Don’t judge what a tankie or Nazi is by insults on the internet, hyperbole and bullshit rule.

Words are defined by common use. If the common use of the word “tankie” is to throw it at people who oppose war, then that’s what it means now. You can say it’s defined as being pro- war, but I’ve never seen it used that way.

Back in the day when word originated they loved the T-34 tank and Russia in WW2 and so on.

Well sure, WWII is basically the go-to example of a necessary and justified war. There was a time in my life when I labelled myself as a pacifist and the counter-example that everyone always brought up was WWII.

At that time, my position was that that was one exception from like 70 years ago and we shouldn’t make a rule from the exception considering how many unjustified wars have been fought since then. Now, my position is a little bit more flexible and moderate to account for that and a handful of other cases: now I say, “no war but class war,” and WWII was a class war.

However, my position hasn’t actually changed much in practice since those days. The vast majority of wars and violence are systemic and fought for bourgeois interests, so I still oppose them. Only very rarely does violence happen in the opposite direction, for example if we compare the death tolls of Luigi Mangione to Brian Thompson.

And what do you think the “tank” in “tankie” comes from?

It comes from accusing people who oppose war of supporting the other side’s tanks, as I just explained to you in my previous comment.

Name one piece of misinformation I posted. You’re just lobbing baseless insults again.

Having a different ideology or perspective from you is not misinformation. I said nothing that was factually inaccurate.

Not my fault this is the only level of discourse y’all are capable of. I tried to have an intelligent conversation with you, you just started slinging random insults based on nothing.

But you don’t.

Yes I do.

You subscribe to a pro-war, pro-colony ideology

And you poop out of your mouth, see I can make shit up based on absolutely nothing too.

You’re thinking of social democrats.

Non sequitur.

Case in point: Anyone who wants to stay out of conflicts automatically supports Russia. My actual reasons and motivations are totally irrelevant. Thank you for proving my point.

You’re thinking of liberals.

Not everyone the term was or has been applied to supported them. But regardless, they still used whatever influence they had to push for fewer tanks.

If I’m an American and I’m out protesting the Vietnam War, and I say that we should end the war and stop building tanks, and that the Vietnamese communists were justified in rising up against the colonizers, does that make me pro-war? Does it make me pro-tank? Is the “peaceful” stance the one that says the Vietnamese were not justified so the US should stay in the war? That’s nonsense.

But that’s the exact same logic you’re applying here and everywhere else. If someone supported peace and deescalation with the USSR during the Cold War, then they’d be accused of supporting or not sufficiently condemning how they handled the Hungarian uprising. If someone opposes the war in Ukraine, they’re accused of supporting or not sufficiently condemning Russia. If someone opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were accused of supporting or not sufficiently condemning 9/11 and Al Qaida. And so the peace advocates are always depicted as being violent, and it works the exact same way every single time. War is Peace.

At this point, I accept that it’s always going to happen that way and that I’ll always be “the bad guy” for opposing war. I used to be a “terrorist sympathizer,” now I’m a “tankie” in another ten or twenty years, I’m sure I’ll be some other horrible thing. Who cares.

Actually, I do. That’s completely consistent with my point.

The people who coined the term wanted to take a more aggressive approach to dealing with the USSR. They were particularly concerned that tensions might deescalate due to the change of leadership from Stalin to Khrushchev and the explicit foreign policy approach of “peaceful coexistence” with the West (contrary to some strains of communist thought that had called for expanding the revolution to other countries). Those in the West who supported deescalation and refused to take a hard line in support of the Cold War were labelled as “tankies” for their insufficient hawkishness.

The Western leftists and peace advocates the term was created to condemn obviously had no control over the policies over the USSR. To the extent that they could influence the policies of their home countries, they pushed for deescalation, for building fewer tanks. It was the “anti-tankies” who wanted more tanks, as they always do.

Yes, that’s why “tankies” are generally opposed to building and deploying tanks, moreso than just about any ideology short of pacifism. Certainly moreso than liberals are.

But tankies oppose nearly all wars.

The word “isolationist” doesn’t exist in the vocabularies of most people around here. It doesn’t really matter why I disagree with US military interventions, the fact that I do means that I will inevitably be labelled tankie or a Russian bot. So you might as well ignore it, or love the word instead, cause you ain’t done nothing if you ain’t been called a Red.

Besides, I’m not wholly an isolationist. I have no problem with trade or foreign aid, so long as it isn’t military aid. More accurately, I’m a dove. But “dove” doesn’t exactly work as an insult. Some liberals even like to imagine that they’re doves, unbelievably.

But again, liberals don’t recognize that perspectives like “doves” or “isolationists” exist. You either follow the narrative of the media and politicians, or you get thrown into this big lump of Bad People™ with zero distinctions regarding why you disagree with them.

Exactly.

There’s only one war worth fighting and that’s the class war. Everything else is just throwing lives away for nothing.

Really? Because I’m always calling for staying out of conflicts and dramatically reducing the military budget and people are constantly calling me a tankie because of those stances.

See, if you don’t want war, it means you support the other side, and however bad “our” side is, the other side is always worse and more aggressive (the media says so, after all) and that means that anyone who’s pro-peace is actually pro-war, freedom is slavery, etc.

So it was when I said we shouldn’t invade Iraq and Afghanistan, it meant that I was “a terrorist sympathizer” and “pro-Al Qaida,” and when I say we should stay out of Palestine, people say I’m “pro-Hamas” and when I say we should stay out of Ukraine people say I’m “pro-Russia” and a “tankie,” and if I don’t think the US has the right to kidnap heads of state I’m “supporting dictators.” Consistently advocating against the use of tanks is essentially the defining characteristic of a “tankie.”

They don’t care who “wins”, they profit off of the war itself (and the rebuild for that matter).

Then why would they love tankies, some of the only people who consistently oppose them building and using tanks?

Make their jobs hell and fewer people will want to do it, duh.

Wtf is this bullshit, like should we show up with a fresh cup of coffee and donuts for the ICE agents so they don’t “make a mistake?” Fluff their pillows and tuck them in to make sure they get a good night’s rest? We want them to be stressed out, tired, prone to mistakes and outbursts. They kill us when they’re calm and well-rested too.

Banging your drums all night outside an enemy encampment has been a tried and true strategy for thousands of years.

or what happened with Tibet

Colbert at Bush’s correspondence dinner:

The greatest thing about about this man is that he’s steady, you know where he stands. He believes the same thing on Wednesday that he did on Monday… no matter what happened on Tuesday.