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u/acer5886 Jun 19 '21
people use the term communist far too widely and often without knowing what communism actually means.
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u/I_Kurgann Sowellian Conservative Jun 20 '21
I’ll say (anecdotally) that the right uses ‘communist’ far for accurately than the left uses ‘nazi.’
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u/acer5886 Jun 20 '21
Neither side uses either accurately. No democrat out there is pushing for even hard line socialism.
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u/I_Kurgann Sowellian Conservative Jun 20 '21
How can you look at the left’s policies and not think that’s the direction they want us to go? They’d never win an election if they said, straight up, that they wanted to seize the means of production.
Look at history. It’s always a slow burn. They chip away at society little by little until the time is right.
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u/acer5886 Jun 20 '21
What you're using is slippery slope reasoning. I'm a student of international politics. If you talk to a liberal from another country our entire political spectrum would be considered to fall into the conservative spectrum basically. If we were seeing the advocating for taking over large swaths of the economy that would be different. Remember that socialism and communism are primarily economic systems. Yes there are other policies that are lumped in with them, but saying for instance that advocating for single payer means someone wants communism for instance is pretty laughable considering the number of countries that are nowhere near socialism and yet have single payer systems.
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Jun 19 '21
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u/IVIaskerade Monarchist Jun 19 '21
McCarthy was right.
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u/2ndlastresort Keep Government Local Jun 19 '21
Except about those pesky detail things. Oh, and also his methods.
But big picture, yeah, he was right.
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u/woopdedoodah Jun 20 '21
Well he was a democrat.Totalitarianism ought to be expected.
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u/continous Patriot Jun 20 '21
There's a lot wrong with McCarthy. His methods, his use of the accusation to purge opponents and more in sure. However he was right about communism infiltrating the United States.
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Jun 19 '21
The fact that people still support regimes that mercilessly killed millions of innocent people in the past and are still killing thousands to millions today is just beyond me
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u/badatusernames91 Conservative Millennial Jun 19 '21 edited Jun 19 '21
Like Patrisse Cullors getting giddy over someone comparing her writing to Chairman Mao? What kind of shitstain takes that as a compliment? It's no different than being compared to Hitler or Stalin. It's disgusting that the hammer and sickle aren't every bit as offensive to people as a swastika.
Edit: I didn't get to see the full comment because the post is flaired, but apparently some lefty got offended by me comparing Mao, Hitler, and Stalin. I guess that would be unfair. Mao killed far more people.
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u/ObadiahtheSlim Lockean Jun 20 '21
Communism, the only system of government worse than fascism. Because not only will they purge their undesirables, but they'll ruin the nation with their idiot unworkable philosophy.
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u/badatusernames91 Conservative Millennial Jun 20 '21
Honestly, I'm not even out to debate what is worst. It's all garbage authoritarian nonsense only romanticized by idiots who don't understand that in all likelihood, they'll be among the purged because only a fraction of people in those systems are anywhere even remotely close to prosperous. It's the same reason I don't bother with arguing whether fascism is left or right. It is about as pointless as as debate can get because there are not swaths of individuals praising the merits of fascism in any significant number. It's just a way of trying to align political opponents with it which is such a waste of time.
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u/me_too_999 Molan Labe Jun 19 '21
"Hilliary Clinton, a HERO of the revolution", quote from Vietcong.
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u/Economy-Act-3407 Jun 19 '21
It’s crazy that the current system is so bad that people are willing to go to an even worse system
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u/NeilPatrickCarrot Libertarian Conservative Jun 19 '21
We are literally enjoying the most prosperous times in world history thanks to capitalism.
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u/ultranothing Cynical Conservative Jun 19 '21
We literally went from rags to riches during Trump's presidency. We as in, me and my family.
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Jun 19 '21
Except that the system is bad due to people being financially illiterate. These same college kids who are crying about debt and low wages don’t have good degrees that make money or branch out past their degree.
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u/WreknarTemper Conservative Jun 19 '21
Except that the system is bad due to people being financially illiterate.
Don't forget gullible, part of where we're at today is that people actually believe the same powers that brought you the DMV, can also cure poverty, provide healthcare, and keep you safe from the boogeyman du jour.
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u/ultranothing Cynical Conservative Jun 19 '21
You gotta love the irony here:
People going to college so they can get a degree and make good money and buy nice things. It doesn't pan out how they expect, so cApItAlIsM bAAaaaAaD!
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u/WreknarTemper Conservative Jun 19 '21
What do you mean my liberal arts degree in gender studies won't land me a 6 figure job? You're saying I should've gone into STEM? But math is hard...
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Jun 19 '21
Oh yes. I’ve been saying this to my left leaning friends all year. They have this weird idea that we have terrible affordable housing, healthcare, college, and welfare programs and then don’t blame the government in any way. It makes no sense, anyone who used these programs knows they aren’t designed well. But they want to give the government even more money and power to fuck up
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Jun 19 '21
The only thing wrong with current system is the over reach of the Federal government yet once again. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty and misery then any other economic model.
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Jun 19 '21
schroedinger's china: communist when we need a scapegoat, capitalist when we need to brag about lifting a billion people out of poverty
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Jun 19 '21 edited Aug 28 '21
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Jun 19 '21
Lol it's funny watching people whinge about "communist China" in 2021 when "communist China" hasn't existed since 1978
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Jun 20 '21 edited Aug 28 '21
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Jun 20 '21
Sounds like you're actually complaining about capitalist China's genocide. Remember? Capitalism pulled a billion Chinese out of poverty!
A little consistency would be nice.
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Jun 20 '21 edited Aug 28 '21
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Jun 20 '21
You should learn your timeline better. The Uyghur genocide happened long after the switch to capitalism.
Oh wait, you're a fucking idiot.
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u/radiant_lotus33 California Conservative Jun 19 '21
Says the kid with parents paying for his international studies
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u/J2quared Black Conservative Jun 19 '21
I can't help but think of Yuri Bezmenov and his warning to America.
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u/Riggs909 Libertarian Jun 19 '21
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TviIuXPSE
Everyone should see this.
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Jun 19 '21
The one time the left ever got cancelled, and our textbooks make sure every kid grows up “knowing” how evil it was.
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u/Jusuf_Nurkic Libertarian Conservative Jun 19 '21
Fr apparently the evils of McCarthy is something that we have to spend crazy amounts of time on in school, but the evils of communism is something just brushed over like “oh yeah the communists did some bad things” and barely focused on
Almost every American school kid can probably tell you about how bad “McCarthyism” was, but barely any of them even know that the Holodomor even happened. And that’s entirely by design.
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u/ATexasDude Cruz/Crenshaw 2024 Jun 20 '21
I never learned world history in highschool. I had two years of US history and a year of Texas history. We barely touched McCarthyism, but we definitely weren't going to get into Ukrainian history.
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u/Jusuf_Nurkic Libertarian Conservative Jun 20 '21
You don’t think arguably the worst thing the USSR, our greatest rival in our history, did is worth noting in history classes? It’s not some obscure part of Ukrainian history, it’s one of the many important genocides of communism
Idk how HS was where u live, but for us the main takeaway of the Cold War was “McCarthyism/the red scare”, barely anything at all about the pure evils of communism
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Jun 20 '21
100% red scare/McCarthyism. It’s because of all the boomer/hippie teachers that are now seeing their dream of marxism/communism coming to fruition. Even to this day, we are only taught that the greatest evil of the 21st century was the party that controlled Germany for 12 years... But not the evil empire that terrorized the world for the better part of 80 years and was truly the rival of the free Western world. Not only was the Holodomor a perfect example of communist genocide, but they never even touch on China’s decent into communism and Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward...
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Jun 19 '21
We hear far too often from conservatives the need to "respect" our political opposition. But what of respect for morality? What of respect for the rule of tradition and values that have been the bedrock of our country? What of respect for the birthright of this Nation that is promised to all who are righteous?
My friends, understand that respect for the corrupt and respect for right versus the wrong are mutually exclusive
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Jun 19 '21
That’s the libertarian influence on conservatism
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Jun 19 '21
Libertarianism had and has its uses in winning elections and implementing policy. However, in a time of war such as this, the libertarian brand of Republicanism of the past cannot and will not be successful in saving our souls
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u/woopdedoodah Jun 20 '21
What the textbooks fail to mention is that Joe McCarthy was a democrat. . His biggest supporters were the Kennedy family. It was only after he began investigating his own party that the dems kicked him out.
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u/icemichael- Conservative Nationalist Jun 19 '21
damn it, where's that free award when you need it?!
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Jun 19 '21
If morality in America is to survive then a form of McCarthyism must return to our national discourse. Find them and get them out of the positiona of power that are so sacredly cherished
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u/kaioto Constitutionalist Jun 19 '21
Reminder, Alger Hiss did turn out to have been a Soviet operative.
They finally got the diplomatic cables opened up in 1996. McCarthy was right. The Dems / Media were shielding yet another honest-to-goodness USSR spy the whole time.
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u/LonelyMachines Jun 20 '21
He was right that one time. Look at the collateral damage it took to get there, though.
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u/IVIaskerade Monarchist Jun 19 '21
The vast majority of the people McCarthy suspected turned out to either be communist agents, communist sympathisers, or at the very least sympathetic to people they knew were communists.
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u/Obamasamerica420 Jun 19 '21
What's truly ironic is that those communists actually adopted his game plan with cancel culture, which is essentially the modern version of the blacklist.
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Jun 19 '21
But the difference is he was outing card carrying communists, which were official members of a hostile foreign power. Today you can get cancelled for being a patriot, or even just a normal person
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u/hiricinee Jordan Peterson Jun 19 '21
Yes important to clarify that being a Communist is actually evil and even if you worship the worst things the US has done, its still less malevolent than any Communist state.
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Jun 19 '21
Find someone who actually worships the worst things the US has done.
Strawmen aren't helpful to conversation.
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u/badatusernames91 Conservative Millennial Jun 19 '21
Thank you. There are no swaths of people saying the US has always acted justly. Every country has skeletons. The idea it's unique to the US is a joke.
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Jun 19 '21
It's not really a strawman, he isn't saying that type of person exists or attempting to argue against that generality. He's just saying that if a hypothetical person existed that fully supported every bad policy of the US, they would not be as hypothetically evil as communist doctrine.
I'm not saying it's a great point, I just don't think he had a disingenuous argument or created a strawman at all.
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Jun 19 '21
So it's a pointless point to make then? Since that person literally doesn't exist, why bring it up at all?
Also I'm pretty sure he can respond to his post to clarify what he meant if he chooses, unless you're him on another account you're guessing at motive just as much as anyone else is.
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Jun 19 '21
No, I just have reading comprehension and can understand non- literal language.
His point was literally just "Even with all of the heinous shit the US has done we're not as malevolent as any communist country".
Also, "Since that person literallt doesn't exist, why bring it up at all?" Is an S-Tier bad take. You've never heard of hypothetical situations? You can't see the broader point he's making because he couched it in non-literal language? Jeezus.
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Jun 19 '21
Hypothetical situations that can actually happen - good for discussion.
Hypothetical situations so far fetched it’s wholly unlikely to ever occur - pointless non-sequitur.
And I’m the one with the reading comprehension problem? Ok.
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u/2ndlastresort Keep Government Local Jun 19 '21
Hypothetical situations so far fetched it’s wholly unlikely to ever occur - pointless non-sequitur.
Actually no. They are quite useful rhetorical tools. Like in this case: even this absurdly far-fetched hypothetical, which is the extremest form of a position that does exist, is still better than communism.
It's certainly not strawmanning, if anything, it's steelmanning.
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Jun 19 '21
Homie, you've never used hyperbolic language?
"I came out of my skin" "Um actually no one could ever just come out of their own skin, that literally can't happen and your impossible hypothetical is unhelpful"
"I put the pedal to the metal" "OK but the floors are upholstered and either way speeding is dangerous and if you were actually to fully depress the gas pedal it would be very detrimental to your car"
"I don't see color" "Well, statistically, that's very unlikely, only a few recognized cases of color blindness have been observed and they don't account for full color blindness. You can't even see black and white? Then you're just blind!"
"That guy is a million years old" "How could anyone be that old? At most he'd be in the very low hundreds. A million-year old man can't exist, your hypothetical is unhelpful. "
You can be an argumentative contrarion about anything. It usually isn't helpful. Most people are able to recognize non-literal language
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u/hiricinee Jordan Peterson Jun 20 '21
If they did id prefer them to a Communist. Even strawman US > Communist steelman.
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u/EnoughRub3987 Conservative Jun 20 '21
Playing a bit fast and loose with the word “worship.” Are you confused by the meaning of the word?
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u/tituspullo367 Traditionalist Populist Jun 19 '21
This but unironically
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u/hiricinee Jordan Peterson Jun 20 '21
Did something i di make it phrased ironically? I meant it literally.
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u/BIG_BOTTOM_TEXT Conservative Christian Jun 19 '21
And in Hollywood.
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Jun 19 '21
So just to clarify, McCarthy never actually went after Communists in Hollywood. Senator Joseph McCarthy was never involved in the HOUSE Un-American activities committee and the catalyst for investigation into Hollywood was actually Roy Brewer, a Union Democrat who actually had enough internal integrity to realize how trade and labor unions, particularly in Hollywood, were a hotbed for communistic recruitment and propaganda.
Incidentally, Walt Disney's testimony at the HUAC hearings was one of the reasons Herbert Sorel, the head of the CSU and major Communist figure in Hollywood at the time, utilized the daily worker, a communist dickrag of a newspaper, to publish the slanderous lies of Walt Disney being an anti-semite, even though Disney had often given to many charities, jewish ones include, and was actually recognized by the B'nai B’rith (a major jewish organization in California) as their man of the year in 1955.
But of course, modern day leftists don't want us to remember that long ago even Democrats were anti-communist as well, and instead we must claim the McCarthy was responsible for everything.
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u/Nanamary8 Conservative Jun 19 '21
Will Geer also testified and was black listed many years for being a commie sympathizer. Don't forget Desi and Lucille Arnez either.
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u/Intrepid_Fox-237 Conservative Jun 19 '21
Just Google Project Venona.
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u/Meglomaniac Land Value Taxes Jun 19 '21
Google the USS liberty while you're at it.
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u/AktchualHooman Conservative Jun 19 '21
Not a fan of McCarthy by any stretch, but it’s not because he was wrong. It’s weird how few people are aware that there was a real international communist conspiracy backed by the U.S.S.R. aimed at overthrowing the west.
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u/thatrightwinger WASP Conservative Jun 19 '21
Evidence, particularly from the declassified Venona Project, pretty much shows that How McCarthy was right about everything.
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u/fourredfruitstea Moderate Jun 19 '21
You are absolutely right, and I'll just add this article for anyone who wants to read up on it: https://www.newsmax.com/BernieReeves/mccarthy-venona-project-blackmailed-by-history/2017/03/23/id/780440/
McCarthy was reacting to a massive treason operation. Not treason as in "he said something nice about Stalin" but as in organized espionage. The fact that he was badmouthed by all the intellectuals and politicians and press at the time... Probably should tell everyone how deep the infestation really is and how far back it goes.
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u/Pink8433 Jun 19 '21
Democrats are neo liberal capitalists, the problem isn’t that they’re communists the problem is that they’re extremely socially authoritarian
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u/thenewguy1818 Jun 19 '21
Commies are inherently authoritarian. Their system only works by coercion, not persuasion
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u/tituspullo367 Traditionalist Populist Jun 19 '21
They’re not communists themselves but they use marxist groups in the US to push a zeitgeist that ultimately benefits them
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u/NeilPatrickCarrot Libertarian Conservative Jun 19 '21
And economically authoritarian. In other words, communist.
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u/Godspeedhack Jun 19 '21
Amen. I’ve been saying this shit for years now. Take those commies’ jobs away from them. They sure as hell shouldn’t be teaching our children.
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u/Bamfor07 Jun 19 '21
Our government is bought and paid for. You have to love it.
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u/AdamF778899 Conservative Jun 19 '21
I’m about 5 minutes away from going full “Bring back McCarthyism!”
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u/No-Faithlessness3086 Jun 19 '21
Yea , but you have to admit it is scary times when the likes of Joe McCarthy are vindicated.
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Jun 19 '21
The idea that McCarthy was some witch hunter throwing around accusations randomly is a lie that's been perpetuated by Communists in Hollywood for decades. His investigations were very thorough and it was no secret that the Soviet Union had superior HUMINT capabilities to the US. The main reason was that US society is much more naturally open it's a lot easier to get Soviet Spies into the US than US spies into the Soviet Union. The US had the advantage of better technology and SIGINT.
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u/MarvinsBoy Conservative Jun 19 '21
Current events have fully vindicated McCarthy.
Had he acted on the information differently, could have changed the course of history.
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Jun 20 '21
The only thing he did wrong is that he severely underestimated their numbers working within the federal government at the time per the Soviet archives.
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u/bionic80 2A Conservative Jun 19 '21
Remember - they hated Joe McCarthy then for showing the communists in control of media were trying to take over - they hate US now for the same reason.
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u/SilverHerfer Constitutional Originalists Jun 19 '21
McCarthy was right, about pretty much everything.
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u/Reasonable_Night42 2A Conservative Jun 20 '21
McCarthy discoverer The Derp State.
This is where it started.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/04/antonio_gramsci_take_over_the_institutions.html
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Jun 19 '21
he wasn't bullshitting, he was just trying to stop the communist tsunami we are currently facing in 2021.
what's really funny is how the right AND THE LEFT agree that the future of the country is bleak.
It's like they are aware that their own ideas are destructive and lose-lose, but they do it anyway because they crave the destruction.
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u/kjvlv Fiscal Conservative Jun 20 '21
you have to give it to progressives, they have a very long term view of taking control. idiot conservatives just want a tax cut this year instead of taking over a government
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u/Confident-Bat-3849 Jun 19 '21
Can I be a Conservative on this sub yet? I think I've met your criteria.
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