Maybe it helps if you make explicit that this is not a tankie space, they are not welcome, even if you understandably don’t want a rule specific to tankies. Every leftist subreddit has been taken over by tankie mods and I don’t want that to happen here

Great response. Thanks for keeping things cool and professional, and respecting actually democratic values. I’m glad to see we had a great mod.

Edit: I don’t have any control in how you choose to handle issues in our community, I just react the way that seems most appropriate. That being said, I do want to find a solution here. I believe we should ban the behaviors of tankies, rather than leave it up to interpretation for what’s allowed. We have a few options here; I’d prefer we make a metapost on amending the rules to whether we should explicitly ban support for totalitarianism or ban tankie discourse.

I would certainly appreciate this. While I have significant problems with the pro-totalitarian ideology (I’m closest to anarcho-syndicalism - rigid hierarchy, trusting in a human with absolute power to act selflessly, and mass murder of dissidents doesn’t sit well with me), when they are well-behaved and the toxic behavior disallowed, they can provide great discourse. I would echo others in stating that vigilance against the comm being subverted for totalitarianism is important but, do agree that the other rules really should cover the biggest behavioral problems.

the community didnt vote on those rules though.

I live in a pretty big city that’s pretty liberal, and have never once met anyone who thinks like the typical poster on that instance. We did have someone who was spraypainting Stalinist statements in red across random buildings awhile back, but it turned out to be a woman who had encountered some mental health challenges.

That instance is crazy as fuck…they’ll drop pro-Putin propaganda and then claim to not like him, and they’ll completely ignore how utterly capitalist China has become while singing Xi’s praises, all while screaming “death to America” and saying Iran is a better model for society than any European country.

Tankies are absolutely real. I’ve met folks IRL who are pro-USSR-under-Stalin as a model for society. The excuse used is that capitalist countries have a very real history of violently suppressing any leftist government attempt. This, of course, ignores that such governments commit the exact same abuses and reinforce the very cycles of violence that they rebel against in the first place.

That instance, in particular, is not a bunch of RWNJs cosplaying though. That’s an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence and I think it is . With the size of the userbase, there would absolutely be at least someone caught bragging about it over the years. No. They’re just run by people who either don’t care about the toxic, divisive behavior, or actively encourage it (see: existence of the “dunktank” comm).

As for being disingenuous, absolutely. Those in power there are definitely authoritarian first and Leftist second, if ever and they condone users creating conflict with fellow leftists to feed their dopamine-rush cravings. Dissent or providing historical information that comes anywhere close to implying that the USSR, China, or Russia are not free of any blame are met with bans - as bad as r/con on that now (I caught a ban for stating that historical evidence does not support the claim that Finland is being critical of Israel due to anti-semitism and that Stalin’s invasion of the sovereign nation that had historically been oppressed by Russia was both unnecessary and could have been predicted to push the Finns to seek help from the Nazis to maintain their independence - and things about the Winter War and Continuation War not being black-and-white, or that Stalin was happy to divide up the world between himself and Hitler until Operation Barbarosa did not go over well either). They were on much better behavior when first federating but I don’t but their Leftist-unity or use of Dialectics anymore (it is impossible to exercise Dialectic reasoning when embracing willful ignorance and suppressing anything that could be antithetical to one’s thesis).

All that said, there are some good folks there that I’m sad to no longer be in communication with. People that, more often than not, I disagreed with but were great to converse with to explore the “why” of such disagreements and they did so with nothing but good faith. It is genuinely disappointing that there toxicity is allowed.

I just got banned from that place. I got into an argument about how even though Biden is a scumbag genocider, I think it’s morally correct to vote for him over the alternative. I got called a fascist, told I support genocide, told that if they knew me they would beat me and told that when the revolution comes I would be killed, and then they posted a emoji of a place were Nazis were slaughtered. When I tried being open and saying I was not in a headspace to change my mind right now, but that we are still comrades, I was then attacked even harder.

They told me that i should consider why my fellow leftists were being so mean as a sign that I should change. I asked why they were being so mean, it’s just a small argument about voting. They said I was Nazi scum who deserves to die and if I was really a comrade I would change my mind immediately.

I genuinely tried to talk to them still through all that. Albeit I was emotional. All I wanted was to end the conversation with a sort of show of solidarity despite our disagreements. I was then inundated with more threats and insults to my character.

Honestly I’m new to lemmy and it looked to be a safe space for leftists like me. I know I shouldn’t let it effect me, it’s the Internet after all, people are dicks. But I just had so much more… Expectations of that place. I really thought it’d be different. Instead I was torn apart and banned. Now I’m emotionally compromised for the day and couldn’t sleep. Unfortunate.

Do you feel the same way about applying Nazi to alt-right?

Tankie refers to a specific subset of people, those who are fine with oppression and authoritarianism, maybe not everyone on Hexbear are all tankies but it’s the Nazi bar problem and best practice is to kick them out.

“You guys are a hive mind! You’re not at all like the people who praise the dictator of North Korea, who expects his country to have a hive mind!”

I see SO much hivemind thinking here and the whole “tankies” thing is a great example of it. The people at hexbear (and all people who have been beaten long enough by capitalism to think that communism would be better than profiteering from death) are not a monolith just as the people who support that orange guy are vast and varied

And just as wrong. No one here realistically has a problem with communism. The problem we have is with authoritarian groups just as bad as capitalists. Calling themselves communist while not being communist in any meaningful way, shape, or form. Leninism isn’t communism. And would itself have to be overthrown via another revolution to even become communist.

You are 100% correct in likening tankies to maga’ts. But you are absolutely incorrect to claim that either group is simply tired of people being downtrodden. They just want to be the ones doing the trodding. Nothing more, nothing less.

And on the topic of hive minds and echo Chambers. You will find no bigger hive minds and echo chambers than those of the Leninist or the modern fascist right. I would have to borrow the hands of many, many people. To count on fingers the number of times when debating a leninist or fashy neo-libertarian. How often it turns out I’m simply debating their reading list and not their actual understanding of any ideas of any sort.

I think reading is great. Even if it’s Engles, Lenin or Rand. What’s better is critical thinking and understanding. Being able to recognize bad arguments, bad ideas, and fiction. I’m less concerned with who said what. And more interested in how it worked out. And so far it’s full blown fascist state invading their neighbors. Brutal oppressive state capitalist silencing, slaughtering, and harvesting the organs of dissenters to enrich the powerful in the state party. Really wanting to invade their neighbors. And a backwards nepo-state. It’s not a good, or even better record than most capitalist states.

Being fine with totalitarianism is not a defense against capitalism. It’s sinking to the same level, and it’s failing to provide a viable alternative. I’ll take the devil I know instead of violent revolution followed by a dictatorship with no actual plan to move towards said “utopia”.

Very dysfunctional if they’re not working together. I imagine OP is trying to drum up support.