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  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    I got called a lib for saying that we don’t have the progressive foundation necessary to elect a third party candidate to President, and that while I don’t agree with the Democrats, Kamala was less bad than Trump.

    That’s far from the only time I was called a liberal (derogatory) by an .ml user despite not being a liberal, and not promoting liberal policies.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      5 days ago

      Calling someone a liberal is not the same as accusing them of acting in bad faith

      Did you respond to the wrong comment? At no point have I ever claimed that people on .ml don’t call people libs, so your comment seems like a complete non sequitor.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        I am not a liberal and communicated that fact. I was called a liberal anyway. That is an accusation of acting in bad faith.

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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          4 days ago

          No it isn’t. We believe that you believe the things you say, we just classify those beliefs as liberalism. Richard Spencer says he’s not a fascist while expressing beliefs that I would classify as fascism, so I call him a fascist. Everybody does that, as well they should, and I have never denied anyone doing this.

          What we don’t do is claim that you don’t actually believe your stated positions at all and secretly believe something completely different and are doing some kind of elaborate coordinated psyop where you pretend to hold beliefs you don’t. That is what’s pretty much unique to liberals.

          • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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            4 days ago

            I know liberalism from leftism. You know nothing of my political beliefs, and yet you confidently say that they are liberalism. How would you know? Someone on .ml said I was so you assume they know my beliefs better than I do? You’re either calling me a liar or an idiot.

            • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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              4 days ago

              You’re trying to equate disagreeing on the definition of terms to accusing someone of being entirely disingenuous about what they believe. I do not make a distinction between someone who believes in unconditionally and indefinitely supporting the democratic party as a lesser evil and someone who believes in doing the same because they agree with what it stands for (since they are, for all practical purposes, the same thing), so based on your expressed beliefs which I accept that you genuinely hold, I consider you a liberal. That doesn’t make you “a liar or an idiot” for disagreeing with that classification, it makes you someone who defines certain terms differently from me.

              In the same way, as I said and as you’ve completely failed to acknowledge or address, if Richard Spencer tries to tell me he’s not a fascist based on some distinction that I consider completely arbitrary, them I’m going to call him a fascist anyway (since he is, for all practical purposes, a fascist), as any reasonable person would.

              Don’t pretend that you don’t understand the difference between that and accusing us of all being involved in some convoluted psyop conspiracy where we don’t believe anything we say at all.

              • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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                4 days ago

                someone who believes in unconditionally and indefinitely supporting the democratic party

                I didn’t say that though. I said to support the Democratic party in 2024 because there was, at that time, no other viable electoral alternative to Trump, and Trump is worse for more people. You extrapolated that “unconditionally and indefinitely” from your own preconceptions. You do realize that that exactly is the problem we’re talking about right?

                It’s not about whether you say the exact string of words “you’re acting in bad faith”, it’s the presupposition that the person you’re talking to doesn’t know the meaning of the words they’re using (or that your personal definition is fundamentally more valid), and the extrapolation of their own stated beliefs into the most uncharitable possible interpretation.

                • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                  4 days ago

                  Oh, so you don’t believe in supporting the democratic party unconditionally? What would it take for you to not support them? Say, for example, they were actively arming a genocide, would that do it?

                  Or you don’t believe in supporting them indefinitely? How long then, should we continue supporting them unconditionally before we’re allowed to try something different? Let me guess, at some vague, indefinite point in the future when conditions have changed (not by anyone defecting from the democrats to build an alternative, ofc, but when somehow a powerful enough third party emerges despite nobody voting for it).

                  You can play coy all you want but my assumptions are entirely reasonable based on what you’ve said.

                  and the extrapolation of their own stated beliefs into the most uncharitable possible interpretation.

                  Except what liberals do is not only “extrapolate our stated beliefs into uncharitable interpretations” they completely reject that we hold our stated beliefs at all and assign us completely different beliefs based on whatever they make up. These things are very obviously and categorically different.

                  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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                    4 days ago

                    What would it take for you to not support them? Say, for example, they were actively arming a genocide, would that do it?

                    If there was a party that didn’t want to arm that genocide poised to potentially get enough votes to win, I would vote for them. In reality, unfortunately there were only two parties poised to get enough votes to win, and both aimed to actively arm the same genocide. So, I voted for the one less likely to disappear critics of that genocide, or push to raze Gaza to put up a resort with their name on it. I wish that I had a better option, but we can only pay the hand we’re dealt, so I promoted lesser evil.

                    How long then, should we continue supporting them

                    Right up until the exact moment there’s a better alternative with enough support to win. I thought I made that clear.

                    You can play coy all you want but my assumptions are entirely reasonable based on what you’ve said.

                    Again, this is exactly what people are talking about. You misinterpreted exactly one political stance and now you’ve justified your prejudices to yourself, and I can be tossed into the “lib” bin to be discarded.

                    they completely reject that we hold our stated beliefs at all and assign us completely different beliefs based on whatever they make up

                    The irony is palpable.