What is leftism really about?

[Legato]

26 minutes ago, herbie said:

Funny. A multipage discussion on what socialism is by ultra-rightists who've convinced themselves they are conservatives.

Who fooled themselves into believing political right means 'correct' rather than what side of Parliament you sat on.

Did that come with fries?

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Rebound said:

Putin is not a king and neither was Mao.

yeah.  Thats the point. Read it again.

1 hour ago, Rebound said:

The leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are kings.  Louis XIV was a King. 

And neither were conservatives. Did you kind of get where that was going now?

[reason10]

10 hours ago, Mako said:

It’s important to recognize that the “far left” and “conservatives” are usually controlled opposition, they don’t really threaten the hegemony of the liberal/leftist elites. They’re all part of the show.

Conservatives make up most of America. They are the mainstream. ALL the left is far left. And there is a tiny faction called the Alt Right, which engages in identity politics, same as the left.

[Mako]

19 hours ago, Americana Antifa said:

In the most clear terms, leftism is democratic anti-capitalism. What it's actually about is spreading wealth and power throughout society as evenly as possible in order to achieve a society that is more free in practice as opposed to just legally.

The left is forever busy spreading power, freedom, and unadulterated goodness throughout society:

https://www.newsweek.com/antifa-fascists-anti-opinion-867748

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/03/22/state-department-chinas-uyghur-genocide-continued-throughout-2022

https://freedomhouse.org/country/north-korea/freedom-world/2020

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/prominent-french-author-faces-criminal-charges-for-misgendering/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/02/24/the_authoritarian_left_is_on_the_march_145294.html#!

https://noqreport.com/2018/06/07/gay-americans-speak-support-christian-baker-gay-lobby/

https://www.npr.org/2016/02/01/465124337/how-chinas-one-child-policy-led-to-forced-abortions-30-million-bachelors

https://www.thedailybeast.com/on-ex-im-bank-the-democrats-are-the-real-corporate-shills

https://eppc.org/publication/hillary-clintons-tangle-of-corruption/

https://www.statnews.com/feature/prescription-politics/federal-full-data-set/

Edited May 18, 2023 by Mako

[Rebound]

13 hours ago, CdnFox said:

yeah.  Thats the point. Read it again.

And neither were conservatives. Did you kind of get where that was going now?

What is liberal about a monarch?  
It is as conservative as can be. Nothing is more status quo than “I shall own and rule everything because my father did.”

You unfortunately just want to make up nonsense definitions.  

[Mako]

13 hours ago, reason10 said:

Conservatives make up most of America. They are the mainstream. ALL the left is far left. And there is a tiny faction called the Alt Right, which engages in identity politics, same as the left.

The left does have considerable power in the old established institutions and professions: Harvard University, The Washington Post, Hollywood, lawyers, bankers, bureaucrats in both government and corporations.

[reason10]

30 minutes ago, Rebound said:

What is liberal about a monarch?  
It is as conservative as can be. Nothing is more status quo than “I shall own and rule everything because my father did.”

You unfortunately just want to make up nonsense definitions.  

Monarchs are as liberal as it gets. A monarch means MY WORD IS LAW AND YOU SHUT THE FCK UP. That's pretty much the liberal mantra as we know it today. Zippo tolerance for anything that isn't in exact goose step with their views.

Look at how you retards act when I disagree. You accuse me of being on Russia's payroll. Never mind that just many MOST OF AMERICA DISAGREES WITH YOUR TWISTED BULLSCHITT. I came here and put you goose steppers in your place and I'm on a RUSSIAN payroll?

See how STUPID it sounds? I'm supposed to either agree with you or shut the fck up.

Kings demand that kind of power.

[Rebound]

22 minutes ago, Mako said:

The left does have considerable power in the old established institutions and professions: Harvard University, The Washington Post, Hollywood, lawyers, bankers, bureaucrats in both government and corporations.

Liberal? Trump’s impeachment lawyer is a Harvard professor. They have liberals in fields such as political science and sociology, but do you think their lawyers, business students, scientists and engineers are? What evidence do you have of this? 
 

The Washington Post is owned by one of the wealthiest men in America.  He has a strongly vested interested in low taxes and maintaining the status quo. 
 

Bankers are liberal. Wow. That’s a laugh.  

[Mako]

46 minutes ago, Rebound said:

Liberal? Trump’s impeachment lawyer is a Harvard professor. They have liberals in fields such as political science and sociology, but do you think their lawyers, business students, scientists and engineers are? What evidence do you have of this? 
 

The Washington Post is owned by one of the wealthiest men in America.  He has a strongly vested interested in low taxes and maintaining the status quo. 
 

Bankers are liberal. Wow. That’s a laugh.  

Jeff Bezos, bankers, big corporations, the academic establishment - they are often woke.

They have corrupted the left which is now focused on wokeness rather than those unfashionable proles.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lloyd-blankfeins-the-wrong-spokesman-for-gay-rights-200624/

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/dustin-siggins/2020/01/23/jeff-bezos-just-found-out-that-you-can-never-be-woke-enough-n72472

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/sep/9/loverro-kaepernicks-pig-socks-missing-nike-ad/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bud-light-dylan-mulvaney-stock-downgrade-anheuser-busch-sales/

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/07/07/these-18-corporations-gave-money-to-black-lives-matter-group/

https://www.outkick.com/get-woke-go-broke-2021/

https://www.newsweek.com/how-did-liberalism-campus-turn-intolerance-and-censorship-397536

https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2020/10/31/the-top-5-richest-backers-of-joe-biden/?sh=b6e024b64130

Edited May 18, 2023 by Mako

[Michael Hardner]

There you have it, the idea that leftism is wokism and vice versa is a complete political victory for the corporate class.

When people who think they are conservative see the left versus right fight as Budweiser versus nike, Bezos versus Musk, we are living in never never Land.

[Mako]

17 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

There you have it, the idea that leftism is wokism and vice versa is a complete political victory for the corporate class.

When people who think they are conservative see the left versus right fight as Budweiser versus nike, Bezos versus Musk, we are living in never never Land.

The plutocrats have bought up the left. Now it’s focused on 1) getting the various ethnic groups to hate each other and 2) mutilating children’s genitals and 3) promoting infanticide.

https://bioedge.org/bioethics-d75/the-infanticide-controversy-the-authors/

Thus leftish plutocrats don’t have to part with their enormous piles of cash.

Said plutocrats keep the left on a tight leash. They need a fake like Bernie Sanders to scream about the 1% and then meekly endorse candidates wholly owned by the 1%.

Do we agree?

Edited May 18, 2023 by Mako

[Deluge]

17 hours ago, CdnFox said:

 

 

ummmm ..... no offense guys, but this is getting a little awkward for the rest of us. Not that we're judging, whatever you two are into is fine..   Did you need us to give you two a little privacy for a bit?

 

You moderates; always the peacemakers....

[CdnFox]

1 minute ago, Deluge said:

You moderates; always the peacemakers....

Moderate!?!?! - MODERATE!?!?!!  How DARE you sir!!! DO you have ANY idea what kind of insult that is in 2023?!?! 

[Mako]

Is hatred of religious people a defining characteristic of the left?

Certainly leftist elites contain many who hate religious folk. Harvey Weinstein is a good example. 

But the New Atheism of a few years back now looks like a set of dishonest and mediocre boosters who just want to torture and kill Muslims.

https://theconversation.com/why-the-arguments-of-the-new-atheists-are-often-just-as-violent-as-religion-95185

And the leftist coalition includes many devoutly religious folk such as African American Baptists and Arab Muslims.

Maybe devotion to homosexual activism is a defining characteristic. The corporate media seems obsessed with this kind of activism.

But Fidel Castro persecuted homosexuals.

https://babalublog.com/2016/11/29/cubas-lgbt-concentration-camps-and-fidel-castros-horrific-gay-rights-record/

So what are the defining characteristics of the left?

Edited May 18, 2023 by Mako

[Deluge]

2 minutes ago, Mako said:

Is hatred of religious people a defining characteristic of the left?

Certainly leftist elites contains many who hate religious folk.

But the New Atheism of a few years back now looks like a set of dishonest and mediocre boosters who just want to torture and kill Muslims.

https://theconversation.com/why-the-arguments-of-the-new-atheists-are-often-just-as-violent-as-religion-95185

And the leftist coalition includes many devoutly religious folk such as African American Baptists and Arab Muslims.

So what are the defining characteristics of the left?

Selfishness, Godlessness, Chaotic, it's really kind of simple. 

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Rebound said:

What is liberal about a monarch?  

There have been many liberal monarchs.  How about this - they believe strongly in centralized gov't. They believe in taxing the population heavily and then providing all the services necessary from the top down. They believe the church should have less influence in their country and gov't often enough They believe the state should have partial ownership of successful industries.  They believe the land should be owned and administered by the state.

Lots of liberal things about kings

2 hours ago, Rebound said:

It is as conservative as can be. Nothing is more status quo than “I shall own and rule everything because my father did.”

You just described justin trudeau.

2 hours ago, Rebound said:

You unfortunately just want to make up nonsense definitions.  

You need to be 7 different kinds of stupid to think that monarchy is on the political spectrum. It isn't. It's a model, not an ideology. Kings can be extremely progressive or extremely regressive. There are many kings who oversaw their people getting more rights and freedoms and many who saw it go the other way.

And kings who just thought they could own everythning because their fathers did tended to wind up very dead very fast. It was DIFFICULT to remain king. Someone else always wanted to be king, and very frequently kings were thrown off their thrones. Peasants were HARDLY the only people to rebel.

You have a child's understanding of a monarchy, one suitable for bugs bunny more than actual discussion. Read a book.

[reason10]

16 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Moderate!?!?! - MODERATE!?!?!!  How DARE you sir!!! DO you have ANY idea what kind of insult that is in 2023?!?! 

It's like I've said many times. Moderates do not visit political message boards. Their minds aren't nearly made up as much as the rest of us.

[Mako]

An honest election slogan for the left:

Vote Democratic! We want to get rid of most of you!

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/07/have-fewer-children-decrease-carbon-footprint-leftists-urge/

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Mako said:

The left does have considerable power in the old established institutions and professions: Harvard University, The Washington Post, Hollywood, lawyers, bankers, bureaucrats in both government and corporations.

Elizabeth Warren is a grad from harvard law and was a professor there.

[Hodad]

I haven't seen any good answers in this thread. If you zoom all the way out the fundamental difference between left/liberal and right/conservative is the tension between two divergent survival strategies: community vs independence. Cooperation vs dominance.

The first two humans who teamed up to increase their odds of survival in a dangerous world were wildly progressive. They sacrificed unfettered independence, compromising personal liberty, because if conferred a survival benefit. And, as time passed, increasingly intricate social connections and contracts developed because those too conferred survival benefit. Pairs became families. Families became tribes. Tribes became villages. Villages became towns, and so on. And at every step along the way people developed deeper interdependence and connectedness and increasingly sophisticated means of governing, allocating resources, pursing fairness, equity etc. Because if a society--at any scale--doesn't benefit everyone (or at least the vast majority), it causes stress, disruption, tension, chaos and eventually revolution and dissolution. <-- and all of those things negatively impact health, wealth and all the other facets of "survival."

Conservatives are those who think (usually intuitively rather than consciously), "Ah, we're finally at the right level of community for maximal benefit right now." Or maybe, "Fifty years ago was the absolute perfect level of community, now we've gone too far." And they resist further development and innovation in community. 

The "left" sees further opportunity to develop beneficial advances in human interconnection and is working to make those connections and facilitate "contracting" on an increasing scale.

Where people fall on a spectrum with regard to individual issues or overall orientation all goes back to that same fundamental tension. And frankly that's why education (perspective gained) makes people more liberal and why women, who intuitively understand and embrace community, break liberal. 

And it's worth noting that conservatives have been on the wrong side of history for all of recorded history. They've been right on individual issues or proposals or laws, but never in a meta sense. Maybe someday they'll be right, but I wouldn't bet on it any time soon. There's a lot of ground to cover between where we are now and a federated planetary alliance. Progress marches on.?

3 hours ago, Rebound said:

What is liberal about a monarch?  
It is as conservative as can be. Nothing is more status quo than “I shall own and rule everything because my father did.”

You unfortunately just want to make up nonsense definitions.  

Yes, nobody wants to conserve the status quo more than the man who has everything. 

[CdnFox]

4 minutes ago, Hodad said:

I haven't seen any good answers in this thread. If you zoom all the way out the fundamental difference between left/liberal and right/conservative is the tension between two divergent survival strategies: community vs independence. Cooperation vs dominance.

The first two humans who teamed up to increase their odds of survival in a dangerous world were wildly progressive. They sacrificed unfettered independence, compromising personal liberty, because if conferred a survival benefit. And, as time passed, increasingly intricate social connections and contracts developed because those too conferred survival benefit. Pairs became families. Families became tribes. Tribes became villages. Villages became towns, and so on. And at every step along the way people developed deeper interdependence and connectedness and increasingly sophisticated means of governing, allocating resources, pursing fairness, equity etc. Because if a society--at any scale--doesn't benefit everyone (or at least the vast majority), it causes stress, disruption, tension, chaos and eventually revolution and dissolution. <-- and all of those things negatively impact health, wealth and all the other facets of "survival."

Conservatives are those who think (usually intuitively rather than consciously), "Ah, we're finally at the right level of community for maximal benefit right now." Or maybe, "Fifty years ago was the absolute perfect level of community, now we've gone too far." And they resist further development and innovation in community. 

The "left" sees further opportunity to develop beneficial advances in human interconnection and is working to make those connections and facilitate "contracting" on an increasing scale.

Where people fall on a spectrum with regard to individual issues or overall orientation all goes back to that same fundamental tension. And frankly that's why education (perspective gained) makes people more liberal and why women, who intuitively understand and embrace community, break liberal. 

And it's worth noting that conservatives have been on the wrong side of history for all of recorded history. They've been right on individual issues or proposals or laws, but never in a meta sense. Maybe someday they'll be right, but I wouldn't bet on it any time soon. There's a lot of ground to cover between where we are now and a federated planetary alliance. Progress marches on.?

Yes, nobody wants to conserve the status quo more than the man who has everything. 

Dude, you're an !diot. Read a book.

[Hodad]

4 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Dude, you're an !diot. Read a book.

I think you've got that backward. Perhaps if you were better educated you would understand more sophisticated ideas than the pre-chewed "news" from FOX. My post wasn't for people like you. It was for thinking people. 

[CdnFox]

9 minutes ago, Hodad said:

I think you've got that backward.

If i'd had it backward i'd have said 'read a manga'

Dude. You are an !diot. FFS - read a book.

[Michael Hardner]

55 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Elizabeth Warren is a grad from harvard law and was a professor there.

DeSantis...

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_DeSantis#:~:text=He graduated from Yale University,deployed to Iraq in 2007.

 

HARVARD AND YALE ?

[Hodad]

11 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

If i'd had it backward i'd have said 'read a manga'

Dude. You are an !diot. FFS - read a book.

Among the many, many stupid things you've said, this one ranks near the top.

When someone offers a perspective that's clearly beyond your capacity, maybe you should just sit it out. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.