Saw some posts about .ml today and thought I’d jump on the bandwagon lol
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I think there is validity in the criticism that folks are quick to jump to mocking gay acts and the like as an insult when they feel the target is valid to attack. It circles back to the people you’re attacking will never see this, but those that agree with you will see it and realize you think this aspect of them is worthy of derision.
I kinda feel like Lemmy has been much more hostile recently. I don’t know if it’s bots or if I just post bad comments, but it makes me want to go back to just being a lurker.
As a relative newcomer, I’ve felt and read a lot of hostility on Lemmy. Reddit felt smug, but not unfriendly.
Disinformation only hinders the cycle. Misinformation if offered in good faith can cause hiccups but perseverance can overcome those and aid all involved.
Argumentation in bad faith helps nobody - it’s purely emotional vomit.
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
Missing the guy that uses Arch BTW.
It’s Bazzite BTW now
laughs in NixOS
Nix users are to Arch users what Arch users are to everyone else. We tend to be very loud about it.
Poor arch people. NixOS has a more passionate cult and gentoo is harder to install and FreeBSD is more rarely seen in the wild. The price of AUR
Whatever, tankie.
no u
I’ve been on Lemmy for over a year, where I learned that there’s some difference between liberals and leftists, though what those are, I don’t know. I also had never heard the term tankie before Lemmy. I’ve never cared to look any of these terms up though. Probably makes me one of them…
Yeah, I get called a tankie on the regular now, just because my user account is on .ml and I still don’t actually know what it’s supposed to mean. Apparently, I’m supposed to have political opinions on topics that I’m significantly more ignorant on than the people who call me that.
When the Hungarian workers revolted against the Soviet Union with demands like a minimum wage and the right to strike, Stalin sent in the army with tanks to put down the revolution. Many Stalin supporters said this was justified.
A tankie is one of those supporters who will make excuses for the use of tanks to suppress rebellion.
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In 1700s Europe the people in power were the nobility (the descendants of feudal aristocrats) and the clergy (the church). Their claim to power (legitimacy) was that God willed it, and also they had the biggest army (“ultima ratio regum”).
Liberalism arose from “enlightenment thought” and basically said that all humans are equal, therefore state legitimacy comes from the consent of the people, and therefore there should be a set of laws that guarantees everyone’s rights and gives everyone a say in how society should be run. Some subjects (such as religion) belong to a “private sphere” that the state has no say in and is therefore beyond politics. State power should be minimal and tightly regulated through mechanisms such as the bill of rights or the separation of powers. This ideology was the foundation of the US independence and the French revolution. The political thinkers most emblematic of it are John Locke and Montesquieu.
The people who gained most from erasing the special place in society of the nobility and the clergy (“abolishing the privileges”) were people who were rich but not part of these organisations, that is to say merchants and industrialists. Leftism was born out of the “social question” : everyone having the same rights is cool but the richer in society clearly benefit more while the poorer are unable to make use of these “rights” (for instance having the right to a trial does you no good if you can’t afford a lawyer ; or being allowed vacation days is pointless if you can’t afford to stop working). It is somewhat at odds with liberalism, because solving the social question might require to break some rules of liberalism (most notably state non-intervention, private property, and separation of powers). The most emblematic political thinker here is Karl Marx.
Some leftists theorized the state should be violently overthrown in order to install themselves as dictators and therefore solve the social question by directly redistributing wealth to the poorest. The most important of these is Lenin, who took over the government of Russia in 1917, turning it into the Soviet Union. However he soon died and passed power to Stalin, who cemented his dictatorship and took over a number of countries through military force. When some of these countries (most notably Hungary in 1956) tried to rebel, the Soviet government sent in their army. Thus “tankie” is an insult ― it means one who excuses the brutality of the Soviet government, or more generally the usage of force by a leftist power. It mostly means the same as “stalinist”.
Meanwhile, in the US people were divided on how much state power was acceptable to use. The democratic party used state power to fix the economy during the great depression (Roosevelt), then fight racism during the civil rights era (Johnson) ; today a part of society aligned with the democratic party wishes to use state power to fight sexism and other social issues, therefore being closer to the leftist view. The word “liberal” in US parlance came to mean those people, who today call themselves progressives, and the “liberals” I referred to earlier are sometimes referred to as “classical liberals” in order to avoid confusion.
I hope this clears things up
I wish I would have had someone like you as a history teacher in school. Back then we got a very brief and basic “here are the definitions of socialism/communism. These may sound good, but that’s just because you’re young, they’re actually bad. We’re not discussing why, or going into specifics.” I’m not sure the discussion even goes that far today in US schools, as most teachers like having a job.
Of course my gut reaction to this as a teen was to launch into my own “semi-tankie” anti-west, anti-imperialist phase. After a few swings back into liberalism, I eventually found a comfortable (if idealistic) ideological home somewhere between socialist democracy and social anarchism, but it was a long, bumpy, and confusing road there.
It seems quite a few on this site never made it past that angsty adolescent phase. They’ll tell you “tankies” is an insult, or a slur even, but I’m not exactly worried about hurting someone’s feelings with that when they openly call for authoritarianism and even support ethnic cleansing and genocides, as long as they’re done by countries or groups that have their approval.
That’s nice thanks. I’m nowhere near an authority on these subjects so I am quite afraid of talking out my behind.
All stalinists and maoists I met (very few) were contrarians like you describe, and enjoyed being provocative regarding sensitive questions like dekulakization or the Uyghurs. However I think there must be some kind of current trend in their favor, as maoism seems to be on a slight ascend. Perhaps this is due to a rise in Chinese soft power, as Xi Jinping presents himself as a kind of neo-maoist and reformers have been de-emphasized in Chinese media. Or maybe I just spend too much time on Lemmy lol
Now might be a good time for anarchism. It seems to me we live in a time where people refuse to believe in grand visions of a future society, where people are quite individualistic, and where leninist-inspired leftism has been discredited. But anarchism can offer local-scale and immediate improvement, respects the individual, and doesn’t have much of a record of human rights violations. All is needed is to avoid the term “anarchism” in favor of the phrase “what if there was no leader and we just took decisions collectively?” haha
I don’t think we can win at the word re-definition game. They’ll twist it into something bad no matter what we do. What we want is fairly called anarchism.
Sincerely,
an actual libertarian
P.S. fuck capitalismI agree with the sentiment but some practicality is needed. I think most unpoliticized audiences would hear a pitch about “workers’ self-management” but balk at “anarchism”. However the word is very good when some bite is needed.
I do think Proudhon messed up when he chose “anarchism” though, it already meant “chaos” long before that. And in the US “libertarian” was heinously stolen. In general words seem to have a very hard life in the US.
I was in a texas highschool until few years ago. The coach was also teaching the finance class due to teacher shortage.
At least biweekly he would freeze the class to talk about North Korea and say things like “Communists are more dangereous than Nazis.”
So it still goes on, but more aggressive now.
There are teens here (I’m one) so maybe we’re at least some of the people that “never made it last that angsty adolescent phase”. Although I’d bet that there are quite a few adults falling in to that category here too
I think your instinct there is correct, sadly
There is a simple test to determine if you’re a tankie, specifically.
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Did Tiananmen Square happen? Specifically, was it bloody, consented/orchestrated by the CCP leadership, and resulted in the deaths of unarmed civilian protesters?
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Was it wrong that it happened?
If both answers are yes, you’re not a tankie. You believe that oppressive regimes are evil regardless of which side of the political spectrum it spawns from.
Bonus points if you think Stalin was anything but benevolent. If you think his methods were “tough, but firm,” then you’re a tankie.
Oxygen tank, helium tank, water tank, slurry tank,…
Don’t forget sensory deprivation tanks! Oh and nitrous oxide tanks (my personal favorite). You probably shouldn’t combine those. Or maybe do, I’m not your dad.
POV: It’s 1902, the year before the modern tank (self-propelled cannon) was imagined
LEICHTER PANZERSPAHWAGEN
*PANZERSPÄHWAGEN
-
If you were a tankie you’d open your comment with a 7 paragraph on why you’re not a tankie, followed by a dissertation that would make a HD2 autocannon proud by deflecting so much
a liberal is probably your average usa democrat that is considered conservative by european standards
a leftist is anyone that democrat might consider too radical (like bernie sanders who, for a lot of leftists, might just barely be considered leftist)
edit: i’m being downvoted - am i wrong? i was under the impression that this was the difference between a liberal and a leftist
didn’t downvotes you, but broadly speaking the way liberal gets used by Marxists/anarchists, it’s referring to the people who still think we should have/reform capitalism. social Democrats are the left wing of that.
‘leftist’ is bit of a squishy term because it doesn’t actually distinguish people’s position on the political economy
Liberal is an actual ideology. A hallmark of liberal thought is that business can do things better than government. Leftist thought starts at capitalism is bad, and is much deeper than you think. Democrats of all types are liberal. The kicker is so are the Republicans. It’s one reason that Republicans are able to push the Democrats to do anything they want. They don’t fundamentally disagree on things.
the problem with left and right is that there is more than one dimension they’re being used in. for instance see the political compass.
also the most basic definition of liberal is unregulated. it doesn’t necessarily mean just economic. could be drug use or gun posession etc.
Even the compass is flawed, though it’s somewhat better than the linear representation. I feel like, though the average person may mostly inhabit a particular quadrant, the majority will have something they resonate with in at least one of the other 3 quadrants (even if they won’t admit to it, haha).
My instinct, though, is that we should spend less energy squabbling about classification and more on getting along and lifting each other up. Expressing that, though, will in itself earn you the label of either a “commie libtard” from the right or “not a real leftist” from the tankie crowd (which is pretty rich coming from them lol). It’s a game that can never be won.
Pretty decent description.
I was a liberal up until this year and I’ve been relative pretty hard but that also means I fucking despise the people who are hardcore haters of liberals. They’re on the right side, just need more pushing.
Liberal is used differently in different places, which causes a lot of the confusion. Kind of like how conservative sometimes means resistant to change and sometimes means regressive depending on who has adopted the label.
The oversimplified pattern that I see for a linear political spectrum, which is too simplified to be accurate when one gets into the weeds but easier to explain conceptually is:
Leftist – Liberal – Centrist – Conservative – Far Right
In the US liberals are called leftists by the conservatives who are actually the far right because our overall spectrum is shifted pretty far to the right. Centrists aren’t really in the middle as much as they are trying to appease both sides. Again, this is very oversimplified but when you hear that liberals aren’t really leftists they are basically saying that liberals are not nearly as far left as they claim to be.
For being so anti-US, tankies keep.on repeating the us-centric, capitalist rebranding where neoliberals, democrat party, right wingers who have no support for liberal principles of emancipation, rights and freedoms etc as libs. It’s like they want to surrender what leftists strive for and support right wing newspeak.
The right-of-center factions seem far more definitionally fleshed-out in the public mind. (In the US at least.)
I’m in my 30s, and a news and politics junkie (a very cursed special interest to have in 2025) and I’m still trying to figure out where the dividing lines are on the left. It also seems like right-wingers either get slowly pulled right with the Overton window, or just stay where they’re at for life. Whereas us lefties can have a tendency to hop around, trying on different ideologies like they’re Linux Distros.
There’s nothing innately wrong with that (unless you get sucked into problematic beliefs/behavior). We just tend to be perennially unsure about “correct” beliefs, which may contribute some to the division and the somewhat blurry lines between factions on “the left”.
It’s really worth taking the time to understand different political ideology from a historical perspective. And an especially important one, liberalism, is basically the water in which we swim, so it often goes unnoticed.
It’s common to try and put things on a spectrum and say this is left and that is right, but this form of reductionism really doesn’t match history or practice.
I came here for funny memes and shitposts. Now I’ve got to answer for choosing the wrong instance because apparently it is run by tank enthusiasts who we all hate for reasons I don’t understand.
It’s not hard to understand.
Dessalines and Nutomic, the two lead lemmy devs, think that Tianenmen Square didn’t happen. They think the genocide currently going on in China of that particular group of muslims (Uighyur or something like that, I can’t spell it right) is actually a social program for their own good. They think that Ukraine is legitimately filled with Nazis in their government and military and that Russia is rescuing the poor populace from their oppressors.
Effectively, China and Russia can do no wrong. Dessalines in particular regularly bans people from lemmy.ml who say otherwise.
The term “tankie” is in reference to the tanks China drove over people during the Tianenmen square massacre.
muslims (Uighyur or something like that, I can’t spell it right)
The term “tankie” is in reference to the tanks China drove over people during the Tianenmen square massacre.
It’s very telling the commitment people have to this conversation before they form strong opinions.
Left and Right are terms coined to easily differentiate between which side of the aisle you say in the French parliament and also which brand of American politics you were into at the time.
The left was championing the American liberalism that was coming out of the Age of Enlightenment and the Revolution, the right was …. Well the right.
Shockingly both sides didn’t actually care about people but rather their side gaining power
I say this because left and right are relative to whoever is measuring them, most on the left do not consider American liberalism to be the left anymore than an American liberal would think those on the left represent them.
Neoliberal means pro capitalist, but with a fe social safety nets. Neoliberal and liberal are often used interchangeably adding to the ever increasing list of definitions for liberal.
Tankie is pretty clear.
The whole liberal/leftist thing is… a bit manufactured edgelord wankbait.
I prefer Kegels exercises over Hegels dialectics
I prefer bagels
What about Hegel exercises or Kegel dialectics though?
Aren’t Kegel dialectics just queefing?
[Terrance and Phillip singing intensifies]
No u.
Actually, here is what you guys don’t understand about Hegels dialectics:
>
No u.
And then there’s some other guy talking about Lennox
The HVAC system you choose for your home is a big decision.
fucking auto correct lol. I’m leaving it.
Especially because it must be Free Software!
(No seriously, with HVAC systems often being “smart” these days, that’s my primary cobsideration.)
Made a non offensive meme here, got removed, then I saw a meme making fun of Christianity but it’s fine apparently
To be fair, some Bible verses are pretty funny
“I paid for my lady in dick tips” is glorious
What the hell are tankies?
Folks who approve of the authoritarian methods used to enforce their vision of the left.
Tank diplomacy was what the “auth left” did/does to maintain control.
So calling someone a tankie is a derogatory term for someone who espouses leftist ideals but also is down for some authoritarian action.
My understanding is that it specifically is a reference to the tanks at the Tianenmen Square massacre.
The tanks at the Tianenmen square massacre are an example of tank diplomacy, but it was the Soviets who did it time and time again when there was any sense of uprising.
Tankies were British communists originally, called that as they fell lockstep in with the Soviet ideology and the Soviets were the “tank diplomacists”
Some of the first uses of the term are from the mid 50s in relation to supporters of the suppression in Hungary.
It’s specifically a reference to the tanks USSR sent to Hungary in 1956 and the events of Prague Spring in 1968, though Tianenmen Square fits the bill too.
They just can’t help crushing someone with tanks.
a derogatory term specifically for the authoritarian Left.
but in all seriousness, i believe it’s a derogatory term for a communist
not all communists. Tankie is specifically for the authoritarian Left
That’s how people unaware of the diversity within left spaces use the term. Communists aren’t always tankies
Are you new here?
Edit: 2y6mo? Do you only read the nsfw coms?
As the political subs here are extremely one-sided, I mostly block them. So yeah, mostly NSFW.
Everyone I don’t like is a tankie
A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square.
only the Tankies.
I’ve never met a Hegelian on lemmy
I think I have… it’s you! 😉
Well I’m not Hegelian 😅. The opposite actually.
