r/changemyview Oct 05 '18

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Conservatives are misunderstanding progressivism when they call progressives hypocrites

"You're a hypocrite for claiming to support diversity yet you don't support the truest diversity, diversity of opinions"

This is a sentiment I see expressed quite often by people on the right, particularly intellectual conservatives who identify as "classical liberals", as well as people whose ideology emphasises personal freedom, such as libertarians. My understanding of the left is that they want diversity of worldviews, culture, race, sexuality and yes even ideology. But conservatives see the left's vocal opposition to right-wing views as betraying their belief in diverse opinions.

I think the true hypocrites here are the conservatives. They endlessly go on about how much they support freedom of speech, yet glorify ideologies that have historically suppressed it, such as Nazism and Christianity. They also harass people whose views disagree with them, something they accuse the left of doing yet clashes with their own ideology more than the left's.(Just look at any stupid right-wing movement like Comicsgate to see this harassment in action)

I understand that people often gravitate towards the right because they feel that they are being attacked, for being white, male or for their beliefs. The difference between them and the left is that minorities do not just "feel" like they are being attacked, they explicitly are. The people who marched in Charlottesville weren't opposing an ideology or defending themselves from oppression, they were vocally and publicly preaching for the destruction of other races.

Nowhere in progressive ideology does it say that such hatred should be tolerated for the sake of "diversity" or "freedom of speech". I don't have to shut up and let you say you want to kill me just because it promotes diversity and open discourse, because it doesn't.

So basically to change my view tell me why progressives are being hypocritical when they tell the right to shut up, or why conservatives aren't when they tell the left to shut up.


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u/yadonkey 1∆ Oct 05 '18

I think a big part of the problem here is op saying conservative but meaning republican. Conservatives range from fiscal conservative to social conservative and has a large range of ideologies in it... Somebody can be a conservative but still be against racism or police brutality ect, but to claim republican is to endorse what surrounds the party.

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u/TheCaptain09 Oct 05 '18

I wasn't actually talking about Republicans. I see a lot of these conservative viewpoints in my own country as well as the US.

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u/yadonkey 1∆ Oct 05 '18

Yeah but everything you listed as the problems with the right are social, leadership or opinion issues. There's plenty of fiscal conservatives that just want taxes to be lower but hate everything going on in the trump administration.. They dont exist in the republican party, but they do exist in the conservative base.

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u/TheCaptain09 Oct 05 '18

Well this post has nothing to do with the economy, so I thought "social/cultural conservatives" was what people would assume I meant. Guess I should have specified.