this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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Tankiejerk
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Dunking on Tankies from a leftist perspective.
A tankie is someone who defends/supports authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes who call themselves "socialist". The term originated from people supporting the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union. Nowadays they are just terminally online, denying genocides, and falling for totalitarian propaganda and calling such regimes "true democracies". remember to censor usernames when necessary.
Please be sure to obscure usernames on posts to prevent doxxing.
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"USA bad" should be the free space, because anyone with as little as half a rotten brain can identify that it's true - The US is a shithole. That does preclude conservatives, of course.
We definitely have our issues.
Mostly, they are the ones other places can ignore because they aren't the cultural battleground for the world at large. Not that I'm complaining, since we're not generally the physical battleground for the world at large.
Mostly, there's not a good culture of actually facing issues and processing them, anywhere in the world, outside of some spiritual practices. If you're someone who does do that, though, the US is the place to be.
You far overrate the importance of your country.
Not really. I'm not saying melting pots don't exist elsewhere, nor am I saying that somehow the US matters more because of the ideologies it (barely) holds. I'm just saying that the US is one of the largest melting pots, globally. But the ideas it holds are more important than the nation by far. Those ideas will continue to exist (and find another center) whether or not the US manages to be centered in them - for example, if the US is torn apart in the process of those cultural interactions.
But whether or not you like it - regardless of whether you think it's arrogant, that's the way it is, currently. And if that cultural battleground shifts to some other nation, or some other individual nation becomes comparable (there are plenty of ways that could happen), you'll probably also assert that they overrate their importance. And likely, some of them will, just as plenty of folks in the US do.
Edit: Also note, when I said
..that it's both because this is a cultural battleground, and because the issues manifest here. It's not exactly a "positive" statement.