success with “The Squad” getting enough attention before Biden’s first nomination to influence the party platform. As a minority voter, this path is more likely to succeed than not voting
And yet they accomplish nothing and are kept like barking dogs on leashes. The electoral process is a filter, it prevents radical change. See how the monsters treat Rashida Tlaib.
You can’t move right-wingers left
Exactly. If you have to chose between right wing and centrist , elect the centrist and move them a bit to the left. prepare to do this through multiple elections
And yet they accomplish nothing
And yet President Biden is very centrist but has passed some of the most far reaching changes ever on the environment, renewable energy, unionization, etc.
An example of both is climate change regulation. Legislation passed during Biden’s term should get us about halfway to our net carbon goal. A pessimist may focus on that not being nearly enough, but I see a new center, where we can have more success working on more substantial change
Actually, youth turnout is pretty high right now, with record turnout being set recently for both midterms and presidential elections. In 2020, turnout for the under thirty crowd was 50%, a possible new record, and it was 30% and 27% in 2018 and 2022 respectively, which are 30 year highs. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party leadership prefers centrist candidates, and frequently puts its thumb on the scale to ensure that moderate candidates win, so that turnout isn’t translating into progressive politics.
Funny enough, just after I made the original comment, I read an article about how the youngest U.S. voters are starting to lean further right than before, so it’s possible the ship has sailed on this all together. Given how aggressively the right wing has been to trying to indoctrinate young voters, who are watching Democrats successfully suppress left-wing populism while Republicans embrace right-wing populism, it’s possible the youth are deciding that the far-right offers them only chance for change. I hope not, though, because then we’re screwed.
Because for every loud voice you read on lemmy there’s 1000 boomers and nut jobs that either a) don’t use the Internet regularly b) don’t leave Facebook or c) hide away in right wing circlejerk sites like truth social and 4chan. A and B just being old, and none of them being people that can handle having their views challenged, which is definitely going to happen in a space like this.
Yeah, though there’s also the phenomena of older folks generally being more against change and clinging in the past more, the idea being that you have less future to look forward to (since you’re closer to death than your birth) so instead you look towards the past and become nostalgic about it.
there’s also the phenomena of older folks generally being more against change and clinging in the past more,
That’s more a consequence of the moment. Older people like stable material conditions. And with programs like pensions, public health care, and a safe suburban neighborhood with good amenities, they see the status quo as worth defending.
But swing through North Africa and the Middle East during the Arab Spring (anyone remember that?) or pop over to the UK in the wake of the last election cycle or visit an impoverished neighborhood in Haiti or a bombed neighborhood in Lebanon and you’ll find plenty of elderly revolutionaries.
you look towards the past and become nostalgic about it
People may be nostalgic for their youth, but they are rarely nostalgic for being treated like a child.
And you’re going to find it hard to locate a South African native nostalgic for Apartheid or a Pole or Romanian who misses occupation or a Chinese national who pines for the Century of Humiliation.
Westerners coming out of their post war pre-Reagan Golden Era just have more to be nostalgic for.
Oh yeah, that’s definitely why older folks are socially conservative, although usually when I hear people say this (and definitely in the context of this meme) they’re talking about becoming fiscally conservative.
really If anything i have become more communist as i have aged, when the daydreams of becoming a millionaire or whatever fade away all thats left is the reality of life as the 99% and it kinda sucks, also the older i grow the more i learn about history about the world just about everything and the more i realize how fucked up capitalism is and how much i was lied to thru out my life. Putting that aside tho, people generally do become more reactionary as they age for the simple fact that what was revolutionary in our youth becomes standard and then reactionary while many people dont change their views much.
Seize the means of production
I was politically ambivalent as a young voter.
Now, I’m pretty much convinced the rich people (and the parties that represent them) are just out there to screw everyone else over. And every single year just adds more evidence to the pile.
I don’t think there is any conceivable scenario in which anyone can convince me that free market will magically fix all problems. It’s nonsense.
Yep, hence why Communism is necessary.
Honestly, if your goals include conserving an inhabitable environment for the human race in the future, conserving a semblance of wealth for everyone but the top, like, dozen people on Earth, conserving the rights of workers and consumers against an overwhelming opposition, conserving democracy for future generations (and all that against the best efforts of a supposedly “conservative” party), your parents may have been right.
What if my goals include family values, such as opportunity for my kids to earn a good living, live a long and healthy life, enjoy the environment, in a world better than the one I had?
Then you have to join in the fight for those things and educate yourself. This world is not getting better, and the reason for that is the productive political economic system in which we live.
I have the same values and I am a Marxist communist. That means I work for political struggle with the systems that oppress and exploit to for improving conditions for all, and also work to try and educate workers about the class dynamics of this struggle, and the revolutionary potential of the working class.
I’ve only gone further Left.
Eventually, it will overflow and you will become fascist
How many millions died under Stalin, Mao, Che?
Makes me think of the old Samuel Clemmens quote
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak;
whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
~ Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
It’s so easy to pretend the mob that turned on French nobility in the 1800s or the Qing Dynasts and Russian Tsars in the 1900s or the Arabs who lashed out at European occupation in the 2000s were simply seized by mania or some animal impulse.
It’s so easy to pretend they had no grievance, they suffered no generational atrocities, they had no motivation for their violent uprising, save the insidious Mind Virus of Leftist Agitation.
It’s romantic to see the aristocracy and the colonial governments of these nations as martyrs of a golden era. They were cruelly deposed by savages for the crime of living the gentile and sophisticated life. They were the Eloi, dragged into the dirt by vicious Morlocks who envied their perfect beauty.
But it’s all bullshit.
The aristocracy were monsters. They maintained their grips on the people through generation after generation of terror, torture, and enforced ignorance. They were cult leaders and warlords who claimed turf through centuries of conquest, inquisition, and cultural indoctrination.
When these archaic institutions failed, we like to blame the revolutionary leaders who happened to climb atop the ruins of their bloody legacy. But they were simply at the right moment in history to witness a corrupt edifice crumble under the weight of millions of their own dissatisfied subjects.
You’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t have a state people suffer and die under.
How many do you think? Legitimately, what’s your understanding of history? Where are you getting your numbers?
Millions Nazis, yeah
Stalin alone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin
Conversely, his totalitarian government has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repressions, ethnic cleansing, executions, and famines which caused the deaths of millions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin
This contained official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[8] around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[9][10] some 390,000[11] deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[12] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[13] According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were “purposive” while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility.[2] The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million[14] persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes, though not always, included with the victims of the Stalin era.[2][15]
How many millions died under Kissinger, Truman, McCarthy?
don’t know, tell me with sources, please
Well, for one example: Kissinger approved Operation Menu, which is estimated to have a death toll of at least 100.000 civilians, and this is just ONE operation. Operation Condor, an anti leftist repression campaign in the Americas, has an estimated count of 80.000 killed and 400.000 political prisoners. These are just specific cases: the “knife wounds” amongst the “amputated limbs” for an analogy.
They’re just past the end of the pier, those big things that aren’t seals.
This looks more like a tankie cat.
What even is a tankie to you? Are all Marxists tankies?
