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Episode2 @lemmy.dbzer0.com
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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.

Edit: Thanks for the rational replies. I was expecting to get lit up for even mentioning this topic lol.

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52 comments

  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • is Conservative/Right Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?

    Yes.

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  • 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.

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    • my big thing with right-wingers is that that they come with no proof, abd get mad when you start asking for facts and figures.

      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.

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  • Modern conservative politics and "polite discussion" are like oil and water.

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  • 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.

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    • It’s hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays.

      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.

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  • Permanently Deleted

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  • 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.

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  • 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:

    unwelcome on Lemmy

    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.

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    • I imagine that conservatives and right-wing personalities will carve out their own corner eventually.

      They have, and most of those instances have been defederated from the rest of the fediverse because they breed a bunch of toxicity and hatred that spills into other instances if you don't defederate from them. I don't know of any conservative spaces that haven't been defederated from most others tbh. I think sh.itjust.works still federates with a lot of them though, at least last I heard.

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      • They're having a vote on it right now. It's been a month since the community at large asked for defederation, and will be friday at the earliest before they defederate. In that timeframe, users of sh.itjust.works have skewed farther and farther right and gotten more and more toxic (@natori@beehaw.org can help discuss this as they originated from sh.itjust.works before moving here), and whereas sh.itjust.works started as the instance I felt more confident about refederating with someday, lemmy.world has done more to crack down on the kinds of behavior that got their instance defederated in the first place. It seems that @ruud@lemmy.world has a similar philosophy to what we do over here, but wants more permissive signups under the belief that streamlined community joins will grow the community more organically than checking beforehand that users will follow the rules of the road.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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    • 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.

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      • 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?

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      • 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

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      • 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.

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      • 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

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      • 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.

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      • 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.

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    • 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.

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      • 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.

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  • 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?

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  • 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."

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  • 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.

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    • If you care AT ALL about fairness and balance of opinions, then this is absolutely not the instance for you.

      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.

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    • 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?

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  • 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 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.

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