Trump Watch

[Northerner]

5 hours ago, hashslingr said:

Northerner, what do you mean when you talk about the left? 

American perspective

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Left_Wing_vs_Right_Wing

British perspective

http://idontgetpolitics.co.uk/right-left-wing

 

Here's a nice little pic I found that makes it easier to understand

 

 

Taken from this article, which should also be taken with a pinch of perspective.

 

Edited January 24, 2018 by Northerner

[Halcyon Daze]

So Socialism and Fascism are both left-wing? Duuuuuude I think you're being pretty brutally mislead here.

 

 

Fascism

- A governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

 

Sound like anyone familiar?

Edited January 25, 2018 by Halcyon Daze

[paradox]

2 minutes ago, Halcyon Daze said:

So Socialism and Fascism are both left-wing? Duuuuuude I think you're being pretty brutally mislead here.

 

actually i think you are just not very well educated on the matter, like a loooot of people.

 

You know the Nazi's were socialists yeah?

 

Generally speaking the far left believe in larger, more powerful, stricter government while the right believe in smaller, less powerful government with an emphasis on individual liberty.  If fascism belongs on any end of that spectrum it is most certainly on the left.  Most people nowadays who preach about evil fascists have next to no idea what they are actually talking about.

[Halcyon Daze]

? Nazi's were rightwing as they come.

 

Look at a group's actions rathere than their words. Nazis also claimed to be Christian.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Halcyon Daze

[paradox]

dude, you need to get a hold of some decent books on political history

[paradox]

the word Nazi is a german abbreviation for National Socialism.

 

It's pretty funny how anarchism is generally thought to be aligned with the left, socialism etc.  Socialism & anarchism are pretty much the literal antithesis of each other.  anarchism is almost actually like a vision of a right wing utopia, zero government, individual liberty & voluntary association.

Edited January 25, 2018 by paradox

[Halcyon Daze]

Yeah, words and actions don't match.

 

You need to read a whole bookcase full of political literature LOL -Fuck thatt! LOL

Edited January 25, 2018 by Halcyon Daze

[paradox]

1 minute ago, Halcyon Daze said:

 

You need to read a whole bookcase full of political literature LOL -Fuck thatt! LOL

 

yeah, but if you want choose to have & act on strong political opinions or beliefs it's probably a prerequisite if you don't want to simply cause a complete mess.

 

but really, it's not that hard to read a few pages from a good source about the basic facts about the nazi party.  like.. this is pretty simplistic but the first two words on the Nazism wiki page are 'national socialism'

 

 

[Siggor]

There are so many movements and leanings on bothsides that their isn't a clear and concise definition anymore. 

 

Depending on the pages you visit and cognitive bias will determine your meaning of what is left and right. Does that mean a person definition is correct?

[paradox]

Of course not, the whole left & right nonsense is gibberish nowadays but being as literal as possible & according to historical definitions & some of the broadest understandings of what these two ends of the spectrum represent, fascism pretty undeniably falls well on the far left of the spectrum.

 

Contemporary socialists will strongly deny that nazism is anything close to 'true' socialism & they'd be absolutely right but they also say the same thing about every other socialist regimen in history. Nazism is just like all the other powerful socialist regimens that have existed in that it was corrupted by the whims of power mad psychopaths.

 

 

[Siggor]

fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum

 

From wiki if you want to get historically definitive

[Northerner]

Yeah, I don't know how they got anarchism on the far left either, makes no sense at all. But that is the perspective thing I mentioned at the time.

 

The ideas although being outdated in pure forms are good indicators for types of government and where they tend to derail unless kept in balance and check. We only have to look at the history of the latter years if the Roman Empire and we can see that they really weren't that different from our current "western empire". (for want of a better term).

• massive social handouts
• massive military engine
• population flocking around cities for easier lives, handouts and more entertainment
• pervasive currency and skill devaluation

these things lead to

• disparate wealth gaps
• enforced employment and career paths
• employing mercenaries
• hedonism and social unrest

As tax payer funded social control was exerted to enforce morality laws and high taxation people chose not to work anymore by entering legal slavery. It was much less stress as slaves didn't have to pay tax and only had to answer to their owners. They had no urge to pay to be policed, they just wanted to be free to live their lives on a day to day basis. Then the government needed increasing revenue to keep control, so immigration laws were axed. To be Roman you could just put your hand up and you got signed up. Come to Utopia and pay taxes, welcome to Rome one and all. By then the currency was devalued to the point that the mercenaries would no longer accept the Roman currency as payment for working in the military, gold or silver only. So Rome stopped accepting  it's own currency as tax. It needed bling to pay mercenaries to keep control of a population that had lost faith, but it was all gone... the handouts were over. Rome was kaput. Everyone just started to drift away and do their own thing, whilst doing their best to avoid the mercenaries who had then gone rogue as they weren't being paid and could no longer be policed.

 

This is the future of our civilization too, unless we stop the handouts, military expansion and moral policing.

 

[Siggor]

Very informative post North, I remember some guy that was modelling societies and what led to their decline, we have followed in every footstep so far, I don't know how far along the modelling system we are but I would assume it's close on the grand scheme of things

 

 

[paradox]

9 minutes ago, Siggor said:

fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum

 

From wiki if you want to get historically definitive

 

I quoted wiki to make the point that as unreliable a source of info as it is even the wiki page has the word socialism as the second word on the page defining nazism.

 

ie you don't have to read a whole library to find such basic information.

 

my whole point in posting in this thread was to point out that the widely spouted idea that fascism is a right wing phenomenon is blatantly false, even though it is taken for granted by the majority of people that it is so, including myself for most of my life. 

 

No no matter what side you identify with, anything you define as evil will be attributed to the other side.

[Siggor]

That's the thing there are so many leanings towards certain ideologies that there is no clear definition anymore, no matter the side.

There tends to be a biased definition on certain websites idontgetpolitics is one of them. Not saying that the other side doesn't have a bias either. Myself I would like to see all sides burn down to the ground it shouldn't be needed to run a society.

[Northerner]

25 minutes ago, Siggor said:

Very informative post North, I remember some guy that was modelling societies and what led to their decline, we have followed in every footstep so far, I don't know how far along the modelling system we are but I would assume it's close on the grand scheme of things

Yeah, we're pretty far down the track when you look at the time line. Well into the 2nd half.

People think of the fall of the Roman Empire as something that happened overnight, but it really wasn't like that. It was more of a social dissolution that happened over a very long period. The writing was on the wall for a long time before the government finally closed up shop. Even then people still lived in Rome for a long time after that before it was totally abandoned and decrepit.

 

4 minutes ago, Siggor said:

That's the thing there are so many leanings towards certain ideologies that there is no clear definition anymore, no matter the side.

There tends to be a biased definition on certain websites idontgetpolitics is one of them. Not saying that the other side doesn't have a bias either. Myself I would like to see all sides burn down to the ground it shouldn't be needed to run a society.

Spoken like a true Anarchist. 

[nothinghead]

8 hours ago, paradox said:

You know the Nazi's were socialists yeah?

 

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but here's some easy reading on that misnomer: Were Nazis socialists?

 

8 hours ago, paradox said:

It's pretty funny how anarchism is generally thought to be aligned with the left, socialism etc.  Socialism & anarchism are pretty much the literal antithesis of each other.  anarchism is almost actually like a vision of a right wing utopia, zero government, individual liberty & voluntary association.

 

It's not funny at all. All the big names of anarchism were hard-leftists, and anarchism emerged from far-left beliefs. It's based on far left beliefs, equality being the number 1 tenet of the ideology. You might be thinking of the unfortunately named "anarcho-capitalism" which has, above all else, faith in the free market and individualism. Anarchism, on the other hand, stands for mutual aid, self governance based on direct democratic decision making, and as much equality as can be achieved. If you want to better understand why anarchism is absolutely a leftist position you could start with Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, Bakunin's Law and Authority, Proudhon's What is Property?, Malatesta's What is Anarchy? (nice and short), and Goldman's Anarchy and Other Essays. You can get them read in a month if you put a few hours in everyday. 

 

6 hours ago, Northerner said:

history of the latter years if the Roman Empire and we can see that they really weren't that different from our current "western empire". (for want of a better term).

 

Actually the latter years of the Roman Empire were similar in some ways to the current situation, but not the ways you list. The fall of the Empire is still pretty hotly debated, but the debates don't generally revolve around the reasons you've listed. Some of the best accepted causes are things like:

- Corruption in the upper echelons, overspending on military due to overextension of territories 

-Which in turn left the empire open to raids from outside (Huns pushing Goths into Roman territory, Vandals and Saxons taking advantage of the weakened Empire etc.) 

-The spread of religion (specifically Christianity) 

-Heavy reliance on slave labour, which was what actually led to a widening gap between rich and poor (not handouts).

 

The whole handouts thing is a red herring. The percentage of our budget spent on "handouts," which means things liek aged care, care for people with disabilities, payments and services for veterans, family support like parental leave, etc. (the dole is a small part of it), is about 35%. I think we need to be looking at where the rest is going, and how valuable all the spending is. Also, "handouts" is a pretty vague term, so I might have misunderstood what you meant. 

[paradox]

i disagree, I think it's heaps funny.  It's funny how hopelessly confused these movements have become & I think some of what you posted is further evidence of that.  I have already read the post you recommended.. I am not thinking of anarcho-capitalism.

Everyone knows that anarchism is associated with the far left, that's what is funny. Pure anarchism is more closely aligned with libertarianism than anything else.. Funny thing is, I have in the past generally felt that libertarianism should be represented from left of centre. Honestly though, this whole mess is hard to take seriously 

 

We could discuss for months about what constitutes left or right but it remains that pure anarchism is more or less the antithesis of socialism in many respects. These contradictions are funny but I guess funny is subjective so I respect that you find it no laughing matter.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2018 by paradox

[Halcyon Daze]

That's some great reads right there hash. Thanks for that

 

I'm amazed by the whole handout complaint rubbish too, when you consider those receiving  America's biggest handouts were the oil companies, via subsidies.

 

Thankfully Obama took the bull by the horns and cut those subsidies and increased Americas oil production, to get them off their addiction to middle east oil. OPEC's monopoly was smashed and now OPEC 'reacts to' rather than 'steers' the global oil economy - THANKS OBAMA !   He really did some amazing things that no one ever thought possible in today's America.

 

As a consequence gas pump prices have stabilised to a much better price than the highs that were seen during the set-up phase. And they began coming down while Obama was still in the job too, so Trump doesn't even try to claim credit for that one.

 

If anything, Trump will buy into Oil and try to resume subsidies, thank God most Republican's wouldn't let that happen. There actually are some republican's who are not greedy evil psychopaths. Thank God for those ones, SERIOUSLY!

Edited January 25, 2018 by Halcyon Daze

[paradox]

10 minutes ago, Halcyon Daze said:

 

 

I'm amazed by the whole handout complaint rubbish too, when you consider those receiving  America's biggest handouts were the oil companies, via subsidies.

 

 

I don't think northerner is defending corrupt corporate interests. It seems to me he's looking at it from a broader perspective of trends over very long periods of time that are responses to specific policy played out over centuries & Millenia. Seems like more like an anthropological perspective than a classically political perspective

[Halcyon Daze]

I just meant in general. Not directed at Northener, (sorry about that).

[Northerner]

I'm not stressed Halcyon, didn't reckon it was aimed at me.

 

Paradox understood me well though.

[Crop]

Left and right is not really about more or less government, although I can see why people think that.. It is about the political definition of freedom.Freedom has 2 extreme spectrums. Positive freedom, the left and negative freedom, the right. Negative freedom represents freedom of the individual, regardless of how it affects others. Positive freedom represents freedom of all individuals, within the framework of society. One example in practice: In a positive freedom society (The Left) everyone is free to live their lives without discrimination (which yes, means more laws). In a negative freedom society (The Right) everyone is free to discriminate against whoever they like. In essence, Negative freedom empowers, and is favoured by, the strong. Governments, the wealthy, organised religion and corporations. While positive freedom favours the poor, workers, minorities, the young. On the far left sits Marxism, while on the far right sits extreme forms of Capitalism like Fascism. All of you that lean to the right, please keep in mind that negative Freedom taken to the extreme means you are free to rape, you are free to murder and you are free to sell your grandmother, who wont take it personally, after all its just business.

[Northerner]

5 hours ago, Crop said:

Left and right is not really about more or less government, although I can see why people think that.. It is about the political definition of freedom.Freedom has 2 extreme spectrums. Positive freedom, the left and negative freedom, the right. Negative freedom represents freedom of the individual, regardless of how it affects others. Positive freedom represents freedom of all individuals, within the framework of society. One example in practice: In a positive freedom society (The Left) everyone is free to live their lives without discrimination (which yes, means more laws). In a negative freedom society (The Right) everyone is free to discriminate against whoever they like. In essence, Negative freedom empowers, and is favoured by, the strong. Governments, the wealthy, organised religion and corporations. While positive freedom favours the poor, workers, minorities, the young. On the far left sits Marxism, while on the far right sits extreme forms of Capitalism like Fascism. All of you that lean to the right, please keep in mind that negative Freedom taken to the extreme means you are free to rape, you are free to murder and you are free to sell your grandmother, who wont take it personally, after all its just business.

Therein lies a major misunderstanding of people, the omission of the narrative from many "progressive" governments.

People are actually able to police themselves and live in relative harmony. As an individual in a society with many negative freedoms you are allowed to define your own morality within the context of your society, this isn't dictated. People will still have morals and be socially defined, they just won't be morally policed with their own resources. You are free to murder and sell your grandmother sure... BUT, this won't be seen as business as usual (as people will still define their own morality and these two things are highly unlikely to be morally okay in any society) and you can expect repercussions. You can expect to be met with deadly resistance and social and economic shunning, which is illegal in positive freedom societies. "Justice" won't be protracted and argued by lawyers, it will be immediate and meted out by the people around you who the offense actually effected. People won't sit hands-tied waiting for authorities to do something when you offend against them. Respect for others freedoms is not forced by law but by others individual freedom to turn around and give you a taste. Disrespectful people learn humility the hard way.

People also come to value their immediate societies more, friendships and family groups become infinitely more valuable. In a negative freedom society if you burn every friendship you have and rip off your family you will be left with only your job... if you lose that you will have nothing. You will be an outcast beggar. There is no dole to save you from yourself, if you have destroyed your support network and everything that brought you into this society you have destroyed it. There's no free ticket for wankers.

I've lived in places like this in Africa. I understand the ramifications much better than many here in Australia.

I would argue that positive freedom empowers governments whilst negative freedom empowers individuals. Government force is required to morally police and socially and economically equalise in a the former whilst individuals are allowed to make their own choices and live with the consequences in the latter. The former assumes we are all equal, the latter gives that we are not.

 

[paradox]

I do not believe in zero government, i feel the best approach to human society is similar to the way i approach gardening & food forest establishment, to allow the inherent natural systems to present their own order & balance among the diverse community of species & the environmental influences that act upon them. 

 

To achieve a truly long term, stable system which perpetuates more or less indefinitely you must step back & allow the system itself & the individuals in that system to find their own balance based on the natural processes which act upon them.  You only step in as a subtle tweaker of that system to optimize & accentuate certain functions which have become apparent through observation of the natural processes 

 

Human social systems, just like all systems in nature, if they are not meddled with too much by force (note i do not believe in absolutely no meddling, just subtle meddling based on flow patterns that are inherent in the natural systems), have a way of finding a natural efficiency.

Another analogy is the difference between traffic in sydney vs traffic in somewhere like Indonesia.  Sydney has a traffic system based on an unnaturally forced set of strict rules.  This works up to a point.  It is very safe but once you get past a certain threshold of population it becomes incredibly inefficient & clunky & very quickly will break down completely.  The system is so unnatural & counter intuitive to the way nature has designed us to move, It's basically just bad for the soul & it leads to all kinds of problems like extreme road rage or the opposite, where you completely adapt to a clunky unnatural system & you become something like a zombie, it's bad for the brain, therefore its bad for society in the long run.

In indonesia, the population is much higher & the roads are much smaller, their traffic systems are based on natural human flow patterns.  they trust in the natural order that presents itself automatically when many humans are put together doing the same thing in the same place & there is basically zero road rage & everyone is just moving & following the rules that the nature of the system presents.  Considering just how densely populated the roads are, this for the most part works brilliantly, people are happy & friendly to each other, if someone toots a horn its to be nice & let you know they are there.  This system only breaks down when the population is too great for the infrastructure but the ratio of numbers of people on the road vs the size of infrastructure is vastly vastly greater than sydney roads.
 

 

Edited January 25, 2018 by paradox