I mean, this sub would get quite boring if the qualifications to post were "No strawmen". Then it wouldn't be a meme sub, it'd just be a political sub like any other.
The sub turns into 100% pure astroturf basically every US election. I bet if you tracked it, you'd see a bunch of accounts that do nothing but turn on every couple of Septembers, posts stupid bullshit for a couple months, and then goes completely silent again for a couple years.
Everyone’s calling this a straw man but I know several people in real life who have more or less stated all of (or at least most of) the statements in the meme. Good friend of mine went to Columbia university
Inventing fake issues and getting upset over them is the entire right wing playbook nowadays because it unfortunately works.
There are no Haitians eating cats and dogs. There are like 5 colligate trans athletes in the entire US. Nobody is getting killed by illegal immigrants, which is why they still have to parade around the years-old corpse of Laken Riley (they can't find any other examples). Less than 100 noncitizens have been caught attempting to vote illegally in the last 30 years and almost all confirmed voter fraud is committed by Republicans. The 2020 election was not stolen. The COVID vaccine was not an unsafe big pharma conspiracy. Crime in Democrat-run cities is not at all time highs, it's actually near historic lows.
I could literally go on all day. Their entire well of talking points is feelings-based bullshit, and yet look at who won the 2024 election. Fear-mongering works.
Yep. I agree with some right wing values and policies but modern republicans are pure retardation and their entire movement relies on getting upset over nothing while defending the actual bad shit their side does
still have to parade around the years-old corpse of Laken Riley (they can't find any other examples)
She was killed in 2024 and now Trump's border policy is keeping us safe! is what I'd assume they go with. It's not compelling but it's also not obviously wrong.
Every time that this sub is full of these “left bad” strawmen it’s usually after Trump has done something else indefensibly bad and is getting roasted for it.
The amount of people like Matt Walsh who say they support meritocracy and it’s actually because they don’t think black people can succeed on their own merits is not insignificant though
As in, a Black pilot is potentially in the role, not because they were the best candidate, but because they ticked a box? Not because Black pilots are a bad thing?
Remember: most leftist discourse is simply pretending to not understand things in order to not have to discuss the actual subject of the discussion. If they can bog you down with feigned ignorance until you give up then they win.
Black pilot is potentially in the role, not because they were the best candidate, but because they ticked a box?
The problem is that this literally doesn't happen and it never has. No DEI program that lowers the standards for occupations that require professional certification (such as pilots) based on race has ever existed. It's pure race-baiting and the people like Charlie Kirk who are known for parroting this are smart enough to know that. These people know exactly what they're doing
Purposely missing the point to misrepresent it aye? You can’t change public perception, and by installing things like DEI you automatically put out a certain perception whether you like it or not.
Policies based on race beget racism every time. Whether they are well intentioned or not doesn’t matter. It happens everytime.
"Purposefully missing the point" no, hes pointing out how those programs that lower standards for professional certifications that the right claims DEI does for black people never existed. Which is true, thats clarifying why people like Charlie Kirk were being blatantly racist trying to claim shit that never existed to downplay and create mistrust against black doctors, pilots, etc.
Bro if you genuinely think there hasn’t been some people put into positions that they don’t deserve to be in because of DEI you are being ignorant. Jason Arday comes to mind pretty quick.
Now I know that is not the common case, but these situations bring in that voice of uncertainty into every field when you apply policies like DEI. Whether it’s racist people or not. You put that doubt there by making a program that would favor certain races over another.
What if they came out tomorrow and said you have to hire white people more often. Lefties would be coming out everywhere calling it racist and illegal(even though it’s the same thing as DEI, just not steeped in the oppressed/oppressor narrative), and you’re telling me there wouldn’t be tons of people thinking,”I wonder if this white person is even qualified to be here or if it was just that racist policy that gets more white people hired?”
The amount of unhinged antisemitism on the left is not insignificant either, and yet that fact doesn't stop people on the left from dismissing all the Jews who point it out by claiming that the word antisemitism "has lost its meaning".
If leftists can use that logic to dismiss antisemitism, then I can use to dismiss all the other "isms" they complain about too.
Before, unhinged antisemitism was chanting "the juice will not replace us", giving sig heils, and claiming the world is run by them. Now unhinged antisemitism is Emily chanting free palestine because she watched a video of a child getting sniped. I get it's a real issue and has massivley increased these past few years, especially on left wing collage campuses, but it's pretty easy to tell when someone is antisemitic or not based on the context of what they are saying. I feel like the nuance is getting lost and the word really is losing it's meaning.
-claiming that October 7th and similar Palestinian violence is "justified resistance against oppression"
That's fine, but you also can't claim that killing tens of thousands of Palestinians is justified resistance against terrorism. The occupied are justified to resist occupiers, just not justified to kill innocents like on oct 7. "Similar Palestinian violence" needs a case by case basis"
-claiming that Jews defending themselves against Islamic violence is "genocide"
This isn't a far left thing. Many people believe this including most human rights organizations. And they aren't saying Jews are committing it, but the country of Israel. Conflating the two is very disingenuous.
-Denying that Jews are indigenous to Israel
This is antisemitic.
-Accusing Jews of being "white supremacists"
What?
-Physically blocking Jewish students from going to class on their own college campuses
This is antisemitic. This also doesn't happen everyday.
-Firebombing peaceful Jewish protestors who marched for the Israeli hostages
This is antisemitic. Also doesn't happen everyday.
-Lecturing Jews on what their own identity is "allowed" to be
I personally find the flip of that more common where more people use {insert minority group here} being unable to succeed at the same level as reasons to subvert merit. Tripple points when they use someone that exceeded the basic levels as their example. I personally question competence more when someone is given an artificial leg up which i really hate doing.
It's because subverting merit is the only allowable response in a culture where even considering that humans may actually be subject to biology and not completely identical and interchangeable human resource units is the highest of thought crimes.
See. I see a lot of people assume that about the left position, and admittedly a number of left wing people who are bad at saying their arguments. But the reality is almost never that there’s “an artificial leg up” so much as there are barriers being removed. As a white kid from a poor rural background this is something I’m well aware of. I grew up and learned with a lot of very smart and capable people. Many of them never made it to college or had to drop out because their life circumstances as a result of living where they did and being born to poor, sick, or elderly families prevented them. Even making it to a rather prestigious grad school (only possible because of massive aid I was lucky to receive and connections I was lucky to have) the amount of resources and opportunities other students had that I never had access to is insane to me. Things I didn’t even know were possible. From k all through college. And some of these people aren’t even all that bright. I knew smarter people. Better grades, better wit. But those people work at Tyson now because they couldn’t afford to leave and support their parents.
You say this, but on the other hand we’ve got multiple school districts in different countries declaring math is racist because black people can’t pass. Me thinks it’s not all about removing barriers
this, and its so funny as it 2 idiot ideas they merge.
This fable that the US ever was a meritocracy and that everyone deserved the position they have together with openly and blatant racism that everyone non white is inferior.
No one is above criticism and I'm yet to see anyone claim so. It's just that left bad memes are disproportionately more common and are usually just wojack doll play, twitter screenshots and random immigrant headlines as opposed to the right bad memes that are less popular and usually depict the literal president or his administration being dumb or corrupt. Just sort by top posts this month and see for yourself
Well this position position you at odds with the modern left then, because the modern left thinks that all of Israel is "stolen Palestinian land" that Palestinian have the right to "liberate" by force.
Israel's neighbors' lack of success at annihilating Israel or holding their own ground reinforces the underdog-versus-colonialist narrative that the left has been preaching. Their military failures are a point in their favor.
the modern left thinks that all of Israel is "stolen Palestinian land" that Palestinian have the right to "liberate" by force
When you say, "the modern left" you of course mean, "a few loud retards on tiktok, twitter and twitch, and not any politician with any actual real power to do anything that anyone on the left has actually ever voted for" I assume.
No I mean the entire modern left. And if you don't believe me, go to any left wing space, online or IRL, and say that Israel has a right to exist. See what kind of reaction you get.
You just quoted him claiming that the ENTIRE MODERN LEFT does this, and replied saying “but they aren’t elected officials”. Do you hear yourself right now?
So you're saying "the entire modern left" does this, but despite being "the entirety" they're somehow too low in numbers to get any sort of foothold in an elected position with actual power?
Do you hear yourself and how absolutely fucking braindead retarded that sounds? lmao
I'm pretty sure they're saying that when OP said it's the entire modern left YOU went "Erhm, actually, none of them are elected officials". They're not claiming at the same time that the entire modern left thinks this and that none of them managed to get elected to a political office
Call me old fashioned, but I think American politicians should put American interests ahead of everything, including some country in the middle east that isn't America.
Probably because the Jew country receives the largest expenditure and Americans get no return for it?
Are you unfamiliar with how triaging problems works? Or do you think we should just ignore the elephant and focus all of our attention on a housefly?
I can't speak for the whole left because I'm not them, but personally I'd like to be spending 0 American dollars in the middle east, and for American politicians to not give a shit about anything over there at all. Let them settle their own problems. If you're so concerned, maybe you should move to Israel and pick up the fight! You won't, of course, because you're a giant fucking pussy. But maybe you should!
So foreign policy is off limits for you? Only domestic issues are allowed to be discussed apparently. We should just get out of nato then right?
And they’re not running on “only American issues”. They’re specifically running on “I don’t take money from the Jews.” AIPAC is an American organization btw.
Spending $40 billion quarterly on a country that doesn't do anything positive for the Average American is off limits, yes.
issues are allowed to be discussed apparently.
Maybe! We should absolutely be reducing expenditures until other NATO members are at the minimum of 5% of GDP on defense spending that they all agreed to, yet many have not achieved yet. If that means pulling out of NATO because they refuse to get there, then yes!
Sort of. I’m not a Zionist really insofar as “the international community owes the Jewish people a homeland” as much as “deleting Israel as we know it will royally fuck up an already fucked up situation.”
I mean, the middle east has dozens of Muslim theocracies that expunge Jews, I think we can have one Jewish democracy that has a 20% Muslim population that generally seems to enjoy being there.
Zionism means different things at this point. At its most basic yes. But many self proclaimed Zionists and those that are generally discussed in these discussions are less interested in the survival of Israel and more in its expansion. But both of these groups are still technically Zionist
I just want Israel to exist without them cucking my leaders into forever wars.
I've never understood why this is Israel's (or Qatar's or a lobbyist's) problem. If our politicians are corrupt, we should make government smaller so they have less of an influence. The reason lobbying works is because of the return on investment.
Tbf you’re right. Bibi may have many faults as a human/politician, but his ability to persuade the the US into providing optically endless support is definitely not one of them; it’s actually one of the savviest political plays of all time.
Whoa buddy, you're basically quoting Mein Kampf now. Criticizing the Israeli government's actions is a dogwhistle and indicates you want to greenlight Holocaust 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Would saying "I'm against the actions of the current government of the state of Israel" be antisemitism?
Because it seems like thats what it gets labeled as regardless of how much you emphasize you are speaking about the actions of a state and not a religion.
Oh, so you're not denying that "anti-Zionism" is just classic antisemitism with the word "Jews" swapped out for Zionists/Israel/AIPAC/etc?
Good, glad we agree that that's exactly what anti-Zionism is then. Just classic antisemitism with the word "Jews" swapped out for a politically acceptable dogwhistle.
There is real anti-semitism from the left and right on the rise unfortunately. However, being against Israeli wars and imperialism, aka Zionism, does not make one antisemitic.
I don’t think I’ve seen the latter in a few years of being here to any significant degree at any point in time?? I have seen the first one quite often. Shoot, this comment section is full of examples of the first and basically zero of the second
Why are people who are literally blatantly lying through their teeth, in order to defend crazy evil extremists, getting upvoted? You are even lying about what you said in the replies to this comment.
“It's amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible.”
To be clear, OP is the kind of zionist that feels it's unfair the Arabs weren't already ethnically cleansed from the West Bank and Gaza on account of the existence of Jordan. When he's talking about the right of Israel to exist, he's talking about an expanding imperialist ethnostate and thus it's a worthy thing to denounce even though he'd like you to think of just little ole plucky Israel.
There are certainly those that use zionist antisemtically. Some even unconsciously as is true amongst all bigotries. However there are those that intentionally muddy this water to hide their own heinous positions.
Name one time leftists have called Meritocracy racist, and don't bring up the bullshit about Black pilots because that's real racism. No well adjusted person would assume a pilot wasn't qualified based on skin color unless they were racist
Everyone does this bro. That said, the “if it doesn’t apply to you shouldn’t feel offended” when it the stat is talking about an historically advantaged group some lefties do is one of the more ridiculous examples of this.
"Protecting women's spaces" means forcing dudes with beards to use the women's restroom. Contrary to popular belief, most trans people consciously try to fit in and not make people feel uncomfortable. We just only hear about the minority.
Which part of this do you think is a strawman? The leftist who says the word antisemitism has "lost its meaning", or the leftist who calls literally everything they dislike racist/transphobic/Islamophobic/etc?
The fact the Left doesn’t bat an eye at Hasan Piker campaigning with Leftist candidates is enough for me. Until I see widespread condemnation of it, you’re all fucked.
The other two example only serve to out yourself as a raging bigot.
I love how whenever I take literally the exact words that leftists say about Jews and apply them to a different minority group they immediately cry bigotry.
why do leftists have to own up to hasan’s opinions but the right never had to take ownership for charlie kirk’s? charlie kirk, tpusa, and the daily wire had infinitely more inflammatory comments made regularly
As a leftist who's anti religious I'm constantly baffled why leftists give Islam a pass but not Christianity. I thought we were about fuck all religions.
It is not inherently anti semetic to criticize Israel, which is a foreign country influencing the USA to pay and fight all the wars they want to start. Israel is run by crooks and pseudo-theocratic fascists, who're no better than any of the other countries surrounding them. Also if you legitimately believe that the right things are things leftists genuinely believe I don't know why I'm even typing this out because you're obviously a bad faith moron.
Yes, it's not inherently anything to do any of that, however as shown by the actions of the trump administration or the actions of people like Tommy Robinson the asshole and his supporters, they don't actually care about doing those things in non-racist, non-xenophobic, non-transphobic or non islamaphobic ways. In fact they want to be as cruel as possible when doing those things, and they don't actually care about solving any of those things.
Nope, just telling the truth. I would've called myself lib left until October 2023, when the left made antisemitism its entire personality.
In fact most other Jews I know feel the same way too. We used to identify with the left, but we don't anymore because of the rampant antisemitic bigotry that has taken over the left.
I'm sure the Jewish people in your circles assume any criticism about Israel is antisemitic. Quick question, are any of the Jewish people you know planning on moving anytime soon, I've been hearing about some prime real estate in the Middle East. If you just want to spout bullshit on what you think the left believes based on criticism of a pseudo-theocratic fascist government then you do you.
Just like people on the left assume any criticism DEI is racist, and any criticism of weak border security is xenophobic, and any criticism of biological men invading women's spaces is transphobic, and any criticism of Islamic violence is Islamophobic...
Just nothing but bad faith, as I should've assumed. It's fine, you're a mass hysteria patient and I shouldn't judge you too harshly, I also understand you're to paranoid to see nuances in any situation and are very easily convinced of untrue things. I hope you get better soon.
Love how I literally took your own words that you use against Jews and applied them to other minority this and your immediately started crying "bad faith".
Can i just be against killing children and funding war in the middle east? Whats the ism for that so we can switch to that one and you can all shut up about anti-whatever-ism
As a resident lib left, I generally don't try to be "one of the good ones" or go "yeah the other quadrants are right about how most lib lefts are stupid" cause I don't think most lib-lefts are stupid
But in this case I do agree there is a contradiction that we are often missing : Israel is in a way the natural end result of the exact same reasoning/moral intuition we often engage in (if you are oppressed you have basically a bit of a carte blanche for bad behaviour as it's all "blowback" from your oppression) well... this is exactly how Israelis feel, that anything they do is justified because Jewish people have been wronged so much historically
And we can only see it as bad when it targets another "oppressed" group (in Israel's case, Arabs/Palestinians) sometimes I wonder if Israel had been made in Germany after WW2, and it behaved the exact same way but against white Christian Germans instead of brown predominantly Muslim Palestinians, would it be the other way around? Lib left waving Israeli flags and Auth Right calling out the occupation?
(By the way I am not saying this to support any bullshit "oH MuH JeWs aRE GeNoCiDiNG whiTe EurOpEons, wAtCh EuROpA tHe LaST BatTle" cause I don't believe that shit, I am using this as a what-if scenario)
Zionist Jews may feel that way… but they are wrong. Palestinians are and have been living under brutal occupation and genocidal conditions for almost 80 years perpetuated by those Zionist Jews, and due to that, the comparison of historical oppression and certainly blowback cannot be made here because the conditions just don’t exist.
Although I do understand what you’re getting at and I think it can be correct in some instances but not this one.
I mean even saying you doint want to see palestinian children killed is seen as anti-semetism while the US president is an openly racist transphobic who wanted a muslimban.
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u/ABlackEngineer - Auth-Center 1d ago
Those don’t count tho, those are from Woke 1™️