is Conservative/Right Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?

If your "conservative / right wing opinion" is that austerity measures are a good thing, then the most generous interpretation of that is that you're just a moron. As it turns out, though, today's "conservative / right wing opinions" are way worse than that. Things like "trans people aren't people". Or "we should do a treason". Or "bribing supreme court justices is totally fine". If you hold any of those opinions, the most generous interpretation of that is that you're evil. And probably also stupid. That is the MOST generous interpretation, mind.

I just don't understand what politics conservatives do other then push for laws that oppress people they don't feel comfortable sharing a space with? I think the real political discussions are just happening within the left. Conservative party kinda needs to just go away, and the left split into socialists, democrats, and maybe independents. American politics and media have driven it's two party system so opposed to each other, there is no mutual agreement anymore, you either take the blue side or the red side to any and all issues, and I'm sorry the red side is just so cartoonishly evil they just stand in the way of progress, or push to go backwards in history.

Modern conservative politics and "polite discussion" are like oil and water.

I'm not sure why "I don't want to see a space become an echo chamber" is always what gets said. Everywhere else IS a right wing echo chamber for the most part? Conservatives aren't the ones chased from reddit and twitter?

What probably isnt welcome is questioning people's right to exist, right to live unmolested because of someone else's beliefs (and real molested, not "i saw a minority existed), and the right to make your own medical choices for yourself and your kids. Considering means testing has been proven a waste and the right opposes taxing fair share, i wouldn't even argue that actual financial conservation is even a point the party makes.

So it's really hard to see what need this space has for those talking points. Unless it's actually about being open to real discussion, which frankly facts aren't often on the side of the right, what good to this community do these ideas offer?

What should be asked is what place does the Right/Conservative philosophy as a whole have in the Lemmy ethos? Is it in and of itself could be argued to be an antithesis to the whole structure and philosophy. Can authoritarian ideals thrive where they cannot take power?

If by "conservative/right wing opinions" you mean the current extremist fascist opinionated MAGA-'my way or the highway' brand of Republicanism, then I sure as hell hope it's unwelcome on Lemmy instances.

If you wish to bring back reason and logic into conservative/right-wing opinions (such as limited government, which means NOT legislating their brand of morality), then I'm all for those viewpoints (not that I would agree with them wholesale, but it's a discussion I'd be willing to take part in).

The real problem with this discourse is that current climate of conservatism is completely closed to reason and logic, completely embraces lies and conspiracy theories as factual, and basically wishes to see all liberals either dead or suffering in some way.

So yeah, keep that shit off Lemmy instances.

Honestly, my big thing with right-wingers is that they come with no proof, and get mad when you start asking for facts and figures. Right now, I can see the effects of 40 years of trickle-down economic theory: it means that you need a degree to get just about any decent job in this country, and also unions should not exist because reasons. It really kind of biases me against right-wing talking points, to the point that I need to see proof. Treat it like a math problem and show your work or gtfo.

Conservative ideology of maybe twenty years ago would likely have a lot better chance at meaningful discussion as opposed to right now. At this time, the political right in the US have thrown full-throated support for policies that many people (rightfully) feel are abhorrent.

For less repugnant topics, say, fiscal responsibility, that one is also a tough one to talk about seeing as the right is trying to gut every social program they can think of while doing all they can to cut taxes for the rich.

I know there are sane conservatives out there, but until that party steers their ship away from bigotry, hatred, and destroying the middle and lower class, you'll probably not find a lot of discussion. Which is a shame because I think we do need two strong parties with differing viewpoints, but when the other viewpoint is rampant discrimination and further enriching the wealthy.

I hope you're enjoying the discussion, and I hope you are understanding a lot of the excellent points made here, because I have not seen you engaging with anyone so far, at least not in the Hot replies. I was hoping to see that engagement. I don't have much to add that has not already been added. It's hard to unwrap the hate and bigotry from conservative ideology nowadays. Even so-called mainstream conservative ideas like "tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy will create more money and prosperity for everyone" rings pretty hollow after over 40 years of that sort of ideology having been very thoroughly put into practice with very little benefit one could name. It's hard to engage when you can just sort of gesture to the current state of things and the lives of people who have grown up in the last 4 decades as being self-evident of the failure of that idea.

Basically, I ask, what does conservatism have to offer, really? I am completely open-minded and would listen, but you would have to do better than just repeating the same tired things I have heard my whole life, having grown up in a conservative catholic household and over 43 years slowly but surely drifting to the socialist atheist person I am now. Better believe I've heard a lot and am well-read. And there are a lot of people out there just like me.

Wouldn't that depend on the historic understanding of GOP politics in the United States? There was a time when the Democrats were the problematic group and the GOP were not...the tables have flipped. For me, personally, I am invested in Beehaw's 'Northern Star' or guiding principle -> be(e) nice.

Depends entirely on the Instance and the rules they enforce. Here on Beehaw specifically? This is primarily an instance for safety and inclusivity and the people here are, naturally, not going to look positively on right wing opinions.

I feel like it's not a matter of which side and more if the position that someone tries to advertise is clearly lacking empathy or consideration towards others.

If that's all the right-leaning topics are about, I don't know what to tell you really.

Right wing opinions should be less welcome everywhere.

I sure hope so.

Conservatives I can deal with, but modern right wingers have lost their goddamn minds.

And the entire issue is that a lot of people who view themselves as moderate conservatives are enabling this ideological brain rot by not vocally disassociating it with more reasonable conservative positions. Because of that, I am way more comfortable saying that conservative voices should be viewed with suspicion than I used to be.

I think you're seeing backlash against being involuntarily exposed to (and often pushed to see) unbridled and deranged hatred and fear on traditional socmedia.

A conservative opinion like "I'm not sure communism is practical" is something that can be engaged with pretty cordially, "I think that education should focus on marketable skills" is an opinion I think is pretty misinformed but it's not something that exhausts me.

Unfortunately a lot of online conservatism is stuff like "I think there's a conspiracy by $minority to mind control us with vaccines" or "Should we be trying to make queer people afraid?" which aren't positions you can engage with.

What opinions do you mean specifically? The question you asked is too vague to help us sort out the welcome from the unwelcome.

Remember: “lower taxes for businesses” is a mainstream conservative opinion, but so are “children should not be allowed to know of the existence of gay people” and also “Breonna Taylor probably deserved to die” and also “Dr. Fauci is a mass murderer” and also “Trump won in 2020” and also “more brown children should be put in those cages”, etc., etc., etc.

If the conservative mainstream is so hateful and bigoted that most of their opinions would not be allowed on a well-regulated platform, that is not the fault of the platform and it does not suggest that the platform has to change just to accommodate conservatives.

I think we have to be mindful of the fact that 'conservative' means different things in different countries politically and there's also a continuum on which conservatives (like left folk) are. I'm in the UK and personally loathe the Tories, but even within the Tory party there are more moderate conservatives as well as the batshit ones. Similarly, our Labour party is divided between the more socialist side of things and the centre ground side of the party. Also you can have fiscally conservative values but also be liberal/left leaning on other policy areas.

There's nuance to be had and I don't think talking in absolutes helps anyone. We can't gain a greater understanding of how our world works if we shield ourselves from opposing perspectives.

That said, those on the transphobic, homophobic, racist side of the spectrum should 100% not be welcomed. No tolerance for intolerance.

It would be a shame if this community was just focused on the US, but at the same time maybe the community is a bit broad? At some point it might make sense to segment the community and define it more so one country doesn't dominate discussion

In addition to what others have said, i think it really depends on what ones frame is for "conservative". Much of what the US would consider left-wing is what I, being in europe, would consider center-right, for example.

is Conservative/Right Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?

Yes.

If by conservative you mean "you and your friends don't deserve human rights because I don't like you" then hopefully you're not welcome.

It's kind of a loaded question, and I'm not saying you intended it that way, but people have become increasingly more aware of how slanted the frame around the political spectrum has become -- there's an unwillingness to engage with discussion within that frame because to do so is to accept ideological and rhetorical handicaps that have been purposefully constructed to put non-right wing ideas at a disadvantage (not constructed by you, but more as a systematic result of right-wing media and politicians).

The question of "are conservative ideas welcome" is a discussion that requires a lot of unpacking due to implicit ideas that are buried deep under layers of history and lots of incremental changes to what we accept as normal in political discussion.

To give an example of what I mean by "framing", consider two people have agreed to debate about public healthcare. We'll say this has been a very publicized event, people have been watching a lot of pre-debate media coverage. Suppose the person with the anti-public healthcare position has been using this publicity not to outline their position for private healthcare, but has spent a lot of time recounting crimes and atrocities committed under communist regimes, and repeatedly substituting "socialism" for communism as if they were synonymous words. They perhaps even get their interviewer to accept and use that language, further legitimizing it.

Now the day of the debate comes and when the anti-public healthcare figure says "Public healthcare is socialist" his audience will hear "Public healthcare is communist, and communism leads to atrocities". He doesn't have to state that explicitly or make an argument because he has primed his audience and created a frame in which his opponent now has to either derail into a debate about the differences between socialized medicine and communism and risk losing the audience, or they let the implication go unaddressed and work within the frame created for them even though it's fabricated from misinformation that puts them at a rhetorical disadvantage.

So what does this have to do with conservative ideas being welcome or not welcome? Right-wing media have been the absolute masters of this tactic for decades. Here in the US it was shortly after Nixon was impeached that they really leaned into it. Up to that point the government had more or less a deference to academia and experts to inform their policy creation. When Nixon was impeached, people like Roger Ailes immediately began constructing a parallel political infrastructure to that academic institution (which tended by its very nature to lean towards progress), from which they could frame things not from a scientific and academic basis, but from a corporate and conservative one.

So people have begun waking up to the consequences of allowing that machine to run rough-shod all over our society, and now they've started rejecting the entire notion that they should have to engage with the products of that dishonest right-wing political machine or to accept it as equally legitimate to academic and scientific institutions. Some people may express that unwillingness in a more hostile, impatient way than others.

I saw you mention some British public figures -- I don't know if you're from the UK or US, but Jon Stewart had an interesting discussion with Ian Hislop comparing the effects of the Murdoch media empire on both the US and Britain. They touch on some of the stuff I'm talking about. Some food for thought maybe.

I wouldn't conflate "liberal" with "progressive," or, "leftist."

Very different things.

I would say it's not strictly prohibited, it's more about the attitude and treatment towards other people. The modern conservative attitudes lately have been focused around hate and discrimination of minority groups and foreigners. It's extremely hard to look past that and the other outrageous alt right views related to anti-vax, 5g conspiracy theories, etc. A lot of loud conservative figures have been pushing anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-womens rights, anti-poor regulations and this is not welcome here. This makes it hard to accept a conservative viewpoint.

If the discussion is focused around political views for the economy, government regulation, etc, and engages in civil discussion and disagreement, a willingness to attempt to understand the other person's view, and not resorting to insults or hate, then differing viewpoints are not exactly a problem. Anything suggesting that minority groups or other humans are inferior or don't have a right to exist or have personal rights and freedoms is definitely not welcome.

In short, it's difficult to say due to the modern conservative "hot topics" which dehumanize groups of people. Being conservative doesn't automatically mean you aren't welcome here but hate and discrimination are certainly not welcome.

I guess it depends on which conservative or right wing opinions you're talking about.

The traditional conservative opinion of smaller government hasn't existed now for 50 years. Reagan, Bush, and Trump all grew the size of government.

The conservative talking point of "states rights!" flies in the face of states who want safe and legal abortions, or equal access to marriage rights, or the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ+ kids actually exist.

Similarly if you're talking about the conservative push to make it harder for black and brown people to vote, and make no mistake about it, they are specifically targeting black and brown people.

Let's not even open the door to the fringe anti-vax or "election was stolen" movements.

So with all that conservative messaging off the table, what are you left with, honestly?

Differing opinions and perspectives, when able to be discussed rationally and with sufficient emotional awareness of others.

Arguments like, "my book says what you're doing is murder", "being who you are is a sin" leave no room for sensible discussion, and in many contexts amount to hateful conduct which is not welcome here. Remember that be(e)ing nice holds paramount, which puts a threshold on how heated arguments should get on Beehaw.

I've conversed and debated with conservatives a lot. While we might think the other is misguided in their opinion, we often have a productive discussion. Speaking in broad generalities, conservatives tend to believe in a universal, immovable moral structure, whereas liberals tend to believe in more nuances morality that works dynamically based on context and varies from person to person. It's not an easy barrier to overcome, but with some efforts from both you and your debate opponent it is possible.

Two things are important to me when I debate. First, I try to reiterate their argument so that I am not misunderstanding it before I say may own. Second, I highlight and clarify where specifically our beliefs differ and where they overlap. The reason I do this, is that I debate others not to just be a shouting match where the loudest opinion wins, but find mutual understanding even in disagreement.

We all need less stupid, bigoted, selfish, aggressive, and violence-supporting people in our lives.

Posts like this are why this server needs to bring back downvotes

I just don’t want Lemmy to become a echo chamber for any side and it seems to be that way when it comes to politics already.

a political space leaning towards a certain side is, naturally, going to be an echo chamber. i mean, couldn't i just call every right-leaning space a conservative echo chamber too? imo, we need to stop perpetuating the myth that "neutral" spaces are normal, & "echo chambers" are some new bad thing that the leftists keep doing to shield themselves from information. when people call a group an "echo chamber", what they really mean is "a group that shows bias", & because it's natural for humans to show bias, most social hierarchies we form tend to naturally bias towards certain opinions too.

every group of humans, whether on the internet or in real life, is an echo chamber that reflects the beliefs & opinions of the most active users. there's always a majority opinion, & from what i've experienced groups that try to avoid their biases just tend to turn into places that feel completely unnatural to talk in, where everyone dances around eggshells what they truly believe but end up letting it bleed through anyway. & from the introductory posts that describe the spirit of this site, that situation the exact opposite of what this instance was made for.

so while it's not strictly against the rules to be conservative, & i don't think it's fair to say that conservative opinions are completely unwelcome on beehaw* (there are definitely conservative & center-right leaning instances out there so i don't think it's fair to ask about all of lemmy in the title), if you're looking for other people here to agree with you, well bad news - a leftist bias here will be unavoidable. if you choose to participate here, you just have to accept the fact that this instance is made up primarily of leftist users, & thus threads here always be naturally biased primarily towards leftists opinions.

The waters have been muddied. I have huge disagreements with conservatives... But it has never amounted to much. However, the past decade has seen a switch from "conservatism" to "alt-right maga scum". My friends who were not swept up in the Trump cult of personality and far right tribalism are fucked.

The problem with these discussions is that we seldomly use common definitions, which creates more heat than light. There was a strain of late 20th Century American conservatism that was rooted in fiscal restraint, loosely regulated free markets, and a privileged place for the nuclear family, civic duty, and the church as the glue holding (small) communities together. I'd vehemently disagree with most of these as policy anchors, but none of them are beyond civil discussion per se.

But here's the problem: this late 20th-Century old school conservative thinking has been thoroughly hollowed out and co-opted to the point it is now completely meaningless. (The last administration was neither fiscally restrained, family oriented, nor in any way tied to any recognizable New Testament 'love thy neighbor' teaching. Yet, modern 'conservatives' can't get enough).

Into these conceptual containers has been smuggled a toxic strain of (white) (Christian) (popular) nationalism ... some may use the 'F' word ... that is fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-science, intolerant, and is now emerging as violent - not just to vulnerable groups, which is a show stopper in itself - but to the whole damn country and democratic process. You don't debate people like that. You crush them at the ballot box (or at Gettysburg or the beaches of Normandy if it comes to it).

So (pardon the TED talk), I think if someone wants to show up and debate whether we should be running budget deficits in excess of 3% of GDP, or whether we are regulating nuclear power too tightly, or whether industry X should be privatized/nationalized, they are probably good (at least by me - I can't speak for others). But there is an understandable level of suspicion around the whole 'conservative' discourse, and if someone tries to smuggle ethno-nationalism, economic Darwinism, or bigotry toward vulnerable groups into the discussion under the guise of 'traditional family values' and 'fiscal restraint' ... they are going to have a tough time.

Depends on what we call "right wing".

I keep asking, and have probably asked more than fifty times over the last 4 years, what right-wing Americans stand for other than the "culture war". Why would someone call themselves a conservative/Republican if they are opposed to the Republicans' stances on minorities, stances on LGBT+, stances on gestures broadly at Florida, etc. What's left of the ideology when you take those things out, especially considering that the right has pretty demonstrably dropped their support for "fiscal responsibility", "small government", "anti-judicial activism", and "opposing the influence of Russia".

Most of the time, that question just gets ghosted. Like, over 90% of the times I've asked it, it's just been a conversation-ender. The rest of the time, the answers boil down to "my bigotry is more fine-grained than that". They're good friends with Mexicans and Asians and African-Americans, but hate Muslims. Or they're fine with gay people, but feel transgender people shouldn't exist. Or they love gay people and minorities, as long as they're all Christian whether they want to be or not. These folks call themselves Republicans not because they hate everyone the Republican party hates, but because they hate one (or a few) groups that the Republicans hate.

Depending on what you're calling an opinion...

No one is stopping anyone from opening their own instances, but the rest have the right to not federate if the content on that place goes against their own instance rules and personal beliefs. This is the good thing about the fediverse, you can choose the kind of people and content you interact with

There are greens, yellow, and reds. Greens agree with you, yellow may not agree but you can have a constructive conversation, and red are people who never will and will only double down and care little for evidence or logic. Angloworld conservatives are reds. They are fascist.

As far as I know Beehaw is not explicitly political. On the other hand I personally think common practices of some parties which can include spreading miss-information, fabrication, denialism, intimidation, trolling, and generally planning to disruptive are out of bounds. Just saying that can be considered as being unwelcoming to some people that call them selves conservatives.

They're not going to have the numbers to get any traction. Honestly, the bulk of the vocal conservatives are older and a bit brain rotted at this point. They won't want to learn or deal with something like Lemmy because it's not as easily out of the box on their cell phone yet, because there's not great app support. That demographic is almost exclusively mobile device users. Note; the above description is of your typical boomer esq white dude who you imagine taking a tik tok in his truck from a too low angle with wrap around shades on.

The actual alt-right and neonazis don't need lemmy, because they weren't really on reddit to begin with. The majority of them that are just on the surface of the alt-right are on 4chan, voat, and shit like that. Those that are a lot deeper are very tightly knit and on IRCs, telegram, onion networks; and are typically invite only or you need to know a guy who knows a guy kinda thing.

Conservatives have no need for Lemmy, they have their primary platforms still and can easily migrate. Reddit was basically all the leftist sphere had.

Are* and god I hope so. Protections from nazis are precisely why I came to beehaw.

I think a lot of the other posts covered my thoughts on the issue but I wanted to add something less about politics and more about lemmy itself:

unwelcome on Lemmy

There is no one Lemmy, it's a bunch of federated instances. You made this post on the beehaw instance. Some instances will have their own personality and rules, but if you don't like them, the beauty of the lemmy and the fediverse is that you can just create another instance. I haven't done a ton of searching yet, but I imagine that conservatives and right-wing personalities will carve out their own corner eventually.

That depends on your definition of conservative and right wing. Casual observation the last few weeks Ive been here, but this instance leans left. You wont get banned for trying to preach fiscal conservatism or having a religion here. Certain stuff may not make you popular either depending on what conservative ideology you're preaching.

Ive noticed the mods and admins here dont play the usual troll game. So any dog whistles, trolling, and bad faith stuff gets shutdown.

As long as it's not hate speech, doxing, etc, it's probably not off limits. But it's popularity will decide on the user base. I think it's sort of a techie crowd here and that sort of crowd tends liberal. But I'd say you can try and see what happens.

Hopefully.

Liberalism is also a right wing ideology.

As a self described leftist, I'm open to discussing almost anything in a respectful manner. I'm not going to shit on anyone just for have a different opinion, but I'm going to argue my viewpoint when I feel led to. And I'm certainly going to call someone out for being bigoted, disrespectful, or spreading misinformation. A lot of those things are not well received by those on the right and may make them feel unwelcome, but that's really not my problem.

Ultimately that's like asking if they are allowed on the Web. Lemmy isn't a singular thing or a singular community. It's lots of individual communities that can choose which other communities they interact with. There will inevitably be communities or groups of communities that are more insular and ones that are more open. I guess the real question is whether the eventual major communities that interact freely with each other include right wing groups or not. That'll be something that works itself out based on to what degree everyone else is willing to interact with them. Which seems to me to be an approach to these things that most people on the right often endorse. If in this case it happens to leave them on the outside of the mainstream dialogue looking in then they should probably do some self-reflection about why their participation is undesirable.

Yes, they are completely unwelcome. Anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is immediately labeled a “fascist” as as justification to dunk on them. Doesn’t matter how civil or well-argued their opinions are. Don’t believe me? Just wait a few hours and then look at the responses to this comment.

If you care AT ALL about fairness and balance of opinions, then this is absolutely not the instance for you.

I've been a fence sitter and contrarian for most of my life. As a person that hates how both parties operate and I firmly believe that structural and systematic changes need to happen to the US system of governance. For that to happen we need those that have conservative viewpoints in order to create a balanced system in which we all can live in. It's disconcerting to see the vitriol espoused from both sides of the (US) political spectrum. It's feels like a pendulum swinging wider and wider threatening to throw itself off.

I'm a firm believer to the Forward Party's thesis that a minority of voters is now dictating policy being done to the detriment of the majority. I believe that the system allows for bomb throwers like Lauren Boebert to exist because she only has to represent a vocal minority. I believe that dark money from superPACs is manipulating public discourse to the point that rational discourse is almost impossible.

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are those that believe in the old guard republicanism and conservatism, the small government and fiscally conservative ideals/planks. We should allow those voices to speak up if only for forming ideas and policy that the majority of us can accept. I don't know, it just feels that as we grow more divided in our politics the harder it will be to create new polices and visions for a better Country. The adage from Clausewitz always comes to mind, "war is a continuation of policy by other means."

So, I commented earlier about why right-wing opinions are trash in general, but I realized that I never addressed the meat of your question, which was: "Are[sic] Conservative/Right-Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?". Which, I've gotta say, is an incredibly stupid fucking question. Lemmy is a federated space, which means that anybody can set up their own server, with their own rules, and be part of the wider "Lemmy". A much better question, since you're posting on beehaw.org is: "Are Conservative / Right-Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Beehaw?", which is answerable based on knowledge of the administrator(s) of Beehaw.

But, really, any fascist dipshit with a spare server and an internet connection can start their own Lemmy instance, and they'd fucking love your stupid fucking Right-Wing Opinions.

So, in short, your question is stupid, and your opinions are trash. Thank you, and goodnight.

Lemmy seems to like the idea of using PT and Bikes, technically that is conservative.

Same with giving up suburbs, the old ways of living in dense cities is technically conservative lol