In the past week I’ve been absolutely roasted for criticising two different countries. Normally I’d be okay with that, I can handle a mild toasting and after all debate is a good thing.
On both occasions though I was flamed for mentioning human rights issues that are established facts and have been known for many, many years. I was critical of the actions/laws of their governments and not the people, their race, religion, general political ideology or nationality.
On both occasions I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda, and in the case of one country I was told (on multiple occasions) that I was ignorant, racist and even fascist for mentioning the issues I did. I’m not complaining about how I was treated, but as a reminder, I was discussing internationally-recognised human rights concerns that can be verified and based in fact.
I could just be paranoid but I’m fairly convinced the responses weren’t from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
On some level it’s all true, there’s no consolidation of power that’s perfectly clean. Power is amassed from asymmetric exchanges, so there is some victim somewhere whenever it is amassed.
If it’s violence or just the threat of violence, or if the exchange was voluntary or not it’s the same.
A great point. That’s exactly the problem the libertarian socialists have been trying to solve for 100 years, and they have actually recorded some pretty intelligent thoughts on the matter in that time.
I get so frustrated with the “communism is unequivocally bad because my oligopolistic government told me so since childhood and I’ve never actually looked into it” crowd. Not because of their beliefs, but because they’re grounded in nothing of substance. And any attempt at all to say “well have you actually thought about this, because there’s nuance” is met with foaming mouths and flying spittle.
(Prefacing this with a disclaimer, because reading comprehension is in the toilet these days, that in the following paragraph I am addressing a hypothetical “you” and I am not actually asking anyone these questions)
Like, communism bad? Sure, maybe. Let’s talk about it. Okay, which communist ideology are you talking about? And are you talking about the ideology itself, or the specific ways in which various projects have attempted to implement it? Do those implementation attempts align with the ideology? Why or why not? And are you aware of the critiques of that ideology and / or approach by other communists, or are you just parroting what you’ve heard from other people who also have not read a book on the topic?
I genuinely do not not have it in me to care what people believe, but seeing people react like agitated weasels—screaming, crying, and flailing when something they in no way understand is raised in conversation just makes me despair for the species, and wonder whether people actually put any thought into their positions at all!