Ace T'Ken

Boy do I have a treat for you.

Hey, wake up! The new Clippy skin just dropped!

The I.T. firm I run does this except we donate them to nonprofits.

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Those are examples. I’m speaking to a left wing audience and am using examples they understand. If I were speaking to a right wing audience, I would adjust accordingly.

Maybe, but I wouldn’t use the label. I want them to fight the ideas, not dismiss the label. Makes for better conversation.

I don’t like people making baseless accusations. I defend people on all sides when people are wrong about their opposition. I hate it when people think they know what others think and project incorrect (and often evil) bullshit on each other. It’s important to be right with the right reasoning and conclusion, not just one or the other.

I care when Christians purposely mischaracterize Muslims, and I am neither of those groups. I hate people being wilfully wrong because their group fetishizes a certain angle of the truth instead of the boring reality of the situation.

Ideas are important and I don’t feel we can get out of the current shitty slump we’re in politically unless we clearly identify and discuss the world. Labels and group membership make that harder to do.

So no, I don’t really identify as a Centrist, but you may think I am. I don’t “identify” as anything. I am me and I’m more complex than a few easy labels for you to slap on. Labels make it easier to dismiss people and ignore their words.

If I took the label Centrist, then that means I take the baggage you hold for the word, and I abjectly refuse to do so.

You are speaking a lot about what a Centrist is to you. There is an irony to that and I implore you to recognize that. They are not a homogeneous group. You don’t like the image you have of them that is largely manufactured of old pictures of your enemies spun into straw.

I’m Canadian and voted Liberal in the federal election, but I do understand US politics to a degree. I thought Trump was an absolute fool, and fools do so love their own. I understand to some degree why he won, though I feel voter apathy played as large a part as well.

Regardless, if I took a stance that would be typically right-wing, would that be me defending them? No. You can arrive at the correct conclusion for the wrong reasons. You can also follow your heart and feel that you’ve been nothing but good, and royally fuck things up.

For example, I gave the example elsewhere in this thread, but I believe in much tighter immigration controls, if not outright eliminating most of it for now. You may look at that and call me a racist. You would be wrong. The race is irrelevant, and it’s an environmental and economic stance that led me there. Our current immigration policies allow pushing down the minimum wage, makes UBI more difficult (if not impossible) to implement, and allow countries that are outstripping their resources to simply place those people elsewhere instead of dealing with their population issues in a realistic way. This is one of many things that has also irreparably damaged the environment.

Something done for good reasons is having bad knock-on effects and we should adjust things before it gets worse. In my experience, a Centrist gets to say “right idea, horrible implementation, let’s fix it” instead of just clinging to an ideal.

I very much appreciate that. I hope to one day try.

They don’t have PR. They’re not a cohesive unit. I don’t generally even like calling myself Centrist because I hate labels and don’t like the way they encourage group-think. There’s probably scads of Centrists I wouldn’t get along with as well.

I made no assumption about where you discuss anything. It was one provable example given.

I excuse none of the most vile parts of conservatism. I am not your enemy. I am not happy with status quo.

However, I hate the political “adjustment” of language, no matter which side carries it out. I hate making words more vague to try and mask reality. I hate how easily and liberally Nazi is thrown around.

I do not like polarization. I do not like driving away people who disagree with me. I do not like “cancelling” people no matter which party carries it out. I believe in innocent until proven guilty.

And I really, really fucking hate forcing people to believe what I do because their goddamn group membership word matches mine.