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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

Both right and left wing propaganda is strong and coordinated these days. I can't say anything that doesn't toe the line with either side and not have them look at me like I'm an asshole. I've been called both a socialist welfare state supporter and a reactionary corporate feudalist. Which is it folks. The division is worse than it ever was in my lifetime.

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When you refuse to choose between stalin and hitler, you will have the unique opportunity to be called a nazi and communist at the same time...

strange times!

In Peter Drucker's memoir, Adventures of a Bystander he relates the story of a contemporary, and onetime colleague of his, who rose fairly high in the Nazi regime, who mentioned, when Drucker was preparing to leave Germany in the early '30s, that he had low-numbered membership cards in both the Nazi and Communist parties.

Welcome to identity politics and the over saturation of a politically correct ruling class run amok.

If people weren't so fucking reactionary to everything they read, see, hear and experience, we wouldn't be in this mess and rational discourse might have a chance. As it stands, people are so easily offended, there isn't any space for an actual discussion.

As someone who considers myself an Independent, I spend hours every day reading articles on both sides and then attempt to form a cohesive thought process on where I stand. Do you have any idea how exhausting that can be with the amount of misleading and straight up false reporting there is these days? Nobody cares about the facts anymore, "journalists" just want to frame their stories in a political meaningful way for people to reinforce their "filter bubbles" they live.

We're not encouraging dialect on topics by simply providing the facts, we're actively and purposefully dividing people.

I pretty much agree, I'm lucky not to be american, but that what it seems like to me. At least in the Bush area it seemed like the US was arguing about things, now one sides seems to have gone beyond logic and discovered trolling while the other is only mostly arguing with itself about how to argue.

> I spend hours every day reading articles on both sides

I have pretty much stopped reading any of these things. You can pretty much read the title and 99% of the time you pretty much know where the argument is gone go. Just stick to books and papers that are about a focused subject. That will isolate you and you will disagree with everyone because people don't actually know or care what happened in the economic crisis of 1893 or any other historical event and they also don't care.

This sort of false neutrality, tinged with the cynicism of putting scare quotes around "journalists", and the indecency of somehow mistaking their rather pedestrian fare of contrarianism with exceptional smartitude is exactly what I think of when faced with peoples' incredulity at the continuing existence of "independents".

People who take sides like it's a game of football are everything that is wrong with America.

Well given the fact that pretty much all major news organizations blatantly pick a political side, putting "journalists" in quotes and being skeptical of any single source isn't too crazy to me.

If news sites prioritize view counts over maintaining an unbiased viewpoint, Roy Moore is what results. Republicans did not trust liberal news organizations to tell the truth.

You being called names or whatever does not compare at all with a political message discipline executed over multiple mass-media channels.

it's an apparent symptom of the problem

The thing about symptoms is that they require a differential diagnosis.

Only seen the right wing go after Google. Not sure I really even know what is left wing? What would you consider left wing?

This sounds glib, but it's revealing: if you're not sure what the left wing is, it's you. Just like for extreme conservatives, for whom they and others like them are "just regular people," "Real Americans", you're so immersed in your half of the divide that the left wing is just "reasonable people," "people who don't suck."

That is the problem we're facing.

Here's a litmus test, how do you gauge your reactions to these statements:

African-Americans, in this time and place (America in this decade), commit more crime when compared to Europeans and Asians as a percentage breakdown by race.

Women and minorities have plenty of public resources (facilities, social programs, and information) to succeed academically and enter white collar professions.

Income taxes, which are currently near or above 50% at the higher/highest brackets is plenty and whose rates do not need to be raised. Governments need to cut or curb spending instead of raising the income tax higher.

Stand your ground law is needed to protect a citizen's civil rights and the political arguments made in the wake of Travon Martin's death have been insufficient in changing that status.

These are what I consider to be right wing statements or facts that conservatives don't ignore/insulate themselves from. This is all relative to American politics - in Europe the political climate is much different. Hacker news, from what I've seen, seems to be very left-wing. Also, left wing tends to be cruelly and irrationally/coldly dismissive/patronizing towards rural Christian conservatives - which is more than disturbing to me, but some of the arguments made from them (in my opinion) are not wholly incorrect. I have arguments/beliefs in both sides, but find that most media besides Fox push progressive agendas (i.e. even the 'impartial' reports will use rhetoric and facts which fit in well with progressive agendas).

Brilliant. Especially in the tech company Silicon Valley bubble things are all leftist shilling all the time.

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