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Leftist vs. Liberalism *WARNING: POLITICS!*

Discussion in 'Coffee House' started by Feldon, Aug 17, 2020.

  1. Zynt

    Zynt Active Member

    Speaking of John Brown - If you have Showtime then, "Good Lord Bird" is absolutely amazing so far. It's a pet project series of Ethan Hawke based on the novel by the same name.
     
  2. Miauler

    Miauler New Member

    Just to chuck my tuppence into the ring:
    The politicians you get are not the cause of the woes you get, they're a symptom. Neither "Right" not "Left" have the answer to what the world needs; both have key components which need to be brought to bear in differing balanced, depending on the problem at hand.
    The "Conservative" approach is to go slow, stay with what works, hone, refine and perfect. It has strong rules and rigor.
    The "Progressive" approach is to disrupt, advance, go with what's new and craves change. It has arbitrary rules and flexibility.
    There are a lot more traits than that (thousands), but they're just some highlights and 'big picture' markers.

    If you have too much of the Conservative, you stagnate, which eventually leads to collapse, or at the very least irrelevance.
    If you have too much of the Progressive, you have chaos, which eventually leads to collapse, or at the very least irrelevance.

    The "Right" leaning focus more on the ability of individuals to compete to be able to obtain roles to change the global rules.
    Unchecked, this leads to success of the most aggressive and vicious.
    The "Left" leaning focus more on controlling the global rules to mould the inviduals.
    Unchecked, this leads to success of the most manipulative and scheming.

    I've got loads more comparisons like that, but that'd just bore you all, so I'll leave it at that. My point being that both have their pros and both have their cons.

    What is needed is people to put the adult pants on, and discuss this rationally. However, over the last few decades, I've seen this ability atrophy to an unsustainable level in some countries. There are "Feeders" to this (such as fostering the belief that regardless of factual grounding, your statement is worthy of consideration to the same degree as a well researched and factual view), this, I suspect has been fostered and fanned by both internal factions wishing to make financial and political capital from the zealotry this produces, as well as external principals who wish to disrupt and impair the system to their own benefit.
    The result is you have the most entrenched implementation of "Bread and circuses" that I've seen in my lifetime.

    In discussions, what I tend to find (at scale, individuals may vary) is that the "Right leaning" are frustrated. They see so many things that are political cause celebres based on incorrect assumptions masquerading as solid findings that they do exactly the same thing; cherry pick findings and articles to support what they believe. They are irritated by the politicisation of actual science to the point that it's indistinguishable from pseudoscience unless you're actually a researcher. This is not scientific or rational, and as such just devolves into a shouting match, rather than an informed discussion.
    The left leaning are frustrated. They see many things that they think should be better, so start changing things based on cherry picked information or often plain belief that supports their world view. They see resistance to progress on most of this from a polar conservative faction, which irritates them greatly, so they double down on the political angle. This is not scientific, or rational, and as such often just leasds to a shouting match, rather than an informed discussion.

    Much of this comes from individual's insistence on "being right" as paramount. In cases, it almost seems that the self worth of many is predicated on "being right". "being right" in this context isn't about having the best evidence, the most rational logical progression, the most cross checked and robust take. It's what they can shout, accuse, subvert, deny, ignore or any other of very counterproductive behaviours to achieve a mental frame of "My opponent is an idiot that I can discard what they say without consequence".
    This leads to a large amount of being completely incorrect, and refusing to accept that. And the times you are actually correct, it's based on exactly the same language as used to promote the incorrect cause celebres, and with the expectation that your opponent should take all the time to disprove your assertion for each assertion.
    The burden of proof lies, always, with the proposer. This means a trail of evidence leading back to axioms for which there is no other explaination. Most people do not have that trail of evidence for proposals, yet deliver their beliefs with all the force as if they did (this is usually because they trust a source that has used sophistry to present philosophy or dogma as fact).

    Both sides of the political spectrum are equally as aggressive. The right tends to a more physical and visual representation of this, the left tends to the psychological and covert. The more extreme the polarisation, the worse it gets. The end result is you want neither to have sway over you.

    So all this behaviour happens at scale. And the politicians they choose are the ones that are best able to weather the opposition. So the now highly polarised left will select the person best able to accuse, subvert and manipulate to follow an agenda which includes unfounded and quite extreme paths at times, and the right will select for someone who can ignore accusations, stand static against any attempt to dissuade them from what they believe to be right and be adept at intimidation to achieve change.

    So, changing that. First thing is to educate for critical thinking, and also educating that uncertainty is not a weakness, it's a strength. If you're uncertain you know an answer, you're receptive to information, and also from the critical thinking, have the tools to spot falsehoods better, and to know what evidence and logic are. This leads to better understanding. And in most cases, when you get close to an understanding, it's actually pretty mundane.
    Etiquette is another. I hear so much about free speech and people's rights to be heard, in whatever way they wish to speak, without restraint. But hear precious little about other people's rights to completely discard what they say because of inaccuracies, falsehoods, or because they're plain abusive and get people off side to the point that they can't actually stomach absorbing the information. Etiquette is quite important to a healthy discussion.
    Acceptance of cognitive dissonance. This one's a tough one. It's uncomfortable, but in many situations, there many possible answers, and really, nobody knows. Rather than choosing one and doubling down, entertaining the possibility that any of them, or a mix, could be the answer, and that you just need to keep an open mind while things are looked at with the hope that it'll be resolved on an absolute evidence for which there is no other answer.
    Understanding of subjective vs objective. A huge amount of very vicious spats I see are all based on someone asserting X, and someone asserting Y. When questioned about X and Y and the metrics and evidence, it transpires that they come back to something that can only be measured from a viewpoint, not from an external, measurable metric. This is analogous to a full fledged argument with someone over "Chocolate Ice Cream is the best taste" vs "Rum and Raisin Ice Cream is the best taste" and trying to force your opponent to agree. This is clearly nonsensical, and should not be anywhere near politics let alone legislation.
    Now, when you have a green rubber ball of a 5cm diameter, and one person says "That's a green rubber ball of 5cm diameter" and the other person says "No, that's an orange cube of 3m edge", you can observe, and objectively say to the incorrect person "You're provably wrong". If they carry on disagreeing, then it's clear they are woefully ill equipped to be in the discussion.
     
  3. Dano84

    Dano84 Active Member

    Dear Feldon and my fellow MMORPG Friends from the USA,
    as i don't know where to put else so I post it in this thread. Today is your big E-Day and there is much at stake, we in Europe looking anxiously across the Atlantic. One of our main thought over here is do not let "history repeats itself".

    I wish you Guys and Ladies the courage and strength to do and vote for what you believe is right for your country.
     
  4. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    So because of the Electoral College, only those states that are within the margin really matter as far as the Presidential vote. Each state either goes 100% one candidate or the other with very few exceptions. This system ensures that only 3-6 states decide the election. It's a remnant of slave-owning states not wanting to give too much representation to the "wrong" people. It encourages all kinds of chicanery in districting and discourages candidates from even bothering to campaign or speak to the issues in states that won't be close. This is why you hear Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida mentioned nonstop, while nobody mentions California or South Carolina.

    Now down-ticket, I have the tremendous opportunity to get rid of a 17 year incumbent who hasn't served his state in a long time but instead serves his own purposes. But my voice for the President is pretty much silenced. And in America, BOTH parties work very very hard to shame and attack anyone who dares consider a third party, even in safe states.

    Again, I'm a leftie, so whether we have Trump or Biden, we're still going to have a warmongering government. I expect that Biden will send our CIA to once again overthrow the fairly and popularly elected Bolivian socialist government of Evo Morales as Trump did in 2019. The idea that socialism might actually succeed somewhere keeps American politicians up at night.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2020
  5. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    I think we also have to remember how 2016 happened. Hillary was deeply unpopular with decades of baggage. Her unfavorables were in the 60's which is practically unheard of going into an election season. She underperformed in the debates. She was heavily funded by the Banks and didn't really have a platform other than "not Trump".

    People focus on Benghazi and the Emails but those were nonissues for me. There were 11 attacks on embassies and military barracks under George W Bush that killed dozens and there was no outrage. The entire George W Bush White House funneled most of their interoffice communications -- including classified material -- through a GOP mail server, and many of those e-mails were deleted and unavailable for archiving once he left office.

    Remember too we'd just concluded 8 years with Barack Obama who ran on a progressive campaign of Hope and Change and immediately ran to the center once elected. He bailed out the banks and big business, let 5 million lose their homes, didn't prosecute a single banking executive, passed a Republican health care plan, drone striked the **** out of the Middle East, blew up a wedding, oversaw the largest expansion of mass surveillance of any president since GW Bush, and threw out Habeus Corpus, allowing government police to arrest and detain people indefinitely with no probable cause or due process. Black America had much of its wealth wiped out during the Obama years, while businesses were made whole again. BLM and Occupy Wall Street happened under, you guessed it, Obama.

    One of Trump's worst legacies is that with his batsh!t racist attacks on Obama and his heritage, he successfully created a firewall against legitimate criticism around Obama. I was thrilled to see a black president. But he acted like a moderate Republican, and he even admitted as such in an interview. He was hawkish on military and defense and protecting business and banks and did very little for the working class. But when I said so, I was automatically branded a racist.

    So with Hillary's promise of "not Trump" and "more of the status quo", I think people had enough and pulled the lever for the wildcard, hoping that Trump was just pranking the Republicans and once he got in office he'd "pivot" and revert to the liberal leanings he'd demonstrated in the 90's and early 2000's. Obviously that didn't happen.

    Bill, Hillary, Obama, and Biden are New Democrats / Third Way / Neoliberals that do very little for the middle class but trip over themselves to compromise with Republicans just to strike a few points in the legislative Win column no matter how much ground they have to give away. I believe this heartless inaction, more than a handful of misogynists and racists, is what set the stage for Trump.

    We can't discount the failures of the news media in all this. CNN and MSNBC gave an estimated $1 BILLION in free media coverage to Trump. Every day he'd pull some stunt or antic, pulling his proverbial pants down on national TV, and the media would cover it 24/7 with incredulousness and "He can't do that, can he?" It energized and emboldened his base. NY Times' focus on "her e-mails" 2 weeks before the election was probably what pushed what should have been the easiest electoral win in history in Trump's favor.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2020
    • Agree Agree x 1
  6. Just Curious

    Just Curious Member

    Will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings. As of now, it looks like four more years.
     
  7. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    With record voter turnout, former Republicans in the Lincoln Project, former Bush staffers in Project 43, the entire mainstream media, the entire late night TV crowd, and everyone pushing as hard as they can on the Democrat side, here's the probable results:
    • Democrats blew $200 million on Amy McGrath, Jaime Harrison, and Sara Gideon and yet Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, and Susan Collins stayed in office with margins of 25, 12, and 10 percentage points.
    • 93% of Republicans voted for Trump up from 90%.
    • 4% more Black voters (men and women) voted for Trump than voted for Hillary.
    • Despite being an anti-socialist right-centrist moderate, Biden still got tagged as a Socialist and lost Florida.
    • Biden is going to BARELY squeak by with a few tens of thousands of votes in a couple of precincts.
    • Democrats did not pick up a single Senate seat and lost House seats, so anything Biden wants to do is going to sit on Mitch's desk for the next 4 years.
    Wow!! I'm pumped aren't you? I mean Democrats really pulled out all the stops and got it done!

    [​IMG]

    We tried to tell them. We warned them that just repeating Hillary's "not Trump" campaign with barely any policy promises wouldn't work. We tried to tell them that no matter who the DNC ran, they'd get tagged as socialists, so might as well run the socialist. Bernie/Warren would have absolutely walked away with this.

    Now, Democrats will think they need to move even further right, maybe promote some white supremacists, vote in conservative judges, vote for tax cuts and more police, bigger military and more surveillance, and give the Republicans everything they ask for and then maybe they'll score some points in the Winning column!!

    double_facepalm.jpg
     
  8. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    I am amazed (and appalled) that sooo many people in the US can look at this year and say 'yes, yes, more of the same please!!!!'
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  9. Errrorr

    Errrorr Active Member

    [​IMG]
     
    • Winner Winner x 3
    • Like Like x 1
    • Funny Funny x 1
  10. Mizgamer62

    Mizgamer62 Active Member

    Nice one Errrorr lol! The only thing missing from that picture is a duck :p.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  11. Mizgamer62

    Mizgamer62 Active Member

    On a more serious note, I didn't vote for Biden/Harris, nor did I vote for Obama either time.

    Having said that, just as I have done with the outcome of every election, no matter my personal views or choices, I will pray for the success of our new leadership, look for common ground and be supportive where I can and hope for the prosperity of our citizens and great country.

    While it is very hard to overcome losses some times, it is more important that we try to respect our differing views and try for understanding above all.

    Well wishes and hugs to you all. <3 <3 <3
     
  12. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    I have too many friends in queer community to be able to vote for a man that has systematically worked to remove as many protections from them as he can in his current term.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  13. Castegyre

    Castegyre Active Member

    I can't vote. I don't care for Trump as a person, and I'm not sure I would have voted for him. There is no way in hell I would ever vote for Biden, though. I'll just leave it at that.
     
  14. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    I'm not a huge fan of Biden, but I'm curious what makes him worse than Trump, in your eyes.
     
  15. Castegyre

    Castegyre Active Member

    Biden made some of the laws and supported others that created the current climate allowing the police, prosecutorial, and prison systems to be what they are. Harris not only worked within that system, but in my opinion enthusiastically used to for her own gain. I have seen and experienced this system from multiple angles, sometimes first hand, and detest it.

    More than that, the campaign and the press have gone out of their way to not address this while happily tying Biden and Harris to BLM where they could. Except Biden and Harris are both in their own way key figures that have helped to create the climate and situations that BLM are standing against.

    I've been locked up. I've been coerced to take a plea deal so I could get home to take care of my family and the prosecutor could mark another win on their record. I've known plenty of cops, even had a few in the family. I've also talked and worked with people while they were in prison and after they've been released. I've been the token white guy used to deflect the cops attention. I've watched poor people of every color get targeted and railroaded. I've seen people thrown to the ground and literally beaten nearly to death for "resisting" on a minor possession charge. Do you know what the cops and prosecutors like to do? Bleed in our car, throw up on our uniform, and we'll bill your family for it while you recover from a fractured skull and ruptured liver in the ICU.

    Trump didn't set up that system. He isn't the one trying to profit from it on both sides now. Even if I thought Biden was of good mental and physical health and Harris was anything more than a puppet looking for a payday, I wouldn't vote for those hypocrites that have contributed to ruining so many lives.

    I have more reasons than this, but this is the big one. I'd rather write in Tulsi and burn my vote than give it to Biden. "He's not Trump" is a bad reason to vote for a horrible person. Especially when I'm not convinced Biden is in any way actually better.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  16. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    *nod* The problem this election is choosing which evil to vote for. It shows the sad state of this country when people have to list the horrible things each candidate has done and stand for and choose which is 'less evil'.
     
    • Appreciation Appreciation x 1
  17. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    I don't know how the Democratic party looks out at the landscape and picks Biden, and then he looks at BLM and 400 years of racial injustice and picks a cop as his running mate. C'mon man, read the room!

    I'm not saying it HAD to be Bernie, but Biden skipped two states, was in 5th place going into SC, and then suddenly out of nowhere he's the frontrunner after Amy and Pete mysteriously drop out, while Warren stays in to split the Progressive vote long after she had no chance of winning. Whole thing was very obviously designed to pave the way for Biden. And when Democrats fought against common sense voting practices for the Democratic Primary like more polling places, more absentee/mail ballots, etc. Bernie felt he had to drop out because Biden was basically killing hostages. Biden -- from his bunker -- was telling people to go out and vote as it was safe. Bernie -- who isn't a psychopath -- told people if they didn't feel safe or were immunocompromised, to stay home. We saw the result.

    To be clear, the Left didn't lose last night. 28 Progressives won their seats last night. Progressive policies of marijuana legalization passed in 4 states, including 2 red ones -- Arizona and South Dakota. Medical marijuana reached 36 states. Small quantities of hard drugs were legalized in Oregon. And a $15 minimum wage succeeded with 60% of the vote in Florida while Biden lost.

    It's Neoliberalism / Third Way / New Democrats that absolutely flamed out last night. $100 million was spent on Amy McGrath -- a "pro-Trump democrat" -- to lose by 20 points to Mitch McConnell. That's over $125 spent PER VOTER to lose by that. It's not Kentucky's vault. Charles Booker came within 5 points of beating Amy in the primary and would have won both the Primary and against Mitch but Chuck Schumer and the DNC got behind "I'm a former Marine and a mom" McGrath who lost an even easier race in 2018.

    amy-mcgrath-fighter-jet.jpg

    2016 and 2020 should be a searing indictment of neoliberalism, the Democratic party, their Republican Lite candidates and their 20 years behind-the-times moderate policy platforms. What I'm hopeful about is that the Democrats colossal failure this time around, losing all the major Senate races, barrrrrely squeaking by a win for Biden, is they'll maybe finally wake up and realize they are running unpopular candidates on piss poor platforms.

    Everyone in the Squad won handily last night and we actually picked up at least 2 more. Meanwhile numerous establishment corporate Dems that Hillary and Pelosi endorsed for 2020 lost their seats. You love to see it.
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  18. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    See what we mean when we say the Democratic party stands for nothing?
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
    • Informative Informative x 1
  19. Mizgamer62

    Mizgamer62 Active Member

    The Democratic party would have been far better off letting Bernie be their nominee. I may identify as conservative leaning, but I have always respected Bernie's consistency and honesty about who he is and what he wants.

    I think there is more that unites us than divides us. There are many left leaning policies and ideals that I find myself agreeing with.

    I wish more than any thing that we had term limits for congress. To many of these people on both sides of the aisle have been in there for decades and that is way to long. My son who is more left leaning is always saying we need new ideas, more younger people and I agree on that 100 percent.
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2020
    • Agree Agree x 3
  20. LuranEQ2

    LuranEQ2 Member

    As a resident of Kentucky who was forced to watch those ads every 3 seconds on average, she's also got her mom w/ polio and her husband's a Republican. They trotted those two extra nuggets out in the last week because the first two weren't getting the job done. Kentucky rejected her two years ago, not sure why the DNC and the monied interests thought that was going to improve in any way against a stronger opponent in a state-wide contest.

    I held my nose and voted for her on the off chance it at least dislodged McConnnell long enough for someone else to knock her off in six years because she's as appealing as toast. But I didn't have high expectations. McConnell has been the Senator for Kentucky longer than I've been alive, and I've moved out, around and back again in that time.

    With all that being said, she outperformed Biden in Kentucky if you go look at the numbers. Apparently a small piece of the Trump electorate here actually hates McConnell enough to go for her, so I guess you could say their "Trump-friendly" approach did pick up some votes. About 30,000. So they just needed another uh... 800,000 or so to get there! It always begs the question of how to run Republican-lite against actual-Republican, and then couple that with no legislative history whatsoever. Seems stupid. And here we are days later with predictable results.

    I don't think Charles Booker would've necessarily won against McConnell either, but it would've been more of a 50-50 contest nail biter than this 70-30 blowout of Amy "she's-got-a-better-chance-this-time-right-?" McGrath.
     
    • Appreciation Appreciation x 1

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