What is leftism really about?

[CdnFox]

47 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Yes but I suspect you don't agree that we have too many of our own that have too much power and above all else influence. 

Well - possibly true in part.  I don't believe you can have too many wealthy - i wish everyone was   However there's caveats with that.  The power thing you might find me more in agreement on. Tho less so in canada than the states to a degree.

[WestCanMan]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

The governments and political parties of most states are more rightist which is to say preoccupied with distributing power to themselves.

How exactly do you think that conservative gov'ts consolidate power to themselves when one of their core philosophies is small gov't?

How can they control everything while they're on a limited budget? 

Power-hungry politicians want more and more of the country's money flowing through their own sticky little fingers. Working people and businesses take home less and the bulk of the fruits of their labour go upstairs. The gov't decides what to do with almost all of the money in the country.

One more thing: no one gets to have guns except the gov't. 

If I was gonna run for dictator I wouldn't do it on a platform of "small gov't and guns for all". I'd attack people's right to bear arms and I'd wring every last drop of moisture from my eyes trying to convince people that the money they earn needs to go to the gov't. "Rich people - bad. Corporations - evil. Those guys - evil. Only my closest political allies and I can do the right thing. Put all your faith, money and all of this country's power in MY hands. I love you all so much. Look at my cool socks."

Once the gov't has all the money and all the guns and they have Lib/Dem-like control over the media you can complain all you want, but there's not a thing you can do. 

Edited May 18, 2023 by WestCanMan

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

How exactly do you think that conservative gov'ts consolidate power to themselves when one of their core philosophies is small gov't?

The same lack of principles that every political party suffers from.

Eventually they all become sociopathic for the same reason corporations do - the dictates of self interest.

[Hodad]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

The same lack of principles that every political party suffers from.

Eventually they all become sociopathic for the same reason corporations do - the dictates of self interest.

The "freedom-loving, small government" conservative is also a bit of marketing fiction. The biggest spenders and most oppressive and intrusive violations of personal liberty are cause celebre within the "conservative" movement. 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Hodad

[robosmith]

On 5/17/2023 at 5:00 AM, Mako said:

Liberal/Leftist elites want:

1) to divide the people

2) population reduction

3) unquestioning obedience

Some specifics:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/07/21/how_media_lies_have_distorted_a_tragedy_119311.html

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/billionaire-barbarian-at-the-gates-part-1/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59595952

https://accuracy.org/release/schumers-record-pro-war-backed-by-wall-street/

https://www.vox.com/world/2022/12/16/23507640/dc-party-invite-military-contractors-money-ukraine-russia-war-us

https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/black-lives-matter-spent-at-least-12-million-on-mansions/

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1085174528/sackler-opioid-victims

https://thefederalist.com/2018/02/06/californias-lgbt-flavored-textbooks-illustrate-growing-politicization-u-s-curricula/

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41593384

https://thefederalist.com/2018/02/20/rich-white-men-institutionalizing-transgender-ideology/

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/01/yellen-made-millions-in-wall-street-speeches-453223

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2019/02/11/mother-arrested-taken-jail-seven-hours-misgendering-trans-person-n101021

https://nypost.com/2023/03/03/accused-pedo-mayor-patrick-wojahn-called-pete-buttigieg-his-buddy/

Your gish gallop of LINKS is a very LAME WAY of making ANY point you might have. Quote the content if you want to CONVINCE ANYONE not in your echo chamber.

On 5/17/2023 at 6:03 AM, CdnFox said:

Well there's leftism and then there's leftism.

There's stupid and then ^there is really stupid.

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, robosmith said:

Quote

Well there's leftism and then there's leftism.

There's stupid and then ^there is really stupid.

You're just repeating what i said  

[robosmith]

On 5/17/2023 at 8:24 AM, Deluge said:

Too Satanic. Without Christianity, our entire country would turn into Tenderloin.

Not when today's "Christianity" is defined by main stream religions.

"Mahatma Gandhi — "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

[robosmith]

On 5/17/2023 at 12:22 PM, CdnFox said:

Not kings - that's completely different and isn't on the left-right spectrum. And not religious theocracies.

Mussolini - kind of , hitler - meh, he was more socialist democrat so you could argue it either way but as has been mentioned when you get to the real extremes the difference between right and left is paper thin ayway

Just because Hitler called his Party "national socialist" does NOT mean it FIT the moniker.

Just like NK is NOT a "democratic republic."

[CdnFox]

Just now, robosmith said:

Just because Hitler called his Party "national socialist" does NOT mean it FIT the moniker.

But it did. He was very much a socialist in many of his policies. In fact as i noted if he hadn't gone comletely bat crap crazy and invaded everyone and slaugtered jews he'd be held up today as 'proof socialism works' by modern social democrats.

Just now, robosmith said:

Just like NK is NOT a "democratic republic."

They can't help it if everyone happens to vote exactly the same way

 

[Rebound]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

But it did. He was very much a socialist in many of his policies. In fact as i noted if he hadn't gone comletely bat crap crazy and invaded everyone and slaugtered jews he'd be held up today as 'proof socialism works' by modern social democrats.

They can't help it if everyone happens to vote exactly the same way

 

Economically Nazism was a disaster and a failure. Hitler built an all war economy and his laborers were slaves.  

[robosmith]

3 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You're just repeating what i said  

^This is NOT the place to post your FANTASIES. LMAO

[robosmith]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

But it did. He was very much a socialist in many of his policies. In fact as i noted if he hadn't gone comletely bat crap crazy and invaded everyone and slaugtered jews he'd be held up today as 'proof socialism works' by modern social democrats.

They can't help it if everyone happens to vote exactly the same way

 

Hitler's government was FASCIST all the way. Just like Mussolini's

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, robosmith said:

Hitler's government was FASCIST all the way. Just like Mussolini's

It's ridiculous to say he was socialist when he ran against socialists and communists.

They started out with socialistic ideas but Nazi Germany was run with corporations not public initiatives.

[Rebound]

On 5/17/2023 at 10:29 AM, Contrarian said:

I went with others: 

Serious concerns about the practicality of leftism and its potential excesses. One issue is the tendency towards excessive centralization, which can hinder efficiency and adaptability. Additionally, an overemphasis on equality without considering individual freedoms and personal responsibility arises in such a movement. It is important to strike a balance between societal goals and individual rights in order to achieve a more sustainable and effective system. In my opinion, leftism tends, in the name of those societal goals to push its theories disregarding the practical which leads to chaos in the long run. 

The only example I see of this is in government spending. Unfortunately, in the US, the conservatives have established a fifty year record of consistently borrowing more money than the liberals. 

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, Rebound said:

Economically Nazism was a disaster and a failure. Hitler built an all war economy and his laborers were slaves.  

Not really accurate. When hitler came to power there was insane runaway inflation (the old stories about a wheelbarrow full of Deutschmarks for a loaf of bread), severe employment problems and other economic woes. It was the 'dirty thirties' and the whole world was in the great deperssion. Unemployment was rampant and things were bad. 

He stabilized their dollar, and did a fair bit to get their economy moving again.  People could get work and incomes went up considerably as more work was available. He sold off some state assets. And the labourers were far from slaves.

It was one of the reasons he was so popular.

Militarization was without a doubt a big hunk of the eocnomy and after war broke out obviously that became a main economic factor.

Having said that without a doubt the economic policy was highly questionable. He ran the gov't on deficit financing. He was extremely socialist -what we would call a democratic socialist today with strong central planning and control within a capitalist model. Like i said - if it wasn't for the war and genocide and such he probably would be hailed as a strong example of democratic socialism.  It would have been very interesting to see what the economy looked like  if he'd skipped all that and just focused on country building.  I think it still would have gone sideways in the end but it would have been interesting to see.

BTW - strong central involvement in industry (especially energy),  massive deficit spending, lots of unnecessary spending on a separate objective (war/climate change)  massive increase in the public service....  This guy remind you of anyone we know?

[Deluge]

9 hours ago, robosmith said:

Not when today's "Christianity" is defined by main stream religions.

"Mahatma Gandhi — "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

There are good and bad Christians just like there are good and bad liberals. The problem with your side is that there are a lot more bad liberals than good ones. 

Without Christianity, the US would be coast to coast Tenderloin. 

[CdnFox]

13 minutes ago, Deluge said:

Without Christianity, the US would be coast to coast Tenderloin. 

Tenderloin?  i don't get the reference?

[Deluge]

6 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Tenderloin?  i don't get the reference?

Tenderloin San Francisco

 

[robosmith]

13 hours ago, Deluge said:

There are good and bad Christians just like there are good and bad liberals. The problem with your side is that there are a lot more bad liberals than good ones. 

Without Christianity, the US would be coast to coast Tenderloin. 

No REASON to believe ^this OPINION. Many countries thrive without OUR Christianity.

[Deluge]

On 5/19/2023 at 10:28 PM, robosmith said:

No REASON to believe ^this OPINION. Many countries thrive without OUR Christianity.

Actually they don't. One can only imagine the horror a country would go through if the US were to completely withdraw military and/or economic support. 

You see, democrat, without Christianity, you heathens would all be speaking Chinese.

[CdnFox]

17 minutes ago, Deluge said:

Actually they don't. One can only imagine the horror a country would go through if the US were to completely withdraw military and/or economic support. 

You see, democrat, without Christianity, you heathens would all be speaking Chinese.

Meh.  It's a fair point.

[Rebound]

On 5/19/2023 at 11:34 AM, Deluge said:

Tenderloin San Francisco

 

The gulf between rich and poor has been widening for the past 50 years… and there’s the poor part of it. 
 

What is your solution? Shoot the poor? Run them off of cliffs? Sell the to McDonald’s to make burgers? 

[Michael Hardner]

12 minutes ago, Rebound said:

The gulf between rich and poor has been widening for the past 50 years… and there’s the poor part of it. 
 

What is your solution? Shoot the poor? Run them off of cliffs? Sell the to McDonald’s to make burgers? 

The cracked mirror version is to point out how leftist San Francisco is (apparently because they're woke) and draw a dotted line... Voila... Poverty.

 

[Rebound]

4 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

The cracked mirror version is to point out how leftist San Francisco is (apparently because they're woke) and draw a dotted line... Voila... Poverty.

 

Except that San Francisco is chock-full of mega-millionaires in law, finance, banking and tech. 

[Michael Hardner]

55 minutes ago, Rebound said:

Except that San Francisco is chock-full of mega-millionaires in law, finance, banking and tech. 

And a predatory housing market.