[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Quantum Boy

I maintain that we've never disagreed on any of this and what passes as the actual political centre is very different to individual supposed-centre vs. political nuance; you conflate the "center-ism" of supposedly trying to walk a tightrope on every issue vs simply not being swept into partisan politics on an individual level. You might be right about "most claiming the center" to be shy-righties but that's really no different to the rest of the political ignorance (blind right and blind left) - most people just don't HAVE their own informed or well rounded opinion, it's all different shades of the same thing, like I said democracy in the age of fast (dis)information and instant communication is fundamentally broken.

Where we've had a sticking point in the past is in when I point out the danger of blinkered left-wing stonewalling and ideologically driven anti-intellectualism and that it has been a key catalyst in sending a large chunk of "Well I Don't Really Know Much About That"s over to the right, or rather, into the arms of the propagandists claiming they're going to sort it all out.

Ultimately it doesn't really matter, I don't think you've tended to agree and seem to believe that if "centrists" had just hushed up and stopped pointing out the glaring inconsistencies (and frequent gaslighting) present in left-leaning rhetoric then somehow we wouldn't be here and the right wouldn't be rising... whereas (to put it briefly) I actually think left-wing propaganda has been used, deliberately, to galvanise the right and to great effect. And here we are. The trigger's been pulled.

I also acknowledge we have a lot of areas of agreement, I've never said otherwise. Just a discussion around what I said would happen, currently playing out right in front of our eyes.

You're talking as though the left had the power and were/are making demands of centrists - which has absolutely never been the case. All the left did/does is point out how dangerous centrism is, in service to the protection/palatability of the far right. Useful idiots, if you like.

Look at the state of everything, and even through all of it, your disdain for "the left" seeps through. Pretty crazy to me, that after everything that's happened over the last few months of this government, the left still lines up for blame It's wild, dude.

The accusation you've made is a confession imo. Centrism is celebrated as intellectual honesty in this country. Only one political ideology is described as "student politics". The cold war did a lot to destroy any potential good this country is capable of.

Every far right movement is always accompanied by accusations against the dangerous left, but it's the centrists currently hooking up with the far right, not the left, so blame the left for creeping fascism all you like, you'd be in some pretty exalted company with folks like Hitler and Mussolini. I'm not saying you're hitler, and I know how far your morals and political ideology is away from those folks, but when the right creeps, the left gets blamed has been played out may times before, because it's easier to blame than self reflect (for all of us, me included).

It's the laziest reasoning imaginable in my opinion - they made me adopt the language of the unhinged right, guv'nor. They/he/she made me do it, didn't work in school, so it doesn't get to be an explanation for everything that is currently wrong.