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sj_zero ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

The genealogy of most of the user base of Lemmy is that they migrated quite recently from Reddit. It shows.

You spoke yourself, at this post had to be downvoted over 54 times, because dozens of people had to show that they all agree with the exact same set of ideas and reject all contrary ideas. There isn't even a need for people to come into a community they don't like, but they have to to express their hate properly. "Why are you even here, don't you know you're not welcome?" One of the comments on one of the posts taunts.

They don't say this because they're liberals. They're not liberals. They're redditors. Love who you're told to love, hate who you're told to hate. Rewarded for conformity and punished for independence. That's the opposite of liberalism.

Lemmy was always somewhat cliquey, but once the redditors dumped in by the millions it became massively unbalanced, and nobody can just live and let live -- they have to destroy anyone who dissents, and it's disgusting. That's just hate, when people you disagree with can't be left alone, they have to be destroyed. Again, that's the opposite of liberal. "Oh but our enemies are so evil they must be destroyed!" yeah, I've heard that before.... Not from liberals. The liberal societies that won World War 2 instead of punishing their enemies actually elevated their enemies, spending huge amounts of money to help rebuild Germany, Japan, and Italy.

I'm thankful for the many people on the fediverse who disagree with me. Just today I ended up spending a number of hours reviewing Plato's Republic (I'm on the second book) because someone challenged me and a number of other people as to its contents (I have to admit, I only knew the elevator pitch). There's liberals who do a great job of reminding me of liberal values and a liberal worldview, and it's a reminder of why it has been such a dominant ideology and why we need to be wary of authoritarianism wherever it comes from. And I want to tolerate viewpoints I disagree with because I'm not guaranteed to be right and often I'll be wrong.

The first real chapter after the preface in The Graysonian Ethic is called "Question Everything -- Especially me", and talks about all the ways I or anyone can be wrong. You can't be a liberal without humility, because as we've seen and continue to see once you are no longer humble, you quickly become an authoritarian. Many liberals have warned for centuries about such an outcome.

Your own reply betrays your prejudices and proves my point perfectly. I spoke of ideas, you projected all kinds of things I didn't say or even imply. Why? Because you're part of an ideologically homogenous group that knows exactly what you're supposed to support and exactly what you're supposed to oppose, and that anyone who opposes you in any way must be exactly what you imagine them to be.

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