this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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I don't consider myself a centrist, but I do consider myself between the two parties currently.
I don't like the "both sides are wrong" mentality often associated with centrists. I don't think I am inherently better than either side. I think I am disillusioned by both sides.
I was a Leftist/Democrat for the majority of my life. Then at some point ~8-9 years ago saw the pipeline that leads to radicalized righty thinking and said "fuck that" but when I turned around and looked back on my old party critically I also didn't want to walk back through that door either.
Basically I think both "sides" need to shut up and stop slinging poop at each other. Occasionally you need to listen to the other side. Neither one is always right or always wrong. Some of the moderates from either side can admit this and they hang out in the middle ish with me. But most people just sprint farther to either side when their ideas are challenged.
But since everyone has this "us vs them" mentality over every little thing I don't see communication or collaboration getting any better going forward.
You're right, you're not a centrist, because the two major US parties are right wing and far right wing, so being between them is solidly right wing.
Jesus Christ you people are impossible to have any real dialogue with.
When has the right been correct about things? Lmao
The left in the US has gone on record wanting to tax soda because it's unhealthy.
And thats wrong?
It works in the UK https://jech.bmj.com/content/78/9/578
Rightwingers believe they can and should wield their power to crush their political and business opponents. And if they do this enough times, they'll accrue immense amounts of wealth and power. They should never surrender, never compromise, and always fight to the bitter end, because a long and painful enough campaign will see liberals surrender and conservatives triumph.
In this, they are proven absolutely correct.
the left doesn't believe in the right of power.
You cannot implement something that is morally sound if it cannot handle the environmental pressures it is faced with, including the pressures of other powers and ideologies.
it's survival of the fittest out there. the most powerful ways of being include cooperation, inspiration, and unity, but aren't limited to them. likewise, the most powerful ways of being include sedition, deception, and coercion, but aren't limited to them. "but we shouldn't have to" is a losing mentality, and puts power in the hands of those you're appealing to.
There's no moral high ground to be had. But morality is based on something that is objectively true - the power which meets both the practical and emotional needs it's faced with wins.
in the mean time, the pendulum will swing. for the left, it's never left enough, for the right, it's never right enough, and for the true centrists, it's just the tide. it can fuck you up, it can be enjoyed, and it can be used for power. that's all.
They called the affordability crisis. Notably Hitler was right that the American loans would hurt Germany. Broken clocks are right twice a day and fascist ones make the most of them.
However they do nothing particularly responsible about the indicated fiscal problems. GOP administrations have a track record of spending even more than the democratic administrations, while pulling in less revenue.
So they jump up and down at a credible issue, but have no credibility as they have zero track record of fixing it, just making things even worse.
Oh absolutely. But most people don't pay attention to that. Until it gets bad enough that they're angry and desperate.
Happens more often than you may realize. Someone being "correct" on a topic in an objective sense is good, but that doesn't necessarily outweigh their flaws. Also worth keeping in mind that "left" or "right" ideology can mean very different things in different parts of the world.
An easy example from my own country - our left wing worked hard to shut down functioning nuclear power plants with plenty of time left to run whilst the right wanted to preserve them. Left largely got their way on the issue, and now we're in an electricity crisis due to a lack of dispatchable capacity.
Think for yourself, consider ideas & statements based on their own merits rather than judging them by who is embracing them at the current moment. A century ago it was the Democratic party pushing jim crow laws in the US and the RNC were championing civil rights.
You're talking about Germany? The final nuclear shutdown law came from CDU/FDP. And the problem with dispatch energy comes mainly from conservatives against power lines
Pensions protection act in 2006 encouraged the growth of employer sponsored savings accounts
Tax cuts and jobs act in 2017 simplified taxes and was welcomed by everyone in both parties
First step act in 2018 improved prison conditions
USMCA in 2018 was a functional version of NAFTA
I'm not saying these were perfect (First step act has some issues, for example), but all of these were pushed by Republicans and had demonstrably positive effects. Blindly implying the right never makes good decisions makes you no better than the people you think you're against.
This is honestly the first time I have ever heard anything positive about USMCA. What exactly do you think it did better?
Do you people have any amount of self awareness?
Do you legitimately believe that anything and everything the right has ever said or done has been wrong?
Most people would say that Hitler was a terrible person (and they would be right), but even the evil as shit Hitler did some Good things in his life even if some people refuse to admit it.
Hitler is credited with pulling Germany out of the post WW1 economic slump. One of the major contributors was his insistence on building the highway/Autobahn. It enabled Germany to expand faster and years before other European countries could catch up
Him and the Nazis were among the first to recognize the health benefits with not smoking and he is credited with pushing Germans to quit smoking but especially pregnant women and kids.
If you want a more recent example:
During Trump's first Term he made it easier to prosecute financial crimes. The main way he did this was by requiring businesses to report their true owners. No longer would they spend as much time and money digging through shell corporations to figure out who is truly responsible.
If you want a less recent example:
Nixon created the EPA.
Not everything the left does is rainbows and perfection. Not everything the right does is evil and ruins the planet. You need to stop thinking in absolutes and recognize that things are more complicated.
Please stop the shit with the Autobahn. Thats straight up Nazi propaganda.
https://www.dw.com/de/deutscher-mythos-adolf-hitler-und-die-autobahn/audio-16149056
TLDR: -First Autobahn was built before Hitler by Adenauer. -Nazis decried it as jewish project. -Changed opinion and propagandad about 600.000 jobs. -Only 120.000 jobs were created and the conditions were really bad for the workers. Hunger, sickness, death. -Striking workers were put in the KZ.
The irony of you telling me to stop posting Nazi propaganda and then linking an article with zero sources that many historians have already called out as just being a Nazi smear article not based in historical fact whatsoever.
Not really the "gotcha" you were going for but you believe whatever you wanna believe I guess.
What historians called this article nazi smear?
This is really not contentious in Germany, there is a consensus amongst historians and the third reich is well researched. So I don't know how you can close your eyes to the facts.
If you want more sources with sources:
https://www.bpb.de/themen/antisemitismus/dossier-antisemitismus/504205/autobahn/
Schulz, Eckhardt / Gruber, Erhard: Mythos Reichsautobahn. Bau und Inszenierung der "Straßen des Führers" 1933–1941, Berlin 1996.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsautobahn#Mythen_und_Motive
Kiran Klaus Patel: „Soldaten der Arbeit“. Arbeitsdienste in Deutschland und den USA 1933–1945. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Gotcha.
Now please edit your primary comment to not distribute nazi propaganda. Dankeschön.
My father is a historian. Has a degree in world history. Plus that article has been posted to several history forums over the last ~10+ish years as best I can tell and not once has it included sources or been taken seriously by any of the historians that read it.
You've then linked a German website and a German Wikipedia page. I am not fluent in German so I can't read them, but they are both German hosted so I suspect some modern German biases probably apply. It would behoove any and all Germans to forever distance themselves from Hitler whenever possible but I also see that extending past reality with people trying rewrite history such as yourself.
Pre-Nazi Germany had something like ~15-20km of Autobahn built. Post-Nazi Germany had almost ~4000km of Autobahn. Stop trying to come at me with some "Nazi propaganda" bullshit. Those are both facts that you can independently verify if you want.
It's perfectly fine to despise the Nazis. I highly recommend it at all times. I DONT agree with trying to rewrite history because we don't agree with the optics of it today.
Have a good day teletubbyzurückwinker.
Your fathers degree doesn't matter if he didn't researched this topic, world history is pretty big abd you can't be an expert in everything.
Proof or it didn't happen. 4chan doesn't count as historical forum.
This was your Sentence. And it is proven false.
I never said they didn't build lots of autobahn, but it was neither their idea nor did it cause the german the economic economy to rebound. That were mainly jobs in weaüon manufacturing.
You know you can translate websites with google or deepl to do a cursory check? Here, i did the work for you and found you an english source. But ultimately, just fuck off for your general dismissal of german historians and their research. You have no fucking clue, but think you know better. Fucking delusional. If there are any systemic biases there should be at least one academic paper talking about that...
I don't know why you have to defend hitler this much, even in face of several linked sources with only your dad as your witness, but it's really infuriating.
Pretty fuckin insulting to tell me my father's degree doesn't matter. Also WW2 was/is a pretty fucking important time in the world history so it gets a lot of coverage. Especially what the Germans were doing leading up to the start of the war as it's kinda relevant to how the whole thing happened in the first place.
That initial article you posted which again has ZERO FUCKING SOURCES has been posted on multiple history subreddits as well as a few times on other more history specific forums/sites.
The majority of Germans at the time didn't want to finish the Autobahn as it was seen as a waste of time and resources. Hitler was the one that saw the potential and pushed to make it happen.
Now for this last part I'll say it really slowly so your lone remaining braincell can understand me.
HITLER WAS AND WLL ALWAYS A TERRIBLE, EVIL PERSON. THE NAZIS WERE AND ALWAYS WILL BE HORRIBLE PEOPLE.
You came into a conversation that wasn't even really about Hitler and you highjacked it with your unsubstantiated revisionist German "history" while screaming about Nazi propaganda.
Back to my original conversation. Good people that helped many have also done bad things. Bad people who were evil have also done good things. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Your inability to admit that such a terrible person could have ever done anything perceived as "good" is really alarming. You are in denial of reality because of your deep (and valid) hatred for that man. You can admit that Hitler did things that had a positive impact on Germany in the long term. It doesn't undo anything evil he did. The two facts can coexist.
I'm not defending Hitler as a person nor am I defending the Nazi party in any way. I was simply pointing out that something those terrible people did happens to have ended up as a good thing later on down the line. It does not excuse their other actions in any way.
To this discussion. Also, as you probably don't want to doxx yourself you can't cite him, i can't know if you're lying, so it's not relevant until you link a paper or something of his on this topic.
And the other sources are discredited by reddit too?
So it should be easy for you to cite sources which confirm that the Autobahn construction caused a major boost to the german economy comparable to the weapons industry.
Hitler appropriated already existing plans. Cite sources if you want me to believe this.
I came into a conversation where you were spreading myths and propaganda without sources but with a conviction. I assumed you just didn't know and send you the first article which google showed. I added further links to sources, which is more than you did.
Show me where I disputed this claim. I also think its true, but your examples are trash.
I can admit that hitler did some good stuff, but the autobahns are not the example for it. Maybe animal protection laws, speed limits near schools and most of all, he's sabotaged the german war effort and was the guy to kill Hitler.
So get off your high horse and ask your dad for some sources.
The hazards of smoking had been established as far back as the 17th century. One of America's Founding Fathers - Benjamin Rush - was on record as a physician documenting and objecting to the proliferation of smoking.
The Nazi cribbing of then-modern health trends against smoking was not a point in their favor. FFS, this was an organization that popularized the consumption of methamphetamines
Congress authored the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), having modeled it after Senator James E. Murray's Resources and Conservation Act (RCA) of 1959. Nixon organized the EPA under the powers afforded this law. He didn't draft the legislation from whole cloth but cobbled it out as a compromise with far more eco-friendly Congressmen in an era when industrial pollution was at the worst point in human history.
Even after that, his failures were far more notable than his successes. Nixon failed to curb the popularization of lead in gasoline and paint or asbestos as a building material, despite these substances been notoriously hazardous well before the EPA was formed. He presided over a surge in fossil fuel extraction and consumption, despite the threat of climate change having been established during his tenure.
Even past that, Nixon was - fundamentally - a Liberal Republican. His social and economic views were in line with the liberal establishment of his era. His governance was in line with his predecessors, LBJ and Kennedy and Eisenhower. If he'd been born 50 years later, he'd be right at home in the administration of Gavin Newsom or Kathy Hochul.
Your need to equivocate between left and right in this regard is extraordinarily naive and shortsighted.
You could have just said "what about all the good things Hitler did" if you wanted to out yourself like that.
You've missed the point of all my previous comments entirely. Good job.
Oh no I completely understood the point, which is why I chose that exact language.
The history of humanity going back thousands of years is the history of progress triumphing over conservatism. Every single major historical epoch in recorded human history follows this trend. But Mussolini made the trains run on time so I guess we're even.
...do you think that in order for humanity to function we constantly need to be changing? You never think that maybe we level off at some point and settle into a groove where we leave shit alone for awhile?
Have to considered that maybe we as a species require both to function? We need progress and then periods of stability before we get bored/restless and decided to take over the spice trade in our neighborhood?
Light and dark. Yin and Yang.
We need progressives to push for change and we need conservatives to pull the reigns back when we try and change too much too quickly and things start falling apart.
My point this entire time was that good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. Humans are complicated. Our history is even more complicated. At no point has any side or group been "right" forever.
Yeah you're right: we need fascists to make sure we don't give minorities too many rights, we need monarchists to make sure there's not to much democracy, and we need anti abolishonists to make sure we don't free to many slaves.
What a stupid fucking response to what I said.
It's like you didn't even read my comment. That or you read it and proceeded to understand exactly none of it.
Whatever dude. I'm not gonna waste any more energy trying to talk to you fuckin morons. None of you are even capable of having normal conversations anymore.
Good night.
Average centrist
Yup, fact is a majority of people in thd US agree on many of the most important issue, yet the governing structure seeks to "otherize" people from each other as much as possible in order to prevent meaningful discourse and foster division.
Can't have the population working together to take out the elites. They need us good and pissed off at each other so we are too busy to see them taking everything and giving us scraps constantly.
Yeah... you're a centrist.
Please use my preferred title: "moderate retard".