BrainInABox

I mean we both know I’m talking about specific acts of political violence

Yes, which was my point. These definitions always have some implicit carve out expectation to allow the kind of political violence that the person giving them agrees with to "not count".

To be clear what makes it authoritarian is when it’s the state/government/leadership that is using acts of violence against citizens with political ideas that would threaten their power.

This would include collecting taxes, enforcing national borders, enforcing private property, all gun control measures, suppressing domestic terrorists and militias, implementing a particular voting system and then enforcing the result, conscription, and indeed, enforcing the concept of "citizen" vs "non-citizens" in the first place. But, again, you've cut out an expectation for political violence you agree with already.

And tankies get the name specifically from either defending or denying that specifically the Soviet Union used violence to suppress attempts to leave their union.

And here's yet another post-hoc definition of tankie that does not actually line up with how anybody uses the term. Or are you willing for me to ping you to chime in every time someone calls me a tankie for something that has nothing to do with the USSR keeping Soviets in the union (incidently, there isn't a country on earth that will willing let parts of it leave.)

and hexbear has decided accusing people of being anti-trans is their move, but those are simply strawmen, and really poorly constructed ones at that.

Sounds like you're a transphobe who got called out.

You consider tankies to be people who have actually dug into the sources and done enough research to come to their own conclusion rather than just accepting the cold war narrative without question?

If you'd actually read my post, you'd know my point wasn't about it being used "incorrectly".

people defending or denying historical acts of political violence. That’s what we mean when we say tankies are authoritarian.

Defeating the Nazis was an act of political violence, freeing slaves was an act of political violence, over throwing the feudal system was an act of political believe, driving out colonial empires is an act of political violence, enforcing property rights is an act of political violence, ceasing the means of production is an act of political violence.

See? This is exactly, exactly what I was talking about.

You consider tankies to be people who have actually dug into the sources and done enough research to come to their own conclusion rather than just accepting the cold war narrative without question?

No, but a lot of liberals consider themselves anarchists.

If you're one of those people who just considers "tankie" to be a synonym for "Marxist-leninist" then I suppose I agree, but I think the term is used too nebulously to meaningfully place on the political spectrum.

Not really, no. To a capitalist, all forms of leftism is 'authoritarian,' because they consider private property natural and oppose leftists 'stealing' in.

'Authoritarianism' just isn't a particularly useful term because nobody who uses is is ever actually categorically opposed to forcefully compelling people to do or not do things. They will always have a build in exception for what ever they consider to be 'legitimate authority', and what they consider justified authority will just depend on what political philosophy they ascribe to. So really calling the word just means "someone with a different political theory to me with regards to legitimate authority."

"tankie" is just the Zoomer equivalent of "commie" or "pinko"

I belive that I have more freedom in (unregulated) capitalism that’s not state backed

All capitalism is state backed, by definition.

Leftist purity tests have saddled us with Donald Trump.

If leftists had such power, maybe Democrats shouldn't have spat in their face. Turns out leftists don't want to vote for someone who considers not committing genocide to be a to purity test

I'm a Marxist/Leftist. There's no governments that I'd hold up as perfect ideals, but I'm fairly supportive of existing marxist aligned governments (well, not so much DPRK, but I also recognized the historical reason it's like that). I'm also relatively supportive of soc-dem governments that actually make some effort to follow their principles, like New Zealand or Ireland.

For being opposed to western chauvinism.