counter-examples: the patriot act, military spending, police funding.
The right seems just as happy to support big gov and tow the official/collectivist line when it comes to “law and order”, international power, nationalism, etc.
Put another way, anti-vaxers come in two flavors: right wing conspiracy nuts (alex jones), and left wing flakes (goop).
I do think the state-ist vs non-state-ist thing might be useful, but as a leftist there are plenty of things I support a state-based solution to (healthcare) while others I do not (policing - as currently conceived, anything involving personal freedom + autonomy e.g. drugs, lifestyle). I’d suggest it’s more of a “i’m a healthcare state-ist” rather than “i’m a state-ist”.
Typically speaking, the left want government rules determined by scientists and experts that maximizes overall freedom, the right want government rules determined by the church that maximizes the freedoms of adherents to that church.
So while the left may favor following mask mandates or vaccination drives because it benefits the overall physical health of the community; the right favors abortion bans, banning trans healthcare treatments, outlawing gay marriage, and barring race from being discussed in schools for--presumably--the moral health of the community.
The right is arguing these things are for the greater good in the same way the left argues wearing a mask in the supermarket is. Both sides want their governments to enact and enforce these rules. I'd argue that telling someone to wear cloth on their face is a lighter government touch than forcing 10 year old rape victims to travel 500 miles for care, but I digress.
After all, the government tells you to wear pants and I don't see people calling anyone sheep for doing so.
I don't think you have the slightest clue about what you're talking about.
Left/right are really just meaningless words in 2022. The woke left of today is literally as intolerant of any belief outside their moral code as the evangelical religious right is—-to the point that but for their beliefs they are indistinguishable from each other in terms of willful authoritarian support.
They are equally destructive and equally bad in my opinion as both want government or community to bend the will of everyone outside their group to the morals of their group.
It’s a bit like saying the abolitionists and slave owners were equally destructive and bad because the slave owners were intolerant of black people while the abolitionists were intolerant of pro-slavery advocates.
There are some overzealous or radical elements on the left, but not at all in the same way as on the right. Not in scale, not in effect.
If you want to say far left ideology is as harmful as far right ideology, fine. But when one problem is 100x larger, let’s not try to give both problems equal attention.
I have no need for either side nor care if one is worse than the other. I don’t care what the “intentions” are…just that the effect is bad…especially when the effect is intentionally evil.
The right has over the past 6 months used the levers of government to make it illegal for women to get reproductive care, banned books on LGBTQ and race from school libraries, removed elected officials for espousing different beliefs, punished companies that disagreed with their views, and outlawed care for trans youths. There are candidates on the ballot in favor of disenfranchising voters, adding the Bible to the citizenship exam, and outlawing contraception.
The left has done what to abridge anyone's freedoms in that time? What are their candidates campaigning on to reduce other's freedoms?
It's a silly argument to have. One side is clearly embracing authoritarianism and you're here arguing both sides are the same.
I once heard someone describing politics as in the shape of a “C”, where both “left and right” actually bend towards each other and being ultimately closer to each other than they are to middle of the road political thought. I think it’s a clever and accurate visual.
At any rate, I don’t engage in debate with zealots, there is nothing they can say that will change my mind, and there is nothing I can say to change theirs. That is one of the reasons why both left and right zealots always try to use authoritarianism to move the needle in their direction. Have a good day
I like to work in facts, so I gave a short list of government actions I’m aware of (I could give many more) done by Republicans that restrict freedoms all within the span of the past six months. I can provide links to articles about each.
However, when engaging with right-wingers I often get zero proof of the reasoning behind their feelings. Like above just brushing it off as an inability to see authoritarian moves by the left. If you’re trying to argue they’re the same, using actual facts and data would go a lot further towards proving your point than just sharing smart-sounding but ultimately empty rhetoric.
It’s my opinion that they are the same, and that opinion is based on my own interactions with folks on those sides. I see a common thread of behavior when items they believe to be incontrovertibly true might be questioned—even minor and inconsequential things. When in positions of power over people, be it governments or in any relationship with a power dynamic, the end result seems to be trying to find ways of using authority to hurt, degrade, or marginalize those folks that might disagree with them.
No matter how righteous you believe your beliefs to be, if the actions you willingly take because of those beliefs hurt people, you are doing evil. If you are doing evil, your righteous intentions are corrupted. So left or right it’s the same.
c'mon, do you really think that? It's blatantly the work product of demagoguery.
Supreme Court rulings notably trending towards increasing Christian freedoms at the expense of others (reintroducing staff-led prayer at school, allowing businesses to discriminate against gay couples, mandating public funding be sent to religious schools, abortion no longer being within one’s right to privacy).
Then there was the Muslim ban to start off the previous Presidential term. The extreme Zionist stance of some red states, going so far as to legally punish companies practicing BDS. The Texas GOP basically shut out gay Republicans from participating and deemed them an “abnormal lifestyle choice.” They also want prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments back in public schools. There is a growing discussion of finding a way to make gay marriage illegal again. Then there’s the trans panic. The church is also against the legalization of marijuana. It’s challenging to find a place where the party’s policy stance is separate from evangelical churches.
The anti-vaccination stance was also widely promulgated by churches painting the vaccine as the mark of the beast. Similarly have read many argue against mask mandates because we were created in god’s image and it would be an insult to Him. Further, churches were one of the loudest against occupancy mandates or other restrictions on in-person congregations (the loss of revenue hurt). Don’t get me started on the number of popular churches that give sermons on the election being stolen, Trump being a Prophet or Messiah or Chosen One, and Biden being possessed by Satan. Not normal stuff btw.
The founder of conservative social media app Gab probably said it most clearly: “We don't want people who are atheists. We don't want people who are Jewish. We don't want people who are, you know, nonbelievers, agnostic, whatever. This is an explicitly Christian movement because this is an explicitly Christian country.”
Now maybe you’re part of the libertarian wing of the party. Or maybe you support marijuana legalization. Or you don’t want abortion to be completely banned. Or you go to a regular old church that doesn’t give political sermons. But if so, I hate to break it to you but you have little say in the direction of the party.