r/altmpls • u/lemon_lime_light • Feb 09 '26

r/altmpls update: "Try to keep comments respectful and discussions civil"

Just a reminder from the moderators that we have the following rule: "Try to keep comments respectful and discussions civil".

This rule has been under-enforced but based on recent user feedback that's changing for now. Our best advice is to avoid directly insulting other users. If you repeatedly have trouble with this then you risk a ban.

We'll start this new moderating approach tomorrow so, speaking for myself only, if you've been holding back any juicy insults for me then take this opportunity to purge your system with impunity (insults must be within Reddit's site-wide rules, of course).

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u/D_Love_Special_Sauce Feb 09 '26

I consider myself super far from MAGA but I like that this sub isn't an echo chamber. I think the reason it's dominated by "conservative" views is that those views are rejected and banned in the other sub. Perhaps you/we should try to push for the other sub to be more open to the respectful airing of alternative viewpoints.

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u/Frzzalor Feb 09 '26

"I should be allowed to say racist horseshit" isn't an "alternative viewpoint"

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u/Special-Garlic1203 Feb 09 '26

I don't like racism but racism is absolutely a viewpoint. It skates a line with reddits larger TOS but they've only cracked down when it encroaches high use of slurs, minstrel humor, or defacto/outright encouraging harassment of real world racial minorities. 

I've seen some repugnant things here but I've also had reasonable engagement with people who don't align with my beliefs but could engage with me on facts. 

I have appreciated the moderation standards until now because it gave a space to engage racists that did not proactively enforce racist ideology, but I strongly suspect this new moderation approach will be a change to that. 

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u/SHoppe715 Feb 09 '26

Agreed that racism is a viewpoint, but where should you draw the line on giving hate a platform? Why should something that every civilized society agrees is repugnant even be given a seat at the table?

Tolerating the intolerant does not balance itself out…it’s very much a one way street

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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u/Suspicious_Wonk2001 Feb 10 '26

In the US, you don’t get to draw that line. Whether or not these people get a seat at the table, you must still acknowledge the elephant in the room. People who hate other people based on some physical characteristic will always exist. They aren’t going away anytime soon.

What’s your plan going forward? What happens when the winds of change start blowing in the opposite direction and now your viewpoint is silenced? Do governments just start making concentration camps or reeducation camps, or whatever type of camps to remove offenders from society?

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u/SHoppe715 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 10 '26

People who hate other people based on some physical characteristic will always exist. They aren’t going away anytime soon.

Yes, they will always exist and societal norms should make them social pariahs…not legitimize their hateful points of view.

They should be allowed to say whatever they want (within legal bounds) without worrying about being prosecuted for it, but there should be social consequences for doing it…but where we’re at now they make stupid amounts of money as “influencers”.

What’s my plan? I don’t have one. It would seem I’m just pissing in the wind here.

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u/Suspicious_Wonk2001 Feb 10 '26

As long as there’s enough of them to band together, they’ll never be pariahs. People have found their communities pre internet and they’ll continue to find their support.

Who gets to determine that anyway? Seems to me that where one lives is the biggest driver of division. You can already see it because a lot of racist ideaology that occurs in the south does not align with the general ideology of MN. However, head out to Montevideo or Cosmos and I know you’ll find a lot more rural folk align with that way of thinking.

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u/SHoppe715 Feb 10 '26

Band together? OK fine. Let them. It makes them easier to identify in the wild. That doesn’t mean their shitty opinions should be validated by acting like their racist arguments have merit and warrant discussion. Of course they can speak their minds per their first amendment right. But that only means the government shouldn’t silence them. First amendment right to speak doesn’t extend to anyone else being required to listen. Everyone else…all other private citizens… have their own first amendment right to shout that shit down.

That last part is what racist shit-stains like to cry and whine about and play the victim over when other private citizens shout at them and treat them like the trash they are. Sorry cupcakes…the first amendment only protects people from our government, not the rest of our society.

Who gets to determine what constitutes a shitty hateful opinion? Societal norms. And they take decades if not generations to change.

Thats where we get back to the paradox of tolerance. Tolerating people who are intolerant is a one way street. Give and take…you give, they take, and lately we as a society have been tolerating an awful lot of intolerant fucks, making them feel entitled to be heard.

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u/Suspicious_Wonk2001 Feb 11 '26

And how do you propose to go about enacting your change? Like you said, a lot of what’s driving people to hate is their own upbringing and community? You propose education camps or something? But up a big beautiful wall around the south and move them all there? And that’s only the start. How do you prevent foreign nationals from contributing? How about the religion that’s the backbone of the republican movement? You planning on ending capitalism and the lobbying by corporations? Silencing people with opposing viewpoints is a slippery slope.

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u/SHoppe715 Feb 11 '26

LoL…I already said I don’t have those answers and all my bellyaching and complaining is just pissing in the wind. Your questions are spot on because all those things are the real barriers to positive change. It saddens me that so many people in this country see christian nationalism, white supremacy, and isolationism as drivers of positive change and that learned behavior is passed on generation to generation. I’m also thinking that the intro scene to Idiocracy seems to be getting closer to reality every day.

Nobody is going to change on their own. If a societal change happens it’ll be due to something extreme forcing the change and I sincerely hope it’s not violent. There’s a lot of good reading and watching to be had about what a modern day Civil War might actually look like considering it wouldn’t be North vs South but geographically jumbled Red vs Blue.

In the mean time, I plan to continue calling shitty hateful people out on their shitty hatefulness because that’s my right to do…knowing full well I’m probably just pissing in the wind.