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'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?

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.

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.

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.

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

is Conservative/Right Wing opinions completely unwelcome on Lemmy?

Yes.

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?

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

Very different things.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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