I disagree, but even so, that wasn't my point. My point was that libertarians are concerned with how the left is ruining things economically and in terms of freedoms, and conservatives are concerned with how the left is ruining things in terms of virtue. Do leftists make moral statements in defense of their actions? Sometimes. So does Skeletor. I don't see what the significance is.
Maybe, but only one constantly disavows the existence of such a thing as ‘morally right’ in the name of their cause. It would be consistent with my views of the left to agree that they deny the existence of moral truth at the same time as they make claims to having it, so I won’t belabor the point.
I’m not going to comment on a particular person, but what I think of most leftists is that they will claim that morals are subjective and that there is no absolute right or wrong when it suits their argument, and will claim that what they want to do in society is grounded in absolute moral obligations when THAT suits their argument. It’s just a particular cognitive dissonance that tends to crop up among them.
What you won’t find is any data supporting the stereotype that liberals are the giving ones more concerned with helping the poor, and that conservatives are stingy and uncharitable. Even the apologists trying to explain the data away are claiming that liberals and conservatives are equally generous.
Sure. But what we’re talking about here is the (common) perception that you expressed that liberals are the ones that care about helping the poor. In terms of actually helping the poor, either conservatives do it more or they are tied, take your pick. What sets liberals apart is their willingness to pass laws about what other people have to do with their money.
That’s understandable given your background.
Wait, stop right there. We can’t evaluate whether or not the socialists are out to rob from the rich and give to the poor if you’re going to say “Other than through taxation, I mean”. How else are they going to do it?
A safety net is a thing, not an ideology. Conservatives, Socialists, even Libertarians might want some sort of safety net for the poor in the right context, and given the right arguments. I still maintain that something like unemployment insurance isn't a triumph of socialism. Maybe if you could show me that self-ascribed socialists were the ones who brought that about in your country, and people voted for these things in open support of socialism, that would be one thing. I didn't have the impression that socialism was much more popular up there than it is down here, at least in name.
And Marx and Foucalt and Rawls and Marcuse and pretty much every other big name that forms the academic foundations for the left’s ideas on social justice. It’s more prevalent than you think, and it’s not a simple matter of dislike. What’s important here is that even if some particular leftist doesn’t feel emotional resentment towards the rich, he may be unknowingly advocating policies that were birthed from that resentment, and will thus not be effective at achieving what he thinks they will.
So you don’t think leftists see leftist politicians and wealthy leftists as moral exemplars, then? I have never heard anything but praise for Steve Jobs from the left.
I came to this image of liberals by going into tremendous financial debt getting a degree in their political and philosophical theories. There’s a reason why I’m able to back up everything I claim with data- I’m not basing my views of liberalism on what the cashier at Whole Foods says.
What difference does that make? I'll grant that there's tons of leftists out there that do and believe whatever you want to claim that they do and believe, if you'll agree with me that they aren't vocal or influential enough to factor into the equation of the effects the left has on society.
Or why a person who believes the world is only 6,000 years old would necessarily believe that it was created by an Omnipotent being, or why a person who believes the 2nd Amendment ought to be protected would be a fan of small Government. The beliefs don't have any logically necessary connection, but nevertheless, the facts of history that brought these ideas to the fore connect them. Sure, there's an alternate universe in which something very much like socialism is created by a Christian monk who grounds it on an absolutist moral framework. But the universe in which we live is the one where we got Marx. So yes, if somebody advocates socialist programs, there's a very good reason to assume they are a moral relativist, for the exact same reason that if somebody advocates that evolution is false, they are a Christian.
Sure. In the end there are people that believe all kinds of crazy shit. Take any combination of positions on any number of issues, and there is somebody who believes that combination. So you aren't wrong. But progressivISM is an ideology that claims certain things for certain reasons, and those claims can be criticized. The existence of this or that person who claims to be a leftist but supports gun rights or lowering taxes doesn't impact those criticisms.
I guess I'm not really sure what that means. When you say their differences can be resolved, do you mean that all the liberals become conservatives, or all the conservatives become liberals, or that all of both will become some new thing? Yeah, that could happen. Do you mean that they could come to some consensus about how things ought to be run, while maintaining their ideological differences? I'd argue that that already [i]has[/i] happened, which is why partisanship is expressed through debates and not civil wars.
Let me give you an example that happened here on these forums. Left vs Right, the argument is over gun ownership rights in the U.S. The conservative wants to leave things as they are- where 'as they are' means a mixture of some gun ownership rights, and laws passed by leftists in the past that restrict it. The leftist wants to pass some more laws to further restrict gun ownership. If the liberal gets what he wants and there are more restrictions, then 10 years from now a new group of leftists will push for some new restrictions. If the conservative gets what he wants, then 10 years from now a new group of leftists will push for the same restrictions that were defeated this time.
So where’s your ‘mutually beneficial arrangement’ or resolution in that scenario? Why isn’t the way everything is now- and not just gun rights, but EVERYTHING- already the resolution? There’s some stuff in society that is the way the left wants it, and some other stuff that is the way the right wants it. SO let’s all agree to never change anything ever again, and there- both sides win, and are at peace with each other.
Well, clearly that won’t happen. Some people want to change some things, and that’s never going to stop being the case. That’s why, to me, there’s never going to be a ‘resolution’ to our ‘differences’. Nobody gave a shit about gay rights 40 years ago. 40 years from now the left and the right (or whomever) will be arguing over some super duper important shit that nobody cares about now.
Maybe an example would be helpful- can you think of an historical example of the type of resolution you’re asking about, so I can decide whether or not it’s possible between conservatives and liberals?
All I would add to that is that the liberals I have a problem with are the ones that are closer to the real historical roots of the ideology.
My points about racism, sexism, and homophobia are the same point. Conservatism is absolutely chock full of ideas that the left would use those terms to describe. You seem to be with me that sexism and racism are words that are used as weapons out of proportion to reality, and that just because someone tries to tactically discredit a position by calling it racist or sexist doesn’t mean they really are that way in any useful sense. You seem to be hung up on agreeing that homophobia is just the same. The reason why I distinguish homophobia as a word from sexism and racism is that “sexism” and “racism” are words that describe real things, but those words are abused for political ends. “Homophobia”, by contrast, was invented from the start as a political weapon, and is used like “racism” and “sexism” are, without having the benefit of a politically neutral application. It was simply decided that an effective tactic in advancing gay rights would be to describe people who didn’t support those rights as being mentally ill.
SO- there are lots and lots of conservatives who don’t support gay marriage, and who don’t think homosexual acts are morally equivalent to heterosexual acts. People who think this way are much more likely to be conservative than they are to be liberal. You’re just going to have to decide for yourself if such attitudes constitute this “homophobia” thing or not, and whether or not I’ve confirmed or disconfirmed the stereotype.
No, I meant to say race, but it’s true of class as well.
Cites a more recent study (2013) done at MIT that debunks the study the conservative media have been gloating over since 2010.
The important point here is not that one side gives more than the other (which supposedly isn’t true), but that one’s political inclinations and affiliations really don’t have much if anything to do with how much they give to charity.
So who is more caring or concerned about others? We can look at the studies, which unsurprisingly provide conflicting information and statistics, which both sides will cherry pick from and spin as they like (what has been done in this thread for example). Or we can go on what people actually think and write and say and believe …
Yeah, why point out the dark side of a historical figure’s legacy when it’s so much easier just to venerate and worship without regard for the things they did wrong? Especially when said figure is an American icon whose ideas support your own?
The problem with this theory is that i, and i’m sure most other run-of-the-mill liberal Americans, don’t have heroes of political thought - i have artistic heroes, literary heroes, etc. - but i haven’t read most of the leftist thinkers you cite - i’ve never read more than a paragraph or two of Marx when he gets cited by someone else, i don’t know a thing about Rawls, and Foucalt, as far as i have read him, was far more concerned with issues of stigma and power than with anything to do with economics or capitalism. Point being: My politics are a result far more of my personal lived experience and have little to do with the roots of liberal ideology. Fact is, i don’t bother trying to be an ideological purist, and i’m sure the majority of liberals nowadays are the same, ideological purity is more of a conservative endeavor than a liberal one. Do i dislike rich people? Not on principle. Most of my family is relatively wealthy and i don’t dislike them for it. And i’m not jealous of people in 50,000 dollar cars or million dollar houses, because i don’t want those things, though i admit i do find the excess to be mildly disgusting, so yeah, there’s some disgust there, if that’s what you mean by “resentment”.
Humans survive in any environment. I bet if you asked many of the higher level North Koreans they might say much of the same things.
Many roads, more so every year in Colorado, follow this exact policy. But, the public roads suck, more of the money goes to bureaucracy than to building and maintaining the roads. Further, we haven’t seen any innovation (with the exception of the solar panel roads, maybe) in the road technology. We might have seen much, much more or even the solar panel roads much sooner, etc if they had been privatized. But, mostly we leave it to the government because it is not that difficult to do… And they still fuck it up pretty badly… The difference between roads and medicine is huge, and we need the innovation in medicine more than we need it in roads. Because, peoples lives and lifestyle are so dependent on it. A bad road sucks, but far less die.
Only a fool rely’s on the law enforcement for protection. That is what guns are for… (I am also very pro gun.) Law enforcement can show up after, to take the bad guys to jail, but not much more. Ever been robbed?
And, yes, private security companies are far better at their job than local law enforcement, and they get paid a lot more, because they are better.
So, in our current reality, the poor are worse off because they have to rely on basic protection than the rich.
Yet England just had a huge contriversy over the weight times. There is a reason that when rich people in other countries, including Canada, get sick they come to the US. It is because we have the best health care system on the planet, we just pay for it. But we could lower our standards so that everyone can suffer equally.
You must prove that in your system people fair better than if they seek their own medical care. By transferring medical care into the hands of government, you are not making everyone better, you are transferring the power from those with money to those with connections in that government. Much like a cow, connections are far harder to divide and spend in different places.
But we are not giving health, health is something that has more to do with individual lifestyles, family history and luck. What we are giving is resources to make up for peoples, individual lifestyles, family history and luck. Either in the form of mandated insurance, or, because this is the ultimate goal of Obamacare, health care… But insurance is not healthcare, and neither are health.
Fracking is a drilling method. It lowers the costs of drilling significantly… Some environmentalists are freaking out about it, it’s a Hollywood “issue.”
Yes. Think of it this way. When/If we make the same decisions Canada does, meaning a single payer system and possibly a price ceiling on medicines. It is going to mean, no new medicines, unless there is another resource rich country we can dump the costs on. People are going to suffer.
That means you missed the more important next paragraph:
It’s not only that it is wrong, it is that it was intentionally set up wrong.
I’ve had this thing quoted at me, by a Canadian. He was dating my best friend so I laughed and walked away, so as to not have to insult him… Which was what popped into my head.
That is not what makes me angry, I am not angry. I am frustrated. More with myself than anyone else. I am failing to explain this stuff, as shown by my having to make the same points over and over. To you, to Liz. I don’t expect to convince UPF, but you two seem reasonable. I take that as meaning I don’t understand it well enough. Which as much time as I’ve spent on this, is frustrating…
This is why I’ve posted the video’s, to let someone else “talk” instead.
Ucci, from here on in, please do not consider me a liberal. I do not fit into your narrowly defined pigeonhole. That being said, I do not want to be thrown into the conservative pot either. Seems I have so much more to learn about this mess known as the conservative vs. liberal debate for me to even begin understanding where I stand. It was a mistake for me to even suggest I had left-leaning sentiments (though it couldn’t be helped at the time) and I should have stood on my neutral/centered ground that I original took all along.
Ucci, this was your distinction. You said that capitalism with a limited safety net was acceptable and didn’t count as the kind of Robin-Hood-like socialism that the liberals you hate want to establish. What I’m saying is that when you hear a Canadian talking about the “socialism” of his country, he’s usually talking about just that. If you have a way for us, or Americans, to maintain that safety net without taxation (which the poor are required to pay just as much as the rich), let me hear it. I don’t know anyone here in Canada who wants to put a cap on how much wealth the rich can amass (for an example of how else we can do it)–that has never been a part of our system and no one’s trying to make it so. If there happens to be a few Canadian liberals/socialist who like that the rich are being taxed (despite that the poor are also), it certainly isn’t because of them that it is so (and they don’t represent what most Canadians see in the kind of socialism, if that’s the appropriate word, we have here).
Then I don’t get what a “liberal” is to you. Is a liberal just a Marxist/socialist? In that case, definitely don’t call me a liberal. This is particularly confusing because there are so many other values and ideologies that seem to come along with liberalism (or liberals) that don’t hinge on Marxism: gay marriage rights, women’s rights, anti-discrimination in the work place, anti-gun laws, etc. If you’re going to take an idea like gay marriage rights and link that with Marxism, you’re going to have to jump through quite a few hoops to convince me the link is valid.
A hard thing to understand, is that, lowering taxes often increases tax income. This is what happened to Reagan in the 80’s. He lowered taxes and increased tax income…
I am pragmatic, in case none of you have realized that. That doesn’t mean I’m a pragmatist, however. (Any more than wanting to see everyone able to get preventive medicine makes me a socialist, but that isn’t why I’ve rejoined the fray.)
I would like to know what specific privileges you and ucci don’t have now that you would have given a totally conservative atmosphere in a totally free-market society–particularly with globalization.
I would like to know what specific choices you’d have that you don’t have now; how your resources would change; how your futures would perhaps be different.
Please take the time to do this. It would help my understanding of your positions tremendously.
Reagan cut taxes, yes (which also increased the deficit) - but that is not how he increased revenue - he did THAT by broadening the base and eliminating loopholes and deductions - something Republicans nowadays are adamantly opposed to doing.
I get the feeling you aren’t a liberal or conservative, that’s fine. I don’t remember where I implied that’s what you are, but it’s not the impression I have. I think you’ve been influenced by a lot of common bits of leftist propaganda and are comfortable making arguments that leftist make, maybe because you haven’t heard alternatives or didn’t realize the source of those arguments. But the fact that you’re not in either camp is pretty plain to me, I think I’ve commented on that several times- I’ve accused you of trying to hard to stay in the middle, not of being a leftist, as I recall.
Well, ok then. Socialism is an actual thing- the word means something. If you guys are using it to mean taxation for social services, then...good for you I guess! But socialism hasn't triumphed in Canada just because Canadians refer to unemployment tax or whatever as socialism.
Right, which I why I believe I said I didn't think socialism was any more popular in your country than it is in mine- which is to say, not very popular.
I don't see why my point confused you. But I think it's a pretty important point. You said liberals don't view CEO's and politicians as moral exemplars. I think that's plainly false as I can think of examples of both that the left idolizes. [i]Why[/i] would a group that holds egalitarianism as the highest virtue idolize Steve Jobs and the Kennedys? For the same reason this group that holds tolerance and diversity in such esteem insists on ideological purity on campus and the newsroom.
Well, it shouldn't be confusing because most of what you just cited stem from Marxism, and the leaders of those movements were Marxists! Gay marriage and women's rights got their start as an attempt to undermine the traditional family as a source of moral authority, and of Christianity as the cultural hegemony of the west. Feminism and queer theory have at their absolute center the idea that a traditional family is a patriarchal institution getting in the way of a socialist utopia. Why? Because the people don't embrace socialism when they value their lives in ways that go beyond their material worth. That's Gramsci. I may as well environmentalism- a very important way for the state to regulate what private citizens can do with the means of production, which they are still grudgingly allowed to control. You didn't bring it up, but abortion was promoted by leftists eugenicists looking for a way to reduce the poor, non-white population. Yes, Planned Parenthood started as a socialist racial hygeine organization. Now, that's NOT to say that everybody who supports one of these ideas is a Marxist, that is clearly false. However, they are ideas that are absolutely crucial for their to be a socialist state, they are ideas coming from the left, and socialism is a leftist ideology. Consider Planned Parenthood again- I certainly don't think that most or even many people in that organization are specifically trying to use abortion to control the black population and to improve the IQ of the U.S. through eugenics. [i]But it still works successfully to that end even if they don't consciously intend it[/i] because the people who got that movement started were aiming for that target.
Now, the exception would be anti-gun laws. Marx was in favor of an armed populace, and so was Lenin. But they were still living in the times when they thought they people were just waiting to rise up if only they were sufficiently empowered, and they saw gun ownership as a means to that end. You need to wait a little later until Socialism had fused with fascism to really see why gun control makes sense for the left, but I certainly agree that there's no reason a Marxist has to be anti-gun.
I’m going to do things in reverse and respond to your last paragraph first:
In that case, I really appreciate your patience with me… and do realize I’m being stubborn… on purpose.
Think of it this way: imagine you decide to visit the Middle East in order to understand what underlies the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. You’re completely clueless as to anything that’s going on between them, only that you know they’re steeped into violent conflict. So you first encounter a couple of Israelis. You get pretty much all your information from them. No Palestinian ever interjects to give you a sense that you’re getting at least balanced information. So the Israelis tell you about how justified they are and how evil and maniacal the Palestinians are. Now, for all you know, they could be right–and in principle maybe even completely objective and unbiased… but you’d have to be a fool to believe that. So you take what they say with a grain of salt… more than that, you actively challenge what they tell you, you question them, you even get a little indignant with them upon the impression that they might be expecting you to take every word they say at face value. But how else can you do it? How else can you learn the real nature of the conflict than by resisting as much as you can being ensnared by the same prejudices, preconceptions, hatred and bigotry as the group(s) from which you are getting your information.
So I’m being stubborn… on purpose. And I sincerely do apologize (though I’m not going to stop) if that frustrates your efforts. I don’t want you to stop trying, however, and as a token of my gratitude for your efforts, I’ll say in all honesty that I really do admire both your expertise in the subject and your philanthropy (your volunteer work with the elderly… not to mention your hard work ethic which I gathered from your story about being a poor student trying to raise a daughter).
I see a few problems with it–one of which I expressed when I said:
The thing is, Eric, I’m always going to trust my personal hands-on experiences before anything else. I will not let someone else–even Google hits–tell me the truth is something other than my experiences. You might think of this attitude as similar to the scientist’s attitude with respect to confirming evidence: no evidence really “confirms” a hypothesis, it can only falsify it; but you can have supporting evidence–evidence that makes it seem all the more likely that a hypothesis is true. What we have in the case of my experience of living within a socialist system is a lack of supporting evidence for your claim that socialism makes life suck–it doesn’t falsify it, obviously, as my quote above will testify, but if you tell me that socialism degrades the quality of life to the point of making it intolerable, then when I check my evidence (the quality of my life), I have to return to you and say “sorry, not supported”.
See, again, this just does not concur with my experience. Our roads are fine–they’re always being maintained. Who knows, maybe if I took a road trip down through the States (which I have), I’d be blown away by the quality of your roads and could never go back, but to me, that would be like a billionaire pointing to a millionaire saying “you’re poor”.
Hmm, so you’re taking my argument and flipping it on its head. You’re saying that it’s because medicine is such a basic necessity that we should never take it out of the private sector, rather than because it’s such a basic necessity, we should put it in the hands of the government so that everyone is guaranteed to get it.
Still, I fail to see why you say these things are necessary and therefore we get the government to oversee them–it almost sounds like you’re now turning that around and saying either a) they’re not really that necessary after all which is why it’s OK to let the government oversee them, or b) they are necessary and therefore we need to take them out of the government’s hands (I do recall you saying that we do need the government to fund education).
Here’s what I understand: the poor are worse off compared to the rich. And if there weren’t any private security companies, we’d all be worse off, having to depend on shitty law enforcement service.
Here’s what I don’t understand: why, in a socialist system, would you ever be worse off than having no service at all. Go back to medical care. You make health care public, it becomes universal, so everyone gets equal attention. The attention isn’t as good as it would be if it were privatized. But how does it ever come about that it’s worse than no medical care at all. How could it be that, for example, you go in for a routine hernia operation, and the surgeon is so shitty, he cuts off your penis by mistake (bearing in mind my experience with medical care here–and I’ve had my fair share–has never been remotely that bad)… I watched the video you sent me on Mike Rowe, btw.
Yes, I know. If I were but a poor millionaire and I saw an opportunity to become a billionaire, I’d take it for sure.
See my questions above.
I’m not saying everyone fairs better with socialism, I’m saying that no one gets left out in the cold–it’s a trade off: you sacrifice quality for universality (and much lower cost)–it’s a question of compassion for the poor and needy, a question of morality. Now you seem to be suggesting that the actual results are worse than nothing at all, so I’ll bite my tongue on this point until I get an answer from you to my questions above.
To what degree? Are you saying the charitable aid that springs up is of greater quantity and quality than what you’d get in a socialist system? And keep in mind, please, that I’m primarily concerned with medical care here–I think that’s vitally important to a society–are you saying doctors, surgeons, and very highly specialized medical professionals are going to do the kind of work on people in need that they ordinarily do while on the payroll?
I’m not sure what this one proves. It states that 73% of Americans give to religious organizations. It means that Americans are a very charitable lot–particularly towards religion. But is this figure supposed to decrease the more socialized a society? And it only states that these donations go towards religious organizations–how much of that ends up reaching the people liberals are most concerned with–the homeless, the hungry, the poor, the disabled, etc.?
Again, not sure what this proves, except that Americans give a lot (a hell of lot). But are you saying this will go away with socialism?
No, just an explanation of what the above are supposed to prove would be fine.
Fine, bad wording. I’m saying that avoiding sickness and death is a basic necessity (and by sickness, I don’t mean chicken pox–I’m talking about serious illnesses like cancer or diabetes). Sure, not all of us will succumb to a major illness like these in our lifetime but many of us will (and many of us are unfortunately born into a life-long sickness of one kind or another). I don’t think we as a society can turn out backs on these people (but that’s just me).
Actually, I read part way into that.
I get frustrated, Eric, when I read shit like this. It’s not just because obviously somebody lied to me, but I feel almost as though my intelligence is being insulted. This guy, Scott W. Atlas, tells me that one of the worlds more trusted and prestigious scientific authorities on health and medicine is lying to me. But if the WHO cannot be trusted, why should I trust Atlas? Who is this Atlas? He’s some nobody I’ve never heard of before. Why does he think he’s earned my trust when the WHO shouldn’t have? So he puts me into this sticky position in which I know somebody’s lying to me, I just don’t know who (that’s who, not WHO ). But I’m supposed to just take Atlas’s word for it–it’s the WHO who’s lying to me, not him.
This is like the common criticism against religion that says if every religion around the world is telling you “I’m right, everyone else is wrong,” how are you supposed to decide? And then, to add insult to injury, they each tell you “If you don’t believe me, you’re going to hell”… as if they’ve given me some conclusive reason why I should believe them that none of the others have.
You know as well as I that this is a very controversial subject, and everybody wants to fudge the data in their favor–there’s so much corruption you can’t come across a source of pure, untainted, unadulterated information–everyone’s had their dirty hands in it–the information pool is contaminated! I get very irritated when people expect me to just “know” that their source hasn’t been contaminated (not that I’m literally irritated at you, Eric, but this is the reason I stopped reading–when I get to the point when I have to interpret what I’m reading with two mutually exclusive visors–one saying it’s a lie, the other saying it’s the truth–I feel I’m wasting my time at best, being insulted at worst).
What do you do in situations like this, Eric? You seem like a pretty intelligent guy, so I’ll assume your method isn’t just that if it’s from a conservative source, it’s good, or that if it confirm what you already believe, then it’s good. You must have a better method than that. Ucci suggested something: if the original reports suggest one thing, and all reactionaries try to explain it away as opposed to actually falsifying it, then it’s a good bet that the original data were at least scrupulously collected (I say scrupulously collected, not correct, as the reactionaries might still be right).
Well, Ucci’s the mod here, you might ask him if he has access to any record of the original post. It’s no big secret though, I just meant to PM UGF and accidentally posted it on the main forum.
Now Ucci…
Good… and it wasn’t you who implied it, it was me who said it:
God, I hope not. And yes, I do get the impression that Americans kind of equate socialism with communism or Marxism (is socialism just watered down Marxism to you?). I’m not sure what the history of socialism is in Canada, or what the designers of the system had in mind at each step along the way (believe it or not, I know way more about American politics and history than I do that of my own country, and I know very little of American politics and history… sad, I know ), but if I were to venture a guess, it would be that what the “socialists” had in mind when they implemented the safety nets that we now have was just to have the safety net (I doubt they were Marxists or were aiming for communism, but based on your last post, I’m now second guessing that). But as this would look very much like Marx-style socialism to Americans (and other countries), we were christened “socialist” by those Americans (and other countries). Knowing Canadians, we just accepted the label and decided to be proud of it (hey, it distinguished us from Americans), and so you will find many Canadians boasting about their “socialism” (though obviously not all Canadians) without fully realizing that, to Americans, that means something quite different.
You have to keep in mind something I said in an earlier post:
What this entails is that we’re a very accepting people, and we don’t react to changes with hostility or rebellious attitudes quite as much as Americans. We kind of just “roll with things”. So if socialism ends up becoming part of our system, we look at its positive aspects and try to put our efforts into maximizing that. To most Canadians, we see the safety net as the positive side to socialism, and if you’ve been following along with Eric and I, you’d know that we haven’t experienced too many of the negatives to feel any impetus to change that (though, like I said, you and Eric have been prompting me to doubt that).
This lead me to believe that the main issue that socialists have is with the rich… which I would think means they don’t like the rich and powerful… which means they don’t see them as moral exemplars.
Wow, one hoop is all it took.
So the take home message I’m getting from all this is that by “Marxism”, you’re not just talking about Carl Marx’s ideas but the cumulative body of theory that he and his successors have left us with (I didn’t know about Charles Fourier and Henri de Saint-Simon, for example). You seem to be saying that the “liberals” you’re really focused on are 1) religiously liberal (almost in the sense that they’ve been indoctrinated into the “Borg”), in which case even if a young and unseasoned liberal believed in this or that left-wing idea but not others, he would soon be brainwashed to believe in pretty much the whole of the leftist doctrine insofar as he frequented and became a member of certain left-wing groups, and 2) followers of a very specific strain of ideology, whether they realize it or not, that stems from Marx and his successors. This puts a very different, and important, spin on where you’re coming from, Ucci.
Can we make a distinction here? When we talk about the kinds of liberals just described, can we agree to call them “religious” liberals? Because there is another liberal I have in mind: me! Or at least, what I thought I was before disavowed that label. You see, the thing is, I’ll bet there’s tons of self-proclaimed liberals out there, probably some of which you’ve encountered but were too quick to throw into the box of religious liberals, who don’t realize they’re supposed to be Marxists, or moral relativists, or eugenicists–self-proclaimed liberals who just aren’t into the thick of it enough to have been brainwashed to this extent. And this need not be newbies either… it could be long-time dabblers: liberalists who have only ever just stuck their feet in the water without realizing there was a whale named Marx who was ready to swallow them whole should they ever venture deeper in. They’ll tell you they’re “liberals” without realizing how you’ll interpret that.
We should go back to your claims about liberals in the media and education: are you saying the liberals in journalism and in universities and in Hollywood are religious liberals? Because if you are, you’re going to need waaaay more evidence than just what they registered as when applying for voting rights God knows how many years ago.
And what about the king of the liberals himself: are you saying Obama is a Marxist who wants to rule over a communist America like Mao Zedong? ← That’s a pretty extraordinary claim.
Having said all that, what you said gives me some insight into what the exact impact of Marx’s philosophy was on the West. Tell me if you agree with me. Before Marx, the fact that one was a part of the “working poor” was seen as just his lot in life–he just accepted it–but after Marx, he saw himself as part of an oppressed class–an underdog, a victim–and it was the higher classes who were responsible for this oppression. This gave him the sense that this was social or political injustice–that is, he didn’t have to just accept it. And from Marx’s followers, you get the idea that this applies not only to the working poor, but to any group who’s rights or privileges are inferior to those of other groups–so blacks, women, homosexuals, the disabled, the elderly, etc. Without Marx, in other words, these groups would just remain silent, accepting their position in society, but because of Marx, they feel they have a right to protest.
Finally, I think I’m beginning understanding your concern as a conservative–tell me if I have this right: you call them “progressives” for a reason; they claim they are simply in favor of making progress, of making the world a better place. This, one could say, is almost necessary as change is the only constant in this world (which I agree with, btw), and so we cannot remain static, not for very long; we must change in order to adapt to the times. But conservatives see it differently, don’t they. They don’t see this movement as simply adapting to the times, they see it as a slow and surreptitious move towards a communist state. I got this partially from your last post (when you described the left as perpetually wanting change every ten years), and partially this post (in the way you described the left’s movement as serving the original Marxist vision). Is this right?
And finally (really finally this time ), I feel it’s time for another coming clean. Even though I’ve disavowed the “liberal” label, I feel I should say that my moral position is still very much in line with the moderate liberals (not the religious liberals–this is me disavowing the extremists in my camp ). What I mean by this is that, morally speaking, I think racism is wrong, as is sexism, homophobia (sorry for the term), standing by while the homeless freeze to death in the winter, or go hungry, or get deathly sick, thinking my nationality is any better than other nationalities, discrimination in the work place, etc. This is not a philosophical position (in the sense that I’m prepared to debate it philosophically, although I can but that’s for another thread which I’m not interested in pursuing), and it’s not a political position (in the sense that I’m prepared to act upon it in a political atmosphere), but just what my conscience tells me I cannot accept. If Marxism is wrong–which I think, on the whole, it is–I don’t think there isn’t at least a sliver of a legacy it has left behind, a way in which it has influenced the West in a positive way. If there is any good that has come out of this clash between conservatives and liberals, it is that there now appears to be a common agreed upon morality: a prejudice based on one’s conditions of birth–race, sex, sexual orientation, or class–is not sufficient grounds to discriminate morally (I take this from Uccisore’s stating that these prejudices–racism, sexism, etc.–are very rare among conservatives).
Usually when you have a school of thought named after a guy, it's a subset of some wider school of thought. That's the case here, but it gets confused when the school of thought named after the guy is actually the progenitor of the wider school. It's an insider/outsider thing. Communism, socialism, and Marxism share enough things in common that one can reject them all for the same reasons, but sure they have differences too, especially to somebody who accepts some version of it as true and is trying to define his place within it. Another thing that complicates is that Marxism has a horrible track record when implemented, so there's a strong urge to call future attempts by other things, or to say past attempts didn't really count.
As far as what people have in mind when they implement particular policies- you really do have to know the individuals involved to know for sure. But I will say this- Marxists and Communists are playing the long game. That’s written right into their foundational documents, that it’s about incremental changes designed to force certain outcome, change perceptions, and prepare people for a different way of thinking on a basic level. Not everybody pushing for a mild progressive reform is a socialist, but every socialist is going to advance his agenda through mild progressive reforms.
Yeah, I don’t know much about Canadian politics, but that all sounds about right.
Some. I think it's more because the positions they advocate in the here and now isn't really representative of their end game, and so conflicting with those doesn't conflict with their real principles. Like I said, a socialist is playing a long game. They want the State to be the sole owner of the means of production, and for all moral authority and loyalty to be divested from natural or traditional organizations like the family or the Church, and brought to the state. A CEO or a politician can serve that end as well as anybody, even if in the end, they want a world where there is no CEO and the politicians serve a completely different role.
Let me give you an example: Leftists complain about the gender wage gap in the U.S. There isn't actually a gender wage gap in the U.S., and it is very very easy to confirm this, such that many of the leftists complaining about it know it isn't real. The only possible explanation is that by complaining about the gender wage gap, the socialist is trying to accomplish something OTHER than closing a gender wage gap that they know isn't real. By creating the popular perception that there IS such a gap, they accomplish some other thing, some X. So, if some leftist doing what I describe here pays his women employees less than his men despite complaining about the wage gap, he isn't REALLY being a hypocrite- you have to look at X in order to know if his actions conflict with his values.
That makes perfect sense. And yet, we know they have plenty of rich moral exemplars just the same.
Yeah, part of it. Another part of it would be black nationalist groups and the Hispanic nationalist groups keeps the southern border weak.
Yeah. Marx got the ball rolling, ideas diverged from his enough that they needed a new catch-all term, that catch-all term is socialism. There are socialists that disagree with Marx about a lot of things- like market socialists, for example. Most of the distinctions matter more to Eric than they do to me, because they are economic distinctions. I’m primarily critical of cultural marxism, and socialists are all stripes are much more similar than they are different through that lens.
I think there could be leftists out there in some other part of the world that are doing very little that I would disagree with, especially depending on the kind of society they are trying to reform. Socialism in western civilization though, I think is caustic. As far as what liberals I am focused on, as far as I can tell there are three classes: The basically uneducated who hear what other leftists say, and say 'me too'. Halfway-academics who defend (perhaps just portions of) the liberal party line without really understanding the big picture it forms or the intended end results. Lastly, you have your leftist true academics, who really have the power and influence to shape what the other two classes believe. They are the ones who's political actions don't tend to resemble their ultimate goals, like in the gender-gap example I gave. Because of the internet, the second group and third group are blurred- you can have some guy on YouTube that influences millions while really being a halfway-academic in terms of his knowledge base and motivations. Those are the people who are most likely to be what you described- defending gay rights just for the sake of gay rights, &c. If they aren't conscious, though, of how every issue on the left ties in to every other issue, then sure, they are likely to be pulled in to being a leftist about everything.
Conservatism has this same sort of structural make up, by the way, except that as far as I can tell, the true academics are more above board with their ultimate goals (since their ultimate goals usually involve maintaining a present state that you can't really hide), and there's more diversity among conservative academics: there is a strong reactionary aspect, so you get a lot of difference in what is being reacted to or why. Conservatives don't have a utopia we are working towards, so there's much less pressure on us all to be on the same page about everything.
Ya, the middle academics would be most of these. You get a lot of conversations with people who are in favor of this-or-that liberal policy because it just seems to be the morally right thing to do, regardless of other considerations. Some of these will agree with conservatives about some stuff, disagree about others. Ironically, you also get a lot of "Conservatives are the world kind of evil scum" out of this group, because they see their pet issue as a moral imperative, and are unaware (and unwilling to find out) about the deeper reasons why anyone would be opposed to it.
I don't actually know. I just know that if you make a list of leftist causes and a list of conservative causes, journalists and academics will support the leftist causes far more often than the general population, and will work to exclude those who don't from participating. I speculate that journalists are basically intellectual victims of college professors, believing and doing as they do because they were at no point taught that there was any other respectable way to be.
He's doing plenty of things to enable hardcore Marxists to rule over a communist America, and he was educated by, and associated with people who fit the profile you describe above. I don't know much of a dupe he is versus a player. I know that his foreign policy shifted to become a whole lot more like Bush's the moment he was elected (at least for a few years), so it appears that having to lead instead of just talk changed him.
Not only accepted it, but was FAR less likely to define themselves in terms of it. A person was Irish, a Catholic, a Mason, and a father all before they were poor, and could have pride and satisfaction in their lives due to each of those things, despite being poor. The evolution of Marxism is what it is primarily because of this- the revolution never happened because poor people weren't as upset about their lot in life as Marx thought they needed to be. To a Marxist, having pride in anything that makes it easier to deal with being poor is a false consciousness, and a person needs to be cured of it. Leftist gender, sexual and racial politics should be understood in terms of that- and that's not a conspiracy theory, it is central to socialism that politics be understood in terms of such things.
More or less. Just keep in mind that to the Marxist, the economic class is the only one that actually matters. The other categories are just ways of setting people against each other to promote general upheaval.
I call them progressives because it’s the only thing you can call them right now that they won’t take as a slur. Nothing more to it than that. In a few years, I’m sure they will consider ‘progressive’ to be hate speech, and we’ll have to call them something else. Leftist, liberal, socialist, Marxist- all these terms are considered rude.
Communism isn’t the only enemy of conservatism, it’s just the most threatening one these days. What the conservative is objecting to at root is the idea that a particular intellectual or tight group of intellectuals can come up with a better way for society to operate than the people will come up with for themselves if you leave them alone to do it. I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘adapting to the times’ in the broad sense. Take gay rights. Absolutely nothing changed in the 1980’s to adjust the moral status of homosexuality from what it had always been. Sex didn’t change, the population boom was not a crisis, religion didn’t go away. There was NOTHING to adapt to. About the only new thing I can think of in the 80’s related to sexual ethics is AIDS and that sure as shit doesn’t make a case for gay rights. We didn’t change to adapt to the times- players changed the times because they had an agenda that demanded it, and then the rest of us were expected to adapt. Saying “oh well, shit happens, things change” when in fact you have a very discrete group of individuals who made them that way makes no sense to me.
Insofar as what you described is real, conservatives have no problem with it. If the times REALLY DO change- if there’s a drought or an alien invasion or a plague or some new threat from abroad, then sometimes you have to change to adapt to it. So for example, immigration. We used to have millions of square miles of fertile, uninhabited land in the U.S., and now we don’t. But academics don’t get ‘force of nature’ status such that the rest of us have to go along to get along with whatever social experiment they are enamoured with.
Conservatives don’t disagree with most of that, they disagree with the idea that the State is in a better position to address these things than individuals are.
In regards to the full academic who understands Marxist theory inside and out, would you say they are the master-minds behind the Democratic party? In other words, would you say the Democrats are the party of the far left (those who understand and fully believe in Marxism) or would you say they represent the moderate left (believing in some socialist principles but not others). This is important because you described Obama as either a dupe or a player. By “player” I understand you to mean a Marxist. But I wonder if you mean “player” in the sense that he’s playing the system, even the Marxists, in his own personal game. Not that he’s really secretly a conservative, but that he’s a moderate liberal–someone who thinks some socialist principles are right but not others–and uses some of the more hardcore Marxists to gain power (in that the Marxists are the main source of intellectual support for the Democrats).
I think something like this could even be true of the full academics. Being versed in socialist and Marxist theory means you’d know it inside-out, but that doesn’t mean you’d agree with everything it says. However, I would think that being experienced in a particular philosophy will, over time, have the effect on one of making certain aspects of it seem plausible or good while not necessarily others. I mean even if you start out being a devote conservative, if you study Marxist or socialist theory long enough, there’ll probably come a point when you give in to the evidence or reasoning of the theory and say “ok, maybe that aspect of it ain’t so bad.” So even these scholars of Marxism might eventually become moderate leftists but not necessarily so overtaken by their knowledge of the theory to become completely aligned with it. However, I gathered from what you said that you’ve had first-hand contact with some of these types–which is why you say they almost consistently uphold some kind of moral relativism or amoralism (is that aspect of it a formal part of the Marxist doctrine, maybe from one of Marx’s successors, or is this something the religious liberals come up with on their own?)–so you would know; in your encounters, have you been able to tell a difference between hardcore Marxists and those who, though they know a lot about Marxism, are able to maintain a moderate position?
I guess another way of asking what I’m asking is: is it possible to be an extreme moderate? That is, to believe in some left-wing ideas but not others and stick to your guns against the forces that would pull you in one direction or the other. Or to know your shit inside and out, but still recognize that some left-wing ideas are good ones but not others. Is it possible to stick to this position so tenaciously that one could conceivable carry it with him into the Presidency?
I have a feeling that’s Barack Obama for you. If you want to know the truth, my personal feel is that, as the first black president, he felt that he had to leave something for the black community sometime during his presidency, and coming from a black community himself, he understood the struggles of poor black families especially when it came to doctor’s bills. So he created Obamacare so that the black community could say that having the first president who represented their people was not in vein.
Moderates are often seen as in the middle. The middle might be extreme. WE can look at the past and see that many moderate positions would now be considered extreme. Unless extreme is simply defined as ‘far away from the current norms’.
You are a dangerous person, ucci, because you are so mistaken. But when you publish what I’ve underlined in your quote to gib, you become a very dangerous person, indeed. Margaret Sanger was not a Marxist; she was not a eugenicist; and the organization she started, now called Planned Parenthood was not started as a “socialist racial hygiene organization.” Margaret Sanger was a nurse working in the poor areas of NYC at a time when it was against Federal Law to even mention the word ‘contraception’ in public or to distribute “obscene” literature or implements through the mail. (Comstock Act of 1873) Margaret was one of eleven children–out of her mother’s 18 pregnancies. Her mother died at a fairly young age. Sanger, as a nurse, was often called on to care for women suffering from botched abortions, either ‘back street’ or self-induced. She saw a lot of women die, as a result. She started to teach women how their bodies functioned and how they got pregnant and her audiences grew to include ‘upper-class’ women. She taught women that they had the right, if not the imperative, to deny their husbands ‘marital right’ because it so often resulted in an unwanted pregnancy, or death.
It’s hard to picture what life was like for women in the first couple of decades in the 1900s. Not even doctors were allowed to discuss birth control, a phrase Sanger coined, with their female patients–it was obscene. Women didn’t know how their bodies worked; they were embarrassed to talk about ‘anything like that.’ They had no way to protect themselves, which led to abortions (which have been around since time began, it seems); in China, it led to infanticide, which still goes on to this day. (The Rivers Run Black, Elizabeth C. Economy, 2004) I’m sure a lot of other countries are also guilty. Oh, btw, the book is about pollution in Chinese rivers; a part of that pollution is the corpses of female new borns, some still wearing their hospital ‘bracelets.’
What you say causes the ‘break-up of the family’ isn’t abortion, birth control, feminism, or a lack of a strong religious background. In my mind, a part of it is and economy that forces women to work outside the home and a part of it is unwanted pregnancies. But they’re only parts of a very interwoven, complex, whole.
My apologies, dear sir. I thought my rant was over when I pm’d gib earlier, but I guess it wasn’t. Please, please, I’ve asked you this repeatedly, tell us where you get your ‘information!’ You don’t need to cite anything other than direct quotes, I know, but tell us, if you can, how you arrived at your conclusions. At least, qualify what you say. When you make statements such as the one above–that are clearly erroneous and can be shown to be so–tell us, please, how you, as an intelligent person who, I hope, is able to think, came to your ideas.
). But I’m supposed to just take Atlas’s word for it–it’s the WHO who’s lying to me, not him.
), but if I were to venture a guess, it would be that what the “socialists” had in mind when they implemented the safety nets that we now have was just to have the safety net (I doubt they were Marxists or were aiming for communism, but based on your last post, I’m now second guessing that). But as this would look very much like Marx-style socialism to Americans (and other countries), we were christened “socialist” by those Americans (and other countries). Knowing Canadians, we just accepted the label and decided to be proud of it (hey, it distinguished us from Americans), and so you will find many Canadians boasting about their “socialism” (though obviously not all Canadians) without fully realizing that, to Americans, that means something quite different.