Lumelore (She/her)

Two kids were playing catch with a milk carton to see who it would burst on. One kid missed and it hit me and burst. I was blamed for it and the teacher tried to make me clean it up no matter how much I explained that I didn’t do anything wrong. Fortunately, those two kids owned up to it and they cleaned it up but the teacher was super upset about it and still insisted it was my fault. Idk if she had some sort of vendetta against me or if she just couldn’t accept that she was wrong and doubled down.

I used to use a chain one and then I switched to a local one and I pay half as much as I used to.

Please use local drug stores. The chain stores are absolutely ripping you the fuck off.

Hate, insecurity, intolerance, and ignorance are the foundation of their ideology. I’m not proud of myself at all for this, but I got sucked into the pipeline when I was a young teen. However I am proud to say that I did fortunately manage to pull myself out of it and I’m now a socialist.

While I hate that I got sucked in, it does give me a lot of insight into why they are the way they are. They start by targeting common insecurities which they use to lure people in, and then they feed them lies while appealing to those insecurities. For example, I remember being a lonely teen and watching mgtow 🤮 videos and the gist of the videos was that if you joined their “movement” that you would get laid all the time, and of course that video was ridden with a shitload of misogyny and lies. Then from there it snowballs into more and more hatred and lies.

Conservatives are just sad, narcissistic losers who are incapable of understanding that people need to lift each other up rather than putting each other down. That’s why conservatives like to brag, because they think putting others down is how they get lifted up.

Being knowledgeable is a good defence against their tactics since their lies become obvious and it quickly becomes evident that they are fools.

I think most people interpret that shorthand literally just like I did, which then immediately turns them away. You could probably save yourself a lot of arguments by coming up with a different shorthand that more effectively communicates your point.

When I hear marxists say that all property should be collectively owned I imagine that means personal property as well, because if it doesn’t then it’s incorrect for them to say that they think all property should be collectively owned.

I think people should be able to have personal property. They should own their house and their yard. If they have a cabin up north, vacation home down south, or acres of wilderness that they hunt on, they should be able to own that too. I understand that the housing market is shit rn but I think that’s caused by flippers and the wealthy treating houses like stocks, and not by your neighbor Bob having a cabin or whatever.

Really I prefer the label of being a left leaning pluralist instead since it makes it clear that I am tolerant of varying ideologies but intolerant of extremism and political violence.

I’ve read a bit about Marxism-Leninism before because I like to be knowledgeable about different people’s viewpoints and ideologies. I agree that the workers should have ownership of what they produce and that products should be produced based on need and not profits. I also believe that we should flatten society’s hierarchical structure as much as possible since positions of power lead to abuse, however I don’t think it’s feasible to fully flatten it, because criminals still exist and I can’t think of a way prosecution would work without hierarchy. However, I do not believe that all property should be collectively owned and that is a turn off for me. Now that’s not the only thing that turns me off, but it is one of many.

I understand that we share several viewpoints but we also have several views we disagree on and I think that’s okay. I am extremely dubious of Marxism-Leninism because I have seen Marxist-Leninists support authoritarianism and deny genocide, but as long as you don’t, I’m chill. People are allowed to have their own opinions and as long as they aren’t harming anyone, again I’m chill with their existence. Generally I don’t talk about this, but I am Pagan, and with that comes the belief of pluralism which I apply not only to religious beliefs but also politics as well.

So I’m cool with socialism, and I consider myself to be socialist, but I don’t think communism and socialism are the same thing. I believe that communist countries have a communist system, not a socialist system. If they did have a socialist system, then they’d be socialists, not communists.

And what I’m saying about the trade unions is that I’m not against the existence of communist trade unions but I’d like there to be trade unions of other political ideologies as well, such as socialist ones, anarchist ones, etc.

I’d like to exist in a world where borders don’t matter and there aren’t any foreign governments trying to sabotage each other, but that’s not the state of reality today and idk if it will ever be, but I base my position on non-citizens being unable to vote based on the reality of what the world is today and if the world changes, then I’ll probably change my position as well, but I don’t see change like that happening in my lifetime.

I support immigration but allowing non-citizens to vote seems like an easy way for foreign governments to swing elections in their favor.

Yes, I get that the trade unions were their own thing but that doesn’t mean they can’t also be communist.

???

Several things in there I dislike:

Raising hands does not seem like an accurate way vote. Peasants who employed labor couldn’t vote. People could vote even if they weren’t citizens. No mention of being able to vote for non-communists. There are trade-unions and other candidates but it doesn’t mention their political alignment

That’s not even remotely true.

Here is what wikipedia actually says

The number of deaths and the extent of bloodshed in the square itself have been in dispute since the events. The government actively suppressed discussion of casualty figures immediately after the events, and estimates rely heavily on eyewitness testimony, hospital records, and organised efforts by victims’ relatives. As a result, large discrepancies exist among various casualty estimates. Initial estimates ranged from the official figure of a few hundred to several thousand.

When the instance I’m on was still federated with hexbear I did go and check them out to see what they had to say and with my own two eyes I saw people there denying the tiananmen square massacre and claiming that North Korea is a free and prosperous nation. Not to mention that when visiting other instances, such as the one I’m on, many would be extremely rude, which is why they got defederated.

Things like the denial of the tiananmen square massacre or claiming that North Korea is a free and prosperous nation, both of which I have seen with my own two eyes on hexbear.

While I am not an anarchist, generally I am cool with them. Who I am not cool with are Marxist-Leninists, which are authoritarian.

From the wikipedia article on Marxist-Leninists:

In the words of historians Silvio Pons and Robert Service, elections are “generally not competitive, with voters having no choice or only a strictly limited choice”. Generally, when alternative candidates have been allowed to stand for election, they have not been allowed to promote very different political views.

Ok that does seem correct. I’ve just always heard from others that it was the tainanmen square massacre that gave them their name.

I really don’t think they are a left-unity instance considering that they get very upset and unpleasant to talk to if you don’t support authoritarianism or their alternative “facts.”

Like I’m cool with all sorts of different leftist viewpoints and I think it’s necessary that we support each other, but I draw the line at authoritarianism and rewriting history.

As far as I am aware, the primary difference is that tankies are authoritarian. They got their name because they supported the USSR sending tanks into Hungary in 1956. I’ve seen many express positive opinions towards China and North Korea while ignoring or denying things like mass censorship in both countries, China’s concentration camps of Uyghur Muslims or the fact that people and their families risk death if they try to flee North Korea.

I typically add a user note to all tankies I encounter or I just block them.

Edit: I originally incorrectly cited that they got their name because they deny the tiananmen square massacre (which they claim was either peaceful or non-existent). It is still true that they deny it, but it is not the origin of their name.

I’m proud of you for realizing something was off and correcting course. I know how easy it is to get sucked into that garbo. I got sucked in myself when I was a young teen. I genuinely don’t remember how I pulled myself out of it, but I’m glad I did because I’m positive my life would be miserable if I hadn’t.

You’re correct. I wrote that at around 4 am and I had a variety of other errors as well on my first draft, that one happened to slip through.