Bernhard
Gold Member
I'm glad that here in Germany, we have a multi party system with proportional representation... so it's not so much a "if you're not on our side, you're on the other"... there are currently six factions in the parliament to choose from: Center-right, center-left, Green Party, moderate libertarian party, socialist far-left and populist far-right. To form a government, some of them have to team up to form a majority. And in the past 8 years, it were parties from either side, the center-right and center-left, who formed a coalition (rather than cooperating with parties from "their" side of the spectrum only).
It's increasingly less a matter of "left vs. right", but of "moderate against extreme" or a matter of particular topics ... if you care for environment and climate protection, the Greens are your party. If you care for tax cuts above all, it's the moderate libertarians. If you hate immigrants and believe in covid fake news, the populist far-right is your pick. And if you're a hard pacifist and pinko commie, you chose the far-left.
As for "social justice"? I'm kind of torn between being triggered by the BS some "social justice warriors" apparently spew, and disgust by how the right uses them to mobilize the ugliest sentiments in people, outright racism, misogyny and homophobia. I really don't want to pick a side in this mud wrestling... I mean, unless "a sane middle ground" is a side:
When it comes to "Black Life Matters", I'm all in favor of peaceful protests (and indeed I think most of those protests indeed were peaceful). But I can't agree with violence in the name of justice. Those who actually riot give their cause a bad name, IMO.
And "woke" criticism of racism? I don't see how taking it to the extreme, up to the point of claiming "every white person is a racist", will have any positive consequences. All it does is dividing people even more, by driving normal white people into the arms of disgusting right-wing racists. Because ... if you tell me "if you do this or that, you're racist", fine, I will do my best not to do this or that, because I don't want to be racist. But if you say "no matter what you do, you'll always be racist because you're white", I cannot help but respond "okay, fuck you hard, it cannot be so bad afterall to be racist". If you force me to choose a side? I'll have to choose the side of whites, just because I am.
That said, I do think we all should always critically examine ourselves and the way we think ... and be aware of the prejudices we hold, and try to overcome them. But that goes for all of us. When you're black and meet certain problems, it may often be because of racism... but sure not every time you're inclined to think that at first. And just like whites should be more empathic to understand why blacks are really fed up with the constant stream of racist BS they are confronted with every day, blacks should keep in mind that holding prejudices is only human, that it's a disease we're all suffering from and not limited to just one skin color.
