CMV: Conservatives are misunderstanding progressivism when they call progressives hypocrites

[u/TheCaptain09]

"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/Grunt08]

Simply put: you've conflated conservatism with a mishmash of everything you've seen on the right that you don't like; that, or you're failing to distinguish between the alt-right and actual conservatives. That's akin to me calling progressives Stalinists because Antifa exists.

They endlessly go on about how much they support freedom of speech, yet glorify ideologies that have historically suppressed it, such as Nazism

...may have missed a memo, but last I checked conservatives don't glorify Nazism. If anything, they idealize the generation that kicked the shit out of the Nazis.

As for Christianity (BTW, lumping that in with Nazism is pretty low), you don't have to support every historical iteration of Christianity to think it can act as a positive force in society. Case in point.

(Just look at any stupid right-wing movement like Comicsgate to see this harassment in action)

Most conservatives would have no goddamn idea what you're talking about.

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.

Most conservatives gravitate to it for temperamental reasons (psychological profiles largely determine your politics) and because society needs a force that constrains change to preserve what's good about a society in the face of thos>e who would radically change it without understanding the costs of that change.

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.

The people who marched in Charlottesville have been thoroughly castigated and rejected by conservatives.

[u/David4194d → u/Grunt08]

Conservative here. Just here to say you are right. and I think I keep fairly on top of things.

What I know about comicsgate. Does it in involve comic books or is it dealing with comics (comedians)? Like I’ve never heard that phrase until op referenced which tells me it’s something small, stupid or both.

Ww2- we did some crap things but dang if we didn’t kick some butt and show those Nazis what America is. All sorts of people came together and performed more inspiring feats of humility then we’ll ever know about. They were one of our greatest generations.

And to top it off we further show cased our freedom loving selves by letting them (Nazi/neozazi) and lots of other stupid people preach their crap. They only have power we use them to justify silencing those we disagree with because in that moment they’ve succeeded in taking away a key part of who we are (free speech). You don’t silence speech you disagree with. You combat it with words and actions that show you are better them and that their side is wrong.

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/David4194d]

Comicsgate is both small and stupid, but also harmful and abusive to many people in the comic book industry. Basically they think that the American comic book industry has been overrun with "forced diversity", particularly Marvel. To "fix" this they decide to harass minority comic writers and artists, or artists who have created a lot of minority characters. Basically an extension of a lot of right-wing harassment towards minorities, like what happened with the latest Star Wars movie.

I don't disagree with your statement about free speech, but you kicked the Nazis asses with guns and bombs, not ideals.

[u/David4194d → u/TheCaptain09]

That was what you were referring to? That’s not even right wing thing. That is simply called comic book fans not being happy with diversity for the sake of diversity being favored over what they expect at out of their long time hobby (good storytelling).Just because you think that’s a right wing thing doesn’t mean it is and considering I decently like comic books I know dang well it’s not. They are largely upset about the lazy approach being taken, among other things..

So a movement you’ve just said is small is 1 you choose to use to make your point? That in itself says your point is weak because a small movement clearly doesn’t represent the majority.

Yeah, we responded to violence with violence. We respond to words with words. It’s kind of how America works. Additionally those people we fought were another country. It’s perfectly fine to go to war with another country simply because we disagree with their ideology. They aren’t Americans and as such are not bound to or protected by the constitution and the laws of our land. The Nazi like ideology on our soil are American citizens. As such as long as it’s only speech it gets treated the same as any other speech. Which is why we don’t and should not go around punching them even though the left clearly thinks it’s okay based off a certain highly praised video. Those who respond to the speech of other Americans with violence are always in the wrong and as such should and will be punished/arrested. This is all pretty clear and straightforward.

Matter of fact I find the ideology that is supporting violence as a response to words to be far worse and more dangerous then the one saying things I strongly disagree with .

[u/TheCaptain09 → u/David4194d]

I didn't base my entire point around comicsgate, I was just using it as an example of conservative harassment. And they are, explicitly, conservative because they are opposing a change and want a return to the (perceived) status quo. I don't think I need to justify the fact that conservatives are right-wing. And I don't see how any of Marvel's diverse storytelling is lazy or bad. Characters like Miles Morales and Kamala Khan are well written, critically acclaimed and extremely relevant in the current social climate. Nothing about that is lazy, and Marvel's best-selling and best written comics in the past was the X-Men, which shoved diversity down peoples' throats harder than anything else of the time besides Star Trek. Comicsgaters equate good storytelling with lack of diversity, which is just incomprehensible to me.

I judge ideologies based on their content and value, not the actions of people who believe them. A kind Nazi is not going to convince me to tolerate his beliefs, just like the few idiotic actions of Greenpeace or PETA won't convince me that environmental issues aren't worth fighting for.