Reticent Liberalism vs. Unabashed Liberalism

Post Reply New Topic

My "own subjective views" are probably much closer to the conventional left-right spectrum then yours are. Property rights libertarians (hencefourth known as "right-libertarians) are frequently grouped on "the Right" by conventional commentators and political scientists. I'm sure some could argue that anarcho-syndicalists or mutualists don't count as being "on the left" because they support "small government" (or, rather, no government). But few have made such a hair-splitting point because (well, for one, they've been included on the Left since the beginning, it's only in post-30's America that this dichotomy of left vs right even started to make sense) people recognize the family resemblances in spite of the differences.

The Nolan Chart is a lot less conventional than the one-dimensional left-right spectrum. If you must know my own system, it's pretty much on axis for socioeconomic equality vs. socioeconomic inequality (Left vs. Right) and another for how centralized power is (authoritarian vs. libertarian).



I'm going to ask whether, for some quirky reason, your subjective system places social democrats to the left of Communists. There are atleast three Communists I know of who frequent Wrong Planet and two of them have written a fair amount about their views, so this is a very strange statement to make.



Aside from the anti-privatization of Prision, I consider most of those issues thoroughly consistent with right-libertarianism.



Where the hell are you getting that definition from? Here is mine:


http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewconten ... widerquist



When I brought up issues with Reagan's expansion of the military-industrial complex - noting how it was a case of corporate welfare (dumping money into private companies) - you're only response was to approve of "national defense".



If you paid attention to criticisms of the defense industry, you'd note a common undertone is to criticize how military research and weapons systems and even the structure of the military is as if America were fighting the Soviets again. The "Stealth Jet is a cold war era project" critique is quite common, actually.



http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-030309-1.html



I only accuse immigration alarmists, birthers, and people who whine about minorities undermining their country of being racists. Until you start doing those things, I won't bring up the word - in spite of your paranoia that I'll bring up the word.

As for my "stereotypes" - when someone uses rightwing talking points, I will call them a "rightist". When someone creates a thread detailing a paranoid militia right idea about coming up with a system that would kill civil sevants who get on your nerves of random people and wants to discuss the merits of the idea and later whines when the moderators deleted the post - I consider them of a milita right mindset. Not all militia right ideologues are racists or social conservatives - some simply embrance a rather extreme brand of anti-government right-libertarianism.



Uh.... NO. A successful ideology does it, so that does not mean it is absolutely fatal to making your ideology successful.



See my entire serious of posts in which I note that conservatives have elitist tendencies, especially when it comes to unions, and see the posts where I disagree with Orwell's use of the insult "hick".

By the way, way to avoid my more important rebuttals - that there are numerous "flyover state" liberal activists and that the whole "Costal liberal snobbery" thesis is exaggerrated.

I found this quote attributed to Ronald Reagan of all people, and I think more people (many of them in this thread) really ought to adopt this philosophy:

"The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor."

I think both of the mainstream political parties need to think long and hard about the ideological purging that they're doing; there are plenty of people like myself out there that don't really fit in either organization and alienating us for no good reason will cost in the long run.

As opposed to the multimillion dollar corruption and defense of incompetence that corporations (the main opponents of organized labour) harbour? The incompetence unions harbour are far outweighted by the incompetence corporate monopolies harbour and, quite frankly, unions are the only way to fight for workers rights in an environment of monopolistic competition. Either split up corporations or learn to make peace with unions or live with the continued abuse of workers rights. Those are the three options.

Unions try and keep wages as high as possible and corporations try and keep wages as low as possible. Those are the rules of the game.



You like the working classes, but you just don't like to seem them working under decent conditions?



http://www.cepr.net/documents/publicati ... 010-02.pdf



That - in spite of all the claims of elitism and snobbery - liberal Democrats obviously are singing the same tune as the working poor on economic policy.



More like liberal Democrats ensure some of the water gets to the poor person's neighborhood so they may drink rather than giving the billionaire a chance to build another seven store high aquarium at their home. That'd be a better analogy.

Also, it could be that liberal Democrats support upward mobility and opportunity for the poor, whereas Republicans and conservatives are willing to see the poor stick to the floor in destitution.

The main problem with a massive amount of politically ambivalent and alienated working class people is that they haven't heard a consistent narrative that makes sense. The Republicans talk about "welfare queens" or "illegal immigrants stealing jobs" or "gay marriage undermining society" and that doesn't really answer the problems of stagnating wages and diminishing benefits. The Democrats almost avoid economic issues or obscure it in overly technocratic language and workers are still confused.

The fact of the matter is that America's dispossed workers would almost surely swing Democratic if the party adopted Ralph Nader style rhetoric and economic populism.

conventional commentators and political scientists" such as? More importantly, why should I care?

Also, why are you seemingly proud of having conformist views? I tend to see it as a mark of independent thought that my views don't exactly conform to any conventional political system, I consider issues individually and draw my own conclusions.



Who's splitting hairs? I'm not the one bending over backwards to force someone into an ideological box here.



I don't take the communists seriously, and none of them is terribly evangelical about their views. Maybe I could have phrased that better, but I think my implication is still valid; your political stance is relatively left and you apply the right wing label relatively liberally, your posting record will bear that out. Put it down to the difference in US vs Canadian politics, where I live, and my town is very liberal for the states, you'd be considered far left. Maybe where you live I'm considered far right, I don't know.



There's that pesky phrase again, "I consider". I'll touch on this one a little more below.



I got mine from Wikipedia, which may not carry quite the weight of say a British professor who's definition can barely conceal his contempt for "right libertarians", but I digress. I read the article that you quoted there, and by the professor's description I do indeed conform to what he calls "right libertarianism. However, whether or not I choose to recognize any authority on his part or accept his judgment as the standard is a different question entirely. In the end I don't think it matters; why do I care if a UK academician's opinion is that I'm right wing?



I might have said something to that effect, can't say I remember it and you don't quote me, but I doubt it was quite that simplistic. Post the quote and I might recall what I was thinking at the time.



So because critics assumptions about the motivations of people in both the government and various defense contractors who bear no relation to me; and I then say I support national defense; your conclusion is that I must have the same motivations? Seriously?



Racist is the liberal version of terrorist, you're liberal, so... See, making assumptions about other people based on politics is annoying, isn't it? I could care less if you bring up the word, it would ring hollow and everyone knows it, not that others haven't tried before. Now you know who really hates immigrants? Unions.



Such a mess here, where to start?

One, it erodes your argument when every other word is a loaded buzz word, whether it's attempting to dismiss arguments you don't like as "talking points", or "paranoid", "militia ideas", etc. It makes it look like your arguments wouldn't stand on their own without some linguistic trickery.

Two, you're mischaracterizing me several times, I started a thread to discuss a crazy scheme that I'd stumbled upon, that's not the same thing as advocating, you and the moderators both seem to miss this nuance. Is a thread discussing the rise of a certain authoritarian government in central Europe during the mid 20th century considered an endorsement of that ideology? Despite not violating any of the site rules, my thread was deleted with no notice or reason given despite statements from WP's moderators that content was never to be deleted because of the work people had put into the posts, and to function as "an archive of autistic thought". I questioned this, was basically told "tough, we make the rules", and got myself banned for insisting that the mods follow their own rules. Consider that "whining" if you want, it only reflect on your judgment.

Three, I've explained to you before (at length) how far removed I am from any whiff of militia politics, frankly I'd be a little ticked if the accusation didn't do more damage to you than to me.



I think what you're saying is that dirty tricks are OK if they're for a good cause, but correct me if I'm wrong.



Firstly, I'm not defending conservatives, I don't really care what they do, we're talking about liberals here
Secondly, if I rebutted everything on this forum that I disagreed with I'd never stop typing. I didn't present it as cannon, I presented it as a perception that liberalism needs to overcome, in other words for the purpose at hand it doesn't really matter how true or not it is.

I don't like things that aren't true being said or implied about me and so felt the need to individually address Master_Pedant's post in some detail. However, I wonder at the point of the whole exercise. Why is it so important that MP portray me as some sort of right wing conservative? More importantly, why do I care what he thinks? I came into this thread to add my opinions to a discussion, not to turn the thread into an argument about me and what I might think.

I'm not taking my ball and going home or anything to that effect, I have a few more rebuttals to write, I'm just a bit confused at the moment. Is this an Aspie black and white thing, do some people insist on completely agreeing or disagreeing with others with no middle ground? Or is this a more pedestrian case of it being easier to try to discredit someone personally rather than disputing their ideas?

Nope, I just don't think unions are the answer.



So what you're saying is that being poor makes someone an expert on economics?

Being poor makes one an expert on poverty. It does not make one an expert on eliminating or easing poverty.

How many jobs were ever created by the poor?

ruveyn

Which is why the poor vote for Nader?

The two of you disagreed over the appropriateness of some classification or other. Classifications are ultimately arbitrary, so the conventional use of any given label is the correct one.

As far as "independent thought" goes, on a lot of issues having different conclusions than the mainstream is less a matter of independent thought and more a matter of poor reasoning. Not saying this applies to you in particular, but it certainly does to a lot of people who brag about "drawing their own conclusions."

Ralph Nader's exposure and budget was a fraction of the Democratic Party's and he ran in a country known as a two-party state. Nevertheless, he injected some blood and fire into the rhetorical scene by inversing trite Republican talking points about "welfare" and "crime" into "corporate welfare" or "corporate crime". A similar approach would work for the Democratic Party if they tried it on a national level.

That eventually occurred to me, but not until I was upside down in a long rebuttal post that I was reluctant to start over on. My short follow up post sort of addressed this.




I'll give you that, and I'll readily admit that there are a lot of things I simply refuse to state an opinion on because I just don't know enough. On the whole though, I think I respect people more who may be wrong here and there, but are wrong for the right reasons, not just because someone else told them what to think. Typically you can reason with those people, the other kind, not so much.

Your whole criticism was:



You're main criticism was that I was making the waters murky by using a subjective spectral classificiation rather than the "conventional one". I corrected you by noting that the political compass system is more "conventional" than the Nolan Chart and you then ask why you should care. Because YOU BROUGHT UP THE ISSUE OF CONVENTIONALITY and so I assumed it was important to you.



I hardly consider using a more "conventional" rubric of left and right as "comformist views".



Almost everyone has one or two views that don't "fit" on any spectrum - even the most extreme ultraleftists or ultrarightists. The point is that the broad majority of your opinions on fiscal policy, social equality, the military industrial complex, and even "Heartland vs. Coasts" resembles typically rightwing talking points, which is why it makes sense to label you a rightist here.



You're bending backwards to force yourself out of the broad box of economic rightism.



My city is fairly "moderate" when it comes to Canadian cities and I am firmly on the left, but I don't think anyone would regard me as being on "the left fringe".



Okay then.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libe ... f_the_Term

Seems pretty similar to the academic researcher's, wouldn't you say?



The main point with me citing the researcher and professor's definition was so that you know I'm not making up definitions on the spot.



Okay

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Your response:



http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf129077-0-15.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I mentioned military budget bloating and the only criticisms of Reagan you offered were over protectionism and "various other points" that you failed to specify. You had a chance to criticize the wasteful expansion of the military-industrial complex and boondoggles like Missile Defense, and you didn't.



I think it's more likely that when you give broad-sweeping support for a "strong military" you're pretty much engaging in some form of doublethink where you ignore the wasteful spending that entails.



What a trite instance of the "mirror image" talking point. Document one pro-terrorist analogue of the "Southern Strategy".



You mean like the SEIU?

http://www.seiu.org/2010/04/why-seiu-ar ... on-law.php

Or the United Steelworkers?

http://www.usw.org/media_center/release ... es?id=0313



The usage of these words are supported by my overall arguments - I'm not just spouting some trite talking points as you where when you brought up the whole "heartland contempt" meme.



The problem is that you didn't condemn the idea right away, but called it "interesting" while specifying it may have some downsides and wanted a discussion of it. If I linked to a copy of "Quotations from Chairman Mao", called it "interesting", and failed to criticize Mao as the genocidal mad-man that he was, instead just expressing a little skepticism over its practicality, you'd be all over me (and rightly so) before calling me influenced my Maoist thought or even an outright Maoist. What makes spouting stuff peddled my the militia ultraright any less deserving of criticism then spouting stuff peddled by the Maoist ultraleft?



Perhaps because one other person complimented the idea as good and your thread seemed pretty sympathetic to the idea.



Uh, you were posting on another person's site (unless you've done an about face and now accept the whole "property is theft" mantra) and told that posting a thread that really wasn't that critical of a depraved idea and calling it interesting didn't paint WP in a good light. You continued to complain, despite this being made clear. I think it reflects very poorly on your judgment.



Don't uncritically post murderous ideas that frequent militia movements and I won't associate you with militia movements. Fair as square.



I'm saying that regional elitism isn't a fatal flaw if a side that's one quite a few elections (including in a state their movement tends to detest) while possessing that flaw. And the whole "elitists don't like the heartland" is hugely exaggerated and is quickly remedied when Democrats start talking in terms of economic populism.



Then in that case, the solution that that image problem has been presented many times by many thinkers (Thomas Frank comes to mind).



The "things" I am saying about you are based on actually posts you've written.



Because you keep on sprouting conservative talking points when it comes to criticizing left-liberalism and the Democratic Party.



A substantial part of this sub-discussion is about the validity of the righwing narrative on left-liberalism (even if I grant you "freedom" from the label of "rightist" since you're such a textbook "libertarian", the point remains that you are spreading a rather rightwing narrative when it comes to left-liberalism). I'm not sure why you're continuing in this debate as I am rather mind-blind, but I know I am putting such effort into this sub-discussion because I think the conventional wisedom of the right needs to be challenged.



Quite a bit of this debate - when not on whether given words are right, has been on ideas and whether the narrative of left-liberalism as anti-Heartland and fiscally wasteful is correct.



Then what is your answer?



Being poor makes you an expert on the experience of poverty. The poor are generally more likely to vote for people who will remedy this. They overwhelmingly vote for liberal Democrats - showing that as much as the Right likes to paint liberal Democrats as "elitist", they are much more in tune with the working poor.

I think most of the forum is sufficiently familiar with me at this point that I don't have to defend myself from every baseless accusation that gets made, and there's nothing for me to gain from embarrassing everyone who tries. If another poster wants to try to spin my intellectual curiosity about controversial subjects into some sort of fanciful narrative painting me as a paranoid militia type, fine, my posting record tell a different story that I'll stand by.
Even my fight with the mods, which boiled down to me feeling that they ought to abide by their own rules, (Alex never weighed in either way) should be viewed through the fact that I came back from the resulting ban. There were plenty of PPR regulars with much more time here and thousands more posts that disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again, that I'm still standing ought to say something.
My views are diverse and are all arrived at via my own cogitations, I don't take my cues from any ideology or political party, let alone use "talking points". I'd could go on at length laying out my positions and explaining how they differentiate me from various ideological constructs, but I fear I'd be tiring my fingers out for nothing. One of these days I'll get around to my long contemplated post on the abuse of language in argumentation and the weakness of arguments based on buzz words and image heavy loaded terms, but that's a project for another day.
In the meantime, I certainly won't be justifying myself to people who can't respect other people's right to their own opinions, that's a losers game and a waste of my time. I'm interested in discussing issues with rational adults who can respectfully disagree with each other, not ideological slugging matches where "winning" at any cost is the order of the day. I had my fill of that in high school.

It does suck to have everything you've said need to be repeated, or at least demanded to be repeated, and then if you give in they spin everything you say into what they want to believe anyway. It's like, "what is the best way to waste my time? Of course! Debating with jerks who twist everything I say and assume the worst possible interpretation and never accept correction no matter how much they are proved incorrect!"

If I want to think of it that way, I could take consolation into having provoked more wasted time than I burned myself; look at all those laborious nested quotes and fisking, plus those ancient quotes of me had to have taken some effort to exhume. Fortunately, I'm not the sort to revel in that sort of spitefulness.

I've *mostly* gotten over the competitive aspects of debating politics here, it's not like any of us is really changing anyone's mind or influencing anything, it's just a fun way to stay sharp and subject ideas and beliefs to a form of peer review. Like I'm often telling frustrated PPR newbs, nobody gets a pass here, if you say something you have to defend it and if you can't defend it you might want to think a little harder about what you said. Be that as it may, it does get a bit old rehashing the same issues with the same people, especially when those people seem to have selective amnesia about what ground has been covered before. I've learned to keep it short with certain subjects and people, it gives them less to latch onto and launch into unrelated diatribes.