| ▲ | alpha_squared 13 hours ago |
| I'm unsure where we as a society go from here. The left's cancel culture resulted in the firing of private citizens from their jobs, or at least some reprimand. The right's cancel culture is the full weight of the federal government brought down against opposition, in stark violation of the First Amendment; that is, until the Supreme Court can find some new carve-out for why this isn't protected speech. Realistically, how could anyone be okay with the level of power this administration is wielding? I struggle to see a peaceful transfer of this specific set of powers. Unless the assumption is just that the left will always behave "more responsibly." |
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| ▲ | UmGuys 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| There's no comparison here. The left's "cancel culture" doesn't exist and is literally free speech in action. This is the destruction of free speech. I think you have to participate in social media to understand what the left's cancel culture is because it's just a bunch of individuals expressing their opinions. Hence many are out of the loop. I wouldn't refer to authoritarian regimes as "cancel culture". |
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| ▲ | moogly 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > the assumption is just that the left will always behave "more responsibly." Probably true, which means you're in for a full-blown dictatorship for, oh, 30 years or so before (perhaps) some violent revolution. |
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| ▲ | slumberlust 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Meet the new boss; same as the old boss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqsBx58GxYY |
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| ▲ | themaninthedark 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I see we are forgetting the period of time from the end of 2019 to 2022... Government agencies were "recommending" and "cautioning" social media companies on topics such as COVID and laptops. That was not being done to benefit the political rights. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24781367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24813762 |
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| ▲ | intended 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | These cases were taken to the courts, and for the covid issue I am aware that the firms were never forced, and were able to ignore government instructions and do their own thing. The exact opposite of what has happened here. The same will be the situation with laptops. | |
| ▲ | UmGuys 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm not very aware of this subject, but from my understanding "the laptop" is the files that were extracted from a person's laptop by a man who was supposed to repair it. Then the files were released in public and included nude images. I would expect any company to pull those documents down to limit their own liability and for common decency. Again, I'm not very informed on the subject. So there was that example. Now the FCC threatened ABC/Disney to pull a show because the orange guy dislikes him. I isolation, just this one incident is the death of the concept of America. If we consider the context :thisisfine: |
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| ▲ | JohnFen 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| We start by rejecting the cartoon labels of "left" and "right" as if all conservatives or all liberals believe the same things and think the same way. The left/right division is a longstanding technique intended to keep us divided. The reality is that outside of the actual extremists, liberals and conservatives agree on 80% of everything. We can, and need to, start there. We are all Americans and have to realize that just because we may disagree about things (particularly a small percentage of things) doesn't have to mean we're enemies. But, if history offers any lessons, then our path is likely set and we're going to have to push through some nightmarish times before we find a way to be better. |
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| ▲ | mikepurvis 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's astonishing how bad the US political apparatus is at making progress even on matters that easily fall within that 80%, though— healthcare reform, childcare, higher education, common sense gun laws, infrastructure investments. All of this stuff should be a slam dunk to implement with broad coalitions no matter who holds which branches, and yet it's all been basically gridlocked for decades, and instead it's never-ending turmoil over meaningless nonsense like who uses what bathrooms. | | |
| ▲ | asdff 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >healthcare reform, childcare, higher education, common sense gun laws, infrastructure investments. Funny you imagine there is consensus with any of that. The right doesn't want government healthcare. They don't want government sponsored childcare. They could care less about higher education. They want no gun laws. And they don't want black people to benefit from infrastructure. There is no forming consensus with that position. | | |
| ▲ | mikepurvis 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Outside of the 24hr news bubble, I believe the reality is that there is a lot of common ground on these supposed hot button issues, for example on the guns issue alone there is broad support for universal background checks and an assault weapons ban: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/07/25/poll-majority--supp... But it's hard to make it happen when Fox paints any kind of gun measure as crazy leftist tyranny and then deep-pocketed fringe organizations like the NRA vow to punish any Republican who collaborates on compromise measures. | | |
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| ▲ | nebula8804 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Its not like the US hasn't done big ambitious things before: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Hell didn't they help develop some of the social programs for Post WWII Europe/Japan etc? Post Nixon the government really just got captured and paralyzed and so a generation has grown up not understanding that this is a deliberately broken government, not how a government can operate. Instead people have been raised to think that all government is just ineffective and naturally broken. The only people who actually get it are the subset of Americans who have traveled or lived overseas for some time. As of 2023 only about half of Americans have a passport so there is a large chunk that haven't seen anything else. | |
| ▲ | mrtesthah 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A small number of extremely wealthy individuals have a vested interest in fomenting that division, because the solutions to those 80% issues happens to conflict with their business interests. |
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| ▲ | wqaatwt 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Statistically almost everyone who is a “conservative” supports Trump whatever he does, though? With very little real infighting The “left” on the other hand seems way more heterogeneous in that sense (which does seem like a significant political disadvantage in practical terms). | |
| ▲ | krisboyz781 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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