Darn it. I’ve sometimes tried to use that term to describe my politics, but I certainly don’t share much with those folks and don’t want to associate with them.
What is a good way to say: “I support diversity, inclusion, social justice, equality, personal liberty and am fine with government as a way to coordinate cooperation and provide a safety net (including healthcare and a living wage) while leveling the playing field against monarchs and plutarchs, but I don’t want a government that acts as a nanny or a police state.”
Do we have to invent a new term for that? I mean besides “dream on.”
The not-very-nice area of my brain where I store my Player Characters and Evil GameMaster Plans, upon reading this section, immediately began outlining a plan of targeted ponzi schemes and other such scams, with the intent of using the funds thus accrued for social programs…
I wasn’t aware that there was a debate about whether Nazis were/are extreme left or right. Communists were deported to concentrations camps along with Jews, Roma, gays, Catholics, Jehova’s Witnesses, and others.
Neo Nazis are considered extreme right, and fascists are considered extreme right, so how is it possible that Nazis could be considered extreme left? Am I missing something?
I used to moderate the Eclipse Phase forum last year. We had a few of these jokers dominating the forum before I was brought on, and I’ve seen similar patterns to what you’re describing there. One, in fact, was a devout Christian and anarchocapitalist, who outright stated that he was a big Ayn Rand fan and considered himself to be a worshipper of the posthuman friendly AIs. I once asked him obliquely if the cognitive dissonance hurt when it got that extreme.
Basically what these guys are is a revival of mid 20th century fascism, but in our present time of crisis. I am not using fascist here as a term of abuse, but in the descriptive sense. They resurrect a lot of fascist ideas (anti-egalitarianism, racism, anti-liberalism/socialism/communism, anti-democracy, pro-capitalism, religiousity, reactionary traditionalism, etc.), but thanks to fascists starting the largest war in human history, this “Redpill Right” tends to be a bit more circumspect about using the f-word to self describe in polite company. So they strive to present themselves as a new and original political movement to obscure attempts to see them in a proper historical context.
yup. in northern europe that would be a social democrat. You assume that everyone will play nice, regulate when they fail to and always take the side of the citizen over the corporation.
This essay is junk. It repeatedly damns these red pill people for something then uses the same argument against them.
such as the conclusion any woman or person of color who outperforms a Redpiller must have cheated to do so, either with sexual favors or affirmative action. But it takes passive forms, too, such as the corresponding belief that any time white men have an advantage over anyone else, it must be because those men are just better at it, rather than for systemic reasons.
In this example the writer complains that the red pill people think women and PoC “must have cheated” meaning in this case using the politically correct system. Then the writer says men only do better due to systemic reasons.
The disgusting actions of many in the red pill type communities are bad enough without writing one side “attack” pieces against them. I’ve already seen so many have their sympathies drift toward these red pill types because of the uneven handling of pieces like this one that I am sick of it.
I know I will probably get slammed for this but I just don’t see why people can’t take their politics out of their writing when they are purporting to be explaining something. This piece should not be title “a beginners guide” it should be title “my opinion of.”
There are things this piece gets right, but also way too many things which, at least to me, comes across as opinionated slams against groups the author despises.
This comment is only my opinion, but I am just exasperated by articles like this.
No, they would have been committed fascists, because the anti-egalitarian political positions they advocate nearly entirely overlap with fascism from almost a century ago.
The Nazi party were National Socialism. Claiming that nazis were the left lets people put stalin, pol pot and hitler into the same box and blame leftists for everything bad that has ever happened in the world. It’s convenient to ignore that extremist nationalism and anti-minority authoritarianism is the real commonality.
The Nazis were officially the National Socialist party, which is where the name comes from. So some decry Naziism as the true, secret goal of socialists everywhere. Although these are typically people who study about socialism from John Birch Society newsletters and such. Coopted forms of leftist government can betray the public trust and institute totalitarian society which is basically fascism. Same IMO goes for dictatorships of so-called communist countries.
There is a major contradiction at the heart of libertarianism that leads to this outcome - democracy vs property. A lot of libertarians are very bothered by the fact that democracy allows the majority to vote to redistribute wealth more equitably from the owning minority. In other words, their free market utopia is always going to be under threat from public unpopularity so long as the public has formal access to the levers of power. So their solution is get rid of democracy. The primacy of property to libertarians means that their ideology has a very strong anti-democratic undercurrent, which has been surfacing more as of late.
The terminology (TERF) that is lobbed at them is a slur that is directed only at women who identify as feminist and gender critical. There are some trans people who self-identify as gender critical.
Sex = biology, gender = socialization and culture. Many so called TERFs are also very critical (as in gender critical) of the demands of the dominant culture with regards to the stereotyped performance of gender - ie femininity, masculinity.
Thanks @sssss and @bryan It helps to think of it that way. I like the way “Free Market Socialist” might make people stop and question their categories.
I agree with you there. The author seems to have lumped a large group of disparate people together and tried to give them some common purpose and name.
Generalised and lazy.
With “it must be because those men are just better at it, rather than for systemic reasons,” the last part is still being rhetorically attributed to the everday redpiller. It’s not posed as a universal fact applicable to every case, though it is certainly suggested as a common factor. The writer is not saying that men “only do better due to systemic reasons.”
Since some of the harshest anti-trans bullphone has come from self-described radical feminists such as Janice Raymond, it started as a useful descriptive term to distinguish trans-exterminationist and trans-allied radical feminists.
There’s also the part that their free market utopia will eventually grind to a halt in capitalistic feudalism, but they’re okay with that, so long as they get to be the Barons, Counts and Kings (Jackson’s Whole comes to mind).
