I agree on the “loadedness” of terms in the US. Liberalism on its own isn’t a bad thing, it simply means that the state does not want to interfere in basic things like trade or relationships. The US have redefined it into something more like Staliniism - this is nowhere near the truth, but they made it THEIR truth. This makes informed discourse in the US very hard - because just like newspeak in 1984 it removes the ability to communicate different ideas than what the establishment wants to be available as options.
For some reason your comment made me crave loaded baked potatoes.
But yeah, it’s next to impossible to have an intelligent discussion in the US. Not just because the education system is sorely lacking and anti-intellectualism is deeply embedded in the collective consciousness, but also because so many terms are so loaded that you can’t even use them according to their precise technical definitions without everyone assuming you’re exaggerating and hyperbolizing because vitriol and mudslinging are so much the norm here.
The inherently polarizing nature of a two-party FPTP electoral system is partly to blame, but so is the concerted effort the right-wing has made in recent years to discredit all political discussion by using all these buzzwords so disingenuously that they lose their meaning.
I think they did it on purpose. The whole projection/every-accusation-is-a-confession thing was a deliberate tactic to preemptively make anyone sound crazy who accuses them of doing the shit they really do, because they’ve already been so busy accusing everyone else of those things!
I have the same opinion regarding “on purpose”. The GOP has been doing this for a long, long time now while cooperating with evangelists, and if you look in from the outside it is pretty obvious that they want to keep their populace poor in education and money and use religion to keep them radicalized and anti-intellectual.
The dems either did not realize the game plan, or didn’t think it would succeed (the displayed hybris in the last decade lets me suspect the second option)
I agree on the “loadedness” of terms in the US. Liberalism on its own isn’t a bad thing, it simply means that the state does not want to interfere in basic things like trade or relationships. The US have redefined it into something more like Staliniism - this is nowhere near the truth, but they made it THEIR truth. This makes informed discourse in the US very hard - because just like newspeak in 1984 it removes the ability to communicate different ideas than what the establishment wants to be available as options.
For some reason your comment made me crave loaded baked potatoes.
But yeah, it’s next to impossible to have an intelligent discussion in the US. Not just because the education system is sorely lacking and anti-intellectualism is deeply embedded in the collective consciousness, but also because so many terms are so loaded that you can’t even use them according to their precise technical definitions without everyone assuming you’re exaggerating and hyperbolizing because vitriol and mudslinging are so much the norm here.
The inherently polarizing nature of a two-party FPTP electoral system is partly to blame, but so is the concerted effort the right-wing has made in recent years to discredit all political discussion by using all these buzzwords so disingenuously that they lose their meaning.
I think they did it on purpose. The whole projection/every-accusation-is-a-confession thing was a deliberate tactic to preemptively make anyone sound crazy who accuses them of doing the shit they really do, because they’ve already been so busy accusing everyone else of those things!
I have the same opinion regarding “on purpose”. The GOP has been doing this for a long, long time now while cooperating with evangelists, and if you look in from the outside it is pretty obvious that they want to keep their populace poor in education and money and use religion to keep them radicalized and anti-intellectual.
The dems either did not realize the game plan, or didn’t think it would succeed (the displayed hybris in the last decade lets me suspect the second option)