Asklemmy

I'm generally leaning towards progressive or left-wing ideas, but with a few exceptions.

• While I support the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, I believe that DEI initiatives are highly susceptible to exploitation because of the widespread and largely uncritical public support of the concept (or even just the abbreviation) with little regard to the implementation; and by tokenizing ethnicity, gender, and identity, it is at risk of doing what it was meant to prevent.
• I believe that law enforcement is a deeply flawed system to say the least, but ultimately necessary because the alternatives are lawlessness or ineffectual systems. This is of course colored by my European perspective where guns and driver's licenses aren't handed out like candy.
• The "tolerance is a social contract" mentality is hurting society. A person who experiences rejection and exclusion from progressive communities for voicing "intolerant" opinions will not be interested in reconciliation, and will inevitably fall in with a more radical group where they experience acceptance and belonging, where they will never be exposed to different ideas and their views will never be challenged. Integration should be sought whenever reasonable.

The last point is especially important to me. I grew up in a fairly conservative environment, and it took me a lot of conscious effort to un-learn my prejudices and learn acceptance. But whenever I get downvoted and shouted down for voicing an opinion that aligns with conservatives, or simply isn't "leftist" enough, it makes me want to distance myself from "leftist" ideology and adds to my disillusionment.

While I have progressive ideas and believe the Republicans rule with malace, I also strongly believe the democrats rule with incompetence.

I would love to run for president on the party of burn down the two party system and restart from there. Make politics boring again and not some partisan winner take all spectacle. We keep pushing to out 'wing' the 'wing' and it is driving us to some bad extremes.

So yes, I will vote straight ticket Democrat for 99% of the time, but I am also disgusted by the fact anyone is even allowed to do that and people have little party letters by their name. If you didn't research your candidate to at least know their name, then you shouldn't be voting for them.

It is mind-blowing to me that some things are not seen as human rights and are instead seen as political posturing. In Texas we had barbed wire intentionally strung up in the Rio Grande river with the intention to drownd people and it took multiple rounds of court cases to make them take it out. Somehow killing people is acceptable rather than booking, ticketing, and sending back. Politics have now taken a place above literal lives. At the same time, when I express this I have democrats immediately agreeing and adding "just let them in!" Or "just let them stay and we will figure it out" and that is where I stop them and ask, is that what I said? No. Simply that human life is worth more than politics. Again, stringing up barbed wire in a river to intentionally drown people it true malice. But saying let them all in and figure it out later is naive at best, and incompetence at its worst.

I'm a strict leftist, that means, i believe that humans (in fact, all life) are valuable. Yes, you have to say that in these times. Lots of politicians these days seem to disagree with even that.

As a direct consequence, i advocate for UBI (universal basic income). Because the people need to live off something, and it is getting harder by the year to be successful through your own labor. (As numerous articles describe, - i won't link them here, because that would be out of scope - hashtag "working poor").

However, i think the borders must be closed. That affects both goods and migration. If the borders are closed, people stop competing with one another. Just a reminder: "compete" comes from Latin and basically means "fight". People are fighing against one another, and i think that makes a society sick. If the borders close, economy slows down considerably, and people stop competing.

The acab movement has caused more harm than it has salved. Furthering the ideas that there are no good cops means that nobody good will become a cop in the future, furthering the issue

I think on the Left we have a "virtuous" cycle/feedback loop that results in increasingly outlandish positions.

Essentially, for most people there's a serotonin feedback when people upvote, applaud, reteeet etc. People, responding to incentives like anyone else shift their online discourse to match.

Similarly, even beyond the positive feedback, on thr Left no one wants to be a white cis male contradicting the feelings, emotions or arguments of a POC or LGBTQ+ person.

The Right doesn't really have this problem as the Far right opinions are generally understood to be reprehensible to most people so those movements have evolved to work on dog whistles etc.

It's a structural issue but one that puts us out of touch with the mainstream (consider defund the police, transgender athletes or immigration until we were getting murdered in the polls and it was too late to do anything.)

I like the idea that people should be able to choose their representatives based on how they live, rather than where they live.

You sign up as a "gamer," or a "farmer" or a "soccer mom." Whatever you decide for that term. Your representative then wheels and deals and votes for laws that help you.

Any group that had 0.5% of the population willing to sign up would get their voice in the Legislature.

Donald Trump isn’t stupid.

As a USian, while I think gun violence is a preventable mass tragedy that unfolds daily here I also think that when minorities, indigenous people, women, queer people or really anybody who isn't a white christian rightwing man talks about wanting to own a gun to protect themselves while living in this country I can't disagree. If you don't understand the very real threat of police violence that you can't resist or stop, and the very real threat of other kinds of violence that police will NOT step in to stop because of who you are, you can't really argue against owning guns in the US to people that have no other choice than to take this kind of thing seriously.

I think handguns should be made much much much more illegal, since the handgun is actually the tool of state violence and oppression, it is the tool of surprise murder and intimidation. On the other hand if you carry a rifle you have to state your capacity for lethal violence, there is no hiding it or revealing it like a powertrip or gotcha card, which isn't to downplay the terror and violence that evil rightwing terrorists have wrought upon the US with assault rifles, but at this point I don't think owning a hunting style rifle or a shotgun as somebody who lives in the US is an unreasonable idea, especially if you have become a convenient political and literal target for the right.

To be clear, the whole stupid idea that owning an ar15 with a 30 roung mag, bumpstock and quick change mags somehow makes you safe to a home defender that breaks into your house at 3am when you pull it out and proceed to shoot 30 rounds erratically in the general direction of something you hear, sending bullets careening through the walls of your neighborhood and more likely killing somebody's kid sleeping in their bedroom than doing anything to make you safer IS pathetic and spits on actual real gun culture.

Also I want to note that people who roleplay as mil-sim types by spending actual thousands of dollars on pseudo-military equipment to live powertrip fantasies are by and large hilariously pathetic, especially because they are usually completely and utterly blind to (or worse directly supportive of) forms of authoritarian violence (state or otherwise). See lots of loser white dudes showing up in 24k worth of weekend warrior dress up GI Joe gear to defend the incredible threat to civil liberties that society expecting people to wear masks during a pandemic represented.... Good job chuds! You saved the day!

the anti-work movement has been a blight on communism

I think we need to figure out how to make leftism more appealing to centrists, and particularly to the cis/straight/white/male demographic.

That Trump is neither conservative (in any way) nor cares at all about any traditional Republican values

The invention of money was a blight on our society. Abolishing it immediately is the first step to proper environmental recovery.

What the systems of getting people their food, supplies would look like, I don’t know, but having corporations hoarding wealth and polluting everything needs to stop.

Humans aren’t worth it.

There can be too much political correctness at times.