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You have some grounds on principle but there also should be some level "obnoxiously poor taste" filter. This is a forum that values the ability for diverse perspectives to come forward productively and attempts to not censor for viewpoint, it is not an absolutist free speech platform. There are probably effortful and yet still glaringly pro nazi usernames that I would be very willing to defend. BigDickPepe1488 is not that username. It is a name that can only be constructed to be maximally obnoxious to some group of people, and the standard here is no more obnoxious than necessary. Being maximally obnoxious to people does not add to the ability for diverse perspectives to come together productively.
I don't disagree, I just don't like people maintaining the pretense of objectivity when it comes to rules and mods when that is simply not the case. And the case is instead that we are collectively adhering to some boomer social justice aesthetics that demonize a 100-year-old political figure ahead of everything else because we've seen a lot about that guy on TV.
It just seems so absurd in relation to how much people like chastising 'conservatism' for being 'progressive-liberalism just 10 years out of date' when the majority of people seem content to play by the exact same 'conservative' ruleset when they are in power.
The Motte, AKA Conservareddit. 10 years out of date.
For what it's worth, I've never claimed our rules are objective. I don't think rules of this sort even can be purely objective, barring someone building a text-parsing AI and defining the rules in terms of the text-parsing AI.
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Okay then, tell us why we shouldn't demonize Hitler? Because even eliding over things like the Holocaust or the near-conquest of Europe, if you take the most overly-charitable view of Hitler, all you see is a guy who riled people up, picked fights his country couldn't and shouldn't have, and then proceeded to lose so badly that he didn't even have the courage to face his people about the loss, let alone the wrath of two superpowers coming to tear down his government.
If anything, even National Socialists wouldn't (and didn't) want to identify with a loser, and there are indeed few things as bad as being seen as the loser by history. Even Confederacy aesthetics and revanchism from American Southerners is pitiable by comparison--Nazis only have copium.
Because Hitler was fighting for a truth that would in the long run reduce the amount of human suffering by a magnitude far greater than anything that has come after him.
That's not the most charitable view of Hitler. I am sure you can steelman Hitler better than that.
Why? Most National Socialists I know identify a great deal with flawed figures like Hitler and Goebbels.
Is this just 'boo outgroup' or were you trying to make a point? Because if you are trying to make a point it's not very salient considering all the losers of wars. I mean, I find the struggle of jews during the war far more pitiable than anything else. According to them they just lined themselves up to a slaughter house that was staffed by other jews who participated directly in slaughtering their co-ethnics because they thought it would buy them life. That's a level far lower than Hitler and friends banding together to fight those they think are their enemies to their dying breath in the name of their co-ethnics. You can argue that the result was the same but in that case I'd say that the option Hitler took displayed far superior moral character.
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To be fair, yes the Nazis lost, but they also won a lot. People are good at ignoring or rationalising the bad parts as long as the good ones are memorable enough.
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This seems like quite a thing to draw out of not wanting our standards for discourse to include blatant and known trolling names. Objective isn't the right word for what the moderation of this place is going for, which is consistently content neutral but tone policing. No one accidentally names themselves "BigDickPepe1488", I'd go even further than the moderators here in saying that the "BigDickPepe" portion itself ought to be disallowed but I have idiosyncratic feelings about the range of usernames that make me cringe which include many of the ones at use here.
No, actually I think we have pretty good reasons to dislike that political figure. Feel free to make an effort post if you think our opinions on him are wrong and blue pilled. But that's not even what is at issue here, we have rules about being unnecessarily obnoxious that such a name trivially violates, if it helps to appeal to equal treatment something like KillAllChristians would also deserve to be moderated.
I must have missed it 10 years ago when Hitler references were really big with the red tribe and blue tribe was barely censoring them.
It's not.
That's not the case. From Amadan:
Mods are not content neutral.
And we have a pretty good reason to dislike Genghis Khan, that doesn't mean we place him as a central figure for our moral compass. Nor do we constantly fret about potential Mongol hordes when someone erects a gigantic statue of the guy in Mongolia. In fact, most users have pretty good reasons to dislike what they dislike. But that's not the point. The point is that some likes and dislikes are more equal than others because of mod subjectivity.
You don't actually have specific rules on this, as the mods have said. What you feel deserves to be moderated has no relevance to anything since you are not a mod and the mods apply their rules subjectively. And though I am sure the mods would step in for something obvious like that, it's not the point. The point was that when there is ambiguity, the rulings are not consistent.
You are missing the point. The reason why so many lament 'conservatism' and label it as being '10 years out of date liberals' is not primarily because of the content of their beliefs. It's because of where these beliefs come from. It's because of the 'conservatives' complete lack of contextual awareness and understanding. These 'conservatives' don't know where their views come from or why. They don't see themselves as the end result of the culture wars of the generations that came before. They instead see themselves as being stalwarts in an ongoing battle that they are genuinely fighting to win. Instead of recognizing that all of their firmly held beliefs are just the undertow of those who are actually in charge. And that their 'conservative' inheritance is just the white flag of their predecessors.
We have specific rules, just not an exhaustive list of ways to break them. No stealing is a specific rule even if it doesn't explicitly state all the possible methods of theft.
I think maybe you're harboring the false belief that this is intended to be a conservative forum. It is intended to be a be a forum that takes all and encourages difficult conversations. In practice as conservatives lack many options for these conversations there ends up being many conservatives and conversations involving conservatives. But the fundamental values of wanting conversations like this are liberal.
In the same way that 'Don't piss off the admin' is a specific rule but not really. The actual rule is 'no symbolism or possibly implied meaning relating to sexism, racism, homophobia, or transphobia, and especially not any sort of neo-nazism in usernames'. But saying that doesn't meet the aesthetic preference of the mods. Kind of like how many 'conservatives' would say that they don't have a problem with gays getting married 'since the state shouldn't be involved in such affairs anyway'. Instead of just saying 'Yes, I support gay rights'.
The criticism of 'conservatism' I was referencing was referenced precisely because so many people who use this webspace levy it against 'conservatives', or are at least aware of it, when the topic comes up. I mentioned this because the same lamentable lack of self-awareness and context is just that no matter where it expresses itself.
I don't understand why you think I am harboring in a false belief about this webspace. The point was not that its users hold 'conservative' opinions. The point was that the mods are engaging in the pattern of behavior that, in a different context, many recognize to be lamentable.
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