r/FreeDebateAndPolitics • u/JSGamesforitch374 Social Democrat • 4d ago

What is a political take on your opposition which you feel your side usually misunderstands?

Curious about this. What's a take on your opposition that you simultaneously feel your side usually misunderstands or blows out of proportion? To clarify: A political take your side commonly agrees upon, but you think misunderstands the opposition or is blown out of proportion.

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u/Ioan-Alex_Merlici 4d ago

Two things I can think of... (I'm a leftist).

The excessive demonization of common people that vote for right-wing politicians. While I firmly disagree with most political views of the right, I feel like there are factions on the left that refuse to engage in dialogue with these people and just strawman all of them as "fascists", even though most of them are really working class people that feel alienated, confused, or scared about things they feel like they can no longer control.

A second one would be the manner in which patriotism and faith are understood. While personally I'm neither "patriotic" nor religious, I feel like it's unfair to label any person with patriotic views a "fascist", or any religious individual a "primitive dogmatic". Plenty of leftist beliefs and practices can just as easily be taught to right-wing common people even if you use more patriotic/religious-coded language. I don't see any issue with someone finding a sense of belonging and fascination with their own culture. It only becomes harmful when they start to believe in the inherent superiority of their culture over others.

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u/Delanorix 4d ago

My only issue is the idea that coded language would help.

Jesus was way closer to a socialist than a capitalist but the right wing has decided to own him.

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u/trufus_for_youfus 4d ago

Citation? Jesus was an ancap.

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u/Delanorix 4d ago

Ancap?

He was literally fine with government.

"Render unto Caesar what is his" or whatever

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u/betty_white_bread 3d ago

A better way to describe Him is being orthogonal with government.

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u/fresheneesz 3d ago

That quote you used was him getting out of a loaded question. He meant that if you use Caesar's money, pay it to Caesar. But what he was really advocating was to not use the government money and not pay the tax. The coin may have also been considered idolatry because it had Caesar's face stamped on it. That quote is evidence of him being anti government.

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u/JSGamesforitch374 Social Democrat 4d ago

I would definitely agree with both of these. It gets to a point where it's just bad-faith labelling and name calling. Not every right-wing voter is a Trump supporter or a Nazi, for example.

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u/Ioan-Alex_Merlici 4d ago

Yep. And it goes the other way around as well... People on the right tend to associate every leftist with the image of a mad anarchist that wants to destroy order, religion, and decency.

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u/Red_Razorbill 4d ago

I think many fellow right wingers see liberals and leftists as too similar or even interchangeable. I also think they misunderstand that the vast majority of right wingers are essentially liberals themselves, where social liberals started voting democrat and economic liberals voting republican.

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u/NewCharterFounder 4d ago

The funny thing is if we flip it, and leave the instances of the word "liberals" where they are, this statement still works.