this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

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I step out of Hexbear and into another instance for once and immediately get this shit lmao

I was letting off some steam about how sick and tired I am about working a shit job to make some asshole rich, and I made an off hand remark about how my employer probably belongs in a gulag. Further down the reply chain, this lemmitor asshole shows up to send me a whole tirade full of faux concern, breaking out the psychoanalysis to say I'm just an extremist full of unjustified hatred because I must be a bitter loser. Somehow they come up with this nuclear hot take comparing my anger at the capitalist class to a Christian fundamentalist hating gay people.

But the fucking cherry on the top here is sending me this comment as their very first interaction with me and proceeding to instantly block me to deny me the chance to reply at all. I've seen others use the block feature as a means of getting the last word in, but never to get both the first and last word in at the same time. And in the end, this self-unaware lib ends up calling me the overly self righteous one. Perfect.

Tbh, what gets me is that they were so fucking close to getting it. They almost came to an accurate understanding of the fact that my material conditions as a poor person getting fucked over day in and day out by my employer stealing my labor will heavily inform my politics. But of course they never quite reach that point, instead bizarrely veering off into psychologizing me, and acting like this is all just some sort of character flaw on my part.

Rule one: https://hexbear.net/comment/4738025

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[–] Frank@hexbear.net 91 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

"I have nothing good going on in my life, so I've adopted an extreme viewpoint that easily allows me to feel superior to others."

This really jumps out at me and seems to be a trend with libs and fash. Neither libs nor fash, painted with very broad strokes, seem to believe that the other side holds the convictions they claim to. The Fash, at least in the US, have long used terms like "bleeding heart" and "politically correct" to accuse Libs of pretending to care about social issues in bad faith so they can use social issues as a weapon to bludgeon the GOP. Libs, in turn, seem to broadly believe that the Fash are stupid or igniorant. The Libs cannot or will not accept that the Fash are different from them and have different goals and desires. Trying to explain to Libs that Fash want to hurt other people because they enjoy it, and will hurt people they hate or fear even if it causes harm to themselves, is like trying to explain particle physics to a duck. The idea that anyone doesn't share their weird civility fetish and commitment to triangulation can't break through their ideological bias.

Fash seem to believe us to some extent. As Parenti said, they still think we're lying and just using our concern for social justice as a weapon against them, but they do seem to believe we'll do what we say we'll do. Libs seem to mostly dismiss us as deluded children, idiots, or sadists because they have such a warped view of revolutionary violence. The idea that we're painfully, pathetically sincere and disagree with them in good faith, ie our disagreement is sincere and earnest and doesn't have anything to do with them and their politics as team sport, can't land in their heads.

They can't see what we believe as anything but ego, sadism, or foolishness. They can't imagine that many of us are motivated by kindness and love, and our intense hatred grows from the cruelty that we perceive in the world, and in capitalism. To them the system is normal, natural, and sacred. "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism." All they can really see us as is deluded agents of chaos and destruction because they can't imagine anything better than what exists.

RE: later on, where they're talking about wider and wider targets.

It's really something that they cannot imagine any political action outside the narrow confines of their own self imposed rules of civility. You cannot take any action without rapidly becoming a Voltron robot of Pinochet, Hitler, Pol Pot, and their distorted idea of who Stalin and Mao were. If you use violence in any way for any reason you're going to turn in to a frothing monster who just kills people for the sadistic joy of it.

And then thoughtlessly, effortlessly, carelessly, most libs support whatever imperial massacre is being committed right now, they treat the police as a legitimate force that has become corrupt but can be fixed through policy change, they completely support the warmongering of NATO, they ignore or deny western genocides.

It's such a bizarre set of contradictions and many of them either have no awareness of it or see no contradictions. Our violence is normal. Our violence is legitimate. Our violence is morally good or at least neutral. Our actions are never genocide. Even while they're decrying their own leaders for war crimes they have no intention of taking action or doing anything to stop the killing. Their role is merely to state their distaste as an individual for some of the killing, then go back to their normal lives. And anyone who does even float the idea of taking direct action, of opposing the regime, of even identifying the regimes crimes as a feature of the system rather than a deviation caused by corrupt individuals, is denounced as a monster and a sadist.

Also boy howdy do they love comparing us to Christian Fascists and insisting that we believe a world wide workers revolution is just going to magically spring in to existence one day with no effort and no action. I've tried telling them there are honest to god communist, leftist, and anarchist revolutions and movements happening in the world right now but it never seems to land. Again, they cannot and will not consider a position outside their own skewed preconceptions. Their system is perfect, eternal, and unquestionable, marred only by a few corrupt people. Anyone who thinks it could be challenged, that the invincible armies of America might be fallible (despite them being terrified of Jan 6), that America's civic institutions might be cruel by design and inherently unfixable, is simply delusional, an unreasoning fanatic. Never mind that leftist revolutions of all kinds have happened in the past in all sorts of circumstances, never mind that many of them were successful in holding power for decades, never mind that several communist states still persist despite everything, we clearly believe that a magical event will carry us to a magical utopia.

[–] SuperNovaCouchGuy2@hexbear.net 35 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Its also interesting from a literary standpoint when the soyjak tries to cynically fit OP venting about their boss (rightfully so) to some depoliticized pathological template (since history ended and thus only interpersonal problems remain), but can't, since he can't empathize with anyone who is working class, so he just runs up against his own genocidal liberal hysteria again and again, projecting it onto OP while shitting everywhere and crying.

[–] DinosaurThussy@hexbear.net 27 points 7 months ago

The comparison to Christian fascists is interesting. I grew up in an evangelical cult and follow a lot of ex Christians on TikTok. A lot of these people, when they delve into politics, are unable to see anything but echoes of their own experiences with Christian fascists when talking about any kind of extremism. It’s understandable but I also don’t wanna dismiss people excusing structural violence under capitalism just because they have religious trauma. It’s something I empathize with a lot and simultaneously have no patience for because trying to get through to them often involves retraumatizing myself, too. Shit sucks, especially when I’ve put more energy than your average western leftist into deconstructing all the aspects of Christianity that are just baked into the culture here.

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[–] sharedburdens@hexbear.net 68 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"Soviet gulags were less brutal and oppressive than American prisons are now"

"Wow you must be a poor loser, otherwise you would know that America is the unquestioned good in the world and everyone else is the enemy, now let me rattle off 5 more paragraphs of projection about how propagandized and extremist you are." smuglord

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 46 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Libs do be loving their envy discourse.

[–] DinosaurThussy@hexbear.net 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 15 points 7 months ago

:sicko-bisexual-lighting:

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 66 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

someone who was in a good place in life wouldn't want to put people in gulags

Wow @wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com what a revelatory thought! It's almost like everyone's lives are getting worse and the people at the bottom are getting increasingly angry about it! It's almost like capitalism is failing and our numbers are increasing every single day while everyone gets increasingly more and more angry about that?

Wow it's almost like the system is not working and is producing the very conditions that will result in its overthrow!

Wow i wonder if any bearded guy wrote about this occurring.

Self righteous dumbass thinks belittling people at the bottom "your life is shit lol you don't get an opinion on society" is the right thing to do instead of asking why society is failing everyone and producing those of us who thoroughly believe the only way that anything will change is revolution.

[–] disposable_cracker@hexbear.net 42 points 7 months ago

The part you're roasting is especially vile because the lib's choice of insult only makes sense if one considers having nothing going on in life a personal moral failing on the part of the sufferer as opposed to, as you pointed out, peoples' objective conditions being shit and rapidly getting shittier.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 36 points 7 months ago (56 children)

It's wild how there are neoliberal ghouls on that nominally "leftist" instance. Really makes you wonder if there are some ideological problems with their particular brand of "leftism" that it is so immensely compatible with open chauvinism like that.

[–] AutomatedPossum@hexbear.net 30 points 7 months ago (13 children)

Wait, dbzer0 is supposed to be a leftist instance? Every time i see somebody from there comment on hexbear, it's either transphobia, homophobia, or shit-tier geopolitics takes, i would've expected them to be hardcore centrist chauvinists, basically like the brain genius in OP's post.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 24 points 7 months ago

Isn't it? The instance owner is an "anarchist" and runs a comm for it, as we were all privileged with knowing when they decided to trawl for drama with reactionary bullshit. Perhaps that at least elucidates the main commonality in what we've seen:

shit-tier geopolitics takes,

When they were trawling, there was the classic of ultras and liberals arguing side by side repeating the same tired myths and hyperbole.

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[–] Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 15 points 7 months ago

someone who was in a good place in life wouldn't want to put people in gulags

The state's carceral system already does it for him.

[–] BioWarfarePosadist@hexbear.net 64 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy Turbolib: You only believe in maximizing equality and happiness in the world so you can feel superior!

[–] rubpoll@hexbear.net 58 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Please note, I've not made any statement on whether you're wrong or right in your targeting. That's a separate discussion.

Libs are proud of how little they can commit to any position. "Watch me argue myself out of my own argument because that shows I'm smart, taking every position and no position at once. You're the lunatic for having a concrete position about anything."

[–] emizeko@hexbear.net 32 points 7 months ago

The question of “free press” and “free speech” is not separable from the question of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie versus the dictatorship of the proletariat. The idea of “political plurality” as such turns out to be the negation of the possibility of achieving any kind of truth in the realm of politics, it reduces all historical and value claims to the rank of mere opinion. And of course, so long as someone’s political convictions are mere opinion, they won’t rise to defend them. And so the liberal state remains the dictatorial organ of the bourgeoisie, with roads being built or legislation being passed only as commanded by the interests of capital, completely disregarding the interests of workers. Under regimes where political plurality is falsely upheld as a supreme virtue, the very notion of asserting oneself as possessing a truth appears aggressive and “authoritarian.”

from https://redsails.org/brainwashing/

[–] Sephitard9001@hexbear.net 54 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

"You've adopted an ideology where extreme actions are justified and right to take against your 'enemy' " Hey remember that time America illegally invaded two nations that had nothing to do with 9/11 and killed probably a million(s) people based on what we later found out were lies and then we elected 2 more presidents that continued it while liberals defended it? Weird how they justified extreme actions against an "enemy" like that, huh

[–] SuperNovaCouchGuy2@hexbear.net 54 points 7 months ago

This is most likely some smug middle class shithead with a white collar job who has no understanding of how painful the poverty of the people who suffer to uphold his comfortable air-conditioned status quo is.

Imagine being such a self-righteous petty cuck to the elite that you launch into armchair psychoanalysis and pearl-clutch about "muh extremism!!11!!11" when someone anonymously vents about their boss on the internet.

[–] Llituro@hexbear.net 51 points 7 months ago

"did you know that making a distinction between black people and Nazis makes you stupid?" smuglord

enlightened centrist bullshit

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 46 points 7 months ago (3 children)

There’s something particularly irritating about liberals and their obsession with psychoanalysis and saying “get therapy” as the ultimate insult/ form of help.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 37 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I've noticed the same thing. Honestly, there's something really dark and insidious about this type of behavior. It's so gross whenever you're arguing with some reddit-logo user and they sick reddit's suicide hotline bot on your DMs.

I know the term is overused and misused a ton online, but this shit is literally gaslighting by definition.

[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago

It's super ableist too. "You need help so therefore nothing you say has value."

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[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 44 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"You see this shit on all sides of the political spectrum" is a statement made by people worth ignoring.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 17 points 7 months ago

No no, ask him about his opinion of Russians and he'll prove himself right about this

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 44 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

berating you for having opinions on the internet.

posts his opinions on the internet.

this one is pure gold.

also having an @hexbear account will probably get you shouted for this reason alone. sometimes libs hate on me cause i have @ml after my username...

[–] silent_water@hexbear.net 27 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

it's extremely funny when they come here to do it then leave after reporting the replies to our mods.

[–] happybadger@hexbear.net 42 points 7 months ago

Hopefully their life implodes. I want to see the world consume this demon.

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 42 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Obviously I got issues with Christian fundamentalists, but the argument that their ideology is what is because “they’ve got nothing going on in their life” is the most “I’m 14 and this is deep” bit of sociology.

That being said, the “you’re American in spirit” line is a bit cringe. Just call them a lib or Western chauvinist, but that phrasing just comes across as clinging to a point that was disproven.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah in the context of the rest of the thread that line made more sense. What happened was they (not the person in the screenshot, it was another user) originally called me edgy and compared me to a 4channer for saying my boss belongs in a gulag. The word edgy is necessarily a comparison, right? Something can't be edgy in a vacuum, it's a word that implies judgement against some sort of normal baseline.

So I brought up how no one is ever called edgy for saying someone belongs in an American prison. I didn't actually initially accuse them of being American, for some reason they thought not being American would somehow refute my point. When they got defensive about that, I poked fun at them by saying they're acting like an American anyway

[–] SuperNovaCouchGuy2@hexbear.net 26 points 7 months ago

originally called me edgy and compared me to a 4channer for saying my boss belongs in a gulag

Lmao that pearl-clutching weirdo has never been on 4chan for more than 2 minutes.

[–] corgiwithalaptop@hexbear.net 41 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Motherfuckers really be writing essays about nothing

[–] Thordros@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago

The Seinfeld of posters.

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 7 months ago (4 children)

You know I really ought to make a proper hexbear account, this helps my motivation, I'm just trying to decide on a good gimmick character

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You're not really asking for ideas but here's one anyway. How bout D-alpha? Unknowing people think your gimmick is "alpha male" but you actually provide necessary brain nutrients to dumb commenters.

I didn't know the etymology behind tocopherol, maybe you already did.

...because the vitamin activity was first identified in 1936 from a dietary fertility factor in rats, it was named tocopherol, from Greek τόκος tókos 'birth' and φέρειν phérein 'to bear or carry', that is 'to carry a pregnancy',

So there are puns aplenty there.

If you like pun names with hidden meaning as i do anyway

[–] tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hah I do like the pun or hidden meaning, vitamin or medical sounding terms appeal to me too. I think I did read that after I already used the name haha, I actually just took it from the ingredients on something I had, I thought it had a nice sound and look to it and no discernable meaning to bias my comments when read hah.

I'm thinking though like someone from Star Trek or another persona lol, I just always laugh when I see like Rom, Margot Robbie or Dirt_Owl, it gives the space more character!

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[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 35 points 7 months ago

Liberal cockroaches like this never have anything of substance to say because they don't believe in anything except self-gratification, which is why they turn red and start vomiting diarrhea the minute someone vaguely gestures at their treats and sense of privilege

These people are nothing but nerves which is why it's so easy to startle them like you did

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 28 points 7 months ago

They want to be le epic smart psychoanalysis character who tells it like it is from their preferred 2/5 Netflix show

[–] Hestia@hexbear.net 26 points 7 months ago

another Lemmer for the gulag.

[–] axont@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This person almost has a kind of liberal insight. They accuse communists of being angry and having enemies. Yeah, we do. Liberals don't know what it's like to have enemies because they don't care. They have no desire to change anything except some minor tweaks. They have no one they believe deserves to die or be punished. They see the world as simply reality, with no better world necessary nor possible.

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[–] Egon@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I do the block thing on twitter because I think it's funny to know someone elsewhere might be mad they can't even get a word in. I've probably done it here too and I'll def do it again.

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