Is President Obama a Nice Guy?
in [Lisp]
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From: Tamas K Papp on 7 Dec 2009 16:57 On Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:24:47 -0500, Raffael Cavallaro wrote: > suffrage, to civil rights, and school prayer - the fundamental structure > of american law and government are profoundly biased toward the left - > thankfully. Oh, the joy of trying to represent complex things on a unidimensional scale. A fine pastime, unless you want things to make sense (which, of course, is not necessarily a requirement when talking about politics, especially on the internet). The beauty of the concept of political left and right is that people are trying to compress several things into a single dimension. If political theorists were biologists, there would be left (red, small, carnivore, ...), and right (grey, large, herbivore, ...) kinds of animals. Elephants would be right, while foxes would be left. They would be debating endlessly about ladybugs and mice. At least try a Nolan chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_chart , or something similar. Cheers, Tamas
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 7 Dec 2009 20:31 On 2009-12-07 16:57:31 -0500, Tamas K Papp <tkpapp(a)gmail.com> said: > Oh, the joy of trying to represent complex things on a unidimensional > scale. 1. Not my choice, but a pre-existing scale of considerable historical utility. So it's fairly pointless to try to re-define what these terms mean. 2. Unlike many re-mappings of variance, this one does have a real basis which actually corresponds to both its historical origin and continuing political polarities. It originally distinguished supporters of the existing regime (the right), and those who wanted change (left). Since the existing regime was based on class distinctions sanctioned by the church, the opposition was egalitarian, pro-civil-rights and anti-clerical. These components, egalitarianism, civil-rights, and anti-clericsim tend to co-occur in poltics because traditional christianity has an explicitly feudal notion of god (literally, "the lord," "king of kings") which is a natural fit for hierarchical, not egalitarian political systems. What has changed is who the ruling class is, (formerly landed aristocracy, now moneyed power), but not the notion that The Lord sanctions that there should be an elite who rule, and the majority who serve. IOW, the left-right distinction is a largely valid one in the christian west because traditional christianity grew out of, and is part and parcel of a world of inherited class distinctions. -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: vippstar on 8 Dec 2009 07:32 On Dec 8, 6:42 am, "Dr. Brian Leverich" <lever...(a)linkpendium.com> wrote: > Why do you think American industrialists backed Hitler? > Maybe because the loved the extreme left? Sheesh. Haha! Serious business men and politicians chose to support something due to their irrational likeness of the category it fell under? Such good jokes today on cll!
From: MarkHaniford on 8 Dec 2009 10:56 > Jeez. Learn some history and comparative government structures, > then come back and say something sensible. > > Love, B. No, some of us want to deal with reality and not whatever "history" you weak-minded leftists were indoctrinated with. See, there was this thing called NAZI and guess what one of the words in there is - socialism. Mussolini was a hard leftist. But don't left the facts stand in your way of your leftist brain damage.
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 8 Dec 2009 11:37
On 2009-12-08 10:56:20 -0500, "MarkHaniford(a)gmail.com" <markhaniford(a)gmail.com> said: > See, there was this > thing called NAZI and guess what one of the words in there is - > socialism. And these NAZIs also told death camp victims that they were just going to take a shower when they gassed them. So believing what NAZIs say about their intentions has historically proven to be a rather dangerous. For the extremely slow: just because the NAZIs claimed they were socialists doesn't mean they were actually socialists, just like their claim they wouldn't invade the Soviet Union was false, etc., etc. NAZIs have always been considered far right because of their belief that there is a natural hierarchy and the elite (i.e., "Aryans") should rule, and that so-called "inferior races" should have their civil-rights curtailed or be killed outright. The motto of the original left was "Liberty, equality, brotherhood" (i.e., "Libert�, egalit�, fraternit�"), not something you would ever hear the NAZI party advocate, and certainly not how their treated people under their rule. The core belief of the right is that hierarchy is the natural order, and the underclass should have few or no civil rights. The core belief of the left is egalitarianism with equal civil rights for all. The NAZIs were *not* egalitarians, so they could never be considered leftists. -- Raffael Cavallaro |