Summary
Protests erupted in Georgia after the government suspended EU membership talks, sparking two nights of clashes with police in Tbilisi and Batumi.
Demonstrators accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party, linked to Russia, of election rigging and undermining democracy.
President Salome Zourabichvili joined protests, condemning police violence and the government’s stance. The EU had conditioned Georgia’s candidacy on reforms but suspended the process over anti-democratic laws.
Georgian PM Kobakhidze criticized EU “blackmail” and rejected grants until 2028, fueling accusations of authoritarianism and pro-Moscow policies. Tensions highlight Georgia’s volatile political trajectory.
Disagreements and getting downvoted are one thing, been there, done that. Getting that amount of downvotes in that short a time-frame with no other interactions anywhere on lemmy is a whole different game. It may be their actual convictions, it may be deliberate shit-stirring, in any case it’s not a net positive for the overall community, community needs common ground.
Also those opinions could’ve been expressed in ways less… tendentious. Things like “incapable of self-governance” are ban-worthy bigotry on their own, at least in my book. Plenty to criticise about Iran, the actual people isn’t among it. Iranians by and large are vastly more sane and liberal than their government.
Might that person have something valuable to contribute? Possibly. They should have done so instead of speedrunning a ban, then they could have contributed it. Probably a throwaway account anyway.
Yes I know, when all else fails it’s “what’s good for the community”. Oh well, thank you for bothering to make the case for the ban, I understand your points but really do wish more people saw that the splintering into ever more siloed “communities” where no one is seriously challenged (and consequently the lack of common spaces for exposure to radically different perspectives and the challenging of one’s own) is part of what’s wrong with the world right now.
The more you hear your own views echoed back at you on a regular basis, the more shocking it becomes when you suddenly read something radically different and the harder it is for you then to come to any sort of rapprochement with the other. This is noticeable everywhere today, left and right, sadly also quite a lot in “liberal” spaces, leading many to think that liberals have become intolerant of anything other than the smell of their own farts. Where is this leading us? Nowhere good I think.
So perhaps we should seek to challenge bans by default rather than find justification for them. I reflexively tend to scrutinize the censoring of posts and people for that reason. And do wish more ‘heretical’ viewpoints were allowed in here. It’s not like “neocon” (it’s in the name, so hardly a troll) expressed any fringe or criminally insane views or like he attacked other users. Ah anyway, why do I bother I do not know, it’s probably already too late. Sometimes I feel like I am trying to bring the world back from the brink of collapse. It is easier to let it slide.
Don’t get me wrong if they had those opinions and also posted other things, generally engaged with the community, was a part of it, I would be much more critical of a ban: It’d be shutting down conversation, as you say. But giving that kind of leeway to people who are doing, essentially, drive-by shootings effectively also shuts down conversation: People aren’t going to engage in earnest with that kind of thing, that thing being allowed would set precedence and sooner than later everyone’s on motorcycles taking strafes at each other. Can’t talk to people who aren’t willing to sit down for a beer, can’t talk to people who don’t engage in good faith, can’t talk to people who come barging in with a megaphone in hand. Paradox of tolerance, Nazi bar, and all that. It’s much less of a fickle balance than many (especially US) liberals assume.
