is Conservative/Right Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?
I don't have much of a problem either way as I don't think I'll be engaging in political discussion on this website past this post but it seems like any sort of non-left wing opinions or posts are immediately trashed on here. That's fine. There's clearly a more liberal audience here and that's okay. I just don't want Lemmy to become a echo chamber for any side and it seems to be that way when it comes to politics already.
Mostly making this post just to drum up discussion as I'm new here.
I just don't understand what politics conservatives do other then push for laws that oppress people they don't feel comfortable sharing a space with? I think the real political discussions are just happening within the left. Conservative party kinda needs to just go away, and the left split into socialists, democrats, and maybe independents. American politics and media have driven it's two party system so opposed to each other, there is no mutual agreement anymore, you either take the blue side or the red side to any and all issues, and I'm sorry the red side is just so cartoonishly evil they just stand in the way of progress, or push to go backwards in history.
If your "conservative / right wing opinion" is that austerity measures are a good thing, then the most generous interpretation of that is that you're just a moron. As it turns out, though, today's "conservative / right wing opinions" are way worse than that. Things like "trans people aren't people". Or "we should do a treason". Or "bribing supreme court justices is totally fine". If you hold any of those opinions, the most generous interpretation of that is that you're evil. And probably also stupid. That is the MOST generous interpretation, mind.
I think we need to have better conservative content. All of what your describing sounds like negative characterizations of conservatives made by far left individuals.
Yes, there are some absolute morons in the world. Probably a lot of them. But not all conservatives are morons, despite what many left leaning people would like to believe due to the polarization brought about by social media echo chambers.
Due to the actions of recent right wing political parties whe gaining any power.
That's a bit like saying
"How dare you call us all arsehole. Because we keep voting for arseholes to lead our parties. "
Unless you and others are prepared to form a right wing that opposes these ideas. Then that is the reputation the right deserves.
For the record, I would not consider myself right wing. But I do oppose many leftist ideologies. Grievance studies (Critical race theory, queer theory, and other ideologies based in post modern belief systems), for instance, are eroding many useful and productive enlightenment ideas. Color blindness is a legitimate way to reduce racism. Instead, leftists believe they should elevate group identity at all costs, thereby expanding and heightening racism. Queer theory denies human physiology, elevating the idea that everything is socially constructed. This framework is a grave distortion of the reality.
I agree that conservatives need to do a better job with their policies. Trump was a stain, and the few (okay maybe more than a few) loud idiots in the party make conservatism look bad. But if left wingers only get their information about right wingers from hyper left sources, we are going to have a lot of distorted views.
On social media, people are served more and more radical content. Much of that content includes great distortions of the “other side,” which pushes people further into an untenable and undesirable belief system.
We need more debate and we also need people to stop simply calling the other side morons.
Have you studied any of these yourself? Or are you relying on characterizations of them you heard in media?
In theory, sure. But in practice it often gets used as a rug to sweep racism under.
Keep on mind this is a society where certain groups have been marginalized and terrorized for decades or even centuries. "Elevating" them is only a reaction to that long-entrenched bigotry. But (what's that quote?...) when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Attempting to bring historically marginalized groups into equal footing with mainstream groups probably will look like they're being "elevated" to the people who enjoy the privilege of being accepted broadly by default.
Yes, I have a Ph.D., you will encounter grievance studies and post modern ideologies when you pursue this path. I have indeed studied the philosophical foundations of these ideologies. I don’t agree with post modern ideologies, nor do I agree that you can state that something is purely constructed by a culture. An individual is defined both by their physiology and their societal structure. It’s physiology and culture. Post modernism denies objective truth. I believe in objective truth. I also believe in intentionality, which post modernism denies. We could go on. Stop using the “have you actually studied this” argument and actually engage in productive debate. An appeal to academic authority is really not useful here.
It seems some forget, for instance, that the native population of America benefitted greatly from their encounters with colonial people from France and Britain. They sold and traded items. They learned knew technologies. Hell, many native tribes fought alongside the Americans during the American revolution. They also fought alongside France. The whole situation of the American colonies is really messy. Anyway, colonialism is not a black and white issue.
ah, yes, the minimum of 30 million people killed just in the Americas really benefited. get out of here with this settler colonialist apologia, my dude. you are a textbook case of why nobody is interested in hearing out conservative "thought", which appears to be impossibly tied to being pro-genocide.
Either you're the stupidest person who has ever received a PhD in the world, or you're a fucking liar. There's absolutely no god damned way that you can hold this many imbecilic, counter-to-reality views while having had to engage with primary sources for the multiple years it took to achieve a PhD. Stop lying, seriously. Nobody buys your bullshit anyway.
You're already getting pushback on your other points, so I thought I would weigh in here. Biologically speaking, sex is multifaceted, variable, and somewhat malleable. Even anatomically or physiologically scientists say that gender and sex are not as simple or clean cut as you are making it out to be. Additionally, gender diverse people can be found across all cultures and throughout history - transgender people are not an invention of the post-modern era.
I don't think that acknowledging the reality that human experience is complex and multi-faceted is a left wing value. It is evident to anyone who honestly engages with scientific consensus and with the lived experiences of LGBTQ folks that those people exist. They're not going anywhere, and I don't think it's especially "left wing" to say we ought to make space for them in society to just live their lives as they are.
Colour blindness is not a way of combatting racism.
If you have a real world system, and you bias it heavily to be unequal, then you try and correct it by biasing it to be equal, the average output is still vastly unequal, and the absolute best case scenario you can hope for is that it will trend towards equality over time without ever reaching it.
There's a reason that people who actually study and think about the topic come out as antiracist and people who don't think it about it except when it inconveniences them just wish everyone would stop talking about it and we could pretend like it didn't exist.
Yes, it is. There are a lot of academics that have fallen prey to post modern ideologies like anti racism. But there are also academics that haven’t, like myself and John McWhorter.
'nuh uh I don't believe that' isn't an argument.
I've explained how balanced system + inequality + balanced system = inequality, and you've just said "nuh uh that's not convenient for me".
To be absolutely clear to anyone who runs across this, this person has been banned from our instance, you don't need to report it again. The only reason this reply is still up, is for others to see all the ways in which this person is wrong and the whole they dug themselves when they did reply to someone and were rightfully reported and ejected from our instance.
Wow, what a shocking comment. Explains your original I suppose.
You can’t just lay judgement on something because you don’t like it. You need to actually understand it, hopefully your read the other responses you got with an open mind, lest ye drift deeper into bigotry via ignorance (chosen ignorance, at that)
I have yet to see a modern conservative position that is more backed by real world evidence than whatever more progressive position it opposes.
Climate change? Denying overwhelming scientific consensus. Gun control? "It doesn't work", even though it works in every other western country. Healthcare? "But the death panels will decide if you get to live", they don't exist, and are used as pretense to ignore all those people who die because they can't afford treatment. Car infrastructure? It's literally better for drivers if more people are using transit or cycling. Student loans? I don't even know what the argument is here except "I had to pay them so everyone else should too". The money certainly isn't going towards the teachers.
Some of these are US specific, but the sentiment is the same everywhere. The list goes on and on. If someone refuses to listen to any reason or evidence and instead bases their worldview on only their own, limited lived experience, why shouldn't they be characterized as a moron? And if they understand that their view isn't based in reality and they hold it anyways, why not call that actively malicious?
I've always loved the irony of the argument that if the government pays for healthcare, there will be "death panels" that decide who gets treatment and who doesn't. Because those already exist under and directly because of a system of private healthcare funding where if you don't have enough money, you're refused treatment. Meanwhile under a system of public healthcare funding, people get treatment based on who's most in need of the resources available, and that's only if the system is already over capacity.
Lmao fucking seriously.
Routinely my primary fucking care physician will approve a prescription just for my fucking insurance to say you know what, we will BLOCK that medication from being released to you at the pharm cuz we don’t wanna pay for it yet. Try again next week!!
god fucking damnit like let me just pay for it out of pocket!! They won’t let me.
Private insurance death panels are alive and well lol
The issue is the party overwealming supports these ideas, we are not debating what color school busses should be or how we should ensure we have clean water into the future, we are instead debating should X group be allowed to live. An option that involves taking rights from others based on misinformation isn't an opinion.
You are essentially using a “no true Scotsman” defense here, which is wild given the public stances of America’s Conservative Party, the GOP.
You act like they are talking about outliers but the whole GOP is in lockstep with those awful stances and decisions. You say we need better conservative content? I say you need better conservative leadership because the majority of conservatives follow what they are fed of fox, oann, and whatever other sources of disinfo
Come back to us when the official party line isn’t supporting the big lie, or attacking climate change or attacking science and vaccines and masking, or that trans people shouldn’t exist, or that students should not be given the forgiveness that those with money get (PPP vs student loan forgiveness), or that Russia and Putin are not our allies nor role models, I could go on and on and on.
You want a better conservative image? You need better conservatives first. Talk about putting the cart before the horse
You say what we mention is mischaracterizations made by the left. Please, point out which are untrue
Haven't seen a lot of examples of that for many decades.
The conservatives you're describing are becoming more uncommon by the day. So much of conservative politics now is driven by misinformation and fear, I legitimately can't remember the last time I had a constructive conversation with a conservative. They live in a different world, which makes constructive discussion almost impossible.
Yes, this is true, many conservative people are smart - they worked out that in order to get money and power they can exploit conservative talking points easily because they don't have to be truthful, thoughtful, or in any way care about other people
I would agree with you, but at least in the US majority of conservatives fully embraced those moronic ideas.
The people that call themselves conservatives no longer are conservatives, their only goal is how to hurt "liberals".
At this point true conservatives that still care about the country started voting for democrats or not vote at all, but they are now labeled as RINOS.
I know it is a loaded term, and many will quickly dismiss it, (but it is correct given the definition), but the party was taken over by fascists and real conservatives aren't doing anything to take their party back.
Compared to most countries, Democrats are conservatives. And Republicans are extreme right wing.
The US doesn't have a left wing party. Nor even a truly centrist one.
True. Many of them are just plain evil. But I would argue that the vast majority are some combination of evil and stupid.
Saying that austerity is always bad is pretty dumb too. Economic policy is hard. It’s not a simple as shoving one lever in one direction as far as possible forever.
For example, “austerity” could mean ending corporate subsidies, taxing the wealthy, auditing the wealthy, reducing the military budget, canceling freeway expansions, etc. Too much public debt can absolutely be a bad thing and needs to be controlled.
I concede that you've got a point that austerity isn't an all or nothing proposition. But your examples are laughable. No country that has implemented "austerity measures" has ever interpreted that as "ending corporate subsidies", or "taxing the wealthy", or in any way fucking with the wealthy or military's purse. It just doesn't happen. I agree, that would be an amazing thing. But it just doesn't exist in human history. What ends up happening instead is that they cut the educational budget. Or they cut social programs, like housing subsidies or food subsidies. Because governments aren't run by the lowest common denominator, who actually benefits from those programs. They're run by the wealthy. So no government is going to fuck over its supporters by cutting their benefits.
If by "conservative/right wing opinions" you mean the current extremist fascist opinionated MAGA-'my way or the highway' brand of Republicanism, then I sure as hell hope it's unwelcome on Lemmy instances.
If you wish to bring back reason and logic into conservative/right-wing opinions (such as limited government, which means NOT legislating their brand of morality), then I'm all for those viewpoints (not that I would agree with them wholesale, but it's a discussion I'd be willing to take part in).
The real problem with this discourse is that current climate of conservatism is completely closed to reason and logic, completely embraces lies and conspiracy theories as factual, and basically wishes to see all liberals either dead or suffering in some way.
So yeah, keep that shit off Lemmy instances.
I hope you're enjoying the discussion, and I hope you are understanding a lot of the excellent points made here, because I have not seen you engaging with anyone so far, at least not in the Hot replies. I was hoping to see that engagement. I don't have much to add that has not already been added. It's hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays. Even so-called mainstream conservative ideas like "tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy will create more money and prosperity for everyone" rings pretty hollow after over 40 years of that sort of ideology having been very thoroughly put into practice with very little benefit one could name. It's hard to engage when you can just sort of gesture to the current state of things and the lives of people who have grown up in the last 4 decades as being self-evident of the failure of that idea.
Basically, I ask, what does conservatism have to offer, really? I am completely open-minded and would listen, but you would have to do better than just repeating the same tired things I have heard my whole life, having grown up in a conservative catholic household and over 43 years slowly but surely drifting to the socialist atheist person I am now. Better believe I've heard a lot and am well-read. And there are a lot of people out there just like me.
This is the trouble I have with conservative thinking now. Even here in the UK, where our Conservatives aren't as bad as the Republicans in the US (yet), I'm at a place where I can no longer offer the benefit of the doubt to rightwing policies, because now they only seem to exist to make life hard for marginalised people. I can't point at a single member of our government who supports what they're doing because it's what they genuinely believe to be the right thing to do. They're all interested in how it can enrich them, and they'll worry about the morality later.
I mean, say what you like about Margaret Thatcher (and believe me, I do), at least she seemed to actually believe in the policies she pushed through. She had an ideology, and was given room to try it out. And it worked. For her and her rich buddies.
But these days it just seems to be hatred and fear for the sake of riling up the proles because it keeps them in power. The power is the goal, not the governance.
People forget that Thatcher was a greengrocer’s daughter too rather than a product of the Eton to Oxbridge to Parliament pipeline of privilege. In my opinion Thatcherism was like a doctor giving a near-lethal dose of chemotherapy to a patient with a broken leg but at least it was done with the intention of helping the patient, I feel the present incarnation of Tories have known since Brexit that they’re bound for a decade out of power and just want to behave as much like Russian kleptocrats as they can get away with before the election next year.
I don’t mean the Russian kleptocrat line ironically either, Boris Johnson literally put the son of one into the House of Lords as the Baron of fucking Siberia. You can’t make this up.
I think you're seeing backlash against being involuntarily exposed to (and often pushed to see) unbridled and deranged hatred and fear on traditional socmedia.
A conservative opinion like "I'm not sure communism is practical" is something that can be engaged with pretty cordially, "I think that education should focus on marketable skills" is an opinion I think is pretty misinformed but it's not something that exhausts me.
Unfortunately a lot of online conservatism is stuff like "I think there's a conspiracy by $minority to mind control us with vaccines" or "Should we be trying to make queer people afraid?" which aren't positions you can engage with.
Modern conservative politics and "polite discussion" are like oil and water.
Conservatives I can deal with, but modern right wingers have lost their goddamn minds.
And the entire issue is that a lot of people who view themselves as moderate conservatives are enabling this ideological brain rot by not vocally disassociating it with more reasonable conservative positions. Because of that, I am way more comfortable saying that conservative voices should be viewed with suspicion than I used to be.
My brother is conservative. Small C. He recognises that the Tories are a shower of pricks and wants them to actually do conservative things, rather than focus on race baiting and hatred. I can talk politics with him, and enjoy doing so even though I'm getting more and more commie as every year passes.
He's not a right wing shithead.
If by conservative you mean "you and your friends don't deserve human rights because I don't like you" then hopefully you're not welcome.
Right wing opinions should be less welcome everywhere.
I feel like it's not a matter of which side and more if the position that someone tries to advertise is clearly lacking empathy or consideration towards others.
If that's all the right-leaning topics are about, I don't know what to tell you really.
Wouldn't that depend on the historic understanding of GOP politics in the United States? There was a time when the Democrats were the problematic group and the GOP were not...the tables have flipped. For me, personally, I am invested in Beehaw's 'Northern Star' or guiding principle -> be(e) nice.
What opinions do you mean specifically? The question you asked is too vague to help us sort out the welcome from the unwelcome.
Remember: “lower taxes for businesses” is a mainstream conservative opinion, but so are “children should not be allowed to know of the existence of gay people” and also “Breonna Taylor probably deserved to die” and also “Dr. Fauci is a mass murderer” and also “Trump won in 2020” and also “more brown children should be put in those cages”, etc., etc., etc.
If the conservative mainstream is so hateful and bigoted that most of their opinions would not be allowed on a well-regulated platform, that is not the fault of the platform and it does not suggest that the platform has to change just to accommodate conservatives.
This reply is accurate and probably one of the reasons why you see entirely different platforms for people from different political positions. This isn't the platforms fault, the fault lies with a lot of factors.
-The people who have accepted intolerance as a feature instead of a bug in their political party. -The politicians who continue to rile up audiences using dog whistles.
-The media who allow dog whistles on the air un-critically as though it's legitimate political discourse. Family Guy example
-Money in politics, specifically Rich people and corporations being allowed to use their pile of money to get whatever they want at everyone's expense.
One issue is that it sometimes gets hard to discuss something like "lower taxes for businesses" because some people will assume you want to murder all gay people and others come along who actually do want to do that and think they are on you're side...
When positions are too simplifed into left vs right and all your other positions are assumed to be in line with the left vs. right debate there will never be any real discussion.
Sure. The people who make that assumption are being rational in doing so, IMO.
Part of the reason for this is that people use the “lower taxes” thing as an excuse for, for example, having voted for Trump. “Oh no I’m not into all the cruel shit, I’m just a Fiscal Conservative™️” won’t convince anyone because nowadays you can’t vote for “lower taxes for businesses” without also voting for “trans people are all pedophiles”. Check your nearest Republican state legislature for verification of that fact.
Of course, the other important caveat is that “lower taxes for businesses” is usually packaged with “more deregulation”, which is in itself cruel, always implemented haphazardly, and never promotes the safe and sustainable economic growth that is promised.
I sure hope so.
Honestly, my big thing with right-wingers is that they come with no proof, and get mad when you start asking for facts and figures. Right now, I can see the effects of 40 years of trickle-down economic theory: it means that you need a degree to get just about any decent job in this country, and also unions should not exist because reasons. It really kind of biases me against right-wing talking points, to the point that I need to see proof. Treat it like a math problem and show your work or gtfo.
This post itself is a classic example of that... OP came with a "waaah there's no place for right-wing discussion when lemmygrad gets a free pass", disregarding the fact Beehaw has defederated with lemmygrad already. Then when many wonderful users come in to open the dialogue, saying "hey, there's a place for you, here's what we can discuss on this instance and here's what you should take elsewhere", there's no interest in continuing discussion from OP (maybe they will reply later in the coming days).
Certain comments, like that from user @nicholas are full-on ragebait, leaving no room for discussion, and intending to antagonize each other by suggesting "everyone right of Bernie Sanders gets shit on here, just you watch the people that will reply to me". The vibe I want in an online community is like a nice discussion at a coffee shop, the last thing I want is a direct escalation to a shouting match so I try to avoid goading people into that.
We all need less stupid, bigoted, selfish, aggressive, and violence-supporting people in our lives.
I don’t personally align with either political party but the fact that you didn’t see the irony in this before posting it is really something spectacular.
Hi there. I'm trans. It wasn't up to me. I didn't choose to be. Life would be way easier if I wasn't. I'm dealing with it as best I can so I can live my life. An entire political party is currently putting money and energy behind denying me healthcare. I'm an adult. I'm at a point where I can't make hormones on my own but that doesn't matter to them. The dysphoria I was experiencing prior to transitioning was straight up not compatible with continuing to live. You don't even have to take my word for it - several doctors at different agencies agreed enough to write letters for me to start care. It is disingenuous to look at how conservatives are trying to, at best, make me very sick on a daily basis, or are, at worst, trying to put me in the ground and say "yeah, this is just as bad as the left's typical talking points."
If I were a cis person who couldn't synthesize my own hormones for whatever reason, there would be nothing stopping me from getting this exact. Same. Treatment. These things don't happen by accident. They happen because the hate is there to open the door and a lot of self-proclaimed "good" folks are real happy to watch it go down.
How do you reconcile with such an insanely disjointed false equivalency? Honest question.
Please. Spare us. “I don’t support either political party but liberals are just as bad” is a very roundabout way of saying that you’re a Republican.
No, One side is fucking evil, and would happily exterminate the amorphous "other" if they could get away with it. How does if feel to know that you and the KKK vote for the same things and people btw?
We don't tolerate intolerance. If that sounds ludicrous to you, you should search for "the paradox of tolerance".
Coming from a former hardcore conservative who listened to that snake Rush Limbaugh and his ilk every single day for hours for the better part of a decade, then moved to Los Angeles and learned quickly that everything he had been told was a fucking lie... Put away the dog whistles. You aren't fooling anyone.
Genocide is evil? Next you'll tell me the nazis were the baddies!
Is there a term for this 'both sides'ing? Politely declaring "both sides are equally bad" despite the glaring disparity?
False equivalency is the term I'd use to describe it.
I don't care if you like either political party. Buy if you're indifferent to fascists, then opposing fascists could look fascistic.
I wouldn't conflate "liberal" with "progressive," or, "leftist."
Very different things.
More underrated comment. This country has lost political literacy in what liberal, progressive, conservative, etc meaning. I saw a clip of Darth Cheney talking when he was in the first Bush Admin and he making solidly conservative points, talking about the consent of the governed and legitimacy. You would never see that type of conversation on any of the Sunday morning shows; you just see the culture wars. I was shocked to see this past Meet the Press had J.D. Vance making well reasoned arguments.
IMO, the labels are short hands that cause people to immediately turn off their brains. Leftist in American Politics is a meaningless slur. And most conservatives don't realize that the current flavor is actually Neoconservative.
Also it varies depending on the variety of English you’re speaking. While we do have a few people who follow the US a bit too closely generally when a British person is talking about ‘liberals’ or ‘liberalism’ they mean something quite different to what an American would be saying with the same terminology which leads to confusion on both sides. In the UK it sometimes means ‘the Liberal Democrat party’ but usually it just means ‘the opposite of authoritarian’, for example someone might say ‘Kier Starmer’s policy on drug reform is illiberal but the Green Party’s is liberal’ and it’s descriptive rather than ideological.
To be honest conservatism is pretty different on either side of the Atlantic too, or at least it was until both countries succumbed to populism and demagoguery. One-nation conservatism in the UK for example isn’t an intrinsically broken and contradictory ideology in the same way ‘Johnsonism’ is even though being well to the left of it myself I disagree with many of its premises, and while British politics outside of a minority of nutters doesn’t really care what religion you are on the whole it’s a considerable faux pas to let it be seen as directing your policy in office whereas American conservatives play to a very religious base. Blair over here still gets shit to this day for saying God will be his judge on Iraq, presumably forgetting the British electorate are a little less patient to judge than the almighty.
Conservative ideology of maybe twenty years ago would likely have a lot better chance at meaningful discussion as opposed to right now. At this time, the political right in the US have thrown full-throated support for policies that many people (rightfully) feel are abhorrent.
For less repugnant topics, say, fiscal responsibility, that one is also a tough one to talk about seeing as the right is trying to gut every social program they can think of while doing all they can to cut taxes for the rich.
I know there are sane conservatives out there, but until that party steers their ship away from bigotry, hatred, and destroying the middle and lower class, you'll probably not find a lot of discussion. Which is a shame because I think we do need two strong parties with differing viewpoints, but when the other viewpoint is rampant discrimination and further enriching the wealthy.
I feel like there is an idealization of far right conservatism that makes people believe that if we can just move past Trump and trumpism that things will go back to normal. That said republicans used to be more subtle and attempted to keep an air of respectability and civility about them, but a lot of the problem beliefs we had.
Tough on crime but not for white collar big crime politics, tax cuts for the wealthy, anti union stuff, racial dog whistling, gutting social programs, evangelical faux christian nonsense, election fraud, appointing judges, and etc were all present 20 years ago.
And regarding LGBT stuff both sides sucked 20 years ago, but conservatives were way worse.
Going back to at least reagan it's been a shitshow it's just decades of Reagan era neocon strategies coming up against impotent neolibs has brought us to where we are today. The current strategy is also far more transparent and aggressive and angry so things feel less civil, but sometimes I wonder if maybe thats not a bad thing. It's easier to rally against trump than it is to rally against a guy you feel like you'd like to have a beer with.
20 years ago they were panicing over video games and gay marriage try again
I think we have to be mindful of the fact that 'conservative' means different things in different countries politically and there's also a continuum on which conservatives (like left folk) are. I'm in the UK and personally loathe the Tories, but even within the Tory party there are more moderate conservatives as well as the batshit ones. Similarly, our Labour party is divided between the more socialist side of things and the centre ground side of the party. Also you can have fiscally conservative values but also be liberal/left leaning on other policy areas.
There's nuance to be had and I don't think talking in absolutes helps anyone. We can't gain a greater understanding of how our world works if we shield ourselves from opposing perspectives.
That said, those on the transphobic, homophobic, racist side of the spectrum should 100% not be welcomed. No tolerance for intolerance.
It would be a shame if this community was just focused on the US, but at the same time maybe the community is a bit broad? At some point it might make sense to segment the community and define it more so one country doesn't dominate discussion
I agree with this.
I'm not sure why "I don't want to see a space become an echo chamber" is always what gets said. Everywhere else IS a right wing echo chamber for the most part? Conservatives aren't the ones chased from reddit and twitter?
What probably isnt welcome is questioning people's right to exist, right to live unmolested because of someone else's beliefs (and real molested, not "i saw a minority existed), and the right to make your own medical choices for yourself and your kids. Considering means testing has been proven a waste and the right opposes taxing fair share, i wouldn't even argue that actual financial conservation is even a point the party makes.
So it's really hard to see what need this space has for those talking points. Unless it's actually about being open to real discussion, which frankly facts aren't often on the side of the right, what good to this community do these ideas offer?
What should be asked is what place does the Right/Conservative philosophy as a whole have in the Lemmy ethos? Is it in and of itself could be argued to be an antithesis to the whole structure and philosophy. Can authoritarian ideals thrive where they cannot take power?
Tumblr i the only other real leftist space I think. You could maybe put baseline social media is somewhat leftist, tik tok, instagram, snapchat, most of those have a leftist lean, primarily because they trend younger. Your general use social media is going to have a left/right lean based on age demographics. That's just the lean those general social medias are going to have.
Oh yeah tumblr. They pride themselves on being extreme i think in some of the spheres, where as i think nost people in this space are sharing deeply held beliefs. Most of the extreme stuff i see from there seems to be teens/outrage bait.
I forget the ages but i think beehaw/lemmy skews a tad older?
It basically has to skew older, probably 25 to 30+ The vast majority of those younger are going to be on tiktok, sc, insta, or something like discord. Lemmy will be considered more "left" overall than even reddit was. There will be of course bad instances, but i think pressure to defederate from them overall will be strong, especially when the "free speech" instances start having difficult legal questions thrown at them when their users inevitably start saying the quiet part out loud.
God i hate discords and what they have done with gaming documentation. I am completely turned off by any indie dev who requires you join their discord.
But im here, clearly i like forums. The fact that discord is basically backwards adding in forums with their threads thing is proof forums are still useful!
There's probably a sizable group of younger individuals, talking like 14-18 that are your kinda weird kids who don't have strong interpersonal social groups and instead compensate with the internet. The ones who find community in various instances are going to probably trend heavily left over time as they're exposed, inadvertently, to things they wouldn't normally be if they had more socionormative relationships.
No well adjusted 16 year old with a gaggle of friends is hanging out on sunday night in the summer on lemmy unless they have a very atypical social circle, autism, or both. And I don't say autism in a derogatory way.
I was that kid back in 2004-2005 who had no social friend group and found connection with people through 4chan when I was 14. The exact same type of people who were attracted to chans way back when are the type of people that are going to be attracted to lemmy and federation. The only difference is this time the chans are already cemented and those who fall into the alt-right pipeline already have their destination mapped out for them. Those that aren't sucked into the hateful rhetoric will likely find there way here as content seeps into the rest of the internet by osmosis.
Discord is extremely popular among well adjusted teen groups and social outcasts in equal order, it has strongly become "the third location" fpr a lot of people. Instead of hanging out at a skate park, or the mall, or in AIM chats, they're hanging out in VC on Discord.
My experience hasnt been like yours at all and i am sorry you think you're weird or something?
I mean i was a loner because geographically a lot of kids didn't live near me. I took the time to learn about people and everyone who works with me likes me, but i also kept myself safe and i enjoy being weird.
My experience with discord is it's a place like highschool where people get shut out if they arent as loud.
Im not sure why you're anti thoughtful young people, i think people enjoy a lot of different activities and informing yourself of the world around you is exactly what makes well adjusted people, not late jight drunken hang outs.
It's been weird. Have a good one and work on thinking better about tech and those hobbies. No one "well adjusted" really throws that stuff away as inherently maladaptive. I think in person peer pressure not to grow because you live around ignorant people wont have a lot of appeal to a good person.
I guess it depends on which conservative or right wing opinions you're talking about.
The traditional conservative opinion of smaller government hasn't existed now for 50 years. Reagan, Bush, and Trump all grew the size of government.
The conservative talking point of "states rights!" flies in the face of states who want safe and legal abortions, or equal access to marriage rights, or the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ+ kids actually exist.
Similarly if you're talking about the conservative push to make it harder for black and brown people to vote, and make no mistake about it, they are specifically targeting black and brown people.
Let's not even open the door to the fringe anti-vax or "election was stolen" movements.
So with all that conservative messaging off the table, what are you left with, honestly?
Conversation with right, left, middle, whatever are only productive if based on a principalled ideology. I disagree with the NeoCons of Bush and Cheney, but at least there is an ideology to work with. MAGA, on the other hand is defined by no principals other than authoritarian aims of "winning" where "winning" is making the other side mad.
The post truth world we live in makes this hard, though. Right now there is no shared truth, and with varied truthinesses out there, it makes the conversation hard. Using flat earthers as an example, the sheer rejection of math and science is astounding; having a principalled conversation is hard when the foundations are different.
And with 24hr news, breaking news, and global news, and only so much news worthy content, there is an incentive to come with with differentiation and that creates eco chambers. News Max isn't going to bring on a CNN contributor (and vice versa) to challenge their views.
This is a good point. There are conservative viewpoints I find compelling, but they have basically nothing in common with MAGA, de santis, or any other popular conservative these days.
I find I can talk with individuals, when we both view the other as individuals, instead of a representative of republicans or whatever other moniker you give them. I mean, not everyone, but at least most people.
Yes.
Gentle reminder to try to assume best intention of others and provide nuance where appropriate. If by 'conservative/right wing' this person means they're all about what these things have morphed into lately in the US (transphobia, homophobia, and otherwise thinly-veiled hateful notions), then I completely agree. Fascists aren't welcome here. Nazis aren't welcome here. Beehaw is explicitly intolerant of the intolerant. But there can be honest perspectives that fall 'to the right' of the liberal perspective that can and should deserve consideration (they just seem to be rare these days, as political discourse has become so polarized).
No, there are communities and instances dedicated for them.
Edit: speaking in a general sense, "conservative" is a broad term.
Dumb answer. I don't care. We shouldn't tolerate oppression, and we shouldn't burden ourselves with the need to support them or equivocate. If they want their own communities, they can support that completely on their own (including research on whether they can run their own shit and how) without our help. It's really fucking easy to just say "nah" and let them figure out whether to trust that answer or not. You're choosing to shoot yourself (and me, and everyone else) in the foot. How about just don't.
I think what Dankenstein meant was that there are already today servers dedicated to right wingers (we block them but they exist), not that we should help them or something like that.
Or at least - I think that's a good faith interpretation.
That's okay. We don't have to help them set them up, or find them, or even know they exist. Why is everyone so obsessed with giving reactionaries the IT help they need to setup and grow communities of hate? Doesn't make any sense at all, TBH.
You go low, we...help you go low.
Again - we're not helping them. Why do you think we're helping them? I don't understand where you got that from - genuinely trying to understand..
Again, why would we help reactionaries discover communities they can become a part of where they are welcomed? Why would we tolerate their existence and their growth? That's absolutely silly. I don't "agree with you", but here's how you can find communities which do, so you can organize with them to crush me and the people I love. Dumb shit.
@straycatfrump - you are arguing against a point that Lionir is not making. Please assume good faith when engaging with users on Beehaw. Our one rule is: Be(e) Nice.
I'm saying it's dumb to give the kind of answers people are giving in this post. We should've just said "yes, reactionaries are unwelcome" and moved on. It's not "nice" to help them organize to murder me, so I take exception to you characterizing only MY participation as not being nice.
Many conservatives want to murder me too, but that's not my takeaway from this thread. Nor are all conservative opinions necessarily hateful - the modern Republican party in the United States has certainly has chosen to center hate, but ideas on how large a government should be, for example, are not necessarily rooted in hate.
I won't take away your right to point out that the modern right wing party in the US is intolerant and therefore deserving of scorn, but we do need you to assume good faith of other users on Beehaw, especially when considering we are a global website. Feel free to ask questions to get them to show that they are acting in bad faith or report comments which you think are hiding malice.
The problem with these discussions is that we seldomly use common definitions, which creates more heat than light. There was a strain of late 20th Century American conservatism that was rooted in fiscal restraint, loosely regulated free markets, and a privileged place for the nuclear family, civic duty, and the church as the glue holding (small) communities together. I'd vehemently disagree with most of these as policy anchors, but none of them are beyond civil discussion per se.
But here's the problem: this late 20th-Century old school conservative thinking has been thoroughly hollowed out and co-opted to the point it is now completely meaningless. (The last administration was neither fiscally restrained, family oriented, nor in any way tied to any recognizable New Testament 'love thy neighbor' teaching. Yet, modern 'conservatives' can't get enough).
Into these conceptual containers has been smuggled a toxic strain of (white) (Christian) (popular) nationalism ... some may use the 'F' word ... that is fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-science, intolerant, and is now emerging as violent - not just to vulnerable groups, which is a show stopper in itself - but to the whole damn country and democratic process. You don't debate people like that. You crush them at the ballot box (or at Gettysburg or the beaches of Normandy if it comes to it).
So (pardon the TED talk), I think if someone wants to show up and debate whether we should be running budget deficits in excess of 3% of GDP, or whether we are regulating nuclear power too tightly, or whether industry X should be privatized/nationalized, they are probably good (at least by me - I can't speak for others). But there is an understandable level of suspicion around the whole 'conservative' discourse, and if someone tries to smuggle ethno-nationalism, economic Darwinism, or bigotry toward vulnerable groups into the discussion under the guise of 'traditional family values' and 'fiscal restraint' ... they are going to have a tough time.
Honestly I think the more traditional side of the Democratic party serves the 'conservative' angle quite well. They're the ones questioning spending and how we'll pay for it, advocating for pro business policies and the like.
The Republican party no longer seems to bring anything of merit to the table, having fallen to Christian nationalism and policies of hate.
All political discussion in the United States takes place within and to the left of the Democratic Party. Any discussion to the right of that is based on pure fantasy and possibly some individuals unsuccessfully trying to ground the conversation in reality.
I would say it's not strictly prohibited, it's more about the attitude and treatment towards other people. The modern conservative attitudes lately have been focused around hate and discrimination of minority groups and foreigners. It's extremely hard to look past that and the other outrageous alt right views related to anti-vax, 5g conspiracy theories, etc. A lot of loud conservative figures have been pushing anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-womens rights, anti-poor regulations and this is not welcome here. This makes it hard to accept a conservative viewpoint.
If the discussion is focused around political views for the economy, government regulation, etc, and engages in civil discussion and disagreement, a willingness to attempt to understand the other person's view, and not resorting to insults or hate, then differing viewpoints are not exactly a problem. Anything suggesting that minority groups or other humans are inferior or don't have a right to exist or have personal rights and freedoms is definitely not welcome.
In short, it's difficult to say due to the modern conservative "hot topics" which dehumanize groups of people. Being conservative doesn't automatically mean you aren't welcome here but hate and discrimination are certainly not welcome.
Posts like this are why this server needs to bring back downvotes
Differing opinions and perspectives, when able to be discussed rationally and with sufficient emotional awareness of others.
Arguments like, "my book says what you're doing is murder", "being who you are is a sin" leave no room for sensible discussion, and in many contexts amount to hateful conduct which is not welcome here. Remember that be(e)ing nice holds paramount, which puts a threshold on how heated arguments should get on Beehaw.
I've conversed and debated with conservatives a lot. While we might think the other is misguided in their opinion, we often have a productive discussion. Speaking in broad generalities, conservatives tend to believe in a universal, immovable moral structure, whereas liberals tend to believe in more nuances morality that works dynamically based on context and varies from person to person. It's not an easy barrier to overcome, but with some efforts from both you and your debate opponent it is possible.
Two things are important to me when I debate. First, I try to reiterate their argument so that I am not misunderstanding it before I say may own. Second, I highlight and clarify where specifically our beliefs differ and where they overlap. The reason I do this, is that I debate others not to just be a shouting match where the loudest opinion wins, but find mutual understanding even in disagreement.
In addition to what others have said, i think it really depends on what ones frame is for "conservative". Much of what the US would consider left-wing is what I, being in europe, would consider center-right, for example.
Depends entirely on the Instance and the rules they enforce. Here on Beehaw specifically? This is primarily an instance for safety and inclusivity and the people here are, naturally, not going to look positively on right wing opinions.
Obfuscating hate and intolerance by cloaking it under a "conservative" platform does not make it "conservative" - it is still hate and intolerance. People calling this out are well to do so. I don't see echo chambers, in those cases. I see people testing the bonds of the social contract.
Well said, although I fully support freedom of speech, I definitely don't support providing a platform for hate purely for the sake of "both sides". I sort of align with Dr. Jen Foell there. "If there are ten people at a table with a Nazi and none of them protest, there are eleven Nazis at the table."
Additionally, I've watched a few videos by Innuendo Studios on YouTube that echo very similar ideas to yours. They do point out a number of ways that some alt-right conservatives will specifically push limits and feign opinions on topics purely to anger people on the opposite end of the argument to push those limits and push others beyond those limits. The whole Alt-Right Playbook series was quite good. The are, of course, opinions of the author, but he does give a good list of sources beneath videos where he makes assertions.
The waters have been muddied. I have huge disagreements with conservatives... But it has never amounted to much. However, the past decade has seen a switch from "conservatism" to "alt-right maga scum". My friends who were not swept up in the Trump cult of personality and far right tribalism are fucked.
Depending on what you're calling an opinion...
No one is stopping anyone from opening their own instances, but the rest have the right to not federate if the content on that place goes against their own instance rules and personal beliefs. This is the good thing about the fediverse, you can choose the kind of people and content you interact with
As far as I know Beehaw is not explicitly political. On the other hand I personally think common practices of some parties which can include spreading miss-information, fabrication, denialism, intimidation, trolling, and generally planning to disruptive are out of bounds. Just saying that can be considered as being unwelcoming to some people that call themselves conservatives.
a political space leaning towards a certain side is, naturally, going to be an echo chamber. i mean, couldn't i just call every right-leaning space a conservative echo chamber too? imo, we need to stop perpetuating the myth that "neutral" spaces are normal, & "echo chambers" are some new bad thing that the leftists keep doing to shield themselves from information. when people call a group an "echo chamber", what they really mean is "a group that shows bias", & because it's natural for humans to show bias, most social hierarchies we form tend to naturally bias towards certain opinions too.
every group of humans, whether on the internet or in real life, is an echo chamber that reflects the beliefs & opinions of the most active users. there's always a majority opinion, & from what i've experienced groups that try to avoid their biases just tend to turn into places that feel completely unnatural to talk in, where everyone dances around eggshells what they truly believe but end up letting it bleed through anyway. & from the introductory posts that describe the spirit of this site, that situation the exact opposite of what this instance was made for.
so while it's not strictly against the rules to be conservative, & i don't think it's fair to say that conservative opinions are completely unwelcome on beehaw* (there are definitely conservative & center-right leaning instances out there so i don't think it's fair to ask about all of lemmy in the title), if you're looking for other people here to agree with you, well bad news - a leftist bias here will be unavoidable. if you choose to participate here, you just have to accept the fact that this instance is made up primarily of leftist users, & thus threads here always be naturally biased primarily towards leftists opinions.
I think a lot of the other posts covered my thoughts on the issue but I wanted to add something less about politics and more about lemmy itself:
There is no one Lemmy, it's a bunch of federated instances. You made this post on the beehaw instance. Some instances will have their own personality and rules, but if you don't like them, the beauty of the lemmy and the fediverse is that you can just create another instance. I haven't done a ton of searching yet, but I imagine that conservatives and right-wing personalities will carve out their own corner eventually.
There are greens, yellow, and reds. Greens agree with you, yellow may not agree but you can have a constructive conversation, and red are people who never will and will only double down and care little for evidence or logic. Angloworld conservatives are reds. They are fascist.
Hopefully.
Liberalism is also a right wing ideology.
Depends on what we call "right wing".
I keep asking, and have probably asked more than fifty times over the last 4 years, what right-wing Americans stand for other than the "culture war". Why would someone call themselves a conservative/Republican if they are opposed to the Republicans' stances on minorities, stances on LGBT+, stances on gestures broadly at Florida, etc. What's left of the ideology when you take those things out, especially considering that the right has pretty demonstrably dropped their support for "fiscal responsibility", "small government", "anti-judicial activism", and "opposing the influence of Russia".
Most of the time, that question just gets ghosted. Like, over 90% of the times I've asked it, it's just been a conversation-ender. The rest of the time, the answers boil down to "my bigotry is more fine-grained than that". They're good friends with Mexicans and Asians and African-Americans, but hate Muslims. Or they're fine with gay people, but feel transgender people shouldn't exist. Or they love gay people and minorities, as long as they're all Christian whether they want to be or not. These folks call themselves Republicans not because they hate everyone the Republican party hates, but because they hate one (or a few) groups that the Republicans hate.
Your comment is a pretty good attack on what the GOP has become. My criticism is that the GOP doesn't represent all of right-wing political ideology. I think most people, or at least people like me, aren't dogmatically locked into any party or ideological label. I have some views which conservatives would agree with and plenty that they wouldn't. Overall, I think that most conservative-oriented communities are narrow-minded at best, and openly racist and authoritarian at worst. But the left-leaning communities aren't great either. They (justifiably) want to insulate themselves from the hateful parts of the right. Unfortunately, this often devolves into an echo-chamber without real discussion. I'm hoping Lemmy as a whole doesn't devolve down either path.
I haven't seen a discussion about the merits of different tax policies (and no, "cut all the taxes!" isn't a policy), or the role of local/state/federal government, or social service policy (and no, "stop all poor people spending!" is not a policy), or the appropriate division of power between executive/legislative/judicial, or anything like that, in decades. W was president the last time I saw any form of media having a real discussion about those things.
Before 2015 or so, there were a handful of people in my circle who identified as conservative that could have a real, nuanced, complex conversation about public policy with; people who I thought were incorrect, but who could articulate their points well enough that I could kind of see where they were coming from, and we could come out of a discussion with a better understanding of each other, and maybe one or the other of us might even have softened on a given position in the process. It was possible to find basic, fundamental points on which we agreed, and use those as a foundation for a broader discussion.
Since 2016, all of those people, to a man, have become Q-anon deep-state groomers-coming-for-our-kids frazzledrip climate-hoax hunter's-laptop gays-have-it-too-good morons. Not a single one of them still believes in any of the fundamental points of agreement we used to have, from which a productive discussion could be based. They have entirely left reality behind in favor of Jewish space lasers and (the latest talking point) "every father thinks about his daughter that way!".
I have not met someone who identifies as a conservative or a Republican who isn't on that same train for a very long time.
This has been exactly my experience as well, and why I am increasingly comfortable with skepticism of unqualified conservative voices as a default.
I have been having good faith debates over real policy with conservatives for three decades. Since Carter more or less. I know what that debate looks like. But since 2016, I know two types of former conservative - the reformed, who were awakened to the monstrosity that Trump created. And those who openly embraced fascism like a parasite embraces dog shit.
Every person. Every single one so far, who has been equivocal on this topic has turned out to be quietly the latter. The ones belonging to the former group are very open about feeling dumb and misled, even victimized. They express loudly and often the nature of their reform to anyone who will listen.
That's fine, but then there is a burden to both understand why your adjacency to this evil force makes people uncomfortable, and to rhetorically separate yourself from it as needed. This is just the unfortunate reality of how deranged mainstream conservatism has become.
I consider myself pretty libertarian in the grand scheme of things, but I am fine with an echo chamber where basic human rights are respected. I believe that my vision of society has no place for bigots or theocrats and that such people should be treated legally the same as fraudsters or thieves. And I think it's absolutely insane that this would be considered controversial in a good faith conservative circle. The real conservatives I know would understand that an inclusive, well represented society is a productive and ideologically secure society.
That depends on your definition of conservative and right wing. Casual observation the last few weeks Ive been here, but this instance leans left. You wont get banned for trying to preach fiscal conservatism or having a religion here. Certain stuff may not make you popular either depending on what conservative ideology you're preaching.
Ive noticed the mods and admins here dont play the usual troll game. So any dog whistles, trolling, and bad faith stuff gets shutdown.
As a self described leftist, I'm open to discussing almost anything in a respectful manner. I'm not going to shit on anyone just for have a different opinion, but I'm going to argue my viewpoint when I feel led to. And I'm certainly going to call someone out for being bigoted, disrespectful, or spreading misinformation. A lot of those things are not well received by those on the right and may make them feel unwelcome, but that's really not my problem.
Just had one of those conversations the other day, where "We don't want racists around here" met with "why don't you like conservatives". It's funny when they tell on themselves like that.
They're not going to have the numbers to get any traction. Honestly, the bulk of the vocal conservatives are older and a bit brain rotted at this point. They won't want to learn or deal with something like Lemmy because it's not as easily out of the box on their cell phone yet, because there's not great app support. That demographic is almost exclusively mobile device users. Note; the above description is of your typical boomer esq white dude who you imagine taking a tik tok in his truck from a too low angle with wrap around shades on.
The actual alt-right and neonazis don't need lemmy, because they weren't really on reddit to begin with. The majority of them that are just on the surface of the alt-right are on 4chan, voat, and shit like that. Those that are a lot deeper are very tightly knit and on IRCs, telegram, onion networks; and are typically invite only or you need to know a guy who knows a guy kinda thing.
Conservatives have no need for Lemmy, they have their primary platforms still and can easily migrate. Reddit was basically all the leftist sphere had.
I don't know about all that. I've pretty much dropped kbin until they get their block function working, because I keep seeing threads started by quasi-polite cryptofacists complaining about the censorship (through defederation or otherwise) of right-wing voices and "civil discussion".
Are* and god I hope so. Protections from nazis are precisely why I came to beehaw.
As long as it's not hate speech, doxing, etc, it's probably not off limits. But it's popularity will decide on the user base. I think it's sort of a techie crowd here and that sort of crowd tends liberal. But I'd say you can try and see what happens.
My personal line is crossed if that user has a hateful stance that actively harms other users. I joined this instance for the hardline rules against hate and I do not think it is unfair to say that conservatives havent done themselves any favours in that regard. The general impression is that conservatives want people like me to not exist so it will always make me cautious.
Ultimately that's like asking if they are allowed on the Web. Lemmy isn't a singular thing or a singular community. It's lots of individual communities that can choose which other communities they interact with. There will inevitably be communities or groups of communities that are more insular and ones that are more open. I guess the real question is whether the eventual major communities that interact freely with each other include right wing groups or not. That'll be something that works itself out based on to what degree everyone else is willing to interact with them. Which seems to me to be an approach to these things that most people on the right often endorse. If in this case it happens to leave them on the outside of the mainstream dialogue looking in then they should probably do some self-reflection about why their participation is undesirable.
Yes, they are completely unwelcome. Anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is immediately labeled a “fascist” as as justification to dunk on them. Doesn’t matter how civil or well-argued their opinions are. Don’t believe me? Just wait a few hours and then look at the responses to this comment.
If you care AT ALL about fairness and balance of opinions, then this is absolutely not the instance for you.
I'm confused as to why you'd post such a reddit-esque bait statement when so many of the responses are civil, patient, and respectfully explaining viewpoints without attacking OP. Don't you think discourse can be better than that? Don't you want to at least give it a chance?
Hey man, you're not arguing in good faith, and I think you know it. We're building a different space here than the one we left. Please stop trying to ragebait by building straw man arguments that don't reflect the reality of the discourse here. Choose to be better.
How am I ragebaiting? Am I wrong? It’s been made clear time and time again that any opinion that is even somewhat right leaning is not welcome here. To point this out is not “ragebaiting” and that’s completely absurd that you would even claim that.
Yet again, y’all prove my point. Anyone who disagrees with the hivemind is apparently not here in good faith (even when they are).
Please cite examples. This entire post is disproving this already.
It's absurd to come in here, throw around vague accusations, and then do absolutely no work to back up those claims.
There are already more viewpoints being expressed within respondents to this post than in typical reddit front page subs. I'm sorry but it is not good faith to start name calling. I feel like you know that, though.
If this is how you feel, why are you here? Users on our instance who are actively attempting to sabotage the instance rather than engage in discussion are not helpful. Coming out from a 20 day hiatus to only share a negative opinion is relatively harmless as a single action, but imagine if there were a bunch of people like you on this instance - it would make this place extremely negative and result in a lot of comments which served no purpose but to upset others.
So, I commented earlier about why right-wing opinions are trash in general, but I realized that I never addressed the meat of your question, which was: "Are[sic] Conservative/Right-Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?". Which, I've gotta say, is an incredibly stupid fucking question. Lemmy is a federated space, which means that anybody can set up their own server, with their own rules, and be part of the wider "Lemmy". A much better question, since you're posting on beehaw.org is: "Are Conservative / Right-Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Beehaw?", which is answerable based on knowledge of the administrator(s) of Beehaw.
But, really, any fascist dipshit with a spare server and an internet connection can start their own Lemmy instance, and they'd fucking love your stupid fucking Right-Wing Opinions.
So, in short, your question is stupid, and your opinions are trash. Thank you, and goodnight.
Others have already provided a lot of detailed answers to the OP, and the question in and of itself isn't necessarily harmful even if it misses the point of federation. But this level of aggression is really unnecessary - please keep it nice if you're participating on Beehaw.
I've been a fence sitter and contrarian for most of my life. As a person that hates how both parties operate and I firmly believe that structural and systematic changes need to happen to the US system of governance. For that to happen we need those that have conservative viewpoints in order to create a balanced system in which we all can live in. It's disconcerting to see the vitriol espoused from both sides of the (US) political spectrum. It's feels like a pendulum swinging wider and wider threatening to throw itself off.
I'm a firm believer to the Forward Party's thesis that a minority of voters is now dictating policy being done to the detriment of the majority. I believe that the system allows for bomb throwers like Lauren Boebert to exist because she only has to represent a vocal minority. I believe that dark money from superPACs is manipulating public discourse to the point that rational discourse is almost impossible.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there are those that believe in the old guard republicanism and conservatism, the small government and fiscally conservative ideals/planks. We should allow those voices to speak up if only for forming ideas and policy that the majority of us can accept. I don't know, it just feels that as we grow more divided in our politics the harder it will be to create new polices and visions for a better Country. The adage from Clausewitz always comes to mind, "war is a continuation of policy by other means."
And there are many more sides than just the two parties you see in the US. Something to keep in mind.
Lemmy seems to like the idea of using PT and Bikes, technically that is conservative.
Same with giving up suburbs, the old ways of living in dense cities is technically conservative lol
Eh, words change over time, and I think it would be pretty disingenuous to suggest that this is still the case.