• meyotch@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    I love an opportunity to bag on ‘centrism’. It is often used as a cover for political ignorance. After all, would a non-illiterate claim both sides are the same? It only takes a few minutes to find some of the million ways they are not the same.

    • shneancy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I once talked with an enlightened “pacifistic” centrist.

      At some point I used the low hanging fruit - colonialism! do you think both sides were right? I felt kind of silly for not using a more sophisticated argument but- he said “yes, they should’ve just talked and came to some compromise :)”. It didn’t matter to him that one side was clearly an aggressor, because since the native people tried defending themselves that was enough for him to think both sides were bad.

      clearly that fruit was a bit too high still, so I went with the good old - what about Jews and hitler? he replied that still, they should’ve tried to come to some sort of compromise- at that point I was very done talking to that guy. How on earth did he see a possible middle ground between “i’d like to live please thanks” and “i want your whole ethnicity eradicated” is beyond me

      the lesson is - start with arguments you find simple and straightforward, ones with obvious answers, because some people can and will trip over even the lowest hurdles, and it’ll save you a lot of time lol

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Some people claim “both sides are the same” because they’re politically ignorant.

      Other people claim “both sides are the same” because they’re so far left that the distance between the right-wing party and the ultra-right-wing party is insignificant when it comes to the issues they care about. (Note: the ultra-right-wing party has been doing its damnedest to create distance by sprinting even further right, but at least until the recent fascism my argument was pretty valid.)