The Freedom of Speech Thread

[Admiral Yi]

A common thread?  Liberal, PC, woke.  Once championed and then abandoned in the face of mockery.

Do leftists lack confidence?  Easily intimidated? 

[Berkut]

I have no problem describing myself as liberal or progressive 

[Sheilbh]

I just think words are defined by how they're used which means if they're used a lot as a term of abuse that'll be how people understand them. Especially in politics where generally people dip in and out at best.

And there's no need being precious about that - move on, define yourself and your own politics (but know that'll get used as a cudgel before long).

[Admiral Yi]

I just think words are defined by how they're used which means if they're used a lot as a term of abuse that'll be how people understand them. Especially in politics where generally people dip in and out at best.

And there's no need being precious about that - move on, define yourself and your own politics (but know that'll get used as a cudgel before long).

I don't think it's that generalized.  Plenty of people use "capitalist" or "free marketer" as an insult but you don't see people running away from those terms.  Similarly with neoliberal, especially in Latin America.

[grumbler]

A common thread?  Liberal, PC, woke.  Once championed and then abandoned in the face of mockery.

Do leftists lack confidence?  Easily intimidated? 

It's an interesting question as to whether the left so readily abandons labels because of mocking attacks from the right or because of mocking attacks from others on the left.  Conservatives generally don't mock others on the right for being more or less conservative than them, but the left seems to attempt regular purges.

[DGuller]

Conservatives generally don't mock others on the right for being more or less conservative than them, but the left seems to attempt regular purges.

Are you making an argument that the left should be more tribal?   

[grumbler]

Conservatives generally don't mock others on the right for being more or less conservative than them, but the left seems to attempt regular purges.

Are you making an argument that the left should be more tribal?   

I'm making an observation, not an argument.

If I were to make an argument about the perceived phenomenon, it would be that the left is made up of more intelligent and thus independent-minded people, who cannot be as easily carried by a few bumper stickers that say what they want to hear.

[crazy canuck]

A common thread?  Liberal, PC, woke.  Once championed and then abandoned in the face of mockery.

Do leftists lack confidence?  Easily intimidated? 

It's an interesting question as to whether the left so readily abandons labels because of mocking attacks from the right or because of mocking attacks from others on the left.  Conservatives generally don't mock others on the right for being more or less conservative than them, but the left seems to attempt regular purges.

A prof of mine once joked that the left is a lot like Protestants, when they disagree with eachother they go off and start new church/movement.

The scene in Life of Brian was a favourite prop to use.

[Jacob]

A common thread?  Liberal, PC, woke.  Once championed and then abandoned in the face of mockery.

Do leftists lack confidence?  Easily intimidated? 

Fox News and fellow travellers have weaponized vocabulary churn because their favoured values lack merit.

[DGuller]

If I had to attribute euphemism treadmill to one side, it would definitely not be the right wing one.

[Jacob]

If I had to attribute euphemism treadmill to one side, it would definitely not be the right wing one.

I think the left wing IS far ahead by volume, but I think the right wing is doing better on intensity. However, in both cases the targets are primarily on the left.

[Razgovory]

Perhaps it's the left-wing obsession with messaging and the right wing habit of vitriolic abuse.

[grumbler]

Fox News and fellow travellers have weaponized vocabulary churn because their favoured values lack merit.

There's something to be said for that.  It seems that people are leftists because they are for things, and rightists because they are against things.

It's hard to be for lots of mutually exclusive things, but easy to be against many mutually exclusive things.

[Berkut]

Hmmm.

I am not sure I agree that the right doesn't attack their own. I think they do that all the time.

RINO is still a common attack strategy, and we saw the last several decades where the right waged a war on moderates in their party, with sane Republicans attacked and destroyed from someone further to the right, and then those newly minted RINOs attacked by someone even further.

In fact, I would say that the difference between the left and the right around this is that the crazy rightists (the former Tea Party radical right, now the Trumpers) have won their internal war(only the whackjobs survived on the right, or those who became whackjobs), where the left wing radical crowd is still trying to win theirs, but have not yet. They are making progress though.

[crazy canuck]

In the Canadian context the Reformers destroyed the big tent PCs by attacking "Red Tories".