You clearly have an ax to grind with leftists but outrage is a human reaction to something bad happening, it can be perceived on any political spectrum, including right as well. And discussion is the only a good thing even if not everybody agrees, at least we understand where they stand.
There's also the fact that as the audience is heavily composed of tech workers, we're helping to build these systems and should explore what our participation means for us. Hacking humanity and civilization as it were.
Perhaps places have seemingly turned "leftist" because the fascist definition of "leftist" has turned into anyone who doesn't support summary executions of American citizens in the street?
It was shown that rightoid subs have way more censorship and controlled by way fewer people. Reality has a liberal bias, so of course an average subreddit will appear to be "leftist". Of course "leftist" to a rightoid means just not a far-right sub.
> You may not hide behind "It's just a different opinion" when you want to be evil. If you for example want to tell a lie and say that Renee Good was not innocent, then we will permanently ban you. Or if you want to show everyone you're evil and you support Trump's secret police which exists to kidnap innocents and terrorize citizens, then we will permanently ban you.
This is /r/comics, of all places, but this is the norm across Reddit.
Nothing you read on that site is in any way representative of actual public opinion. It is a carefully curated cesspit of manufactured consensus.
I can't really comment on Reddit because I don't spend much time there and when I do it's in technical subs (at the top of my current throwaways: /r/kubota, /r/woodstoving, /r/vorondesign, /r/buildapcsales)
I can't really comment on Bluesky because I don't spend much time there at all. Although every time I view an X link I see a whole bunch of reactionary simplistic not-even-wrong red team comments, so if it's the blue-flavored equivalent of that I can see where you're coming from.
As a libertarian, I personally sit somewhere in the "middle" as I think left and right are fundamentally just ways of thinking about a situation, and if you're not doing both and synthesizing between them then you're only using half of your brain.
So sorry, "summary executions of American citizens in the street" comes from my own analysis of the events of the past few days. If you do not see the situation as an American citizen exercising her first amendment natural right to heckle government agents and then being retaliated at with a high-stakes escalation that led to her being needlessly killed, then you really have no comprehension or appreciation of our country's foundational ideas of individual liberty and limited government.
(As for your edit tone policing about "fascist" that now makes up the bulk of your comment - I am open to referring to your movement by another name, especially if it facilitates having productive discussions where we can flesh out your actual values and their implications. But first you have to come up with an honest label and stop trying to hide behind "conservative" to mask a wildly radical agenda)
> But no sorry, "summary executions of American citizens in the street" comes from my own analysis of the events of the past few days. If you do not see the situation as an American citizen exercising her first amendment natural right to heckle government agents and then being retaliated at with a high-stakes escalation that led to her being needlessly killed, then you really have no comprehension or appreciation of our country's foundational ideas of individual liberty and limited government.
I saw the situation as (1) an American citizen moving far beyond her first amendment rights and into active violence towards and obstruction of law enforcement, (2) refusing a lawful and reasonable order, after an incredible degree of patience and grace extended to her by law enforcement despite her unlawful behavior over days and weeks, and (3) her ill-considered decision to use her vehicle in the manner she did, accelerating towards and hitting a law enforcement officer -- a provocation to which he responded with reasonable force, given the circumstances.
Planting your car perpendicular to the road isn't protected speech, and accelerating into a human while refusing a lawful order especially isn't.
I don't think she intended to hit him, but she accelerated towards him to evade a lawful order, and she did hit him. An SUV is absolutely a deadly weapon, and once acceleration occurs toward an officer:
- The threat becomes imminent
- The decision window collapses to seconds
- De-escalation is no longer a viable option
> I am open to referring to your movement by another name, especially if it facilitates having productive discussions where we can flesh out you actual values and their implications. But first you have to come up with an honest label and stop trying to hide behind "conservative" to mask a wildly radical agenda
I don't have a name for it other than conservative, all of my "political compass" tests place me pretty firmly in the center, and I don't see how actually enforcing immigration law is a "wildly radical" agenda. However, I also think invoking “fascism” here is a category error; modern political movements do not map cleanly onto those early-20th-century categories. There are points of overlap, divergence, borrowing, and recombination across parties and ideologies.
> an American citizen moving far beyond her first amendment rights and into active violence towards and obstruction of law enforcement
Please describe what "active violence" or physical "obstruction" you are specifically referring to, that she was engaging in before the situation escalated. I have seen many allusions to this as if it must be obvious, but never anything concrete. Modulo her political message, what I see is someone being an asshole stopped in the middle of the street and laying on her horn. But these are issues for local PD at best.
> refusing a lawful and reasonable order
I am only aware of an order given to move along, which was questionably unlawful if issued in retaliation for Constitutionally-protected observation and protest. If you want to elaborate on the specific order and what fundamentally necessitated it, I'm open to changing my mind. But what I see is ICE already starting to escalate the situation. At which point the question becomes why it was necessary for them to escalate this situation - we expect government agents to minimize harm in good faith, not to rules-lawyer to increase harm for their own personal reasons.
> after an incredible degree of patience and grace extended to her by law enforcement despite her unlawful behavior over days and weeks
Why I should empathize with the government agents rather than my fellow citizen? "Patience and grace" aren't elective niceties, they're firm requirements of the job. If an agent gets emotionally overwhelmed doing their job, it's time to take a step back and hand off to someone fresh. They unfortunately do not have a mandate from the communities they are working amongst. We have seen how corrosive this dynamic is to the rule of law under the "drug war". I'm sure it makes the job extra tiring, but that is on them to manage rather than taking it out on citizens.
(also that was another reference to "unlawful" behavior without pointing to anything specific)
> accelerating towards and hitting a law enforcement officer -- a provocation to which he responded with reasonable force, given the circumstances
This particular agent had previously fucked around and found out about moving vehicles. In this light, his approach positioning should be viewed as fully deliberate, and his subsequent reaction as pre-planned. Both also deviated significantly from agency procedures.
His alternative was to not box her in with his fleshy body, and if she ended up driving away either open a case and confront/arrest her elsewhere, or just pass the complaint off to local PD. That would be basic straightforward deescalation, so once again the critique of generally minimizing harm applies.
> I don't see how actually enforcing immigration law is a "wildly radical" agenda
I didn't claim that it was, and I personally have no problem enforcing immigration law in a just, equitable, and humane manner. The problem is the manner in which it is being enforced. This manner is so far outside acceptable government activity in a society based around individual liberty and limited government, that it makes me see the whole call of "enforcing immigration law" as a mere pretext for something much more sinister.
On terminology, "fascism" seems appropriate to me based on Eco's Ur-Fascism. But as I said I'm open to other terms.
As far as "conservatism", Moldbug plainly called his thinking "reactionary" as he explicitly disclaimed conservatism as not far enough right. My rejection of "conservative" is not based on just this topic - this movement has destroyed or subjugated so many disparate US institutions that I think it's patently absurd to call it "conservative".
> I am only aware of an order given to move along, which was questionably unlawful if issued in retaliation for Constitutionally-protected observation and protest.
She was ordered to exit her vehicle. She then accelerated into a law enforcement officer after her wife told her to “drive baby, drive”.
I suggest you find the unedited videos, that have not been cut or misleadingly had their audio replaced with reporter voice overs.
It’s cut and dry. Then I suggest you look into why you only received a curated and biased representation of the facts.
An order to exit her vehicle wouldn't be in furtherance of the operation ICE was engaged in. This means it was in retaliation for her Constitutionally-protected activity, making that making that order unlawful. Pragmatically, it was of course utterly stupid to not comply (as with most masked armed gangs of attackers barking orders at you), but we're talking about the legality here.
> She then accelerated into a law enforcement officer
I'm sure it does seem "cut and dry" when you start your analysis at the point the government agents had already set themselves up to kill her if she did not stop protesting and respect their authorituh.
I made several points about how the situation was needlessly escalated to that point you're focusing on, but you've just ignored them. You're complaining about the media editing videos and omitting facts, but you're effectively creating an edit in your own head that starts after the situation had been needlessly escalated multiple ways, which absolves the government agents of responsibility for those escalations.
